The idea of "competitive flexibility" fostered by open market economics has deeply eroded the established social security systems of the developed nations. The confidence of wage-earners, who depend on an administrative "safety net" to protect them from loss of income, has virtually disappeared. Social exclusion and poverty have become inescapable threats for the average worker. It was to tackle this important issue that the European Institute of Social Security (EISS), a leading multidisciplinary research group dedicated to exploring the frontiers of social security, met in June 2000 in Goteborg in Sweden. Twenty members of the Institute prepared papers for delivery at the conference, all of which are now printed in this book. These papers include discussion of such elements as the following: the shift in emphasis from compensation for loss of income to a more preventive approach based on income security; measures against social exclusion enacted by the European Union; the meaning of the term "employability" as revealed in EU Member States' National Action Plans (NAPs); the growing pressure on beneficiaries to "perform" rather than "conform"; the interplay in international law between human rights and social security; labour market participation according to gender and educational level; labour market participation among families with young children; the promise of a "federal" social security system in Europe; and objective standards versus "moral hazard" in labour market insurance. Various reform initiatives (including the controversial debate on private sector funding) are also covered.

This book examines selected actions and investments of the European Central Bank (ECB) from a climate and sustainability standpoint. Shedding new light on the topic from various angles - ethical, philosophical, political, economical and legal - it situates sustainability mainstreaming in the finance and investment field at all levels. The former ECB President Mario Draghi once said that he considered sustainable development and an intact environment to be human rights, and therefore enshrined in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The acting ECB President Christine Lagarde added that the future path for the climate is uncertain, but it would remain within our power to influence it. However, with all that in mind the ECB's policy of buying assets as securities is often questionable. This volume analyzes these actions in connection with sustainability, and puts forward practical recommendations for improving the ECB's investment strategy on its way creating a sustainable financial market.

Fully modern corporations appeared in fourteenth-century Toulouse, much earlier than previously believed Germain Sicard proves that Europe's first corporations were fourteenth-century mill companies operating in Toulouse, rather than seventeenth-century English and Dutch trading companies as commonly believed. He shows that the corporate form derives from a unique ownership contract from Medieval Europe called pariage, and a culture of strong property rights and municipal self-governance. Based on archival research, Sicard's 1952 thesis has been translated into English with an introduction that places the work in the context of new institutional economics and legal theory. It is an important contribution to research on the history and legal origins of the corporation.

This volume explores the policy dynamics, economic commitments and social impacts of the fast evolving Sino-LAC relations. China's engagement with Latin America and the Caribbean has entered into an era of strategic transition. While China is committed to strengthening its economic and political ties with Latin America and the Caribbean, Latin America as a bloc is enthusiastically echoing China's endeavor by diverting their focus toward the other side of the ocean. The transitional aspect of China-LAC ties is phenomenal, and is manifested not only in the accelerating momentum of trade, investment, and loan but also in the China-CELAC Forum mechanism that maps out an institutional framework for decades beyond. While Latin America is redefined as an emerging priority to the leadership in Beijing, what are the responses from Latin America and the United States? In this sense, experts from four continents provide local answers to this global question.

This book offers a philosophical and macro-historical analysis of secularism, supported by an investigation of various contemporary cases. Starting with an in-depth theoretical discussion of the meaning of secularism, it subsequently presents a historical study on the secularization of norms and identities in Europe. The respective case studies cover topics such as the epistemologies of secularism, liberalization and embedded secularism, the relationship between modernity and secularism, the socio-anthropology of secularism, Turkish modernization as a cultural revolution, the political economy of secularism in Turkey, and the secular rationale of the EU neighborhood policy.

