Foucault’s analysis of the relation of power and the economy in the lectures given at the Collège de France between 1975 and 1979 opens up modern societies for a radically different interrogation of the relations of force inscribed in historically heterogeneous forms of wealth creation and distribution, but more specifically within the period of liberal capitalism. Its vast scope clears the ground for genealogies of power, political economy and race that demonstrate their intertwinement, yet he underplays several (...) elements which have been central for the institution of the political economy of liberal capitalism, particularly regarding colonial expansion and subjugation, the prior existence of trade and other networks operating on a world scale, and politico-economic and technical developments, such as banking and finance, that acted as conditions of possibility. By redressing the balance, this article outlines a different genealogy of the emergence of biopolitics and the mechanisms supporting global capitalism, making visible the constitutive role of colonialism. It suggests elements for a more fundamental critique of inequality, one that relays the Foucaldian themes of economy, territory, security, population and race according to a longer periodization that reveals most economies to have been zero-sum games of ‘winners’ and ‘losers’. Transcending this situation requires a radically different, transcolonial and transindividual understanding of the essentially collaborative and co-implicate character of the production of all life. The implications mean the rejection of ontologies that support not only neoliberalism but other forms of dispossession and pauperization, often allied to the hierarchization of difference, opening the way for a different history of the present and for imagining new economies and socialities. (shrink)

Drawing on current debates at the frontiers of economics, psychology, and political philosophy, this book explores the challenges that arise for liberal democracies from a confrontation between modern technologies and the bounds of human rationality. With the ongoing transition of democracy's underlying information economy into the digital space, threats of disinformation and runaway political polarization have been gaining prominence. Employing the economic approach informed by behavioral sciences' findings, the book's chief concern is how these challenges can be (...) addressed while preserving a commitment to democratic values and maximizing the epistemic benefits of democratic decision-making. The book has two key strands: it provides a systematic argument for building a behaviorally informed theory of democracy; and explores how scientific knowledge on quirks and bounds of human rationality can inform the design of resilient democratic institutions. Drawing these together, the book explores the centrality of the rationality assumption in the methodological debates surrounding behavioral sciences as exemplified by the dispute between neoclassical and behavioral economics; the role of rationality in democratic social choice; behaviorally informed paternalism as a response to the challenge of irrationality; and non-paternalistic avenues to increase the resilience of the democratic institutions towards political irrationality This book is invaluable reading for anyone interested in behavioral economics and sciences, political philosophy and the future of democracy. (shrink)

Anita Chari revives the concept of reification from Marx and the Frankfurt School to spotlight the resistance to neoliberal capitalism now forming at the level of political economy and at the more sensate, experiential level of subjective transformation. Reading art by Oliver Ressler, Zanny Begg, Claire Fontaine, Jason Lazarus, and Mika Rottenberg, as well as the politics of Occupy Wall Street, Chari identifies practices through which artists and activists have challenged neoliberalism's social and political logics, exposing its (...) inherent tensions and contradictions. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Recent History and Politics The West: Politics, Economy and Technology Nationalism, Modernization and Westernization Conclusion.

The sexual division of labor and the social and economic value of women’s work in the home has been a problem that scholars have struggled with at least since the advent of the “second wave” women’s movement, but it has never entered into the primary discourses of political science. This paper argues that John Stuart Mill’s Political Economy provides innovative and useful arguments that address this thorny problem. Productive labor is essential to Mill’s conception of property, and (...) property was vital to women’s independence in Mill’s view. Yet since Mill thought most women would choose the “career” of wife and mother rather than working for wages, then granting that work productive status would provide a radical and inventive foundation for women’s equality. Mill, however, is ambiguous about the productive status of domestic labor, and is thereby representative of a crucial failure in political economic thought, as well as in egalitarian liberal thought on gender. But because Mill at the same time develops a conception of production that goes well beyond the narrow limits offered by other prominent political economists, he offers contemporary political scientists and theorists a way to rethink the relationship of reproductive to productive labor, the requirements for gender equality, and the accepted categories of political economy. (shrink)

In _The Political Economy of the Spectacle and Postmodern Caste_, John Asimakopoulos analyzes the political economy of the spectacle conceptualized by philosophers like Guy Debord through a broad interdisciplinary-nonsectarian approach concluding every society is a caste system legitimized by ideology.

