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s early as the dawn of modern age, Benjamin Constant (1819) wrote that the current democracy, unlike the ancient one, based on slavery and perpetual wars, is based on capital, while Braudel (1979) shows that capitalism as a concept could not exist without the other concepts preceding it in the sequence they occur in society, i.e. capital and capitalist. Therefore, I regarded capital, meaning the foundation of both democracy and capitalism, as a particularly challenging object of study from the standpoint of its formation, development, location in the economy and ownership in post-communist Romania. I deem the amount, quality, origin and behaviour of capital are pivotal for a solid democracy and an efficient functioning of capitalist market economy in our country. The book Capital in post-communist Romania, based on long data series, may cast a historical perspective on the economic and social phenomena and processes under scrutiny. They are meant to help devise and implement public policies for making the objectively necessary corrections to the Romanian society after such an intricate transition, as well as to prepare the actions for securing Romania’s future development. I viewed this scientific endeavour as useful after identifying a shortage of information and, against this backdrop, of analysis on economic and social results of Romania’s transition, also by comparison with other former communist countries.

This paper explores the “new social movement” features of the Argentinean, Chilean, and Uruguayan student movements of the late 1800s and early 1900s. In doing so, it wrestles with two questions. First, why do such features, widely associated with post-industrial societies, appear at this relatively early stage of capitalist development? Second, what does their presence at that time suggest about the explanatory power of new social movement theory? The paper agrees with new social movement theorists’ contention that capitalism shapes the character of social movements but argues that the focus of the analysis should not be on development stages but rather on the impact of rapid global market integration processes, which have occurred at different times since the rise of capitalism. Such an approach illuminates why capitalist development may yield similar collective action patterns across different historical periods. Este ensayo explora las características de nuevos movimientos sociales de los movimientos estudiantiles en Argentina, Chile y Uruguay durante el “largo” siglo diecinueve. El artículo explora dos preguntas. ¿Por qué características asociadas a la acción colectiva del capitalismo postindustrial aparecen en los albores del capitalismo? ¿Que sugiere dicha presencia respecto del poder explicativo de la teoría de nuevos movimientos sociales? El ensayo argumenta que el valor de la Teoría de Nuevos Movimientos Sociales radica no solo en su énfasis en aspectos cultures e identitarios como otros han notado, sino también en su análisis de los efectos del desarrollo del capitalismo en los movimientos sociales. Sin embargo, el articulo propone que dichos análisis más que enforcarse en la noción de etapas capitalistas debe enforcarse en procesos de globalización, los cuales han ocurrido en diversos momentos de desarrollo capitalista. El articulo sugiere que dicha aproximación ilumina cuando y porque el desarrollo capitalista resulta en patrones de acción colectiva similares a través del tiempo. &nbsp

This paper engages geographic literature on diverse economies by foregrounding an analysis of racial capitalism. Prevailing conversations on diverse economies aptly point out that there exist economic formations that do not adhere to capitalist modes of production. However, these same conversations lack an explicit engagement with the ways in which establishing non-capitalist economies entails attending explicitly to the question of race. Ignoring how racialization underlies capitalism runs the risk of inadequately understanding the role that race plays in configuring alternatives to capitalist formations. Thus, the authors argue that analysis of diverse economies must explicitly attend to the fact that both capitalism and its alternatives are shaped by racial difference. After discussing prominent geographical work on diverse economies, the authors explore racial capitalism as an analytic for interrogating present-day capitalism. They argue that racial capitalism shows how the marginalization of racialized populations is a central component of capitalist reproduction. The second half of the paper draws on empirical examples from Canada and the United States to demonstrate how Black and Indigenous communities both recognize the role that their oppression plays in capital accumulation and find ways to create economic alternatives to those forms of accumulation. Specifically, the authors discuss public housing initiatives among Indigenous communities in Winnipeg and Minneapolis and the creation of urban commons by Black communities in Detroit and Jackson. By emphasizing the racialized nature of capitalism and showing how racialized communities create economic alternatives to capitalism, this paper offers a nuanced approach to discussing the possibilities of diverse economies.

This paper examines racial capitalism through the lens of housing and urban development. We compare two disparate places Kabul, Afghanistan and Boulder, Colorado in order to illustrate the commonalities of property rights regimes, and the (ill)logics of economic development that reinforce racial-economic privilege. By exploring housing specifically, this paper explicates the ways in which availability, affordability, and desirability are intertwined with racialized conceptualizations of space. Both Kabul and Boulder are dominated by legacies and contemporary practices of white privilege and economic inequality based on neoliberal racial capitalism. Housing in Kabul has been a key part of international and national economic development programs, while the influx of international funds and workers included a form of gentrification that significantly marginalized local-Afghans from several spaces in the capital city. In Boulder, property values have increased exponentially in recent decades due to the growth of information technology jobs and influx of wealth. The racial and economic marginalization of nonwhite and low-income persons in Boulder remains consistent within housing and work sectors. The racialization of Afghans by international development workers in Kabul, and the racialization of poverty and marginalization of nonwhite minorities in Boulder explicate the tensions and conflicts between property rights regimes and the “right” to be housed. This paper examines the ways in which discursive representations of wealth and poverty become geopolitical and geo-economic tools of racialized socioeconomic ostracism. Analyzing these disparate places through the lens of racial capitalism explicates the common forms of reductionism used to reinforce market privilege over the lives and livelihoods of bodies racialized as “other”. While the specific histories of domination differ by location, the effects of racial capitalism are visible in each, particularly through relations of private property.

This paper brings together fifth-wave public health theory and a decolonised approach to the human informed by the Caribbean thinker, Sylvia Wynter, and the primary exponent of African Humanism, Es’kia Mpahlele. Sub-Saharan indigenous ways of thinking the human as co-constitutive in a subject we might call human-animal-‘environment’, in conjunction with the subcontinent’s experiences of colonial damage in disease ‘prevention’ and ‘treatment’, demonstrate the lack of genuine engagement with Indigenous wisdom in Western medical practice.The paper offers a decolonial reading of pandemic history, focused primarily on the human immunodefiency virus (HIV), the severe acute respiratory syndrome of 2003 caused by the SARS Covid 1 virus (SARS-CoV1) and COVID-19, caused by the SARS COVID 2 virus (SARS-CoV2) to demonstrate the importance of the co-constitutive subject in understanding the genesis of these pandemics as driven by colonial-capitalism. I emphasise that prevention will indeed take the kinds of massive changes proposed by fifth-wave public health theory. However, I differ from the proponents of that theory in an insistence that the new kind of thinking of the human Hanlonet alcall for, has already been conceived: just not within the confines of the normative human of Western culture.I illustrate that Western Global Health approaches remain constitutionally ‘deaf’ to approaches that, although the West may not understand this to be the case, arise from fundamentally different—and extra-anthropocentric—notions of the human. In this context, Man as Wynter names Him is a subject ripe for decolonisation, rather than a premier site of capitalist development, including that of healthcare provision.Recognising that most of us are not individually able to change the structural violence of the colonial capitalist system in which Global Health practices are embedded, I conclude with implications drawn from my argument for quotidian practices that enable healthcare providers see their actions within a harm reduction paradigm, in the context of communities experiencing intergenerational impoverishment consequent on colonial violence.

