The objective of this book is to construct an individually emancipatory economic and political philosophy. This means a concrete-based, man-centered, non-hypostatizing, anti-dialectical approach to the apprehension of the material, i.e. nature in general. This constitutes an emancipation from culture-based understandings of reality, and in particular from the metaphysically biased type of culture represented by capitalism. The proposed philosophical emancipation means individual liberation from the logically flawed, massifying character of the dominant mode of thought of capitalist times. From these bases, the social sciences can also be reformulated. Micocci argues that capitalism can be conceptualized as a limited and limiting socialized mode of thought, an intellectuality whose dialectical features are effectively identified by using the proxy of political economy, both marxist and mainstream. Political economy in fact, being a most representative instance of dialectical thinking, mirrors the dialectical nature of capitalist economic and political relationships. According to Micocci, non-dialectical occurrences in capitalism are simply excluded from normal social, economic, and intellectual activities, which are performed in a metaphysical, intellectually isolated environment. In capitalism, therefore, the materials, the concrete, i.e. nature itself, is not considered as a whole but only as occasional instances. Micocci describes capitalism, in sum, as an intellectually constructed culture (a metaphysics) which preserves itself, and props itself up, by means of its iterative (market-like) functioning.

This book explores the pivotal role of think tanks in the democratization and economic reform movements by evaluating their overall effect on the transformation process in developing and transitional countries around the world.

James G. McGann assesses twenty-three think tanks, located in nine countries and four regions of the world: Chile, Peru, Poland, Slovakia, South Africa, Botswana, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, that have most impacted political and economic transitions in their respective countries. The author examines the role they played in the process of democratization and market reform during the late 80s and 90s and identifies the importance of think tanks in these processes by evaluating their overall effect on the policymaking process. He argues in the early stages of a transition from an authoritarian regime to an open and democratic society the activities of think tanks are especially critical, and they have provided a civil society safety net to support these fragile democracies.

This book will be of interest to students and scholars of political science, democratization, development, economic development and civil society.

Today there is widespread recognition that capitalism is the socioeconomic system of choice. This volume, perhaps the best single-volume assessment of this economic model and how it emerged, contributes to the understanding of the historic role of capitalism. After reviewing the gestation of the system, it explains the emergence of full-blown capitalism in the eighteenth century, taking it into the nineteenth and its link to the industrial revolution. The primary focus, however, is on the twentieth century, in which capitalism faced and met challenges due to world wars and depression with the aid of interventionist policies, notably Keynesian economics and the welfare state. But the failure of the postwar policy consensus to cope with the twin problems of inflation and slow economic growth led to a resurgence of greater reliance on unalloyed capitalism.

Capitalist values so permeate modern culture in America that to question them seems like heresy. In 1989, the economist Robert L. Heilbroner, who had been a perceptive student of capitalism and socialism for decades, proclaimed "The Triumph of Capitalism," arguing that the contest of economic systems was over and the victory of capitalism was unambiguous. Fifteen years later, C. Fred Bergsten, Director of the Institute for International Economics, reinforced this view: "The U.S. model of capitalism and globalization dominates thinking around the world." Writer Russell Baker, dismayed by perceived degrading effects of market-obsessed management on journalism, observed that "belief in the virtue of maximized profits has acquired something like sanctity in American life."

An appreciation of economic and social history, and the accompanying clash of ideas, is helpful in providing a context in which ongoing challenges may be evaluated. It is important to know that what is understood to be capitalism has changed significantly over time. The purpose of this book is to provide such context. Written by an economist, but accessible to a general public, this book is a wide-ranging assessment of today's dominant economic system and its historical development.

Inefficient ports can stall a country's trade growth and also increase the costs of transportation. Rising inefficiencies in ports have therefore forced the governments all over the world to deregulate the port system. The port sector in several developing countries has been undergoing revolutionary transformation from a subsistence infrastructure resource into a more capital intensive, commercially oriented facility during the last two decades. In India, awareness towards the impact of port infrastructure on economic development in general and international trade in particular has increased in recent years partly as a result of rising trade transportation costs. One of the objectives of this book is therefore to understand the role the port plays in India's economic development. The book tries to quantitatively evaluate the structural metamorphosis in Indian port sector. The main emphasis of the book is on performance evaluation, technological change, total factor productivity growth, market concentration, and competitiveness of Indian ports for the last two and a half decades. This book deals with these vital issues and questions through a detailed analytical framework. Above all, one protracted objective of this book is to create a ground for discussion on various aspects of port development and the resultant policy action.