Political Economy and the Novel: A Literary History of 'Homo Economicus' provides a transhistorical account of homo economicus (economic man), demonstrating this figure's significance to economic theory and the Anglo-American novel over a 250-year period. Beginning with Adam Smith's seminal texts - Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations - and Henry Fielding's A History of Tom Jones, this book combines the methodologies of new historicism and new economic criticism to investigate the evolution of the homo (...) economicus model as it traverses through Ricardian economics and Jane Austen's Sanditon; J. S. Mill and Charles Dickens' engagement with mid-Victorian dualities; Keynesianism and Mrs Dalloway's exploration of post-war consumer impulses; the a/moralistic discourses of Friedrich von Hayek, and Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged; and finally the virtual crises of the twenty-first century financial market and Don DeLillo's Cosmopolis. Through its sustained comparative analysis of literary and economic discourses, this book transforms our understanding of the genre of the novel and offers critical new understandings of literary value, cultural capital and the moral foundations of political economy. (shrink)

In an effort to improve comparability between socially responsible investment products and standardize investment terminology, Australian legislators recently required investment managers to report to retail investors the extent to which 'social considerations' are used in portfolio construction. Using a lens of political economy, this paper assesses whether the objectives of the legislation to standardize investment terminology, promote inter-product comparability and encourage the accountability of product claims have been met. The context of legislative development is examined in Australian Parliamentary (...) debates. Practised accountabilities are identified by examining a representative sample of the initial set of regulated disclosures issued. The quality of regulated information disclosures is assessed by the degree of correlation with legislators' objectives and the regulatory requirements. Initial disclosures were poor, providing little basis for comparability. In some instances, the quality of information had declined relative to the information supplied on a voluntary basis before the legislation took effect. The evidence supports a criticism of a regulatory laissez faire approach to self-reporting and an argument for more directed regulation of management processes. (shrink)

This book engages with a radical critique of the modern state and the contemporary economic order: Alasdair MacIntyre's 'revolutionary Aristotelianism' project. Central to this critique is the idea that the moral norms that markets and states tend to reproduce or reinforce are an obstacle to the development of practical judgment The book outlines MacIntyre's theory of practical reason and discusses some of the institutional arrangements that can be derived from it. It also explores the growing body of literature which has (...) started to examine the extent to which alternative forms of social organisation might be more compatible with MacIntyre's account of the virtues. This literature includes various proposals for alternative political and economic arrangements, ranging from certain forms of market socialism to the promotion of different forms of mutual and cooperative enterprises. Finally, the book offers an account of the type of institutional analysis required for the advancement of the revolutionary Aristotelianism project. This is achieved by showing how some key features of the Bloomington school of political economy are not only compatible with MacIntyre's political philosophy, but also that a synthesis between neo-Aristotelian moral philosophy and the work of the Bloomington school offers a robust alternative for revolutionary Aristotelians. Thus, the book defends the idea that MacIntyre's account of human flourishing is more likely to be realised, although imperfectly, in a polycentric social order. This book will be of interest to social scientists working in questions of political economy as well as political and moral philosophers. (shrink)

Recent decades have witnessed both a renewed energy in feminist activism and widespread attacks taking back hard-won rights. Despite powerful feminist movements, the Covid-19 pandemic has significantly undermined the progress women have struggled for decades to achieve; how can this be? What explains this paradox of a strong feminist movement coexisting with stubborn patriarchal arrangements? How can we stop the next global catastrophe initiating a similar backlash? This book suggests that the shortcomings of social theory prevent feminist strategies from initiating (...) transformative changes and achieving permanent gains. It investigates the impact of theoretical shortcomings upon feminist strategies by engaging with two clusters of work: ungendered accounts of capitalist development and theories on gendered oppression and inequality. Decentring feminist theorising grounded in histories and developments of the global North, the book provides an original theory of the patriarchal system by analysing changes within its forms and degrees as well as investigating the relationship between the gender, class and race-ethnicity based inequalities. Turkey offers a case that challenges assumptions and calls for rethinking major feminist categories and theories thereby shedding light on the dynamics of social change in the global South. The timely intervention of this book is, therefore, crucial for feminist strategies going forward. The book emerges at the intersections between Gender, International Development, Political Economy, and Sociology and its main readership will be found in, but not limited to these disciplinary fields. The material covered in this book will be of great interest to students and researchers in these areas as well as policy makers and feminist activists. (shrink)