Unlike the rest of the state of Punjab in India, cotton remained the dominant monsoon crop in the southwest region till the 1990s. As it has been increasingly replaced by paddy in recent decades, this paper asks what this shift in cropping pattern reflects about the state’s agrarian capitalism. Towards an analysis of this question, it builds on James Scott’s idea of ‘political crops’ in the earliest states and places it in conversation with scholarship in critical agrarian studies, political ecology and commodity studies to account for relations of power under contemporary capitalism. Drawing on intensive primary research in the region, the paper contrasts the power relations generated by the production and circulation of the two crops. It shows that larger farmers are more likely to cultivate paddy due to better access to irrigation, and that the shift to paddy is threatening to make redundant the labour of landless Dalit women, who do cotton-picking, and increasing dependence on migrant male labour for paddy-transplanting. It also demonstrates how the different end uses of the two crops and the predominance of the private sector in the cotton markets versus the hitherto state-led nature of the paddy markets produce differential risks for farmers and traders. The paper concludes by suggesting that the shift from cotton to paddy represents capital intensification in response to Punjab’s mature capitalist conditions in agriculture but also results in new contradictions and axes of political struggle.

Retrospection and transformation of the phenomena of criticism and crisis in social theory in recent decades have led to the weakening and even “illegitimate” renunciation of the said doublet. The paper presents an analysis of the renewal of discourse on criticism/crisis and its effects with special consideration of the possibilities of structural criticism. We included several authors of recent analyses as well as the viewpoints that have led to reconsideration of historical and analytical dynamics of two categories, structure and conjuncture, as a form of analysis of current structural processes in terms of structural analysis and criticism. The paper comprises three parts. The first part is a reflection on the reason criticism and crisis have been subjected to different processes of derogation despite their original connection. In the second part, we show the effects of different ways that crisis has manifested itself in capitalism and explain its dispersive and “non-punctual” modalities. The third part raises the question of chances of reuniting the crisis and “immanent criticism” based on structural criticism, and we further articulate its connections with immanent criticism. Structural criticism is viewed as a connection between immanent criticism and transcendent orientation that is focused on the reconnection between crisis and criticism, the elements related to capitalism. Preispitivanje i transformacija fenomena kritike i krize u društvenoj teoriji su poslednjih de cenija doveli do slabljenja pa i do delegitimacijskog osporavanja navedenog dubleta. U radu se razmatraju mogućnosti obnove diskursa o kritici/krizi s mogućim delatnim učincima, uz poseban osvrt na mogućnosti strukturalne kritike.Različiti autori recentnih analiza se uzima ju u obzir, te se razmatraju stanovišta koja vode do ponovnog razmatranja istorijskog i ana litičkog dinamizma kategorija strukture i konjunkture kao razrade aktuelnih strukturalnih procesa u terminima strukturalne analize i kritike. Rad se sastoji iz tri dela. U prvom delu razmatramo zbog čega su kritika i kriza koje su izvorno spojene podvrgnuti različitim proce sima derogiranja. U drugom delu pokazujemo efekte promene načina ispoljavanja krize u kapitalizmu, tačnije osvetljavamo njenu disperzivne i ne-punktualne modalitete. U trećem delu postavljamo pitanje o šansama ponovnog spajanja krize i kritike na osnovu navigacije strukturalne kritike, nadalje artikulišemo njene veze sa „imanentnom kritikom“. Strukturalna kritika se analizira kao spoj između imanentne kritike i transcendentnog usmerenja koji radi na reconnections between crisis and critique as the elements of relationship to capitalism.

For more than 30 years, the Republic of Moldova, with around 3 million people, has struggled at the crossroads of East and West, not knowing which course to take. An Eastern European country surrounded by Romania to the West and Ukraine to the north, east, and south, it is an emerging upper-middle-income economy. The economy of Moldova faces an important crisis after receiving over 90,000 Ukrainian refugees since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. To that end, Moldova was granted EU candidate status on June 23, 2022. Like Icarus, it could fly too close to the sun by using improper wings. In this scenario, the sun signifies people's ambitions for happiness as a result of having money and being a part of the big, more prosperous European Union’s family. In support of this theory, the World Happiness Report states that “citizens of countries that are more stable economically have higher happiness levels” (Abdelaty and Nouredeen 2018, 78). The goal of this paper is to describe the progressive economic and social evolution of the Republic of Moldova, and for this, the time axis between the communist past and today will be presented. Moreover, the transition from “pancakes” to “donuts” will be shown. In this paper, “pancakes” stand for communism and planned economies because of their flat shape, and accordingly, “donuts” represent the capitalist order with their heterogeneous shape., Off Campus: Seggau School of Thought, 9, 9 p. 85-99

For more than 30 years, the Republic of Moldova, with around 3 million people, has struggled at the crossroads of East and West, not knowing which course to take. An Eastern European country surrounded by Romania to the West and Ukraine to the north, east, and south, it is an emerging upper-middle-income economy. The economy of Moldova faces an important crisis after receiving over 90,000 Ukrainian refugees since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. To that end, Moldova was granted EU candidate status on June 23, 2022. Like Icarus, it could fly too close to the sun by using improper wings. In this scenario, the sun signifies people's ambitions for happiness as a result of having money and being a part of the big, more prosperous European Union’s family. In support of this theory, the World Happiness Report states that “citizens of countries that are more stable economically have higher happiness levels” (Abdelaty and Nouredeen 2018, 78). The goal of this paper is to describe the progressive economic and social evolution of the Republic of Moldova, and for this, the time axis between the communist past and today will be presented. Moreover, the transition from “pancakes” to “donuts” will be shown. In this paper, “pancakes” stand for communism and planned economies because of their flat shape, and accordingly, “donuts” represent the capitalist order with their heterogeneous shape.

The article studies the concept of the global social order as a subject of social research. The author starts with pointing at the changes in the structure and the character of the today's global social order (acceleration of exchanges and flows, gradual disappearing of a single hegemony, multipolarity) and claims that it is exactly capitalism that becomes a foundation for multipolar but yet unequal constitution of the global order. The article proposes to deal with the global social order as an example of a global subject – alternative to world system or global system – which can be placed in focus of social research. Also, the paper offers a definition to the notions of social order and global social order. Then the author provides several possible classification of the approaches to the study of the global social order, and then moves on to pointing out their mutual positions. The paper considers capitalism as a special form of global social order and suggests to analyze imperialism and neocolonialism as, on the one hand, the products of this order, and on the other hand, as instruments for its legitimation and hegemony. In the further research the suggested model can be used, first, for the improvements in the study of sociology's global subject, and, second, for deepening the knowledge about the process of (re)production of global social order.