Common European Legal Thinking emanates from the existence of a shared European legal culture as especially reflected in the existence of a common European constitutional law. It denotes a body of individual constitutional principles - written and unwritten - that represent the common heritage of the constitutions of the Member States. Taking into account the two major European organisations, the Council of Europe and especially the European Union, the essays of this Festschrift discuss a range of constitutional principles, including the rule of law, democracy, and the exercise of political power in a multilevel system which recognises fundamental rights as directly applicable and supreme law. Other essays examine the value of pluralism, the commitment of private organisations to uphold public values, principles or rules, and the objectives and methods of a transnational science of administrative law. These articles highlight the fact that the Ius Publicum Europaeum Commune is "politically" in the making, which can often be seen in the shape of general legal principles. The publication recognises the role of Albrecht Weber as a forerunner of Common European Legal Thinking.

Exploring the rise of authoritarian capitalism, this book offers a fresh perspective on politics and economics in the present age of globalization. It asks the crucial question of whether individuals and nations can break free from the 'grip' of authoritarian capitalism in the twenty-first century. Peter Bloom includes a detailed and in-depth analysis of how marketization is promoting political authoritarianism across the world. He tells a story of authoritarian progress - where capitalist prosperity can only be delivered by the coercive rule of 'self-disciplining' nations and 'disciplining' trans-national institutions - and in which capitalist sovereignty is replacing liberal and social democracy. In doing so, Bloom helps readers rethink the structural as well as discursive role of sovereign power within capitalism, showing the ways the free market relies upon a range of authoritarian political fantasies not just for its growth but its very survival. Students and scholars of political science, critical theory, economics, development studies, international relations, sociology and organization studies will benefit from the unique insights and opportunities this important text provides. This book will also be of interest to practitioners focusing on issues such as globalization, political authoritarianism, and the expansion of the free market nationally and internationally.

This volume brings together three areas of interest: the rule-based approach, the entrepreneur, and Japan as an empirical application. It highlights the advantages of the rule-based approach for economic analysis by linking different methodological underpinnings. Using these, the author exemplifies how rule-based economics allows a systematic analysis of the entrepreneur as the key figure in bringing about economic change and diversity. The book includes an empirical methodology for applied research in rule-based economics, which it puts to the test in an empirical study of entrepreneurship in contemporary Japan. The choice of entrepreneurship and Japan showcases the integrative power that rule-based economics brings to further breaking a theoretical deadlock and to analytically capturing a very particular economy investigated very little so far. By offering a body of new and original research, the monograph shows how the idea of entrepreneurship as a rule helps to resolve the Schumpeter-Kirzner divide and to develop an empirical approach to the determinants of entrepreneurial activity.

This book investigates whether a power shift has taken place in the Asia-Pacific region since the end of the Cold War. By systematically examining the development of power dynamics in Asia-Pacific, it challenges the notion that a wealthier and militarily more powerful China is automatically turning the regional tides in its favour. With a special emphasis on Sino-US competition, the book explores the alleged linkage between the regional distribution of relevant material and immaterial capabilities, national power and the much-cited regional power shift. The book presents a novel concept for measuring power in international relations by outlining a composite index on aggregated power (CIAP) that includes 55 variables for 44 regional countries and covers a period of twenty years. Moreover, it develops a middle power theory that outlines the significance of middle powers in times of major power shifts. By addressing political, military and economic cooperation via a structured-focused comparison and by applying a comparative-historical analysis, the book analyses in depth the bilateral relations of six regional middle powers to Washington and Beijing.

