Advanced Capitalist Societies Research Articles

Reflections on ideology

The main purpose of this article is to demonstrate the enduring relevance of the concept of ideology to contemporary sociological analysis. To this end, the article draws upon central arguments put forward by Pierre Bourdieu and Luc Boltanski in ‘La production de l’idéologie dominante’ [‘The Production of the Dominant Ideology’]. Yet, the important theoretical contributions made in this enquiry have been largely ignored by contemporary sociologists, even by those who specialize in the critical study of ideology. This article intends to fill this gap in the literature by illustrating that useful lessons can be learned from Bourdieu and Boltanski’s critical investigation, as it provides crucial insights into the principal characteristics and functions of ideologies, including the ways in which they develop and operate in advanced capitalist societies. The article is divided into two main parts: the first part examines various universal features of ideology; the second part aims to shed light on several particular features of dominant ideology. The paper concludes by arguing that the ‘end of ideology’ thesis, despite the fact that it raises valuable sociological questions, is ultimately untenable.

Edmund Husserl’s Transcendence of the Early Buddhist Theory of Consciousness

Edmund Husserl, the founding father of western philosophical movement known as phenomenology, formulated a theory of consciousness writing Logical Investigations (1900). The Gautama the Buddha, as far back as the 6 th century B.C., had provided an analysis of the conscious phenomena. Many scholars who trace parallels between the Buddhist view of consciousness and Husserl’s phenomenology of the structures of consciousness deal mostly with the similarities between the two, and such a comparison could also be regarded as a worthwhile contribution to the field of comparative philosophy.This paper argues that Husserl's analysis of consciousness, despite its limitations, as elaborated by Derrida, (and also by Heidegger), is more advanced than the Buddha's formulation. Husserl articulated his phenomenology of consciousness as a result of his encounter with Cartesian cogito, (or the Cartesian psychology) on the one hand and the positivistic foundation of empirical sciences on the other. Husserl’s notion of phenomenological consciousness was situated within an industrially advanced capitalist society and nurtured by scientific epistemology, despite his criticism of its underlying positivism, which set the basis for his philosophy of internal consciousness. He lived in a controversial era, the rise of National Socialism in Germany, which has to be taken seriously when assessing his philosophy of consciousness. The Buddha, in contrast, theorized his notion of consciousness within a backward, slow-moving, agricultural and feudal setting .He developed his notion of consciousness as a normative concept as a basis for achieving the spiritual objective he envisaged. While acknowledging the fact that no other philosophy that existed during the Buddha’s time had articulated such a meticulous and in depth analysis of the phenomenology of consciousness, his analysis seems to be less advanced when assessed and compared with the twentieth century phenomenology of Husserl. The present study will be carried out having used original and secondary sources of Husselian and Buddhist phenomenologies. This study will contribute significantly to future research on similar topics.

Snyder v. Phelps : The U.S. Supreme Court’s Spectacular Erasure of the Tragic Spectacle

On March 2, 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court determined in Snyder v. Phelps that protests by members of Westboro Baptist Church, a small group of religious fundamentalists committed to communicating their beliefs publicly in spectacular fashion, were protected under the First Amendment based on a dual standard of “public concern”; that is, their speech dealt with sociopolitical issues and their speech attracted media attention. This rhetorical conflation of sociopolitical issues with subjects of media interest provides legal encouragement for the creation of media spectacles on the part of hate groups and other ideologues and discourages the development of the very public reason taken for granted by the Court. To defend this claim, we first provide a brief history of the Westboro Baptist Church and its strategic manipulation of the mass media and free speech law, situated within competing traditions of public sphere theory. After next providing a history of the judicial evolution of Snyder v. Phelps , we engage in a close reading of the majority and dissenting Supreme Court opinions to reveal the rhetorical conflation of “public issues” and “public concern,” and we conclude with reflections on the relationships among that conflation, the role of different forms of spectacle in advanced capitalist societies, and the possibilities for more informed democratic citizenship.

Snyder v. Phelps: The U.S. Supreme Court's Spectacular Erasure of the Tragic Spectacle

Abstract On March 2, 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court determined in Snyder v. Phelps that protests by members of Westboro Baptist Church, a small group of religious fundamentalists committed to communicating their beliefs publicly in spectacular fashion, were protected under the First Amendment based on a dual standard of “public concern”; that is, their speech dealt with sociopolitical issues and their speech attracted media attention. This rhetorical conflation of sociopolitical issues with subjects of media interest provides legal encouragement for the creation of media spectacles on the part of hate groups and other ideologues and discourages the development of the very public reason taken for granted by the Court. To defend this claim, we first provide a brief history of the Westboro Baptist Church and its strategic manipulation of the mass media and free speech law, situated within competing traditions of public sphere theory. After next providing a history of the judicial evolution of Snyder v. Phelps, we engage in a close reading of the majority and dissenting Supreme Court opinions to reveal the rhetorical conflation of “public issues” and “public concern,” and we conclude with reflections on the relationships among that conflation, the role of different forms of spectacle in advanced capitalist societies, and the possibilities for more informed democratic citizenship.