Important contributions from within the Post-Keynesian tradition have proposed different ways of modelling the interdependencies between the financial and the real spheres of modern capitalistic economies. The present paper, building on these contributions, proposes an analytical linkage between the approaches originally developed within the Minskian and the Kaleckian frames. We follow, in this, suggestions made by Minsky in a posthumously published paper (2013). There, the consideration of the “Kaleckian way of looking at profits” is posed as preliminary setting for the analysis of the “determinants of stability or even the viability of a financial structure”. The key linkage in the real-financial interdependence is then found in the implications of Debt: originator of ‘inside money’, finance for investments exceeding ‘internal’ fund availability, and fundamental contributor to profit realization. The explicit introduction of Debt within the originally ‘non-monetary’ frame of Kaleckian accounting opens the path to the further description of conditions, for growth and (in)stability of a modern capitalist economy, where the fundamental role of a developed financial superstructure is explicated, as in Minsky. We consider, for this latter, an up-to-date frame, including the so-called originate-to-distribute (OTD) mode of modern banking. There, the functional relationship between finance and the real economy runs essentially in an opposite sequence of causation with respect to what traditionally assumed in conventional economic wisdom. It is ‘real economy’ which is now described as ‘servicing’ finance, in that debt obligations originated by the ‘non-financial’ entities are now the primary input, and the ultimate source of the cash-flow repayment, allowing rents to be paid for the assets entering the portfolios of the ultimate wealth owners. Throughout the layers of a convoluted, leveraged structuring of the financial trades, (described by Minsky as an ‘inverted pyramid’), ‘money managers’ are then evocated, as principal actors in the present stage of capitalism.

The solidarity economy in North America has received growing attention at multiple scales in the past ten years. As worker cooperatives in New York City enjoy newfound municipal support, narrative struggles emerge between actors within the solidarity economy space. The solidarity economy may be theorized as capitalism’s feminized ‘other’: malleable, unfixed, local, and difficult to quantify. This feminization extends to both its workforce, a majority of whom are women, and the labor it produces, primarily domestic work. It is for these reasons that solidarity economy work is often overlooked as a political economy capable of structural transformation, and the discomfort with its breadth has lead movement leaders to uphold and advocate for more ‘formal’ models like cooperatives and deploy ‘poverty alleviation’ and entrepreneurship narratives to stabilize the fluid field. I argue that this project blanches the radical edges of a movement, minimizing not only those whose labor accounts for the majority of solidarity economy work, but ignoring the transformative potential of sites where such work happens. Based on a series of qualitative interviews with solidarity economy practitioners, this paper argues that the dominant narrative of solidarity economy work in New York City ignores where most of this work occurs and by whom, erasing and undermining those efforts. Counter-narratives emerge in those ‘forgotten’ spaces and thus transform them into sites of radical, anti-capitalist organizing. In so doing, this paper poses a question for geographers about how movements may continue to challenge our assumptions about space.

This paper argues for the characterization of contemporary capitalism as monopsony capitalism and, specifically, as global monopsony capitalism. This means that the degrees of buyer power should be added to the usual demand–supply analysis of markets for labour power and other inputs. Monopsony is used to understand the nature of global value chains, within which the paper distinguishes high, medium and low levels of monopsony power and outlines the main features of labour conditions in these different levels of monopsony power. The paper also sees how the working of monopsony power is gendered. The concluding section points to the difficult task of forming countervailing power in the age of global monopsony capitalism.

The paper provides an assessment of the health of capitalism, concluding that in a global perspective the institution is prospering. Whether or not that is good for global, national, regional, or sectional welfare is another matter. The paper also compares some 1930s debates about capitalism with similar debates in our own time.

This paper argues that a distinctive form of capitalism, cohesive capitalism, emerged in the post-war period supporting the wellbeing of its citizens through building state capacities alongside open and democratic forms of government. The paper identifies a range of threats that this model now faces and speculates on what it would take, particularly in terms of international cooperation, to respond to them.

Scholarship within Black geographies and Black studies has highlighted how historical injustices continue to shape the ways in which space is racialized and race is spatialized. This paper examines a fight during the late 19th century between white business owners and Black citizens regarding whether or not the boardwalk of Asbury Park, New Jersey ought to be racially segregated in order to trace the emergence of a racial formation that signified Black people as unwelcome in tourist spaces. By focusing on a battle to implement a color line within a popular northern coastal resort community during the 1880s and 1890s, the paper shows how racial discrimination was justified and normalized through the prioritization of economic growth. Thus, a form of coastal ‘racial capitalism’ also emerged from this conflict. The spatial, cultural, and economic legacies of the battle over the boardwalk continue to shape present spatial inequalities and imaginaries in the city as well as in other parts of the United States. The paper concludes by arguing that efforts to address racial inequalities and to reimagine what it means to be human in must engage with the racist history of the resort. Through this, the paper demonstrates how histories of racial inequality continue to reverberate in the present and intersect with new forms of vulnerability.

This paper examines the affinity ties of biological and familial whiteness in ART as evident in the 2014 Illinois Northern District Court case of Cramblett v. Midwest Sperm Bank—where a white mother filed a wrongful birth suit and sought legal compensation for the loss of perceived genetic similarity and giving birth to a ‘black’ child via donor insemination. Applying critical legal and critical race studies to the case and engaging its surrounding media, the paper considers what Cramblett can tell us about loss—as it is related to notions of value and property within an overarching system of racial capitalism. This paper considers how race, value, and property inter-articulated in Cramblett through notions of biogenetic relations and familial whiteness within the organization of family; how these ideas travel through to investments in life—and its continuation—as a form of racial property (for some); and what this case can tell us about broader operations of structural racism and the role of biomedicine (and law) within these operations. Ultimately, the paper shows that biogenetic affinity in ARTs condition life’s continuation in ways that resecure the disparities of racial capitalism.

This paper explores the intersections and overlaps between state capitalism and global production networks. A key feature of the so-called new state capitalism is the combination of state ownership and corporatisation, which creates a system that can be characterised as a hybrid of public–private governance in both corporate and network terms. Moreover, the internationalisation of state hybrids adds an extraterritorial dimension to the state, which can influence the configuration and governance of global production networks. This paper develops a conceptual framework (H–E–N) that foregrounds the relationships between hybrid governance (H), extraterritoriality (E) and global production network configurations (N), thereby promoting an integrated analysis of the implications of the new state capitalism for global production networks. This framework is mobilised to explain how state capitalism in Singapore has influenced the development of the city-state's position in upstream, midstream and downstream oil global production networks over the 1959–2019 period. The study demonstrates that hybrid governance, as part of a wider strategy of state capitalism, has been critical in the development of Singapore's position in oil global production networks. The hybrid nature of the institutional forms associated with state ownership – for instance state-owned enterprises and sovereign wealth funds – goes beyond market facilitation to encompass active state participation in markets. Hybrid governance not only allows the state to influence domestic outcomes but – through the extraterritorial strategies of hybrid entities – can also influence global production network configurations beyond its borders.

There is little doubt that the understanding of the dynamics of capitalism has been enriched by Geography. Moreover, geographers utilizing Marxist/Marxian lenses have provided valuable insights into the spatial content of the system. Over the past two decades or so, geographers in no small way have contributed to the demystification of capitalism/capitalist development in its neoliberal incarnation – change as mirage. Furthermore, poverty, inequality, unemployment and related social ills are directly linked to the system. Indeed, they are produced by the system. In this paper, the geographical evolution of the capitalist system in South Africa is examined. Critical thinkers, among them Marxists, influenced the theorization of the relationship(s) between capitalism, apartheid, class and race. In this paper, I focus on the spatial aspects, which in my view have been neglected. I reflect on various historical periods – the apartheid era and the post-apartheid era, in particular. What is apparent is that neoliberalism in South Africa has entered a phase which I label “accumulation by corrupt means”. The class basis of this strategy is examined. Critical (Marxist) geographers are shaped by the direct experiences of material conditions. I describe my experiences in this regard.