This book examines the challenges that ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) members need to overcome in order to sustain and intensify economic growth. The ASEAN market is widely regarded as a new hub of growth, not least in light of increasing protectionism and declining economic growth of the three largest countries in Northeast Asia (China, Japan, and South Korea). Contributors address a range of issues with a concentrated focus on evidence from Indonesia, including globalisation, increasing populism, trade, FDI, the benefits of the production network, and related issues such as spill-over, crises, innovation and technology, and selected sectoral commodity and policy analysis of Indonesia. This book analyses and explains the relationship between trade and foreign direct investment, and technical changes, with regard to improving 'productivity' in the supply-side economic growth model using, in particular, Indonesia as the de facto leader of ASEAN. This book will be of interest to academics and students specialising in international economics and international development.

This groundbreaking collection surveys current research on Marx and Marxism from a variety of perspectives. Setting forward an unconventional range of questions for discussion, the book develops key ideas, such as the theory of history, controversies about justice and the latest textual scholarship on The German Ideology. Written by Japanese scholars, the volume affords western readers a glimpse for the first time, of the results of many years' debates and discussion.
Following the long tradition of Japanese interest in Marx, the book draws on the relationship between that and radical changes in local political context, as well as the economic and political development represented by Japan. Over the course of the chapters, Marx is rescued from 'orientalism', evaluated as a socialist thinker, revisited as a theorist of capitalist development and heralded as a necessary corrective to modern economics. Of particular interest are the major scholarly revisions to the 'standard' historical accounts of Marx's work on the Communist Manifesto, his relationship to the contemporary theories of Louis Blanc and P.J. Proudhon, and new information about how he and Engels worked together.
This landmark work opens up a world of Japanese critical engagement and lively scholarship that will appeal to anyone interested in Marx and Marxism.

Throughout the world, there has been a growing wave of interest in global corporate power and the rise of a transnational capitalist class, triggered by economic and political transformations that have blurred national borders and disembedded corporate business from national domiciles. Using social network analysis, William Carroll maps the changing field of power generated by elite relations among the world's largest corporations and related political organizations. Carroll provides an in-depth analysis that spans the three decades of the late 20th and early 21st century, when capitalist globalization attained unprecedented momentum, propelled both by the transnationalization of accumulation and by the political paradigm of transnational neoliberalism. This has been an era in which national governments have deregulated capital, international institutions such as the World Trade Organization and the World Economic Forum have gained prominence, and production and finance have become more fully transnational, increasing the structural power of capital over communities and workers. Within this context of transformation, this book charts the making of a transnational capitalist class, reaching beyond national forms of capitalist class organization into a global field, but facing spirited opposition from below in an ongoing struggle that is also a struggle over alternative global futures.

An award-winning journalist's investigation into Amazon's true impact on inequality. The market value of Amazon.com has exceeded one trillion dollars. In 2020, its annual revenue increased by over 100 billion dollars. As the company insinuates itself ever further into our lives, Alec MacGillis investigates how it is reshaping society. With empathy and breadth, he tells the stories of those who've thrived and struggled in this rapidly changing environment, and shows how Amazon has even become a force in Washington, DC. The result is an intimate account of contemporary capitalism: its drive to innovate, its dark, pitiless magic, and its remaking of our world with every click.

Model-free Hedging: A Martingale Optimal Transport Viewpoint focuses on the computation of model-independent bounds for exotic options consistent with market prices of liquid instruments such as Vanilla options. The author gives an overview of Martingale Optimal Transport, highlighting the differences between the optimal transport and its martingale counterpart. This topic is then discussed in the context of mathematical finance.

As health care concerns grow in the U.S., medical anthropologist Linda M. Whiteford and social psychologist Larry G. Branch present their findings on a health care anomaly, from an unlikely source. Primary Health Care in Cuba examines the highly successful model of primary health care in Cuba following the 1959 Cuban Revolution. This model, developed during a time of dramatic social and political change, created a preventive care system to better provide equity access to health care. Cuba's recognition as a paragon of health care has earned praise from the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the Pan American Health Organization. In this book, Whiteford and Branch explore the successes of Cuba's preventive primary health care system and its contribution to global health.

