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Capitalist Societies (capitalist + society)
Selected AbstractsThe Question of Market DependenceJOURNAL OF AGRARIAN CHANGE, Issue 1 2002Ellen Meiksins Wood Capitalism is a system of social-property relations in which survival and social reproduction are dependent on the market; a system that is, therefore, driven by the imperatives of competition and a relentless drive to improve the forces of production. This article explores the nature of that market dependence and the specific historical conditions in which it emerged. In debate with Robert Brenner's recent article in this journal (vol.1, no.2) about the early development of capitalism in the Low Countries, it is suggested that, while the Dutch Republic was a highly developed commercial society, it seems to have lacked the specific conditions that made market dependence a basic property relation, as it was in early modern English agrarian capitalism. The differences between Dutch and English patterns of economic development reflect some fundamental differences between commercial and capitalist societies. [source] CULTIVATING JUST PLANNING AND LEGAL INSTITUTIONS: A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT OF THE SOUTH CENTRAL FARM STRUGGLE IN LOS ANGELESJOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS, Issue 1 2009CLARA IRAZÁBAL ABSTRACT:,The South Central Farm (SCF) in Los Angeles was a 14-acre urban farm in one of the highest concentrations of impoverished residents in the county. It was destroyed in July 2006. This article analyzes its epic as a landscape of resistance to discriminatory legal and planning practices. It then presents its creation and maintenance as an issue of environmental justice, and argues that there was a substantive rationale on the basis of environmental justice and planning ethics that should have provided sufficient grounds for the city to prevent its dismantling. Based on qualitative case study methodology, the study contributes to the formulation of creation and preservation rationales for community gardens and other "commons" threatened by eventual dismantlement in capitalist societies. [source] Structural Power and Public Policy: A Signaling Model of Business Lobbying in Democratic CapitalismPOLITICAL STUDIES, Issue 1 2005Patrick Bernhagen This paper develops a signaling model of corporate lobbying in democratic capitalist societies to analyze the conditions that lead to a powerful political position of business. Proceeding from the traditional dichotomy of structural economic determinants versus business' political action, our model predicts the conditions under which elected political decisionmakers modify their policy pledges to accommodate business' political preferences, or override business' lobbying messages and honor their pledges. Our results show that the structural power of business over public policy is contingent on two variables: the size of reputation costs of business in relation to its material costs of lobbying; and the ratio of the policymaker's reputation constraints from policy commitments and campaign pledges to the electoral costs arising from adverse effects of policy. We evaluate our model using case studies of business lobbying on environmental and financial services regulation in Britain and Germany. [source] The second modern condition?THE BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, Issue 3 2010Compressed modernity as internalized reflexive cosmopolitization Abstract Compressed modernity is a civilizational condition in which economic, political, social and/or cultural changes occur in an extremely condensed manner in respect to both time and space, and in which the dynamic coexistence of mutually disparate historical and social elements leads to the construction and reconstruction of a highly complex and fluid social system. During what Beck considers the second modern stage of humanity, every society reflexively internalizes cosmopolitanized risks. Societies (or their civilizational conditions) are thereby being internalized into each other, making compressed modernity a universal feature of contemporary societies. This paper theoretically discusses compressed modernity as nationally ramified from reflexive cosmopolitization, and, then, comparatively illustrates varying instances of compressed modernity in advanced capitalist societies, un(der)developed capitalist societies, and system transition societies. In lieu of a conclusion, I point out the declining status of national societies as the dominant unit of (compressed) modernity and the interactive acceleration of compressed modernity among different levels of human life ranging from individuals to the global community. [source] Work Pressure in Europe 1996,2001: Trends and DeterminantsBRITISH JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 3 2005Duncan Gallie Diverse theories have predicted a trend towards growing work pressure in advanced capitalist societies, while pointing to quite distinct causal factors. This paper seeks to assess these arguments using data from two surveys of employees in European Union member-states carried out in 1996 and in 2001. It finds there is no evidence of a trend towards higher work pressure over this period. There is, however, support for some of the main arguments about the types of factors that affect work pressure: for instance, skill, job control, new technology and current job security are clearly important. But the trends in job control and job security have not been those predicted, while changes in another major determinant , the length of working hours , have tended to reduce work pressure. There are substantial and relatively stable differences in work pressure between countries, but to a considerable extent, these reflect compositional differences with respect to the main determinants of work pressure. [source] The resurgence of populism in Latin AmericaBULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH, Issue 2 2000Paul Cammack Abstract Contemporary manifestations of "neopopulism" are situated in an analysis of the role of political institutions in capitalist societies, and the idea of structural and institutional crisis. It is argued that "populist" and "neopopulist" discourse alike must be understood in terms of their relationship to specific conjunctural projects for the reorientation of capitalist reproduction. This approach directs attention back to the contrasting conjunctures in which classical populist and contemporary neopopulist political projects were launched. It also provides a basis on which contemporary projects which adopt elements of populist strategy and discourse can be compared and evaluated. [source] Rituals of Death as a Context for Understanding Personal Property in Socialist MongoliaTHE JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE, Issue 1 2002Caroline Humphrey This article proposes that we rethink the concept of ,personal property', and it uses the example of Mongolian rituals of death in the socialist 1980s as a context for exploring this idea. These rituals are not the occasion for dividing up property amongst inheritors (this has usually been agreed upon long before death) but involve a series of actions that specify the deceased's relations with material things. Objects become personal property through prolonged use and physical interaction. The rites are concerned with the deceased's relations with such things, focused on desire, relinquishment, dependence, and other emotions. The article thus shifts attention back to the ,person-thing' aspect of property. It also discusses the socio-political contexts in which such a relation becomes important and argues that socialist society did not eliminate but rather opened up contexts in which such personalization could occur. It is argued more generally that personal property so situated is quite different from the ,private property' that is so prominent in capitalist society. This in turn requires us to rethink the way that ,possession' may be imagined, and to consider forms of property that are conceptualized more in terms of human attachment to objects than as exclusionary relations vis-ŕ-vis other owners. The Mongolian ethnography suggests that, just as people alter material things by long and intensive interaction with them, there are categories of personal property that also change their owners, since actions of using, giving up, donation, and so forth are ethical matters that transform the person. [source] | ||||||||||