This paper provides a synopsis of the critical debates in environmental sociology vis-à-vis climate governance and evokes the intersections of environmental justice, equality and the nation state. The nation state, which in this study refers to the government of the day is regarded as an important factor in determining the state of environmental justice and equality. This is because the government has the mandate to formulate and implement policies such as environmental policy. Issues of injustice and inequality are clearly spelt out in the discipline of sociology which provide insights on ways through which humans in societies respond to environmental crises. The paper places considerable emphasis on the political economy of environmental sociology which lies on the effects of modernity and capitalism in relation to socio-ecological well-being of communities. This is significantly linked to Karl Marx’s contribution on class struggles over the means of production which favours the bourgeoisie who are responsible for the greater ecological damage.

Global capitalism creates a culture of abstraction, described by Fredric Jameson as “a kind of cyberspace in which money capital has reached its ultimate dematerialization, as messages which pass instantaneously from one nodal point to another across the former material world.” The “becoming information” of money has been celebrated by technophiles like David Wolman who contends paper money is now largely the stuff of “crooks and terrorists.” And indeed, the capitalists at the centre of complex televisual crime sagas like Breaking Bad are continually frustrated by the recalcitrant materiality of their paper profits. Martin Shuster suggests that Breaking Bad amounts to a critique of Western science, specifically its tendency to “empty” the material world of meaning by prioritizing “instrumental” reason. I argue that the comical efforts of Walter White (the show’s chemistry-teaching, drug-manufacturing protagonist) and other characters to control the unruly materialism of cash represents this failure of instrumental reason, whether expressed in chemical equations or prices, to achieve fully the “dematerialization,” or what White calls the “disincorporation,” of the world. Ultimately, the unmanageable corporeality of money allegorizes the persistence of non-capitalist, material desires in mass cultural products like Breaking Bad.

Purpose: The social imperative on Green Financing is most for saving the future. This imperative assessment focuses mostly on a new and innovative financial concept that is green financing, which is now functioning as one of the most important strategies to attain economic stability together with overall sustainable growth. Design/Methodology/Approach: The research is descriptive in nature to analyze the future prospects of global financing in reference to Nepal. Literature based review dominated conceptual research is exploratory in nature. The key informants were consulted personally. On the basis of advantages, disadvantages, status and actions required the professionals' opinion were documented using steps recommended by grounded theory. The Focus Group Discussion among professionals other than key informant was also done after collecting data personally on the same agendas for validation of research. It is furthermore illustrated with help of Ecotourism case analysis. It could be said partial ABCD based discussion and content analysis accumulated the research. Findings/Result: Globalization is having an increasingly negative impact on the environment, it is no longer an option for industries all over the globe to achieve an overall green growth by adopting various green initiatives that allow them to achieve a climate-resilient future through both environmentalism and capitalism at the same time; rather, it is now a necessity rather than an option for them to do so. the function and relevance of green financing in not just one sector but for all other industries, which can embrace this concept in one way or another for the purpose of achieving total green growth has been illustrated. Despite the fact that green financing is currently a niche concept, the application founds to be highly beneficial. Originality/Value: Both relevant and practical aspects for future financing in the form of green financing has been recognized within a broader context to create an appeal and awareness on academic platform. Paper Type: Research paper

This paper presents one of the first theoretical interventions that apply a perspective of everyday urbanism to the research of (internal) migrants in reform-era urban China. Theoretically, the paper draws on two approaches that theorise the multifaceted relationships between everyday life and capitalist urbanization. The first, informed by Lefebvre's works, stresses the alienation of everyday life and the rationalisation of urban spaces, while asserting that everyday life contains the seeds of resistance to the colonising logics of capitalism. In the second approach, everyday urban practices are analysed in terms of a transversal logic to the state regime and the formal economy, or as the provisional intersections of heterogeneous social and material conditions that generate contingent outcomes and possibilities. Based on these theoretical premises, the paper develops a reinterpretation of existing literatures on migrants in China to see how a perspective of everyday urbanism enables us to rethink this field. The paper concludes by proposing everyday urbanism as a new frontier for research, and several ways in which future works can enrich our understandings of migrant lives, spaces and communities by engaging with this perspective.

The platform is emerging as a key organizational form and operational logic of contemporary capitalism, intimately tied to financialization and assetization. However, discussions to date have focused on platforms and platformization in the context of the private, corporate, and technology sectors. In this paper, we develop an analysis of how platformization operates in the context of public policy. Using the UK’s National Health Service as a case study, we explore how platformization is altering the form and function of the state. The platformization of the NHS has its roots in the UK government’s strategic interest in the development of the bioeconomy. This led to the creation of a research infrastructure within the health service. Subsequently, the NHS has leveraged various assets into a range of data- and technology-focused initiatives. We argue that platformization has been a major form of neoliberalization within the NHS. The paper concludes with a discussion of what an analysis of public platformization can teach us about ongoing transformations of the state.

According to Schumpeter (1934), entrepreneurs are driven to innovate not only for the fruits of success but for success itself. This description of entrepreneurship echoes Weber’s (1958) description of the “spirit of capitalism,” which states that people enjoy the accumulation of wealth irrespective of its effect on smoothing consumption. This paper explores the implications of the spirit of capitalism on monetary policy, growth, and welfare in a Schumpeterian growth model. Different from the existing literature, we show that money is not superneutral in the long run and could promote economic growth when the spirit of capitalism is strong. Furthermore, we show that the optimal nominal interest rate decreases with the strength of the spirit of capitalism, potentially supporting a negative interest rate. Finally, our calibrated model suggests that the spirit of capitalism explains an important share (about one-third) of long-run growth in the United States.

Corporate growth triggers a virtuous circle by creating economies of scale and making more financial resources available to invest in powerful differentiation policies and in growth itself. Family businesses struggle to grow and, in some industries, are replaced by larger companies. By focusing on the case of a small Italian company, this paper elucidates how small companies can target particular markets and thereby coexist with large companies, despite the latter’s economies of scale and superior capabilities. The ‘no-growth company’ avoids frontal battles with large corporations by occupying declining market segments in which large rivals no longer invest in improving their products. To seize such opportunities to gain market share with limited financial resources, the no-growth company needs to exploit available technologies and differentiate its products by combining existing functionalities or improving its product design.