This paper discusses variegated scholarly approaches to what is here typified as a political economy of meat. Identified as a multifaceted, transdisciplinary and most dynamic field of research, inquiries into the political economy of meat imbricate key issues of social and economic development, across the human–animal divide. While some scholars interpret livestock production as “a pathway from poverty”, others observe deepened marginalization and exploitation. The argument raised in this paper is that concise engagement with multiple critical (...) perspectives may facilitate further explorations into the social dynamics that characterize the political economy of meat. (shrink)

Economics has become a monolithic science, variously described as formalistic and autistic with neoclassical orthodoxy reigning supreme. So argue Dimitris Milonakis and Ben Fine in this new major work of critical recollection. The authors show how economics was once rich, diverse, multidimensional and pluralistic, and unravel the processes that lead to orthodoxy’s current predicament. The book details how political economy became economics through the desocialisation and the dehistoricisation of the dismal science, accompanied by the separation of economics from (...) the other social sciences, especially economic history and sociology. It is argued that recent attempts from within economics to address the social and the historical have failed to acknowledge long standing debates amongst economists, historians and other social scientists. This has resulted in an impoverished historical and social content within mainstream economics. The book ranges over the shifting role of the historical and the social in economic theory, the shifting boundaries between the economic and the non-economic, all within a methodological context. Schools of thought and individuals, that have been neglected or marginalised, are treated in full, including classical political economy and Marx, the German and British historical schools, American institutionalism, Weber and Schumpeter and their programme of Socialökonomik, and the Austrian school. At the same time, developments within the mainstream tradition from marginalism through Marshall and Keynes to general equilibrium theory are also scrutinised, and the clashes between the various camps from the famous Methodenstreit to the fierce debates of the 1930s and beyond brought to the fore. The prime rationale underpinning this account drawn from the past is to put the case for political economy back on the agenda. This is done by treating economics as a social science once again, rather than as a positive science, as has been the inclination since the time of Jevons and Walras. It involves transcending the boundaries of the social sciences, but in a particular way that is in exactly the opposite direction now being taken by "economics imperialism". Drawing on the rich traditions of the past, the reintroduction and full incorporation of the social and the historical into the main corpus of political economy will be possible in the future. (shrink)

This work approaches the phenomenon of guild socialism from a new perspective, focusing on the Douglas Social Credit movement. It explores the key ideas, gives an overview of the main theories and traces their subsequent history. Thoroughly researched, it provides original material relevant to the field of political economy. This early approach to non-equilibrium economics reveals the extent of the incompatibility between capitalist growth economics and social and environmental sustainability.

This article seeks to investigate the integration between political economy and religion offered in the forum Religion of Twenty (R20). The idea of R20 forum by Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) is one of the ideas to unite perceptions between countries and religions. It is based on the phenomenon of the global economy which has begun to be disrupted by conflicts and wars in several countries. Various wars by the superpowers have had implications for disrupting economic stability. Thus, the (...) role of religion in terms of world peace also contributes to the success of global economic stability. In further analysis, this article refers to Ibn Khaldun, Al-Ghazali, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and John Stuart Mill’s political economy to answer how is the relationship between religion and world peace in economic development? And what role does the R20 forum play in integrating political economy and religion for global economic development? The findings in this article indicate that the sources of political economy in R20 are a means of integrating its patterns in line with the values and essence of religious teachings. (shrink)

This article provides an account of rent-seeking in relation both to economic policies and political practices in South Africa. The article draws attention to continuities and similarities in this regard between the two distinct periods of nationalist rule from 1948 to 1994 and from 1994 to 2012. The economic dimensions that are specifically addressed are industrial policy, the labour market, state administration and tenders and service delivery and welfare. The more specifically political dimensions addressed include the electoral system, (...) the relationship between constitutionalism and the judiciary, and the rule of law. The article highlights the dangers posed by excessive rent-seeking and especially its negative implications for redistribution, economic growth and the consolidation of democracy in a highly unequal society. (shrink)

