'Capitalist critique and proletarian reasoning fit for our time' - Peter Linebaugh Taking the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume as its subject, this book breaks new ground in focusing its lens on a little-studied aspect of Hume's thinking: his understanding of money. George Caffentzis makes both an intervention in the field of monetary philosophy and into Marxian conceptions of the relation between philosophy and capitalist development. He vividly charts the ways in which Hume's philosophy directly informed the project of 'civilizing' the people of the Scottish Highlands and pacifying the English proletariat in response to the revolts of both groups at the heart of the empire. Built on careful historical and philosophical detective work, Civilizing Money offers a stimulating and radical political reading of the ways in which Hume's fundamental philosophical claims performed concrete political functions.

South Africa is the most industrialized power in Africa. It was rated the continent's largest economy in 2016 and is the only African member of the G20. It is also the only strategic partner of the EU in Africa. Yet despite being so strategically and economically significant, there is little scholarship that focuses on South Africa as a regional hegemon. This book provides the first comprehensive assessment of South Africa's post-Apartheid foreign policy. Over its 23 chapters - -and with contributions from established Africa, Western, Asian and American scholars, as well as diplomats and analysts - the book examines the current pattern of the country's foreign relations in impressive detail. The geographic and thematic coverage is extensive, including chapters on: the domestic imperatives of South Africa's foreign policy; peace-making; defence and security; bilateral relations in Southern, Central, West, Eastern and North Africa; bilateral relations with the US, China, Britain, France and Japan; the country's key external multilateral relations with the UN; the BRICS economic grouping; the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group (ACP); as well as the EU and the World Trade Organization (WTO). An essential resource for researchers, the book will be relevant to the fields of area studies, foreign policy, history, international relations, international law, security studies, political economy and development studies.

The modern welfare state finds itself in the middle of two major upheavals: the impact of technology and immigration. Having taken in more refugees per capita than most other countries, the pillars of the Swedish welfare state are being shaken, and digital technologies are set to strengthen already existing trends towards job and wage polarization. The development of skills to keep pace with technology will enter into a critical period for the labor market in which inadequate policy responses could result in further inequality and polarization. In this regard, a platform-based labor market could help by opening up a vast range of new work opportunities. Marten Blix examines the implications of these trends that drive change in developed economies and, in particular, the impact that they have on Sweden and other European countries with rigid labor markets and comprehensive tax-financed welfare services. Increasing costs from immigration and rising inequality could further reduce the willingness to pay high taxes and erode support for redistribution. Failure to address challenges like this one could herald much more drastic changes down the road. There are already signs of economic and political tensions and there is a risk that the social contract could crack. This new discussion on the future of work and the welfare state will be of interest not only to scholars but in policy circles and corresponding societies in sociology, labor relations, political science and public administration.

As many countries have increased their budgets to allow for newer technologies and a stronger military force, defense spending has become a popular debate topic around the world. As such, it is vital to understand the interplay between the military expenditure and economic growth and development across countries. The Handbook of Research on Military Expenditure on Economic and Political Resources is a critical scholarly publication that explores the interplay between the military expenditure and economic growth and development across countries. Featuring coverage on a wide range of topics such as defense management, economic growth, and dynamic panel model, this publication is geared towards academicians, researchers, and professionals seeking current research on the interplay between the military expenditure and economic growth and development across countries.

This timely book investigates the EU's multi-faceted development as a global actor, unpacking its legal mission to be a 'good' actor as well as exploring the complexities of fulfilling this objective. It elicits critical reflections on the question of 'goodness' in EU external relations from descriptive, analytical and normative perspectives, and examines which metrics of actorness are useful in tackling this subject. Featuring contributions from more than 20 leading EU scholars and emerging voices, the book develops four themes through which it advances a research agenda for the study of the EU as a good global actor. The book begins by unpacking the complexities of the EU as a global trade actor, before discussing 'good' trade governance and a deeper trade agenda, the issue of data governance in digital trade and in other regulatory frameworks, and finally the institutional dimension of EU actorness. Understanding the EU as a Good Global Actor will be a crucial read for scholars and students in EU law and politics, particularly those with an interest in EU governance, trade and external relations. It will also prove useful for policy makers both within and outside the EU.