Since the publication in 1973 of Dorothy Thomson’s seminal book Adam Smith’s Daughters, the literature on women’s contribution to the economic thought has grown exponentially. Despite these recent publications, the specificities of the French context and the historical contributions of female thinkers to French economic thought have been rarely studied. The aim of this paper is to analyze the contribution of Flora Tristan, Julie-Victoire Daubié and Clémence Royer to economic debates in nineteenth-century France. These three case studies offer insight into the neglect of female thinkers in the history of economic thought. In line with previous publications, we explore the border of the definition of economics by focusing on the nineteenth-century French context. We then propose some explanations for their exclusion from the field of economics. Depuis la publication en 1973 du livre de Dorothy Thomson Adam Smith’s Daughters, la littérature sur la contribution des femmes à la pensée économique a augmenté de façon exponentielle. Malgré ces publications récentes, les spécificités du contexte français et la contribution historique des femmes à la pensée économique française ont été rarement étudiées. L’objectif de cet article est d’analyser les contributions de Flora Tristan, Julie-Victoire Daubié et Clémence Royer aux débats économiques dans la France du dix-neuvième siècle. Ces trois études de cas éclairent les raisons de l’oubli des femmes dans l’histoire de la pensée économique. Dans la lignée des publications précédentes sur le sujet, nous explorons la frontière définissant les sciences économiques dans le contexte français du dix-neuvième siècle. Nous proposons des explications pour l’exclusion des femmes du champ des sciences économiques.

This technical project is about designing a Novel Ultrasound Body Interface. Our advisor Dr. Morikawa found that when he performed ultrasounds the interface commonly used, ultrasound gel, to produce a clear image was messy and time consuming. He wanted me and my partner, Thomas Dugan, to make a replacement interface that eliminated these problems. In our efforts to make a replacement interface, my partner and I first did research to understand how an ultrasound works and what is needed in an interface between the patient and the ultrasound probe. We learned about acoustic impedance and found the values that ultrasound gel and soft flesh have. We also looked at what previous Capstone teams have done to see if we could use it as a starting point or as something to avoid. After our research we decided to see if there was a material that has already been made that matches the acoustic impedance of soft tissue. After much research we found two silicones that we believed could match the acoustic impedance of soft tissue. We ordered samples of the material and then performed various tests to make a prototype that can produce a clear and concise image that matches what is normally made when ultrasound gel is used. After multiple tests with our prototypes we made a breakthrough. The two silicones that we have could indeed be used to make a clear and concise ultrasound image. The catch was that it required the use of the ultrasound gel we were trying to replace. We realized that our prototypes were too rigid to block out the air between the ultrasound machine and the patient. Which resulted in artifacts that ruined the image. We then focused on future directions the project can go and how future teams could use our data to make a working prototype. The Capstone paper is my final defense of Capitalism. I feel the need to defend Capitalism from the growing social belief among my teachers and peers that Communism is somehow better than Capitalism. A belief that I saw after many debates both inside and outside of the classroom defending Capitalism. I want to finalize my arguments and address the critiques that my opponents have with Capitalism. As well as to point out the dangers of my opponent's solution to the flaws of Capitalism by replacing it with Communism. I start with defining Capitalism and Communism. What each system believes and what values each aspires to. It was easier to do for Capitalism than Communism due to the many different forms of Communism in the world. A summary was made on Communism’s core principles however. Values like a strong centralized government with complete control over businesses so they can set the prices and wages in the economy. Contrasting with Capitalist policies that protects private ownership and has a more laissez faire approach to running the economy. I did find that they offer the same promise although through conflicting means. The promise of economic prosperity one through private ownership and the other through collective ownership. After defining these two systems a further examination is made to critique their beliefs and core principles to see if they actually promote prosperity as they both claim. Contrasting the two and showing that Capitalism gives people a way to succeed through intellectual property and private ownership. Communism on the other hand promotes stagnation by removing private ownership and paying workers the same wage regardless of effort or occupation. I also go in depth analyzing why the centralized control and enforcement of Communism always lead to corruption and exploitation of citizens while those in charge reap all of the benefits. I show this by examining all of the past and current Communist regimes and document the abuses of their own people. I then go on to address several common arguments against Capitalism and show the laws that fix these problems and how certain socialist policies exacerbate them. I also propose several policies to fix the current social belief that Capitalism is evil. To remind everyone of the one hundred million people that died over the history of Communist regimes. As well as the success of Capitalism and how it works in America with citizens and immigrants making themselves rich in America and how the “American Dream” is still alive and well in America today. As America’s current immigration rates show. I then end with a final comparison between Capitalism and Communism and pose to readers a personal question between these two systems of commerce.

Despite perfect and ideal connotations of ballet, there exist hierarchical and gendered structures in American ballet companies that have persisted since its initial formation. In the 19th century, dancers in the Paris Opera Ballet were sold to wealthy benefactors for sex. Many of the largest American ballet companies today have male artistic directors and choreographers, domineering over a largely female dance company. Misogyny still exists in the idealized pre-pubescent, overly thin ballet body that appeals to the male fantasy of deflowering a virgin, and in the infantilization and discipline of female company dancers. This research paper evaluates the role of the perception of female dancers and capitalism on the establishment of these power structures using actor network theory. Network analysis methodology is used to evaluate journal articles and research studies that identify and codify the role of gender in American ballet companies as well as the impact of the culture of capitalist exploitation. Many fields including engineering, business, and medicine, exhibit similar power structures, implicit and explicit, that disparage women and other minority groups in American society. This study will illuminate the factors that contribute to longstanding systems of power on the basis of sex and will provide insight into how they might be dismantled in these other contexts.

This article focuses on the perception of sleep in the digital culture of autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR), examining both viewer-listeners’ online discussions about the impact of ASMR videos on their sleep and the content of audiovisual materials published on YouTube. The paper posits that sleep is viewed in two ways in the ASMR community; on the one hand, in a capitalist sense as a manageable and controllable object, and, on the other, as an element that escapes this discourse. The ASMR culture, while affirming contemporary normative sleep patterns, simultaneously invites its enthusiasts to slow down, unwind, and relax, thereby aligning itself with the slow movement.

This article performs a socio-spatial analysis of the political discourse, agendas, and organizing spaces of the Solidarity Economy Movement (MSE) in Rio de Janeiro as a lens to examine how racialized power–knowledge dynamics and race-based socio-spatial inequalities can be replicated in the process of institutionalization of social movements’ agendas. It discusses adverse implications stemming from the MSE’s political choice to disproportionately focus on policy-centrism over grassroots organization as its priority strategy. It also analyses the failures of the white leadership of the movement to acknowledge Black economic traditions, Favela economies, and Black solidarity economies as pivotal experiences to understand and challenge racial capitalism. I draw on two years of participatory ethnographic research in Favela City of God and in Solidarity Economy marketplaces and political spaces across Rio de Janeiro. This paper elucidates a gap in the literature on Solidarity Economy in Brazil in terms of theorizing around race. I contend that a colorblind class-first Marxist approach, in tandem with the perversive myth of racial democracy in Brazil, underpin the movement’s conceptual shortcoming in addressing how racialization is co-constitutive of both capitalism and solidarity economies. I show how such neglect has displaced Black women favela dwellers as knowledge producers and weakened the base support of the movement in ways that is debilitating to its organizational capacity. I argue for the epistemic and political contributions that Black communities’ expertise with solidarity economies can make to critical analysis of racial capitalism and solidarity economies as well as to the endeavor of rethinking political economy.