For many years International Political Economy (hereafter IPE) was something of a misfit in the study of international politics in particular and political science – indeed, in the social sciences in general. It was never at ease with the economist, for whom it was not ‘real economics’; it was far too ‘economistic’ for scholars of international relations; too ‘international’ for scholars of political science; and largely unnoticed by normative political philosophy. As a consequence, it tended (...) to sit at the periphery of most social science ‘disciplines’. For a range of reasons to be discussed in this com‐panion essay to political science, this situation has changed dramatically over the last two decades. IPE is now deemed more salient to the study of politics and international relations and even some branches of economics. Pertinently, the interactions between IPE and philosophy are becoming similarly important of late. (shrink)

Science and technology policy is both faced by unprecedented challenges and itself undergoing seismic shifts. First, policy is increasingly demanding of science that it fixes a set of epochal and global crises. On the other hand, practices of scientific research are changing rapidly regarding geographical dispersion, the institutions and identities of those involved and its forms of knowledge production and circulation. Furthermore, these changes are accelerated by the current upheavals in public funding of research, higher education and technology development in (...) the wake of the economic crisis. The paper outlines an agenda for science & technology policy studies in terms of a research programme of a ‘cultural political economy of research and innovation’ (CPERI). First, the implications of the overlapping crises for science policy analysis are discussed. Secondly, three rough constellations of contemporary approaches to science policy are critically compared, namely: a techno-statist Keynesian governance; a neoliberal marketplace of ideas; and co-productionist enabling of democratic debate. CPERI is then introduced, showing how it builds on the strengths of co-production while also specifically targeting two major weaknesses that are of heightened importance in an age of multiple crises, namely neglect of political economy and the concept of power. (shrink)

While there had been much radical thought before John Stuart Mill, Joseph Persky argues it was Mill, as he moved to the left, who provided the radical wing of liberalism with its first serious analytical foundation, a political economy of progress that still echoes today. A rereading of Mill's mature work suggests his theoretical understanding of accumulation led him to see laissez-faire capitalism as a transitional system. Deeply committed to the egalitarian precepts of the Enlightenment, Mill advocated gradualism (...) and rejected revolutionary expropriation on utilitarian grounds: gradualism, not expropriation, promised meaningful long-term gains for the working classes. He endorsed laissez-faire capitalism because his theory of accumulation saw that system approaching a stationary state characterized by a great reduction in inequality and an expansion of cooperative production. These tendencies, in combination with an aggressive reform agenda made possible by the extension of the franchise, promised to provide a material base for social progress and individual development.The Political Economy of Progress goes on to claim that Mill's radical political economy anticipated more than a little of Marx's analysis of capitalism and laid a foundation for the work of Fabians and other gradualist radicals in the 20th century. More recently, modern philosophic radicals, such as Rawls, have deep links to this Millean political economy. These links are still worthy of development. In particular, a politically meaningful acceptance of Rawls's radical liberalism waits on a movement capable of re-engineering the workplace in a manner consistent with Mill's endorsement of worker management. (shrink)

This article analyses the political economy of the image today, a historical conjuncture in which art contributes its meanings (even its critiques and negations) to a process of socialization through consumption. This analysis is pursued in light of the reception of an idea of the image drawn from a world before capitalism – or certainly on the edge of capitalism and modernity – as found in Novalis’s unfinished and posthumous novel Henry von Ofterdingen of 1802.