A dive into the origins, management, and uses and misuses of sovereign debt through the ages. Public debts have exploded to levels unprecedented in modern history as governments responded to the Covid-19 pandemic and ensuing economic crisis. Their dramatic rise has prompted apocalyptic warnings about the dangers of heavy debts-about the drag they will place on economic growth and the burden they represent for future generations. In Defense of Public Debt offers a sharp rejoinder to this view, marshaling the entire history of state-issued public debt to demonstrate its usefulness. Authors Barry Eichengreen, Asmaa El-Ganainy, Rui Esteves, and Kris James Mitchener argue that the ability of governments to issue debt has played a critical role in addressing emergencies-from wars and pandemics to economic and financial crises, as well as in funding essential public goods and services such as transportation, education, and healthcare. In these ways, the capacity to issue debt has been integral to state building and state survival. Transactions in public debt securities have also contributed to the development of private financial markets and, through this channel, to modern economic growth. None of this is to deny that debt problems, debt crises, and debt defaults occur. But these dramatic events, which attract much attention, are not the entire story. In Defense of Public Debt redresses the balance. The authors develop their arguments historically, recounting two millennia of public debt experience. They deploy a comprehensive database to identify the factors behind rising public debts and the circumstances under which high debts are successfully stabilized and brought down. Finally, they bring the story up to date, describing the role of public debt in managing the Covid-19 pandemic and recession, suggesting a way forward once governments-now more heavily indebted than before-finally emerge from the crisis.

The objective of this book is to construct an individually emancipatory economic and political philosophy. This means a concrete-based, man-centered, non-hypostatizing, anti-dialectical approach to the apprehension of the material, i.e. nature in general. This constitutes an emancipation from culture-based understandings of reality, and in particular from the metaphysically biased type of culture represented by capitalism. The proposed philosophical emancipation means individual liberation from the logically flawed, massifying character of the dominant mode of thought of capitalist times. From these bases, the social sciences can also be reformulated. Micocci argues that capitalism can be conceptualized as a limited and limiting socialized mode of thought, an intellectuality whose dialectical features are effectively identified by using the proxy of political economy, both marxist and mainstream. Political economy in fact, being a most representative instance of dialectical thinking, mirrors the dialectical nature of capitalist economic and political relationships. According to Micocci, non-dialectical occurrences in capitalism are simply excluded from normal social, economic, and intellectual activities, which are performed in a metaphysical, intellectually isolated environment. In capitalism, therefore, the materials, the concrete, i.e. nature itself, is not considered as a whole but only as occasional instances. Micocci describes capitalism, in sum, as an intellectually constructed culture (a metaphysics) which preserves itself, and props itself up, by means of its iterative (market-like) functioning.

The fall of the Berlin Wall launched the transformation of government, economy and society across half of Europe and the former Soviet Union. This text deals with the process of change in former Communist bloc countries, ten of which have become new European Union (EU) democracies while Russia and her neighbours remain burdened by their Soviet legacy.

Drawing on more than a hundred public opinion surveys from the New Europe Barometer, the text compares how ordinary people have coped with the stresses and opportunities of transforming Communist societies into post-Communist societies and the resulting differences between peoples in the new EU member states and Russia.

Subjects covered by Understanding Post-Communist Transformation include:

• Stresses and opportunities of economic transformation
• Social capital and the development of civil society
• Elections and the complexities of party politics
• The challenges for the EU of raising standards of democratic governance
• Differences between Russia s and the West s interpretation of political life

Written by one of the world's most renowned authorities on this subject, this text is ideal for courses on transition, post-communism, democratization and Russian and Eastern European history and politics.

The fall of the Berlin Wall launched the transformation of government, economy and society across half of Europe and the former Soviet Union. This text deals with the process of change in former Communist bloc countries, ten of which have become new European Union (EU) democracies while Russia and her neighbours remain burdened by their Soviet legacy.

Drawing on more than a hundred public opinion surveys from the New Europe Barometer, the text compares how ordinary people have coped with the stresses and opportunities of transforming Communist societies into post-Communist societies and the resulting differences between peoples in the new EU member states and Russia.