How did one man's critique of capitalism guide the course of modern history? When he died in 1883, Karl Marx left behind an intellectual legacy of formidable proportions and revolutionary potential, yet one that exerted limited actual political, social, or economic influence. The full force of his ideas did not come into play for another generation, and only after they had been appropriated and applied by some of Marxism's earliest proponents. The history of Marxism, in other words, is the story of those who brought Marx's ideas into play, transforming a sweeping but fractious and occasionally abstruse view of historical and social forces into a coherent plan of action. Christina Morina's illuminating book focuses on the first generation of Marxist who turned the work and ideas of one social theorist, one among many, into one of the most powerful transnational political movements in modern history. The Invention Of Marxism is therefore a group portrait, featuring such figures as Rosa Luxemburg, Max Adler, Jean Jaures, Eduard Bernstein, Karl Kautsky, and Vladimir Lenin-German, French, Russian, Czech-whose lives became dedicated to interpreting and applying Marxist thought. They were the vehicles by which his ideas were read, debated, and gradually adopted in socialist movements across Europe. Morina's fascinating book therefore reconstructs the beginnings of Marxism through the individual politicization of a group of intellectuals who made it their purpose in life to solve the "social question," exploring the nexus between their intellectual constructs and social and political reality. The Invention of Marxism shows how what started as a theory of capitalism grew into a fully-fledged political philosophy and platform, one that shaped the century that followed Marx's death. In short, it reveals how an idea first conquered these individuals and then the world.

Fiction can be a powerful force to educate students and employees in ways that lectures, textbooks, articles, case studies, and other traditional teaching approaches cannot. This anthology includes articles from a number of individuals from a range of different disciplines and perspectives. All of the contributors to Capitalism and Commerce in Imaginative Literature are committed to treating literary texts with integrity and believe that business should have a larger claim upon people's literary consciousness. In addition, they all value the important role of literature in dealing with the complexities of a capitalist culture. This collection of essays provides a means to appreciate the richness and variety of fictional portrayals of businesses and businesspersons. The works selected for examination reflect the variety of philosophical, political, economic, cultural, social, and ethical perspectives that have been found over time in American society. The novels and plays analyzed include high literature, mid-range literature, popular literature, ancient epics, grand narratives, hero tales, masterpieces, ideological texts, science fiction, and more. There are a great many works of literature waiting to be read and studied by business and economically-minded individuals from many different viewpoints and fields of study. This volume provides a space to explore a wide range of fictional works and opinions about them.

This book analyzes the evolution of foreign trade cooperation between Russia and China in the context of the rapidly growing global economy, especially in the Asian-Pacific region. The approach presented in the book is characterized by a comprehensive view on macroeconomic dynamics and the process of evolving means of production. The authors describe characteristics of national innovational economies with examples from countries in the Asian-Pacific region.

This pioneering book explores the meaning of the term "Black social economy," a self-help sector that remains autonomous from the state and business sectors. With the Western Hemisphere's ignoble history of enslavement and violence towards African peoples, and the strong anti-black racism that still pervades society, the African diaspora in the Americas has turned to alternative practices of socio-economic organization. Conscientious and collective organizing is thus a means of creating meaningful livelihoods. In this volume, fourteen scholars explore the concept of the "Black social economy," bringing together innovative research on the lived experience of Afro-descendants in business and society in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, and the United States. The case studies in this book feature horrific legacies of enslavement, colonization, and racism, and they recount the myriad ways that persons of African heritage have built humane alternatives to the dominant market economy that excludes them. Together, they shed necessary light on the ways in which the Black race has been overlooked in the social economy literature.

A comprehensive guide to the essential relationship between markets and morals. Smith, Burke and Marx, Durkheim, Polyani and Hayek all sought to situate market exchange and property-based acquisitiveness in the broader context of human interaction and social values. This framework of interdependence and ethics embeds the capitalist market economy in an ongoing whole of which the calculative present day is but a part. The author of this work argues that the stability of conservatism anchors the dynamism of entrepreneurship in a matrix of patterns and habits without which orderly free enterprise would be at risk of degenerating into the Hobbesian war of each against all.

This informative research review discusses the most prominent papers within the economics of structural change and growth. This piece focuses on research that investigates the causes and consequences of structural change with either theoretical or calibrated models, mindfully referring to some of the most celebrated literature over the last two decades. The research review analyses literature covering the impact structural change has on an array of economic factors including convergence, per capita income and spatial development. Prefaced by an original introduction from the editors, this collection would be well suited to scholars and macro-development economists wishing to extend their knowledge of this compelling topic.