The causes and consequences of revolutionary change have long been the subject of scholarly debate. Through a systematic integration of political economic elements into an analysis of contemporary social transformations, this article joins this conversation by asking how Karl Polanyi’s double movement framework can clarify, and be extended by, the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. By embedding a nuanced account of neoliberalism in Egypt’s modern politics and by bringing those in dialogue with Polanyi’s theoretical apparatus, this article contends that there (...) is a broad alignment between the first movement and the Egyptian neoliberal experience, a partial alignment between the second movement and the Egyptian Revolution, and a multilayered entanglement that implicates and encircles both movements. Not only does this research demonstrate that contemporary Egyptian history can find new currency in and be further illuminated by Polanyi’s political economy, it also critiques, complicates, reconceptualizes and extends Polanyi’s theoretical framework. In so doing, it redresses the underfocus of Polanyian political economy on the theory of revolution in general and the Egyptian Revolution in particular, problematizes extant accounts on neoliberalism and the double movement, and extends analyses between neoliberalism and revolution in political economy literatures. By clarifying our understanding of contemporary social change, this essay underscores how Polanyi’s work remains a pertinent, viable and valuable prism to examine momentous social transformations. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: American Liberalism The Constitutional System Federal Patronage Looking Forward.

The Political Economy of European Social Democracy Content Type Journal Article Category Review Pages 529-531 DOI 10.1558/jcr.v11i4.529 Authors Peter Nielsen, Roskilde University, Universitetsvej 1, P.O. Box 260, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark Journal Journal of Critical Realism Online ISSN 1572-5138 Print ISSN 1476-7430 Journal Volume Volume 11 Journal Issue Volume 11, Number 4 / 2012.

This article addressed historical aspects of the political economy involving sustained forest ecology in Sierra Leone as a whole, with emphasis on the Freetown Peninsula and its surrounding communities. Attention is paid to cultural, social and economic aspects involving forest livelihoods of residents on the Freetown Peninsula and far afield. The term 'Political Economy' is used in this situation to denote the relationship between the economics of people's livelihoods and public policy (in relation to the management (...) of legislative procedures) in ensuring that resources in the forest environment is sustainably managed to cater for the livelihood needs of people in Sierra Leone, while at the same time maintaining a balance in protecting the forest ecosystems. The paper has provided a critical review of the political economy of forest ecology in the country on the basis of scholarly discourses, and its applicability in adapting to the fragile political administrative management Sierra Leone have (and is continuing to) experienced. (shrink)

Lighthouse and the Trinity House case have triggered extensive debate on the possibility of private production of public goods and, more especially, lighthouse services provision. This contribution sums up current academic debate about lighthouse provision. It shows that the English system of lighthouse services provision cannot be rigorously considered as an example of private provision. Some historical experiences have shown that private provision was possible, although governmental hindrances restrained a full-fledged market process provision. This contribution defends the interest of mobilizing (...) a political economy perspective for an understanding of the different frameworks and institutional designs for providing such services. Some national cases illustrate and sustain the proposed political economy framework. (shrink)

International agencies have contributed significantly to the promotion of capital-intensive fisheries development programs in many Third World nations. Activities of both bilateral and multilateral development assistance agencies are examined and shown to have certain common features, notably production-oriented programs typified by the introduction of powerful new fishing technologies, and the promotion of fishery exports as a means of increasing foreign exchange earnings. The argument is advanced that these programs have been largely detrimental to the best interests of recipient nations because (...) they have ignored both resource limitations and the distributional consequences of such development.Fisheries development programs in the Third World are seen as being shaped by a convergence of institutional and class interests between national and international agencies. The perspective of political economy is used to examine these interests and explain their relation to policy outcomes. Evidence is presented to show that international agencies have contributed to dualistic patterns of industry growth which have skewed development benefits towards a narrow urban elite. Rural small-scale fishers have been increasingly marginalized as a result of their inability to compete over a limited and, in some cases, depleted resource.Fisheries development and resource management need to be seen as complementary aspects of a single process rather than as separate activities. Central to fisheries management is the question of resource allocation between competing users. Suggestions are offered by which international development agencies can play an important role in encouraging resource use patterns which are both biologically sustainable and socially just. (shrink)

This paper develops an analytical approach to comparative political economy that focuses on the relative importance of different components of aggregate demand—in the first instance, exports and household consumption—and dynamic relations among the “demand drivers” of growth. We illustrate this approach by comparing patterns of economic growth in Germany, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom over the period 1994–2007. Our discussion emphasizes that export-led growth and consumption-led growth have different implications for distributive conflict.

This short essay presents the case for a renewed research agenda in STS focused on the political economy of technoscience. This research agenda is based on the claim that STS needs to take account of contemporary economic and financial processes and how they shape and are shaped by technoscience. This necessitates understanding how these processes might impact on science, technology and innovation, rather than turning an STS gaze on the economy.