Fashion and philanthropy, both the study and the practice, at times converge. It is at this intersection, conceptualized as the social world of fashionthropy, that this research takes place. A literature review on the history of fashion and philanthropic studies is presented as well as a conceptual framework based on Georg Simmel’s notion of fashion’s dualism and Gates’s view that a binary motive is the best fuel for market- driven philanthropy. This paper then explores concepts of capitalism, social responsibility and social worlds through an interpretivist lens in relation to three Canadian case studies on fashion and philanthropic happenings in Toronto.

Historically, the process of music discovery has been fostered through the personal connection(s) listeners develop with music and artists via broadcast media formats. Streaming technology has made music more accessible to the listener than ever before, but it has also failed the listener, inhibiting the process of music discovery by eliminating the tastemaker. By referencing the theory of Public and Counter-publics by Robert Warner, the paper outlines importance of audience recognition, response, and personal connection to music discovery. In 1942 Joseph Schumpeter wrote about “incessant product and process innovation”, coined the phrase “creative destruction” (a process through which something new brings about the demise of whatever existed before it) and proclaimed it to be “the essential fact about capitalism”. Despite this, Schumpeter also outlined the concept of “creative response” (innovative acts by entrepreneurs) and its importance to society. What 2 Listen 2 embraces the ideology of Schumpeter and creates a multi-level solution to expand the role of the tastemaker, and restore the concept of personal connection to the process of music discovery via storytelling. This solution has been articulated as a market ready broadcast property as well as an app/web solution in a beta form.

Resumen Este artículo tiene como propósito analizar en Anahuac: or Mexico and the Mexicans, ancient and modern de Edward B. Tylor, una forma de producir conocimiento que, en sus argumentos y en su exposición, resulta ajena a las formas contemporáneas de la antropología, pero que, por otra parte, revela las condiciones sociales y políticas de su emergencia como disciplina científica. Al contrario de la criba utilizada por la mayoría de trabajos que han estudiado Anahuac, por la que se ha omitido o justificado la perspectiva “políticamente incorrecta” del libro, mi intención es destacarla como una forma histórica de la producción del conocimiento antropológico. No como una denuncia maniquea de la historia de la antropología, sino como un ejercicio propiamente histórico en el que el desconcierto con el que hoy recibimos los argumentos de Tylor sirve para introducir una diferencia y un límite que distingue pasado y presente de la antropología. Abstract The aim of this paper is to analyze a way of producing knowledge in Edward B. Tylor´s Anahuac: or Mexico and the Mexicans, ancient and modern, that, in its arguments and in its exposition, is foreign to contemporary forms of anthropology, but which, on the other hand, reveals the social conditions and policies of its emergence as a scientific discipline. Contrary to the filter used by most of the works that have studied Anahuac, by which the “politically incorrect” perspective of the book has been omitted or justified, my intention is to highlight it as a historical form of the production of anthropological knowledge. Not as a denunciation of the history of anthropology, but as a proper historical exercise in which the confusion with which we receive Tylor’s arguments today serves to introduce a difference and a limit that distinguishes past and present of anthropology.

Transnational tech companies have become important actors in global philanthropy. Led by tech giants such as Google, this tech philanthropy consists not just of donating funds to expert organizations and ngo s but also, importantly, in using the companies’ own expertise and products to create social impact. This philanthropy is celebrated as innovative and criticized as exploitative for its novel ways of combining capitalism with global helping. But in what way is tech philanthropy novel and to what extent does it continue the well-worn historical trajectory of humanitarianism and capitalism? In this paper, we analyze the philanthropic practices of Google focusing on the company’s current attempt to link philanthropy to the big business of artificial intelligence (ai). Based on ethnographic data collected at the “Google ai Impact Challenge Summit” in San Francisco and interviews with tech and humanitarian stakeholders, we highlight the entanglements of capitalism and humanitarianism in tech philanthropy.

The advent of globalisation, individualism and the spread of consumerist capitalism have led to a decline in the sovereignty of the nation-state and restructured the relationship between private and public. These developments have renewed academic interest in, and questioning of, the concept of citizenship. In a particularly influential paper, Isin, basing his analysis in Freud, argues that what we are witnessing in the contemporary democratic West is the rise of the neurotic citizen. The purpose of this article is to respond to and expand upon Isin’s arguments, utilising insights from Lacan. In particular, the article explores the relationship between the neurotic and the psychotic. It argues that if Lacan’s thesis of the so-called ‘decline of the paternal function’ is correct, governments increasingly may respond not only to neurotic citizens, but also those who are psychotic. The consequences of this may be more ominous than Isin envisages.

The ever more frequent appearance of queer folk in advertisements may suggest a social recognition for queerness. Especially during the Pride months - international celebrations of queer life including protest, parades, and parties - queer ads fill western screens and billboards. This paper wants to explore the impact of queer visibility in advertising on the (re)construction of queer identities in consumer societies by bringing together Jean Baudrillard’s theory of consumption, Robert Goldman's and Anne Cronin's analysis of advertisements and Rosemary Hennessy’s findings about queerness in capitalisms. I will argue that the commodification of queers in western mainstream advertising, framed through the concept that consumption is closely tied to citizenship, is often mistaken as recognition. Furthermore, queerness is mystified in advertising through an attempt to maintain the fiction of a coherent queer identity that contributes to the construction of either an 'abnormal' queerness or aims to soothe derivations from the heterosexual norm. These findings will be put into perspective by a critical examination of an American advertising clip and reflection on the viewer's position. Die immer häufigere Darstellung von queeren Menschen in der Werbung lässt auf eine soziale Anerkennung von Queerness schließen. Insbesondere während der Pride-Monate füllen queere Werbespots westliche Bildschirme und Plakatwände. In diesem Beitrag möchte ich den Einfluss von queerer Sichtbarkeit in Werbung auf die Konstruktion queerer Identitäten untersuchen, indem ich Jean Baudrillards Konsumgesellschaft, Robert Goldmans und Anne Cronins Analyse von Werbung und Rosemary Hennessys Erkenntnisse über Queerness in Kapitalismen zusammenführe. Die kritische Analyse dieser Ansätze kommt zu dem Schluss, dass Kommerzialisierung von Queerness in Werbungen, basierend auf dem Konzept, dass Konsum eng mit Staatsbürgerschaft verbunden ist, oft als Anerkennung missverstanden wird. Darüber hinaus wird in diesen Werbungen Queerness durch den Versuch mystifiziert, die Fiktion einer kohärenten queeren Identität aufrechtzuerhalten. Dabei wird dieses missverstandene queere Subjekt entweder als 'abnormal' abgestempelt oder an Vorstellungen der dominanten Heteronorm angeglichen. Diese theoretischen Ergebnisse werden durch die Interpretation eines amerikanischen Werbenarrativs und einer kritischen Reflexion der Betrachtungsposition ergänzt.