Subjects covered by Understanding Post-Communist Transformation include:

• Stresses and opportunities of economic transformation
• Social capital and the development of civil society
• Elections and the complexities of party politics
• The challenges for the EU of raising standards of democratic governance
• Differences between Russia s and the West s interpretation of political life

Written by one of the world's most renowned authorities on this subject, this text is ideal for courses on transition, post-communism, democratization and Russian and Eastern European history and politics.

From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, this comprehensive reference work covers the monetary systems of 203 countries and four confederations. It provides historical and orthographical information for all monetary systems according to country. Chronologies show the evolution of each monetary unit. Orthographies summarize the commonly accepted English spelling of the unit names (singular and plural) as well as known abbreviations and symbols. There is a glossary that lists all the monetary units alphabetically, identifies their countries, and reveals the etymologies of the unit names.

'Powerful' - Silvia Federici It's in our food, our cosmetics, our fuel and our bodies. Palm oil, found in half of supermarket products, has shaped our world. Max Haiven uncovers how the gears of capitalism are literally and metaphorically lubricated by this ubiquitous elixir. From its origins in West Africa to today's Southeast Asian palm oil superpowers, Haiven's sweeping, experimental narrative takes us on a global journey that includes looted treasures, the American system of mass incarceration, the history of modern art and the industrialisation of war. Beyond simply calling for more consumer boycotts, he argues for recognising in palm oil humanity's profound potential to shape our world beyond racial capitalism and neo-colonial dispossession. One part history, one part dream, one part theory, one part montage, this kaleidoscopic and urgent book asks us to recognise the past in the present and to seize the power to make a better world.

Much-needed in the face of present political upheavals, including the rise of populism and re-emergence of nationalism and authoritarian regimes, this book is radical in both its critique and proposals for a new economics. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, Bart Nooteboom offers insights from economics, sociology, cognitive science, social psychology and philosophy. Exploring ways in which economics is developing, the book investigates how new economics has moved away from considering individuals as autonomous and instead studies their involvement and interactions with each other. The book discusses a new relational economics: less contractual, hierarchical and controlled, and more based on trust and mutual adjustment. Nooteboom proposes a shift from utility ethics to the virtue ethics of prudence, courage, moderation and justice. A provocative read for economics students, this work is especially pertinent to those interested in rethinking the subject and expanding upon heterodox theories. It will also prove a useful read to critical economists and sociologists looking to better understand a way forward in our current economic climate.

The search for the key to economic growth has proved elusive and contentious. This book uses new empirical evidence to propose an integrated approach for achieving strong industrial and technological capabilities to form the basis for regional and national economic development.The authors use the experiences of countries in Europe and Latin America to show that socio-technical constituencies play a fundamental role in innovation based economic development at both a regional and national level. By blending insights from the industrial cluster and national innovation system approaches with the socio-technical constituencies approach, the authors successfully integrate long standing debates such as agency structure and micro-meso-macro analysis. The work is based both on a theoretical effort to build a new framework for economic growth, and on a number of concrete experiences from a number of countries in Europe and Latin America. Knowledge Flows in National Systems of Innovation will prove essential reading for scholars of innovation, technology and economic development.

This book explores economic developments across Europe in relation to its apparent segmentation, as disparities widen between core and periphery countries. In contrast to previous literature, the scope of analysis is extended to Europe as a continent rather than confining it solely to the European Union, thereby providing the reader with greater insight into the core/periphery nexus. The authors commence with a critical appraisal of economic thinking in relation to regional trade agreements and monetary integration. In relation to a number of EU economies, the book addresses issues of a liquidity trap, deflation, and twin deficits, together with the interconnection between exchange rates and current account balances. Importantly, they extend the discussion of segmentation through a series of focused case studies on Russia, Brexit and emergence of the mega-regionals.

This book concerns EU Cohesion Policy and the economic convergence of underdeveloped regions in Italy and Spain from the first programming period to the present: it investigates the political and institutional factors that determine the success or failure of implementing EU Cohesion Policy at national and sub-national level, as well as their impact on economic growth. On the wave of the American tradition of development studies, this book suggests that public policy analysis can be fruitful for understanding economic growth and cohesion, if it were to reconstruct domestic public interventions for development and the institutional characteristics of the subjects responsible for pursuing development goals. To do so, this book derives its theoretical foundations from the traditional debate on the role of state actors in promoting economic development and on the institutional characteristics that the public authorities involved in the process of economic development should display. More precisely, by adopting an Hirschmanian approach to development, it elaborates an original framework to compare different Cohesion Policy implementations and to understand its economic results in different countries, using Italy and Spain as pilot studies.