Evaluating the Concept of “Style” Among Western Scholars

However the meaning of life style is applied in religion with expressions like the life costumes, the manner of life and thrift and from the advent of Islam, it has been suggested by different patterns in Quran and Prophet Mohammad’s and his household’s sayings, but because in modern age, the life style is originated from the Western culture, it is worthy to investigate the root of this expression. Dictionaries define “style” as “method” and “mode”. Robert (1999) applied the term “style” as “buyers’ choice, according to the mode”. In Art, “style” refers to the method which the artist employs to expresses his ideas. Also, “Style” is a unified whole and an image which is composed of intuitive substances in the artist’s thought (1). “Lifestyle” means “different methods of life”; for example, the difference between urban life and rural life. This term can also compare the detected “life methods” among different social communities, such as young, unemployed, and deviated (1). The term “lifestyle” has also been conceptualized as “way of life”. “Way of life” is usually identified by two factors of “value” and “consumption method” which are the increasing differentiation achievements of advanced capitalist societies (2). “Lifestyle” is a relatively stable and organized method of daily life which is available in the framework of living condition and resources. In sociology, “lifestyle” refers to the artistic creation of special method, according to the available facilities, socio-economic situation, and also personal and social constraints; and the personal ability to find and choose a suitable lifestyle is the best and the most advised way to fulfill the expectations and goals. To choose the right lifestyle, both personal wisdom and ability play roles. Since any active agent employs specific methods and facilities to meet his requirements and express himself, the individuals’ behavior, preferences and life orientations are also unique. Therefore, lifestyle of each person is related to his character. In the terms of roles which man is responsible for in the social network, he obtains different positions. It means each person, according to his role in social production, benefits from social wealth, such as income, experiences, skills, and knowledge. Benefiting from social wealth enables the individual to follow the specific lifestyle. The origin of the word “style” is Latin and refers to the wooden pen which was applied to write on paraffin (3). In fact, it is a writing instrument like brush or pen. Thereafter, this word was applied in other virtual concepts that were all related to writing. The early meanings of the word “style” were just related to handwriting, and then were applied to the literature method. In the Roman era, in the time of Marcus Tullius Cisero, the lecturer, this word pointed to the characteristics of the lecturers, and not the poets. In the eloquent literature of ancient Greece,

Social cohesion and economic development: some reflections on the Italian case

The processes of globalisation, market deregulation and the retreat of the welfare state in advanced capitalist societies have revitalised the debate about how to reconcile economic development and social cohesion. This debate has been widespread in Italy, where great differences occur between local contexts as regards economic performance, the level of inequality and, more generally, the cohesion of the social fabric. Within this framework, this paper explores the level of both economic development and social cohesion in Italian provinces, through the analysis of secondary data. With particular reference to the Italian situation, the article therefore contributes to the debate on the focalisation and operationalisation of the two concepts. Finally, the complex relation between economic development and social cohesion is analysed, and its non-linear trend is outlined.

“In bits and pieces”: bodies in movement, liminality and subaltern resistance in Manjula Padmanabhan’s Harvest

Using Manjula Padmanabhan’s award-winning postcolonial play Harvest (1997), this article examines possibilities for radical challenges to neo-imperialism and patriarchy in the spaces of disjuncture created by the fluid movement of bodies/organs and capital across nation boundaries in a global economic practice called transplant tourism. Harvest dramatizes the imbalance of power that characterizes this (in)human trade between wealthy receivers belonging to an advanced capitalist society, and donors from a poor society, who “willingly” pledge their organs and body/parts in exchange for money. Transplant tourism, not unlike other global economic transactions, involves the complex circulation of capital and humans within and across national boundaries, leading to the production of liminal or interstitial spaces. The article considers the racial and gendered implications of transplant tourism and the scope for subaltern recuperation within such spaces of uncertainty or liminality. The central issues framing this discussion are: whether it is possible to overturn patriarchal structures and renegotiate power relations within this transnational exchange; and whether the body, having given itself over to the other, is capable of articulating its own desire.

