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Books > Business & Economics > Economics > Economic systems
During the 1990s over two dozen countries in Europe and Asia underwent a transition from centrally planned to more market-oriented economies. In Constructing a Market Economy, Richard Pomfret reviews their diverse experiences and assesses the outcome of transition in each case. The book includes an extensive review of empirical evidence and, uniquely, aims to cover all the transition economies in a comparative fashion rather than focusing on any particular country. The author discusses the evolving thinking surrounding transition as shaped by experiences, tracing out the shifting emphasis from macro to micro issues and increased concerns about governance and institutions. By placing each transition within its historical context and paying attention to variations across countries and over time, the book draws conclusions about the key elements of a market economy and how they can be achieved. Researchers and academics will warmly welcome this addition to the transition studies literature as will those interested in development studies.
Over the last hundred years the history of capitalism hardly supports the idea of a dynamic equilibrium between democracy and capitalism. The unprecedented triumph of global capitalism and its stronger power of transformation are changing the nature of political community and its institutions, transforming the conditions of democratic politics and governance. The writings collected in this volume present leading statements of theories of democracy and capitalism in Italy starting from Vilfredo Pareto who firstly focused on the transformation of democracy into a plutocracy in which vested interests use the government as a tool for their own profit, until Norberto Bobbio who expressed a strong defence of democracy and a deep critique of capitalism. As Marx, Weber, and Schumpeter-from different perspectives-have pointed out capitalism rather then just an economic mode of organization, is a 'mentality', a 'social logic', a 'form of living', that influences and reshapes political structures, and culture. The globalized economic order is challenging the foundations and political principles upon which liberal democracy is based. Global markets have unleashed economic forces that are becoming too powerful for democratic institutions to control. Even if the formal elements of democracy still survive, the 'government by the people, for the people' is declining; elections, debates, parties, are evacuated, and bypassed by new, less accountable processes.
This major intellectual exploration seeks to deepen our understanding of the way in which modern capitalism works. The author argues, in particular, that it has always rested in part on the unremunerated labour of women, the non-sustainable extraction of natural resources and the racist exploitation of the non-European periphery. Robert Biel explains and illuminates how it has integrated the South into a Western-dominated system of exploitation and prevented it from making the promised transition from marginality on the periphery to prosperity at the centre. And the racist implications of this. He also explores two fundamental questions. Are there really any indications that the global economy is slowly entering a long-term structural crisis? And would any significant disruption open up opportunities for new popular movements to fundamentally challenge it? Robert Biel's work constitutes a major revitalisation of the tools of Marxism and Dependency Theory. In addition to scholars of political economy and development, it will interest activists seeking to reconstitute left politics in the age of globalisation.
This book challenges some of the fundamental tenets of "free market" economics that have had a profound impact on public policy and the plight of the American worker. These include the beliefs that high wages inevitably mean low profits; that a "free" market will automatically reduce discrimination and pay inequality; that anti-trust legislation hinders competitive market forces; and that minimum wage laws and trade unions negatively impact the economy. Using both theoretical analysis and real-life examples, the author shows that these myths are a product of unrealistic behavioral assumptions on the part of "free market" economists about the typical worker. In fact, as the author makes clear, the level of workers' satisfaction with their jobs, as a reflection of how well they are paid and treated by their employers, has a direct impact on the quality level of the products they produce and, inevitably, the economic performance of the firms.
The attention economy is a notion that explains the growing value of human attention in societies characterised by post-industrial modes of production. In a world in which information and knowledge become central to the valorisation process of capital, human attention becomes a scarce and hence increasingly valuable commodity. To what degree is the attention economy a specific form of capitalist production? How does the attention economy differ from the industrial mode of production in which Marx developed his critique of capitalism? How can Marx's theory be used today despite the historical differences that separate industrial from post-industrial capitalism? The Attention Economy argues that human attention is a new form of labour that can only be understood through a systematic reinterpretation of Marx. It argues that the attention economy belongs to a general shift in capitalism in which subjectivity itself becomes the territory of production and exploitation of value as well as the territory of the reproduction of capitalist power relations.
In recent years, in both the specialist press and the tabloids, the idea of privatization of social security has become a shimmering catch phrase. Politicians base election campaigns on promises of more or less privatization in social security. Many governments introduce private business management methods into their social security systems. Representatives of social security institutions and academics prepare theory papers on the possible outcomes of privatization. And international financial organizations describe doomsday scenarios based on the premise of failure to privatize. What is the role of privatization today in the development of national social security systems? How does privatization concern the developments in different social security programs such as old age, sickness, unemployment, accident insurance and family allowances? What are the visions and effects of privatization in social security? This volume provides an overview of the various positions of supporters and opponents of privatization in the main branches of social security, followed by national experience of privatized or part-privatized social security systems. While the perspective of each of the contributors is markedly different, the overall objective cuts across differences: namely, to develop the most efficient and cost-effective system of social security protection. The authors' views and knowledge are derived from their firsthand experiences with social security in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe. Representatives of the leading international organizations dealing with social security issues-the International Labour Organization, the OECD, the World Bank and the World Health Organization-further expand the parameters of the viewpoints and experiences expressed. This multifaceted book allows the reader to learn about the challenge of privatization in the various forms of social security by assembling a set of highly up-to-date, technically complex and legal issues based on practical analysis and actual experience. It will be of interest to those concerned with national social policy in a comparative context. This is the sixth volume in an ongoing series that aims to review social security in a comparative, global context. Xenia Scheil-Adlung is program manager, International Social Security Association, Geneva, Switzerland.