A guide to security written for business executives to help them better lead security efforts. Enterprise Security for the Executive: Setting the Tone from the Top is designed to help business executives become familiar with security concepts and techniques to make sure they are able to manage and support the efforts of their security team. It is the first such work to define the leadership role for executives in any business's security apparatus. In Enterprise Security for the Executive, author Jennifer Bayuk, a highly regarded information security specialist and sought-after consultant and speaker, explains protocols and technologies at just the right level of depth for the busy executive—in their language, not the tech-speak of the security professional. Throughout, the book draws a number of fact-based scenarios to illustrate security management basics, including 30 security "horror stories," and other analogies and terminology not commonly shared outside of the security profession.

Water covers some 75% of the earth's surface, while land covers 25%, approximately. Yet the former accounts for less than 1% of world GDP, the latter 99% plus. Part of the reason for this imbalance is that there are more people located on land than water. But a more important explanation is that while land is privately owned, water is unowned (with the exception of a few small lakes and ponds), or governmentally owned (rivers, large lakes). This gives rise to the tragedy of the commons: when something is unowned, people have less of an incentive to care for it, preserve it, and protect it, than when they own it. As a result we have oil spills, depletion of fish stocks, threatened extinction of some species (e.g. whales), shark attacks, polluted and dried-up rivers, misallocated water, unsafe boating, piracy, and other indices of economic disarray which, if they had occurred on the land, would have been more easily identified as the result of the tragedy of the commons and/or government ownership and mismanagement. The purpose of this book is to make the case for privatization of all bodies of water, without exception. In the tragic example of the Soviet Union, the 97% of the land owned by the state accounted for 75% of the crops. On the 3% of the land privately owned, 25% of the crops were grown. The obvious mandate requires that we privatize the land, and prosper. The present volume applies this lesson, in detail, to bodies of water.

This book explores the reasons behind Europe's poor performance in terms of overall growth and its progressively diminishing role in the global context. Recognizing that the big challenge is to restore confidence and hope in Europe, potential solutions are discussed. The volume comprises a selection of contributions to the XXVI Villa Mondragone International Economic Seminar (Rome, 2014), the most recent of a series of seminars that have provided outstanding scholars with an opportunity to discuss key topics in economic research. In recent years the persistence of high unemployment and low growth has increased the Euroscepticism that has targeted the euro and the Brussels bureaucracy. Readers will find this book a fascinating source of information on current thinking regarding topics such as European industrial policy, European governance, unemployment, the euro and competitiveness, trade and financial integration, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, anticorruption policies, and energy and climate policies. In particular, it examines the structural reforms and commitment to development that will be required for Europe to become a region characterized by social justice, dynamism, and opportunities for all.

Small business ownership is, in my opinion, the very foundation of the American experience. Liberty and freedom are both the results and causes of capitalism. Without them both working congruently, it would be impossible for our nation and her citizens to survive through the choppy waters of ever-changing economic times. I hope this book will help you on your path towards small business owership and life choices.

George offers a direct and powerful challenge to the fatal shortcomings of virtually all currently dominant economic paradigms, including those of capitalism, socialism, communism, and so-called mixed economies. The alternative socioeconomic democracy, and advanced theoretical model in which there is some form of universal guaranteed income as well as a limit to maximum allowable personal wealth, combined with a realistic degree of human flexibility based on public choice theory. Arguing that such a procedure would allow a society to democratically control the extreme limits of material wealth and poverty, the author forecasts that such a system will create strong economic incentives while reducing the present undesirable and expensive social problems associated with the maldistribution of wealth. This innovative book will be of interest to scholars and others interested in exploring ways to strengthen democracy while improving economic systems around the world.