Constraint 鬱 as a Window on Approaches to Emotion-Related Disorders in East Asian Medicine

According to widely publicized WHO data “depression” is an epidemic that by 2020 is set to become the second most important cause of disease throughout the world (World Health Organization 2012). Yet, what the WHO identifies as an emerging pandemic requiring a coordinated global response, more critical voices see as the unreflective application of problematic disease labels that fail to understand and therefore help real patient needs (Summerfield 2006). These critics hold that the classification systems that define psychiatric disorders—the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)—are based on self-descriptions of mental states elicited from patients living in advanced capitalist societies and draw on historically specific definitions of disease, evidence, and facts. In that sense, they constitute “western cultural documents par excellence” (Summerfield 2008). Far from objectively assessing mental health they seek to shape specific ways of citizenship and of being a person that, rather conveniently, match the western neoliberal economic order. Displacing modes of dealing with mental health issues that emphasize interpersonal relationships or social and economic causes, depression thus becomes just one more condition that reflects and sustains globally dominant networks of consumption and control in the twenty first century.

Capital's Need to Sell and Black Economic Development

Many have sought to disentangle the complexities of advanced capitalist societies by accepting the Marxist idea of the centrality of production. But a structural imperative of capital is to expand not only production, but also consumer spending. This study examines how that imperative of capital articulates with the black economy, which has historically been steeped in black consumers buying and selling in segregated parts of towns and cities. An historical narrative is provided of how black inner-city communities in the United States have been simultaneously ignored as well as assiduously controlled and managed as foci for commodity consumption. Whereas places of consumption have become a significant component of the urban landscape, attracting the attention of a few social and cultural geographers, geographers overall have not paid enough attention to places of consumption located in segregated areas of towns and cities.

Dystopia in the Science Fiction Film: Blade Runner and Adorno's Critique of Modern Society

Science fiction films touch coming-future themes, particularly those referring specifically to futuristic technology and its influence over human life. Dealing with the resistance of the replicants in the approaching millennium, Blade Runner brings the feat of modern civilization into doubt through the image of the dystopian future. In Blade Runner, a city is filled with waste, pollution, and dirt and a corrosive rain falls from the polluted clouds. Adorno criticizes contemporary society and its civilization. Characterizing advanced capitalist society by its total administration penetrating into every sphere of life, he contends that modern society promotes alienation, atomization, conformism, and fatalism. Blade Runner provides a chance to contemplate the problems of modern society, proposed by Adorno's critical works. Therefore, this paper attempts to analyze futuristic characteristics described in the film with Adorno's critique of modern society.

A DESPOLITIZAÇÃO DA ESFERA PÚBLICA EM JÜRGEN HABERMAS SOB A PERSPECTIVA SÓCIO-POLÍTICA

The paper provides an analysis of a fundamental theme explored by Jurgen Habermas – The depoliticization of the public sphere - in a sociopolitical perspective. For this bias, the depoliticization is characterized by functional and structural change and consequent disintegration of the public sphere, by the abandoning the idea of neutralizing the domination and rationalize the power through the medium of the public sphere. This problem is examined in the context of structural and functional transformation of the public sphere: the sociohistorical process by which the bourgeois public sphere, originally established in civil society is gradually undermined by the economic pressures of the capitalist system and the growing influence of the mass-media. In this structural and functional change, Habermas already indicates the eclipse of the public sphere as a political institution and the consequent depoliticization of society. This depoliticization reveals the negative character of politics in advanced capitalist societies, excluding of public communication inconvenient topics for the system power and that could, justly, lead individuals to promote the opening of problematic speeches and thus the proposal that protects the general and public interests and to guide an emancipatory praxis, based on a model of rational critic public sphere. The text is divided into three parts: the structural and functional transformation of the public sphere, which emphasizes the growing state interventionism in the economic base of society (1); the critique of the ideological nature of the technique, which attempts to uncover the relationship between instrumental reason and technocratic domination and its consequences in a political practice (2); and the analysis of legitimation problems in advanced capitalism, of the modern forms of legitimation of technocratic variant (3). Keywords: Jurgen Habermas, Public Sphere, Politics, Legitimation, Ideology.

The Changing Relationship Between Labor and the State in Contemporary Capitalism

Over the course of the past quarter century, paralleling the decline of organized labor, there has been a marked increase in the role of the state in the industrial relations of advanced capitalist societies. This has come both in the form of state activism in the reconstruction of institutions, and through the replacement of collective self-regulation by employer and labor organizations with legal regulation. Unsurprisingly, these developments have failed to encourage a renewal of trade union collective power, leaving workers increasingly insecure, dependent upon markets, and vulnerable to the vagaries of state power.