This paper begins and ends with a provocation: I argue that refusal in librarianship is both impossible and necessary. Reviewing examples of crisis narratives which permeate both American and Canadian universities, I take a materialist perspective on the idea of refusal within academic librarianship. To do so, I draw on the work of Audra Simpson, Kyle Whyte, Eve Tuck, Mario Tronti, and Rinaldo Walcott to examine the sites of impossibility of refusal in the practice of academic librarianship within contemporary neoliberal education institutions. Then, I analyze the totality of capitalism in setting the limit for the practice of refusal through case studies of direct action, including the Icelandic Women’s Strike of 1975 and the 2020 Scholar Strike Canada. Finally, I identify private property and history as key frames for understanding the contradiction at the heart of refusal of crisis. As such, any refusal that does not address the centrality of labour and private property relations can thus be understood as harm reduction rather than emancipation. Ultimately, I argue that for librarians to refuse would require an abandonment of liberalism as librarianship’s guiding philosophy, and a redefinition of librarianship as such., Cet article s'ouvre et se clos par une provocation : je déclare que le refus en bibliothéconomie est à la fois impossible et nécessaire. En analysant des exemples de récits de crise qui traversent les universités américaines et canadiennes, j'adopte une perspective matérialiste sur l'idée de refus au sein de la bibliothéconomie universitaire. Pour ce faire, je m'appuie sur les travaux d'Audra Simpson, Kyle Whyte, Eve Tuck, Mario Tronti et Rinaldo Walcott pour examiner les sites d'impossibilité du refus dans la pratique de la bibliothéconomie universitaire au sein des établissements d'enseignement néolibéraux contemporains. Ensuite, j'analyse le capitalisme dans sa totalité pour fixer la limite de la pratique du refus à travers des études de cas d'action directe, notamment la grève des femmes islandaises de 1975 et la grève Scholar Strike Canada de 2020. Enfin, j'identifie la propriété privée et l'histoire comme des cadres clés pour comprendre la contradiction au cœur du refus de crise. De manière concrète tout refus qui ne traite pas de la centralité des relations de travail et de propriété privée peut être compris comme un geste palliatif plutôt que comme une action vers l'émancipation. En fin de compte, je soutiens que pour que les bibliothécaires refusent, il faudrait abandonner le libéralisme comme philosophie directrice de la bibliothéconomie et redéfinir la bibliothéconomie en tant que telle.

The literature on solidarity economies deconstructs totalizing accounts of global capitalism, opening space for a politics of economic possibility beyond, outside, but also within the capitalist norm. Solidarity economies are spaces of “becoming,” where subjectivities can be reworked in ways that challenge dominant discourses and governmental practices. In this paper, I draw on fieldwork conducted in an asamblea popular and its soup kitchen in Buenos Aires that works for and with homeless people in the local community to call attention to the interrelation between space and subjectivity. Asambleas populares/barriales are neighborhood-based political organizations that emerged during the socioeconomic and political crisis of 2001–2002 in Argentina, and they have the potential to disrupt normative views about social problems in ways that resubjectify people. I draw on relational poverty theory to show how the subject-making power of solidarity spaces articulate with, and at the same time challenges, hegemonic economic imaginaries that exclude and de-value certain subjects. Through this case, I argue that there is a close and necessary relationship between imagining and enacting solidarity and reconceptualizing those who are devalued and deemed “excess” to the capitalist economy.

Following Slavoj Žižek, critical marketing scholars have interrogated the ideological fantasies of mainstream marketing, de-romanticising markets and marketing. However, Žižek argues there is no ideology-free subject, so it stands to Žižekean reason that critical marketing scholars are also ideological fantasists. Our paper seeks to de-romanticise critical marketing theory by identifying the fantasy of capitalist corruption. This sustains the ideology of critical marketing theory by disavowing (self-)destructive desires within the human unconscious and suggesting that displacing capitalism will be enough to usher in a postcapitalist utopia. This ideological fantasy has therapeutic, motivational, and institutional benefits, but romanticises the human subject in ways that ultimately frustrate the critical project of societal betterment. By acknowledging the human unconscious as a corrupting influence, we hope to make critical aspirations more likely to be realised. We illustrate our argument via studies of sustainability, a favoured topic of Žižekean, critical, and mainstream scholars alike.

The paper proposes an introductory conceptual analysis to the problem of fascism as it is developed in the two volumes of Capitalism and schizophrenia, by Deleuze & Guattari. One of the merits of the deleuze-guattarian approach, in line with the “voluntary servitude” tradition, is that it addresses the problem of fascism as a desiring phenomenon, with desire being the motor of the production of and in the social field. In the passage of one volume to the other there is, however, a change of tone in relation to the desiring problematics, and from this derives a transformation in the conceptualization of fascism: In Anti-Oedipus fascism is understood as a “deviation” of the productive forces of desire through the insertion, in the body of desire, of fragments of archaic codes working in a reterritorialization in favor of and for the socius: in order to contain an absolute deterritorialization of desire that would liberate the social field and the desiring production from the socius, elements of reterritorialization are introduced that blocks desire and prevent it from reaching its potential for dissolution of the socius. In A Thousand Plateaus, on the other hand, in addition an analysis of the problem of microfascism as a molecular desiring phenomenon, we have an analysis that modify the axes of the research: from an inversion of the relationship between the war machine and the State apparatus, we have the peculiar situation where the State is taken by a revolutionary fascist war machine, that is, the State is taken by a line of total destruction and has its capture and bureaucratic apparatuses impregnated by a fascist desire that has in the “pure and simple” destruction its unique tendential goal, resulting in a Suicidal State. With all those conceptual developments we can ask ourselves: what are the relationships between fascism and State? In the same way, it is the case of understanding what is currently being called “neo-fascism” within the framework proposed by Deleuze and Guattari and with what they called post-fascism, and, finally, postulating both a global fascist-becoming and pointing out some precautions for avoid it and face it.

Beginning with the influential discussion of the dialectic of progress found in Amy Allen’s The End of Progress, this paper outlines some difficulties encountered by critical theories of normative ...

Research Objective and QuestionsWe aimed to examine court rulings on disputes between network platforms and labour providers in order to understand the nature of the employment relations and the broader consequences for society as a whole. We addressed two questions :What is the attitude and role of the courts in resolving disputes between Internet network platforms and labour providers in China within a civil law system ?What are the prospects that legal innovations will improve protection for platform labour providers who fall outside the scope of labour law, in order to counter the unregulated expansion of digital capitalism at the expense of the under-/unprotected ?MethodologyWe primarily used secondary data, namely 102 publicly available Court decisions from 2014 to 2019. The case decision reports were downloaded from the Supreme People’s Court “Network of Court Decision Papers.”ResultsDisputes occurred mainly in cities that have the most developed platforms and an independent worker model of employment. They mainly involved network platforms that provide such services as driving, food delivery and courier services. All of the disputes involved road accidents, and over half occurred in Beijing and Shanghai—two leading cities in China that have dense populations. Dispute cases rose sharply, peaked in 2017, started to drop in 2018 and fell even more in 2019. The disputes seem to have educated people on both sides, with the result that more precautions are being taken.ContributionsOur study makes three contributions. First, we identified three types of platform employment in China, the motives of the platforms in their choice of labour utilization and the legal implications in terms of labour and third-party protection. Second, we examined the attitude and role of the courts in judging disputes between network platforms and labour providers within legal constraints. Third, we propose that socialization of contract service should be central to platform employment.