Safronov’s Nietzsche’s Political Economy is a pioneering appraisal of Nietzsche’s critique of industrial culture and its unfolding crisis. The author contends that Nietzsche remains unique in conceptualizing the upheavals of modern political economy in terms of the crisis of its governing values. Nietzsche scrutinises the norms which, not only preside over the unfathomable build-up in debt, the proliferation of meaningless, impersonal slavery and the rise of increasingly repressive social control systems, but inevitably set these precarious tendencies (...) of modern political economy on a collision course liable to culminate in an unprecedented human and environmental catastrophe. Safronov explores the core themes of Nietzsche’s political economy—debt, slavery, and the division of labour—with reference to the influential views of Adam Smith and Karl Marx, as well as against the backdrop of the Long Depression (1873–1896), the first truly international crisis of industrial capitalism, during which most of Nietzsche’s work was completed. -/- In Nietzsche’s assessment, modern political economy is predicated on the valuations that diminish humankind’s prospects and harm the planet’s future by consistently enfeebling the present, as long as there is profit to be made from it. Nietzsche’s critical insight, which challenges the most fundamental tenet of modern economics and finance, is that in order to build a stronger and intrinsically more valuable future in lieu of simply speculating on it, as though the liberal Promised Land could descend upon us like the manna from heaven at the wave of an invisible hand [of the market], it is necessary to walk from the future we dare to envisage resolutely back to the present we inhabit to determine what demands achieving such a vision would impose upon us, instead of embellishing the ‘here and now’ by cynically discounting the future to the [net] value of the present while disparaging, disowning and rewriting the past to unburden ourselves of its troubling legacy, as we continue to frivolously squander its capital to the alluring tunes of the ‘sirens who in the marketplace sing to us of the future’. The enabling mechanism for changing our valuing perspectives, Nietzsche tells us, lies dormant in us and it must be unlocked before it is too late. (shrink)

The key political writings of one of the leading philosophers of the 20th century.

This paper takes what has been termed the “epidemic of obesity” as the point of departure to examine the way in which political economic factors intersect with diet and nutrition to determine adverse health outcomes. The paper proposes several concepts to better understand the dynamics of the “foodscape” – institutional sites for the merchandising and consumption of food. These include the concepts of “spatial colonization” and “pseudo foods.” With a focus on critical dimensions of the contemporary “foodscape,” principally supermarket (...) merchandising practices, as well as trends in other food vending operations, the paper explores incentives that motivate capital to “spatially colonize” the foodscape with aggressively promoted high fat/high sugar “pseudo foods.” The paper reports on extensive research on trade industry publications as well as data collected through onsite investigations of supermarket practices of the three largest Canadian retail supermarket operations. In addition, current merchandising practices of convenience chain store operations and some non-traditional food vending sites are examined. In concluding, it is argued that the rapidly evolving interdisciplinary debate around the obesity crisis would benefit considerably from the insights to be gained from political economic analysis of retail food industry practices and trends. (shrink)

La tradition éthique en économie politique a été régénérée par l’Ecole de Salamanque, mais nous ne sommes pas habitués à associer le libéralisme aux scholastiques qui avaient élaboré une théorie du juste prix de validité universelle. Le marché a perdu sa dimension morale avec le rationalisme et, non dans une moindre mesure, à travers le biais religieux de la théorie de la valeur travail. Quand elle fut redécouverte en tant qu’origine véritable de la valeur, l’utilité ne recouvrit pas sa portée (...) morale, en raison du traitement mathématique qu’on lui réserva. Le rationalisme a supprimé toute conception d’évolution sociale en même temps qu’il a favorisé l’intervention. Cependant, dans cette ère de corruption, un retour à l’acception de sens commun des prix requiert, selon l’auteur, le franchissement d’une étape supplémentaire, celui de maintenir l’ancrage éthique du juste prix ou du prix du marché.The ethical tradition in political economy was regenerated by the School of Salamanca, but we are not used to associating liberalism with these Scholastics who built a theory of the just price with universal validity. The market lost its moral dimension with rationalism, not least through the religious bias of the labor theory of value. When rediscovered as the correct source of value, utility did not regain its former moral significance because of mathematical treatment. Rationalism has suppressed any concept of social evolution while promoting intervention, but, in the age of corruption, a return to the common sense of prices, the author argues, requires the further step of upholding the ethical standards of the just price or market price. (shrink)