Pension reform and income inequality among older people in 15 European countries

van Vliet O, Been J, Caminada K, Goudswaard K. Pension reform and income inequality among older people in 15 European countriesThe ageing of populations and hampering of economic growth have increased pressure on public finances in many advanced capitalist societies. Consequently, governments have adopted pension reforms in order to relieve pressure on public finances. These reforms have contributed to a relative shift from public to private pension schemes. As private social security plans are generally less redistributive than public social security, it can be hypothesised that the privatisation of pension plans has led to higher levels of income inequality among older people. This study contributes to the income inequality and pension literature by empirically analysing the distributional effects of shifts from public to private pension provision in 15 European countries for the period 1995–2007. We do not find evidence that shifts from public to private pension provision lead to higher levels of income inequality or poverty among older people. The results appear to be robust for a wide range of econometric specifications.

McMoral, iPolítica, cidadania Wireless: reflexões para o ensino e a pesquisa em RSE no Brasil

Este ensaio é proposto como reflexão eminentemente teórica e possui três objetivos principais. Primeiramente, discutir a produção de discursos sobre responsabilidade social empresarial (RSE), sob uma perspectiva crítica, entendendo tais discursos como campo de embate político, onde, em nome de uma causa aparentemente convergente, atores e poderes antagônicos se enfrentam e lutam por projetos bastante diferentes, quando não opostos. Em seguida, analisar o estado atual do ensino e da pesquisa sobre RSE no Brasil, tanto em termos das principais abordagens adotadas, como das referências e métodos que aí predominam, de modo a verificar quão questionadoras ou reprodutoras do statu quo são essas práticas. Por fim, no intuito de ilustrar o tipo de enfoque sistêmico, que se revela geralmente ausente desse campo de estudos, são abordadas três características estruturais e estruturantes das sociedades capitalistas avançadas: a tendência à hiper-racionalização, que tudo rotiniza e desumaniza; a proliferação de microcomunidades relativamente fechadas de comunicação e ação; e a exacerbação do individualismo e do desenraizamento social. Argumenta-se que estes fenômenos contemporâneos, assim como outros tantos, da mesma natureza, inevitavelmente influenciam qualquer possibilidade concreta ou eventual resultado, no que diz respeito à chamada responsabilidade social empresarial.

The role of the professional doctorate in Ireland from the student perspective

Similar to many other advanced capitalist societies, Irish higher education policy is in the process of constructing a new role and identity for doctoral students which has at its core the desire to produce what have been referred to by the Irish Universities Association as ‘knowledge entrepreneurs’. This conception of doctoral education meshes with, at least in policy terms, the desire for a knowledge-led economy, in which all forms of knowledge can potentially become commodified. This study examines interview data from 27 professional doctoral students regarding the relationship between their motivations to undertake advanced study and their conceptions of and purposes for academic and professional knowledge. The authors argue that current Irish policy is underpinned by a restrictive and narrow understanding of doctoral education, as it marginalises those students who in their professional practice neither wish to view themselves or be positioned as knowledge entrepreneurs.

MORALITY, MARKETS, AND THE ASC: 2011 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CRIMINOLOGY*

This Presidential Address explores the possibilities for fruitful multilevel theorizing in criminology by proposing an integration of insights from situational action theory (SAT), a distinctively micro‐level perspective, with insights from institutional anomie theory (IAT), a distinctively macro‐level perspective. These perspectives are strategic candidates for integration because morality plays a central role in both. IAT can enrich SAT by identifying indirect causes of crime that operate at the institutional level and by highlighting the impact of the institutional context on the perception‐choice process that underlies crime. Such multilevel theorizing can also promote the development of IAT by revealing the “micro‐instantiations” of macro‐level processes and by simulating further inquiry into the social preconditions for institutional configurations that are conducive to low levels of crime. Finally, drawing on Durkheim's classic work on occupational associations, I point to the potential role of professional associations such as the American Society of Criminology in promoting and sustaining a viable moral order in the advanced capitalist societies.

A Common Neoliberal Trajectory

Based on quantitative indicators for fifteen advanced countries between 1974 and 2005, and case studies of France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Ireland, this article analyzes the trajectory of institutional change in the industrial relations systems of advanced capitalist societies, with a focus on Western Europe. In contrast to current comparative political economy scholarship, which emphasizes the resilience of national institutions to common challenges and trends, it argues that despite a surface resilience of distinct national sets, all countries have been transformed in a neoliberal direction. Neoliberal transformation manifests itself not just as institutional deregulation but also as institutional conversion, as the functions associated with existing institutional forms change in a convergent direction. A key example is the institution of centralized bargaining, once the linchpin of an alternative, redistributive and egalitarian, model of negotiated capitalism, which has been reshaped in the past twenty years to fit the common imperative of liberalization.