This volume is a comprehensive and rigorous exploration of intertwined issues surrounding the EU's democracy and legitimacy, written in the turbulent context of the financial crisis. The chapters are woven together under four interconnected thematic sections that examine: rapidly growing national euroscepticism; the Economic Monetary Union and its legitimacy; the future of EU integration; and democratic deficit(s) across its internal & external structure. The volume presents an authoritative collection of research results and surveys by experts in various disciplines related to the EU, and is addressed to researchers and students examining EU governance, representation and accountability, as well as practitioners across a multiplicity of fields.
For mainstream economics, cultural production raises no special questions: creative expression is to be harvested for wealth creation like any other form of labour. As Karl Marx saw it, however, capital is hostile to the arts because it cannot fully control the process of creativity. But while he saw the arts as marginal to capital accumulation, that was before the birth of the mass media. Engaging with the major issues in Marxist theory around art and capitalism, From Printing to Streaming traces how the logic of cultural capitalism evolved from the print age to digital times, tracking the development of printing, photography, sound recording, newsprint, advertising, film and broadcasting, exploring the peculiarities of each as commodities, and their recent transformation by digital technology, where everything melts into computer code. Showing how these developments have had profound implications for both cultural creation and consumption, Chanan offers a radical and comprehensive analysis of the commodification of artistic creation and the struggle to realise its potential in the digital age.
In what ways do the actions and economic behavior of today's multinational corporations resemble the functioning and processes of the old command economics of the Soviet Union? By ignoring questions about power relations in markets, mainstream neoclassically-oriented economists conclude that there are no significant power structures operating in market systems to control allocation and distribution. This book argues to the contrary that there are fundamental and systemic power structures - monopoly, access to information or finance, employer power, etc. - at work in market economies, which affects their ability to achieve real "competition" in much the same way as state-controlled, command economies hinder business activities. Thus, for example, the biggest firms at the hubs of financial "networks" wield a kind of "shaping power" upon large numbers of relatively autonomous firms, not only upon those that belong to the networks but also on the many firms outside them that are also affected.
A collection of 13 essays based on two national surveys of household income in China - in 1985 and 1995 - and prepared and carried out by the research team. These essays explore a wide range of aspects of the rapidly changing income distribution during this period.
This work aims to show that Japan even at it's height of success, while the successful version of capitalism was blighted at it's core, being unsustainable. This revised edition features n introduction which gives an analysis of Japan's contemporary crisis.
Werner Sombart (1863-1941) may well have been the most famous and controversial social scientist in Germany during the early twentieth century. Highly influential, his work and reputation have been indelibly tainted by his embrace of National Socialism in the last decade of his life. Although Sombart left an enormous opus spanning disciplinary boundaries, intellectual reaction to his work inside and outside of Germany is divided and ambivalent. Sombart consistently responded to the social and political developments that have shaped the twentieth century. "Economic Life in the Modern Age" provides a representative sampling of those portions of Sombart's work that have stood the test of time. The volume opens with a substantial introduction reviewing Sombart's life and career, the evolution of his major intellectual concerns, his relation to Marx and Weber, and his political affiliation with the Nazis. The editors' selection of texts emphasizes areas of Sombart's economic and cultural thought that remain relevant, particularly to those intellectual trends that seek a more broadly based, cross-disciplinary approach to culture and economics. Sombart's writings on capitalism are represented by essays on the nature and origin of the market system and the diversity of motives among the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Also included is an excerpt from Sombart's controversial "The Jews and Modern Capitalism," exploring the widely perceived relation between economic life and Judaism as a religion. In essays on the economics of cultural processes, Sombart's comprehensive and expansive idea of cultural science yields prophetic insights into the nature of urbanism, luxury consumption, fashion, and the cultural secularization of love. The volume's final section consists of Sombart's reflections on the social influences of technology, the economic life of the future, and on socialism, including the influential essay "Why is there no Socialism in the United States." Encapsulating the most valuable aspects of his work, "Economic Life in the Modern Age" provides clear demonstration of Sombart's sense for fine cultural distinctions and broad cultural developments and the predictive power of his analyses. It will be of interest to sociologists, economists, political scientists, and specialists in cultural studies. Nico Stehr is professor at the Max Planck-Instit3t f3r Meteorologie in Hamburg. Reiner Grundmann is professor at the Aston Business School of Aston University in Birmingham, U.K.
This book offers wide-ranging insights into the organising
capacities of workers in Asia today. Nine case-studies examine
workers' responses to class relations through independent unions,
non-government organisations (NGOs) and more (dis)organised
struggles. Countering the notion that globalisation holds entirely
negative consequences for labour organisation, the authors reveal
some of the openings for local activism which can arise from
transnational production arrangements. |
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