In this response to the symposium on our two books we try to deal as fully as possible in the brief space available with most of the major issues raised by our distinguished commentators. Although at least three of them are in agreement with the main thrust of the arguments put forward in our books, they all raise important issues relating to methodology, the history of economic thought, and a number of more specific issues. Our answer is based on the (...) restatement of the chief purpose of our two books, describing the intellectual history of the evolution of economic science emphasising the role of the excision of the social and the historical from economic theorising in the transition from political economy to economics, only for the two to be reunited through the vulgar form of economics imperialism following the monolithic dominance of neoclassical economics at the expense of pluralism after the Second World War. The importance of political economy for the future of economic science is vigorously argued for. (shrink)

This book looks at why labour market institutions such as those evident in continental Europe - more specifically, employment protection, unemployment benefits, and relative wage rigidities - exist, what role they play in society, why they seem so persistent, where the pressure to reform them comes from, and whether reform can be politically viable or not. It studies the economic conditions under which we expect a given set of institutions to arise and remain stable, and provides theoretical guidelines about the (...) gainers and losers from given institutions. (shrink)

It is erudite, broad-ranging, respectful of the actors involved, sympathetic, and nuanced. This is the first book of its kind."--Ronen Palan, University of Birmingham "I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.

This volume unites, for the first time, Books IV and V of Mill's great treatise on political economy with his fragmentary chapters on socialism. His answers to policy questions are still highly relevant today, and Riley's introduction clarifies his distinctive liberal utilitarian philosophy.

Neoclassical economic theory has often failed to reflect adequately the particular features of labour. The assumption that there are no political relationships between capital and labour has led to the development of incomplete—and sometimes false—economic models. An institutional approach, one which takes intoaccount the historical social dynamics underlying the relationship between capital and labour, shows more clearly how the asymmetry of power in the labour contract affects freedom in a wider—and political—sense. Through consideration of the different forms of (...) household government in Locke and Aristotle we can reach a better understanding of how the ancient contract of servitude, which Roman law defined as locatio conductio operarum, became today’s ‘labour contract’. This paper aims to show that the supposed contractual freedom is structurally limited by social asymmetries, in other words, by the fact that one of the parties to the contract is not completely autonomous as he/she is not a property owner. Good economic theory should seek to incorporate not only the economic dimension of social asymmetries but also their unyielding political dimension. (shrink)

Online technologies enable vast amounts of data to outlive their producers online, thereby giving rise to a new, digital form of afterlife presence. Although researchers have begun investigating the nature of such presence, academic literature has until now failed to acknowledge the role of commercial interests in shaping it. The goal of this paper is to analyse what those interests are and what ethical consequences they may have. This goal is pursued in three steps. First, we introduce the concept of (...) the Digital Afterlife Industry, and define it as an object of study. Second, we identify the politico-economic interests of the DAI. For this purpose, we develop an analytical approach based on an informational interpretation of Marxian economics. Third, we explain the practical manifestations of the interests using four real life cases. The findings expose the incentives of the DAI to alter what is referred to as the “informational bodies” of the dead, which in turn is to be seen as a violation of the principle of human dignity. To prevent such consequences, we argue that the ethical conventions that guide trade with remains of organic bodies may serve as a good model for future regulation of DAI. (shrink)

This paper argues that Milonakis and Fine, in their bookFrom Political Economy to Economics, offer an account of history that systematically omits discussion of how economics has been shaped by the political and social context in which it developed. This contrasts with work by intellectual historians who have argued that such factors were crucial to understanding the history of economic ideas. It is ironic given that Milonakis and Fine are criticising economists for excluding the political and (...) the social from economics. (shrink)