This title contains eight essays that are connected by various common strands. The most important one is the community of the main subject-matter: socialism, capitalism, democracy, change of system. These four expressions cover four phenomena of great and comprehensive importance. Each piece in the book deals with these and the connections between them. One of the Leitmotifs is the 'capitalism/socialism' pair of opposites. Capitalism has a history of several hundred years, while the socialist regime existed only for a few decades. But this pair of opposites was central to the history of the twentieth century. This antagonism put its stamp on political thinking, on the foreign policy and military preparedness of every country, and on some appallingly destructive armed conflicts.All these had great secondary influence on each country's economic development and the standard of living and disposition of its inhabitants. None of the studies is confined to one country - not to Hungary or to any other. Each tries to embrace the problems common to greater units. However, the greater unit comprehended is not the same in each study. One may deal with the capitalist or socialist system in general, another will all the post-socialist countries, and a third the Central East European region. But all extend the analysis beyond the borders of one country.

This edited volume proposes an innovative approach to European Integration by combining economics and political theory in its study of public goods. The contributors review such elements as a neo-medieval governance, the merits of a new European Republic, and, alongside Europe, include South East Asia in its discussions. By addressing different issues within the overarching approach of public goods and the republican paradigm of governance, Collignon introduces an important new perspective.

The global ubiquity of informal economic activities has turned informality into a key policy question, not least in international peace- and state-building. This book explores a core aspect of economic informality: its resilience despite comprehensive international anti-informality operations. Using Kosovo as an illustrative case, Danielsson suggests that to understand the resilience of informality, two distinct areas of practice need to be studied in conjunction rather than separately. The first concerns the professional practices enacted by international organisations in their attempts to formalise the informal economy in Kosovo. The second area of practice concerns the everyday informal economic practices of social agents in Kosovo. To study these areas of practice at their junction, Danielsson uses Pierre Bourdieu's concept of symbolic power and argues that in post-conflict Kosovo, the distinct practices have become interwoven and co-constitutive of a novel ordering and meaning of informality. The resilience of the informal thus plays out through - while undermining and reinforcing the need of - the international anti-informality operations. Including scholarship from global governance, global political economy and social theory, this book's original perspective on informal economies and power will appeal to scholars and professionals located in peace studies, development studies, and the field of international relations.

The current dynamics of world economy show remarkable changes in the socio-economics of credit provision and entrepreneurship. If the emergence of the sharing economy is fostering innovative models of collaborative agency, networking and venture business, economic actors are also looking for a more sustainable development, able to foster profitability as well as community welfare. This book investigates Islamic social finance as a paramount example of this economy under change, where the balance between economic efficiency and social impact is contributing to the transformation of the market from an exchange- to a community-oriented institution. The collected essays analyse the social dimension of entrepreneurship from an Islamic perspective, highlighting the extent to which the rationales of "sharing," distribution and cooperation, affect the conceptualization of the market in Islam as a place of "shared prosperity." Moving from the conceptual "roots" of this paradigm to its operative "branches," the contributing authors also connect the most recent trends in the financial market to Shari'ah-based strategies for community welfare, hence exploring the applications of Islamic social finance from the sharing economy, FinTech and crowdfunding to microcredit, waqf, zakat, sukuk and green investments. An illuminating reference for researchers, practitioners and policy-makers dealing with the challenges of a global market where not only is diversity being perceived as a value to be fostered, but also as an important opportunity for a more inclusive economy for everybody.

By virtue of several theoretical models and hypotheses, this book is one of the earliest studies which systematically investigates the structure and changes of China's financial institutions. To begin with, it examines the relation between state utility function and China's economic growth, and reveals the formation and transition of China's state-owned financial institutional arrangements. Based on this analysis, the author studies the influence of monetization on the arrangements, and the financial support to China's gradual reform which have long been neglected by researchers. Also, the model of money demand that can explain the specific conditions of the gradual reform is built, as the neoclassical framework has been incapable of explaining China's financial performance. In the last chapter, it discusses the dilemma of property rights under the state-owned financial system, with the establishment of the credit equilibrium model and the dual model of bad debts. With insightful theoretical analysis and empirical researches, this book will appeal to scholars and students in finance, economics and economic history.