What is the relationship between states' economic power and their formal political power in multilateral economic institutions? Why do we see variation in states' formal political power across economic institutions of the same era? In this book, Ayse Kaya examines these crucial under-explored questions, drawing on multiple theoretical traditions within international relations to advance a new approach of 'adjusted power'. She explains how the economic shifts of our time, marked by the rise of Brazil, Russia, India, China and other emerging economies, have affected and will impact key multilateral economic institutions. Through detailed contemporary and historical analyses of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the G20, and the International Trade Organization, Kaya shows that the institutional setting mediates the significance of the underlying distribution of economic power across states. The book presents both case studies and key statistics.

This book provides an in-depth look into key political dynamics that obtain in a democracy without parties, offering a window into political undercurrents increasingly in evidence throughout the Latin American region, where political parties are withering. For the past three decades, Peru has showcased a political universe populated by amateur politicians and the dominance of personalism as the main party-voter linkage form. The study peruses the post-2000 evolution of some of the key Peruvian electoral vehicles and classifies the partisan universe as a party non-system. There are several elements endogenous to personalist electoral vehicles that perpetuate partylessness, contributing to the absence of party building. The book also examines electoral dynamics in partyless settings, centrally shaped by effective electoral supply, personal brands, contingency, and iterated rounds of strategic voting calculi. Given the scarcity of information electoral vehicles provide, as well as the enormously complex political environment Peruvian citizens inhabit, personal brands provide readymade informational shortcuts that simplify the political world. The concept of "negative legitimacy environments" is furnished to capture political settings comprised of supermajorities of floating voters, pervasive negative political identities, and a generic citizen preference for newcomers and political outsiders. Such environments, increasingly present throughout Latin America, produce several deleterious effects, including high political uncertainty, incumbency disadvantage, and political time compression. Peru's "democracy without parties" fails to deliver essential democratic functions including governability, responsiveness, horizontal and vertical accountability, or democratic representation, among others.

Hope lies in our richness, in the joy of our collective creativity. But that richness exists in the peculiar form of money. The fact that we relate to on another through money causes tremendous social pain and destruction and is dragging us through pandemics and war towards extinction. Richness against money: this battle will decide the future of humanity. If we cannot emancipate richness from money-capital-profit, there is probably no hope. Money seems invincible but the constant expansion of debt shows that its rule is fragile. The fictitious expansion of money through debt is driven by fear, fear of us, fear of the rabble. Money contains, but richness overflows. In this final part of his ground-breaking trilogy, John Holloway expertly fuses anti-capitalism and anti-identitarianism, and brings hope into the critique of political economy and revolutionary theory, challenging us to find hope within ourselves and channel it into a dignified, revolutionary rage.

Authoritarian capitalism is rapidly evolving, intensifying and spreading across the globe. This updated second edition book demonstrates that the recent resurgence of fascism and repressive democracies are connected to and symptomatic of the fundamental authoritarianism of capitalism. Analysing how marketization is promoting political authoritarianism across the world, Peter Bloom tells a story of authoritarian progress in which capitalist sovereignty is replacing liberal and social democracy. In doing so, Bloom rethinks the structural and discursive role of sovereign power within capitalism, illustrating how the free market relies upon a range of authoritarian political fantasies not just for its growth but for its very survival. This fully updated edition reveals how this had led to an evolution from corporate globalization to a new era of 'popular authoritarianism', based on the political competition between far-Right ethno-capitalism and politically repressive capitalist democracy. Exploring new perspectives such as "the commons" and "degrowth development", it points to new possibilities for resisting authoritarian capitalism and reinvigorating democracy. The unique insights in this book will prove invaluable for students and scholars of political science, economics, development and organization studies, international relations and sociology. It will also be of interest to practitioners concerned with globalization, political authoritarianism, and the expansion of the free market.