This book examines failure in the urbanisation of Northwest China as a result of government industrial policies that have impacted on the economic development of the region. By looking at the under-researched provinces of Gansu, Qinghai and Inner Mongolia, which make up a quarter of China's territory, Zheng and Deng challenge the common story of China's miracle growth and reveal the dark side of the country's pursuit of modernity. Severe weather conditions, chronic drought, permanent lack of oxygen and unforgiving terrain in the Northwest make farming, manufacture and services difficult simply because people tend not to stay. Yet, China's current political system forces growth to take place even though basic conditions and prerequisites for market-based growth are missing. This volume analyses 'ghost cities' and social tension in the process of 'forced urbanisation' in which huge amount of resources are wasted, the local environment is systematically damaged and ordinary people's basic rights are brutally violated in the name of higher GDP and greater government glory.

In recent years, there has been a decentralisation of the enforcement of the EU competition law provisions, Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Consequently, the national application of these provisions has become increasingly more common across the European Union. This national application poses various challenges for those concerned about the consistent application of EU competition law. This edited collection provides an in-depth analysis of the most important limitations of, and the challenges concerning, the applicability of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU at national level. Divided into five parts, the book starts out by examining how the consistent enforcement of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU operates as a general EU competition policy. It then discusses several recent landmark cases of the European Court of Justice on Articles 101 and 102 TFEU, before proceeding to analyse certain additional, unique jurisdictional challenges to the uniform application of the EU competition law provisions. Subsequently, it focuses on one of the most important instruments that can help to achieve the uniform application of EU competition law in cases handled by the national courts: preliminary rulings. Finally, it provides selective examples of how Articles 101 and 102 TFEU are effectively applied at national level, thereby providing additional input into how problematic the issue of consistent application of EU competition law is in practice.

This is the first book to comprehensively analyze key issues regarding innovation, entrepreneurship, and human resource development in the Japanese agricultural sector. Despite the fact that innovation and entrepreneurship are vital to the development of modern Japanese agriculture, there have been comparatively few studies in this field; in addition, they have been virtually none on measures for developing entrepreneurial human resources or innovation in agriculture. The agricultural sector's declining competitiveness and sustainability as an industry in Japan are serious concerns, especially in combination with an aging labor force and decreasing farmland. To date, Japanese agricultural policies have largely concentrated on accumulating farmland and securing a sufficient agricultural labor force. However, from the perspectives of industrial and regional development, policies focusing on creating innovation, the driving force of economic development, have been recognized as being more effective. Moreover, there have been some recent developments concerning innovation and entrepreneurship in various regions of Japan. This book provides a wealth of significant findings from studies on successful cases involving e.g. agricultural clusters, agriculture-commerce-industry collaborations, networking, franchising, and corporate entry-induced innovation utilizing limited regional resources; and how they have contributed to the development of each region. The interrelationships between innovation, entrepreneurship, and human resource development are then clarified, and effective policies to promote Japanese agriculture and rural areas are suggested. Given its scope, the book contributes to the advancement not only of farm management science, but also of regional science and related fields.

Over the last decade, market-based incentives have become the regulatory tool of choice when trying to solve difficult environmental problems. Evidence of their dominance can be seen in recent proposals for addressing global warming (through an emissions trading scheme in the Kyoto Protocol) and for amending the Clean Air Act (to add a new emissions trading systems for smog precursors and mercury--the Bush administration's "Clear Skies" program). They are widely viewed as more efficient than traditional command and control regulation. This collection of essays takes a critical look at this question, and evaluates whether the promises of market-based regulation have been fulfilled.
Contributors put forth the ideas that few regulatory instruments are actually purely market-based, or purely prescriptive, and that both approaches can be systematically undermined by insufficiently careful design and by failures of monitoring and enforcement. All in all, the essays recommend future research that no longer pits one kind of approach against the other, but instead examines their interaction and compatibility. This book should appeal to academics in environmental economics and law, along with policymakers in government agencies and advocates in non-governmental organizations.