Property Beyond Growth: Toward a Politics of Voluntary Simplicity

This jurisprudential thesis argues that when an economy has grown so large that it has reached or exceeded the threshold point beyond which any further growth is ‘uneconomic’ (i.e. socially or ecologically counter-productive), property relations as expressed in law should no longer be defined and defended in order to grow the economy. Instead, property relations should be reconstructed in order to achieve more specific welfare-enhancing objectives – such as eliminating poverty, lessening inequalities, and protecting the environment – and the efficient growth of GDP or lack thereof should be treated as a by-product of secondary importance. For these reasons reference will be made to a ‘post-growth’ property system, a system whose coherency, viability, and desirability will be evaluated and ultimately defended as the central project of this thesis.After outlining the central thesis, the introduction looks more closely at the notion of economic growth (as measured by increases in GDP) and considers how its rise to dominance as the pre-eminent policy objective of governments has given modern property law a ‘pro-growth’ structure (focusing on the U.S. jurisdiction). Chapter One presents a multi-dimensional critique of growth – social, ecological, and economic – and concludes by proposing a new macro-economic framework ‘beyond growth.’ Chapter Two examines whether the macro-economic framework proposed could be advanced legally by reconfiguring property relations in advanced capitalist societies. Responding to the objection that such institutional restructuring would illegitimately interfere with established property rights, it is argued: (1) that due to the indeterminacy of property, contract, and market concepts, significant reform of a private property/market system is not a conceptual impossibility; (2) that the state is always and necessarily involved in defining property entitlements and market structures, a point that fundamentally blurs the private/public distinction which is often used to insulate the economy from state intervention; and (3) that defining those property entitlements and market structures is a normative, value-laden undertaking and therefore cannot be done in such a way that is neutral between conceptions of the good life.Having established that property law, in particular, and the legal framework of the economy, in general, are malleable creatures of legal convention, the argument of the thesis becomes explicitly engaged with questions of normativity and value. Chapter Three draws on the life and ideas of Henry Thoreau to express an anti-consumerist ethics of consumption. It is argued that Thoreau’s ethics of consumption provide a coherent and attractive normative foundation for a post-growth jurisprudence of property. Chapter Four focuses attention on theories of law reform arising out of the growing literature on law and social movements. After explaining how cultural values and practices shape law, this chapter examines the Voluntary Simplicity Movement, an emerging social movement which represents the most coherent manifestation (in contemporary Western culture, at least) of the Thoreauvian ideals of sufficiency and simplicity. It is argued that this social movement will almost certainly need to expand, organize, and politicize, if anything resembling a post-growth property system is to be realized in law. The final chapter goes beyond foundational theory and critique and sketches an outline of what a post-growth property system might actually look like as a legal reality.

Inheritance in Australia: family and charitable distributions from personal estates

This article provides unique empirical evidence of post mortem giving in Australia, through a random sample of probate records in Victoria in 2006. The records show that decedents overwhelmingly leave their estates to their immediate family; first spouses, and then children in equal measure. They also show that there is a significant discrepancy between common practice in the transmission of estates and intestacy laws; that about one in five decedents exercise some measure of testamentary freedom; that about one in twenty decedents leave a charitable bequest; that more than two in three charitable bequests are left by decedents without surviving children; and that (unlike in the United States) wealthier decedents leave a smaller proportion of their estates to charity than their less wealthy counterparts. The article provides an empirical foundation for debates around the relationship between charitable giving and social capital, civil society and the role of government in advanced capitalist societies.

Sustainability in the undergraduate and postgraduate business curriculum of a regional university: A critical perspective

AbstractThe challenge to embed sustainability in the formal curriculum has been greatest for the business studies curriculum. Schools of business have been perceived as key socialising agencies for the intelligentsia of advanced capitalist societies, whereas the students of sustainability need to be helped to critique the dominant capitalist paradigm and consider its alternatives. Drawing on a critical perspective of education for sustainability, this paper presents a detailed examination of the sustainability curriculum at a regional university in Australia. The paper contributes to the discussion needed to understand what sustainability skills are required by managers and how tertiary education programs may need to change to develop these skills. In this way the nature of the role that business schools should be playing in leading and managing change towards sustainability is further informed.