Many worry that global warming may produce dire consequences not just for humankind, but for many other living organisms on the planetEarth. This has raised concerns about the desirability of the political and economic policies that brought us to this point in history, a period of markedly higher levels of consumptionConsumption that produce higher levels of CO2. That, in turn, has raised new concerns about the ideologies and theoretical paradigms upon which such political and economic policies are based. (...) Many now call for a rejection of free marketFree Market economies to make room for more centrally planned economic systems. Even the idea of Homo EconomicusHomo Economicus – the primary actor in the modern free marketFree Market economy – is under fire in favor of a new conceptualization of the primary actor: Homo CuratorHomo Curator. This essay explains why these changes are both unnecessary and dangerous. I argue they are unnecessary by showing: (1) Homo Economicus and excessive consumptionConsumption are not the root of the problem, and (2) how the theory of market failure already gives us proven means to address problems like global warming. I argue that abandoning Homo Economicus and the free marketFree Market economy is dangerous because it will inevitably lead to a world that is far less likely to support individual and collective human flourishing; one that poorer, less free, and less respectful of the sanctity of the individual. (shrink)

Economies - and the government institutions that support them - reflect a moral and political choice, a choice we can make and remake. Since the dawn of industrialization and democratization in the late eighteenth century, there has been a succession of political economic frameworks, reflecting changes in technology, knowledge, trade, global connections, political power, and the expansion of citizenship. The challenges of today reveal the need for a new moral political economy that recognizes the politics (...) in political economy. It also requires the redesign of our social, economic, and governing institutions based on assumptions about humans as social beings rather than narrow self-serving individualists. This Element makes some progress toward building a new moral political economy by offering both a theory of change and some principles for institutional design. (shrink)

Is social psychiatry at a tipping point, acknowledging that many normal types of behavior are being over-medicalized? What notions of enchantment can we glean from Max Weber's social thought as they relate to our modern, rational, bureaucratic world? Giedraitis explores these issues using the German economist and sociologist Max Weber's theories of rationalization and disenchantment, and connects them to the dangers of bureaucratizing mental health. Giedraitis conducts an innovative study using psychotherapists as respondents to measure varying degrees of "rational" thought (...) in their clients, thereby indirectly measuring Weberian rational thought as related to certain types of depression. This book is recommended to those who would like an introduction to Weberian notions of rationality and disenchantment, or general Weberian socio-economic theory. This book is also suggested to those seeking to understand a possible connection between Weberian rationalization, disenchantment, bureaucratization and mental health. (shrink)

The hypothesis of this article is that industrial capitalism, as conceptualized by a series of authors from Smith and Marx to Weber and Sombart, and then to Galbraith and Chandler, is outdated. We are entering a new era of information or ‘post-industrial capitalism’. The term used in the article is post-industrial capitalism. This is mainly because the notion of information capitalism does not define explicitly what is really new regarding the history of capitalism. Information capitalism can be either post-Fordist, or (...) post-industrial, or even a transition period towards a post-capitalist society. The argument of the article is developed in two parts. The first offers a systematic comparison between the basic features of industrial and post-industrial capitalism. The second explores three main contradictions of post-industrial capitalism. The general idea behind this exploration is that the future of post-industrial capitalism remains open. It depends on how the contradictions of this new form of capitalism will be resolved. This, in turn, implies a critical position towards approaches that either extrapolate the economic patterns of the last two decades into the 21st century, or, by adopting sophisticated versions of technological determinism, propose a monistic scenario for the future. (shrink)

Understanding how recorded and amplified stage musics contribute towards producing the Anthropocene necessitates attending to complex transnational flows of material, capital and labor, and how they coalesce into technological objects. This is complicated by the wide array of sites, practices and knowledges involved during various stages of the production process, from initial resource extraction, to smelting, component manufacturing, technology assembly, and distribution. To develop a suitable technological ethics, and to understand what happens to environments and to human, animal and plant (...) lifeworlds, requires one to resist abstraction and undertake a global accounting of resource ecologies with recourse to planetary-scale political economy. Towards this goal, I provide a partial account of an early 2000s mic preamp, a mundane but nonetheless fetishised recording studio technological object. I focus on two metals, tin and tantalum, that are primarily extracted for electronics manufacturing, and two building blocks of electronics, solder and capacitors, which are essential for making contemporary electronics. (shrink)