This book comprehensively investigates the position of China's working class between the 1980s and 2010s and considers the consequences of economic reforms in historical perspective. It argues the case that, far from the illusion during the Maoist period that a new society had been established where the working classes held greater political and economic autonomy, economic reforms in the post-Mao era have led to the return of traditional Marxist proletariats in China. The book demonstrates how the reforms of Deng Xiaoping have led to increased economic efficiency at the expense of economic equality through an extensive case study of an SOE (state-owned enterprise) in Sichuan Province as well as wider discussions of the emergence of state capitalism on both a micro and macroeconomic level. The book also discusses workers' protests during these periods of economic reform to reflect the reformation of class consciousness in post-Mao China, drawing on Marx's concept of a transition from a 'class-in-itself' to a 'class-for-itself'. It will be valuable reading for students and scholars of Chinese economic and social history, as well as political economy, sociology, and politics.

This book highlights the notion of Circular Economy under the umbrella of Sustainability because of the widespread momentum it is gaining. Today the whole world is certainly in emergent need of an alternative system to traditional economy which is linear, i.e. make, use and dispose to get rid-off the waste and very important to ensure continuous use of resources, which is possible by the advent of circular economy. A circular economy aims to utilize the resources in use for as long as possible, extract the maximum value from them during use, then recover and regenerate products and materials at the end of each service life vis-a-vis traditional linear model. This book discusses circular economy in terms of assessment with various case studies.

Winner of the 2022 Eric Zencey Prize in Ecological Economics Capitalism is broken. The relentless pursuit of more has delivered climate catastrophe, social inequality and financial instability - and left us ill-prepared for life in a global pandemic. Tim Jackson's passionate and provocative book dares us to imagine a world beyond capitalism - a place where relationship and meaning take precedence over profits and power. Post Growth is both a manifesto for system change and an invitation to rekindle a deeper conversation about the nature of the human condition.

Despite deep divisions on the issue of immigration, this book shows that immigration promotes economic innovation, expands the job market, and contributes to diversity and creativity in the United States. Immigration, as a conduit for bringing new talent, ideas, and inventions into the United States, is essential to the success and vitality of our economy and society. In this timely book, researched and written by the Immigration Book Project Team at Penn State University, immigration is approached from historical, economic, business, and sociological perspectives in order to argue that treatment of immigrants must reflect and applaud their critical roles in supporting and leading the economic, social, cultural, and political institutions of civil society. Approaching immigration as both a socioeconomic phenomenon and a matter of public policy, The Danger of Devaluing Immigrants offers demographics and statistics on workforce participation and job creation along with stories of individual immigrants' contributions to the economy and society. It supports the idea that, when immigration is challenged in the political sphere, we must not lose sight of the valuable contributions that immigrants have made-and will continue to make-to our democracy. Approaches immigration from many perspectives: economic, business, historical, and sociological Investigates the substantial roles of immigrants in critical industries and sectors across the U.S. economy Emphasizes the bimodal nature of attitudes toward immigrants depending on their education and skill level and abilities Includes personal stories and case studies from immigrants Draws on the expertise of a team from the Smeal College of Business at Penn State University

Part of The Elgar Series on Central Banking and Monetary Policy, this book explores the relationship between central banking, monetary policy and the economy at large. It focuses on the specific relationship between central banking, monetary policy and social responsibility as central banks wake up to new realities. The book examines this relationship not only in connection to the economic, monetary and financial impact of the so-called 'unconventional' monetary policies, but also in connection to the functioning of today's democracies. A new framework and model for central banking is proposed in this rethinking of monetary policy, and the role of central banks as institutions in democracies is considered. Scholars and students interested in central banking and monetary policy, the issue of social responsibility and the relationship between central banks and democracy will benefit from the ideas presented by the editors and authors of Central Banking, Monetary Policy and Social Responsibility.

Europeans use 'social models' to refer to the combination of welfare state, industrial relations, and educational institutions jointly structuring what we can think of as the supply-side of the labor market. The dominant view in controversy over the social models has been that in the name of equity they have impaired the labor market's efficiency, thereby causing unemployment. But doubt is cast on this supply-side-only diagnosis by powerful macroeconomic developments, from the Europe-wide recession following Germany's post-unification boom to the deepest economic crisis since the interwar Great Depression, which the Eurozone's truncated economic governance structure transformed into a sovereign debt crisis, threatening the Euro's and even EU's very survival. This book explores the interaction of Europe's diverse social models with the major developments that shaped their macroeconomic environment over the quarter century since the fall of the Berlin Wall. It concludes that this environment rather than the social models are primarily responsible for the immense social costs of the crisis.