The paper contributes to a symposium of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy on ‘Capitalism: What has Gone Wrong, What Needs to Change, and How can it be Fixed?’. The analysis starts from the observation that, in the United States, the United Kingdom, and continental Europe, widespread discontent has become an important political force. I attribute this discontent to a sense of unfairness in developments of the past few decades. I relate this sense of unfairness to: (i) negative effects of structural change, including joblessness and regional decline, (ii) the observation of extraordinary growth in executive remuneration and financial-sector remuneration, coupled with government bailouts in the global financial crisis, and (iii) changes in public policy and public discourse, with a retrenchment of public services and public investment, except for bailouts and a focus on ‘efficiency’, the meaning of which is driven by the perceptions of corporate executives rather than standard welfare economics. To capture these developments, one needs to think about ‘capitalism’ in the sense of French capitalisme or German Kapitalismus, with a focus on the symbiosis of wealth and power, including the elimination of competition, rather than merely another term for the market economy.

Objective: In view of the values of individualism and competition embedded in neoliberalism and global capitalism, this paper seeks to illustrate empirically students’ instrumentalism in higher education, and to explore how far such instrumentalism could be conceptualized as student alienation. Method: The illustration relies on experiences of community college students from an ethnographic study of students studying in a liberal-arts oriented community college in Hong Kong. The study begun in 2005 to 2006, continued in 2009, and followed up in 2010 to 2011. Eighty-five students in total were recruited and interviewed; 39 of them were interviewed twice. The interviews were analyzed together with the author’s observations and participation as a lecturer of that community college. Results: Against an intensely competitive environment, community college students were rather instrumental in their studies. Their alienation was also manifested in the following aspects: being instrumental about their career planning, preferring surface and strategic learning to deep learning in their studies, and being strategic or even manipulative in dealing with their classmates or teachers. Conclusion: This study provides a nuanced analysis of different aspects of student alienation. Student alienation is worrying, not simply because students are not learning what is required for becoming the educated workforce or citizens, but arguably because throughout the course of their studies, students acquire qualities that may make competitive employees for the cruel business world but do not necessarily make caring or critical citizens.

This paper addresses Trump’s failed self-coup, its authoritarian backwash, and threats to democracy. It analyzes his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which contributed to his 2020 election loss and deepened the political polarization that led to the January 6 Capitol insurrection. The essay also discusses how the forty-year acceleration of economic inequality and sociopolitical de-democratization generated a legitimacy crisis of the hegemonic, neoliberal regime that opened way for Trumpist ethnoracial nationalism. The Trump presidency and pandemic increased the intensity of the political-economic contradictions and transparency of the attenuated relationship of democracy and capitalism. In the consequent “interregnum,” fundamental threats to democratic electoral institutions persist, yet a clear, realistic vision of an alternative democratic regime and the political bloc to bring it into being have yet to be forged. The fate of American democracy rides on overcoming the remarkable denial and normalization of the Trump coup attempt and on forging new safeguards for electoral institutions. Preventing a recurrence, however, requires a progressive transformation of Trumpism’s de-democratized seedbed – neoliberal capitalism.

The book under review reveals the complexities of transition processes and the evolution of reformers, elites and society’s notions of those processes nature. Four major blocks of problems are analyzed in the monograph: the nature of Russian capitalism which is determined by special features of its formation; the generality of transition processes of the economies that found themselves in the middle income trap; the impact of social inequality on the solution of economic, social and environmental problems. The monograph proves the transformation processes success evaluation criteria, and highlights the conditions that are necessary in order to achieve positive results of reforms. The cluster approach used in the analysis of intercountry inequality makes it possible to point out a number of stylized facts showcasing the lack of convergence in the economic growth course. The paper proves that the existing scale of social inequality makes it impossible to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Resumen Con perspectivas no siempre convergentes, diversos corpus teóricos se han propuesto comprender las transformaciones que se observan desde hace cinco décadas en las dinámicas entre los Estados, los espacios de ejercicio del poder político y el despliegue y la crisis de la hegemonía a nivel global. Este artículo presenta dos perspectivas que intentan dar cuenta de estos elementos. Por un lado, la perspectiva sistémico-estructural histórica, que reúne los aportes de la economía política internacional crítica y del análisis del sistema mundo; por el otro, la perspectiva posestructural, relacional que incluye estudios del campo de la geografía política crítica. luego de exponer las tensiones y complementos entre estas se sostiene la necesidad y posibilidad de construir una perspectiva estructural, histórica y dinámica, que busca enmarcar los desafíos y oportunidades para las estatidades en la región latinoamericana frente a la reestructuración global capitalista. Abstract Various theoretical approaches have attempted to understand the transformations that have been taking place over the last five decades in terms of the dynamics between states, how political power is exercised and the deployment and crisis of global hegemony. Such approaches have come from different perspectives that do not always converge. This paper discusses two approaches attempting to account for these elements. On the one hand, a historical structural systemic perspective, which brings together the contributions of the critical International Political Economy and World-Systems analysis. On the other, a relational poststructural perspective that includes studies from the field of critical political geography. After exposing the tensions and complements between them, we argue in favor of the possibility and need of constructing a structural, historical and dynamic perspective that seeks to frame the challenges and opportunities for statehood in Latin America in the face of global capitalist restructuring. Resumo Com perspectivas nem sempre convergentes, diversos corpus teóricos têm se proposto a compreender as transformações que vêm sendo observadas há cinco décadas na dinâmica entre os Estados, os espaços de exercício do poder político, o desdobramento e a crise de hegemonia em nível global. Este artigo apresenta duas perspectivas que procuram dar conta desses elementos, de um lado, a perspectiva sistêmica estrutural histórica, que reúne as contribuições da crítica Economia Política Internacional e da análise do Sistema Mundo; de outro, a perspectiva pós-estrutural relacional que inclui estudos do campo da geografia política crítica. Depois de expor as tensões e complementos entre elas, sustenta-se a necessidade e a possibilidade de se construir uma perspectiva estrutural, histórica e dinâmica, que busca enquadrar os desafios e as oportunidades da constituição do Estado na região latino-americana diante da reestruturação capitalista global.

This paper takes the abduction and rape of a woman as a social situation and, by putting it in perspective with other cases, looks at how these acts of violence are commented on locally in order to grasp how they reveal the broader configuration of power. I show that this armed abduction, followed by rape, finally reduced into a conjugal quarrel, appears to be a particularly brutal and vivid version of the “continuum of sexual violence”. Locally apprehended by the category of “stealing a woman” (robo de mujer), the radicality of this porosity between armed and domestic violence refers to the singular political economy of Badiraguato, aMexican municipality considered to be “the cradle of drug trafficking” and “the base of the Sinaloa Cartel”. From a materialist feminist perspective, I argue that the extreme porosity observed in gendered violence refers to the forms of exploitation and predation that characterize an insertion into global capitalism based on exclusion and isolation. This research is based on an 18-month ethnography conducted between 2013 and 2016 in the main village, the offices of the town hall, and the poppy-producing hamlets spread across the territory. Funding This research was made possible by grants from the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the ERC Social Dynamics of CivilWars, and the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (IWM).