Providing a coherent and multidisciplinary approach to digitalization, this Modern Guide aims to systematize how the digitalization process affects infrastructure-based industries, including telecommunications, transport, energy, water and postal services. This important book reviews the literature on how digital technologies can impact infrastructure design, construction and maintenance costs, with specific references for each industry. Contributors analyse how digitalization is disrupting traditional infrastructure managers in terms of capacity management and traffic flows as well as discussing key topics including data governance, data sharing, digital platforms and sector convergence. With special attention devoted to regulatory and governance challenges, this will be welcomed by researchers of network industries and digitalization. This will also be of special interest to academics and scholars interested in the digitalization process, data governance and infrastructure management.

This book uses machine-learning to identify the causes of conflict from among the top predictors of conflict. This methodology elevates some complex causal pathways that cause civil conflict over others, thus teasing out the complex interrelationships between the most important variables that cause civil conflict. Success in this realm will lead to scientific theories of conflict that will be useful in preventing and ending civil conflict. After setting out a current review of the literature and a case for using machine learning to analyze and predict civil conflict, the authors lay out the data set, important variables, and investigative strategy of their methodology. The authors then investigate institutional causes, economic causes, and sociological causes for civil conflict, and how that feeds into their model. The methodology provides an identifiable pathway for specifying causal models. This book will be of interest to scholars in the areas of economics, political science, sociology, and artificial intelligence who want to learn more about leveraging machine learning technologies to solve problems and who are invested in preventing civil conflict.

This book analyses actual and potential normative (whether legislative or contractual) conflicts and complex transnational disputes related to state-controlled enterprises (SCEs) operations and how they are interwoven with the problem of foreign direct investment. Moreover, SCEs also fall within the remit of international political economy, international economics and other SCE-related fields that go beyond purely legal or regulatory matters. In this connection, research on such economic and political determinants of SCE's operations greatly informs and supplements the state of knowledge on how to best regulate cross-border aspects of SCE's and is also be covered in this book. The book also aims to analyse the "SCE phenomenon" which includes a wide panoply of entities that have various structures with different degrees of control by states at the central or regional level, and that critically discuss the above-mentioned overlapping legal economic and political systems which can emerge under various shades of shadows casted by governmental umbrellas (i.e., the control can be exercised through ownership, right to appoint the management, and special-voting-rights). The chapters in this book are grouped, so as to address cross-border investment by and in SCE, into four coherent major parts, namely --- (i) the regulatory framework of state capitalism: laws, treaties, and contracts; (ii) economic and institutional expansion of state capitalism; (iii) the accountability of state capitalism: exploring the forms of liabilities; and (iv) regional and country perspectives. Contributions address the core theme from a broad range of SCE and international economic regulations, including but not limited to competition law, WTO law, investment law, and financial/monetary law. They also cover the new emerging generation of Free Trade Agreements (EU-Vietnam FTA, EU China investment treaty, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership; and the coordination between treaty systems). The book is a valuable addition and companion for courses, such as international trade law, international law of foreign investment, transnational law, international and economic development, world politics, law of preferential trade agreements, international economics, and economics of development.

Artificial Intelligence is a seemingly neutral technology, but it is increasingly used to manage workforces and make decisions to hire and fire employees. Its proliferation in the workplace gives the impression of a fairer, more efficient system of management. A machine can't discriminate, after all. Augmented Exploitation explores the reality of the impact of AI on workers' lives. While the consensus is that AI is a completely new way of managing a workplace, the authors show that, on the contrary, AI is used as most technologies are used under capitalism: as a smokescreen that hides the deep exploitation of workers. Going beyond platform work and the gig economy, the authors explore emerging forms of algorithmic governance and AI-augmented apps that have been developed to utilise innovative ways to collect data about workers and consumers, as well as to keep wages and worker representation under control. They also show that workers are not taking this lying down, providing case studies of new and exciting form of resistance that are springing up across the globe.