Dominant Capitalist Research Articles

The dual economics in the labour process: managerial contradictions and indirect control

One of the greatest impacts of Braverman’s Labour and Monopoly Capital is the discovery of a ‘control imperative’ within the capitalist production process. Whereas his equation of capitalist domination and Taylorism has been heavily criticized early on, the capabilities of the expanded use of digital technologies at the workplace have raised the question of whether a Taylorist mode of control is on the advance once again. The article challenges this perspective by addressing managerial problems that go beyond the problem to transform labour power into actual labour. Taking up Sohn-Rethel’s theory of ‘dual economics’, we argue that the necessity to reconcile contradictory requirements of the ‘economics of the market’ and the ‘economics of production’ poses an equally crucial challenge for management. Whereas that ‘problem of reconciliation’ remained latent in the Fordist era, tensions between the two logics of economics have now increasingly become a problem to solve within the course of controlling the labour process. Drawing on our own research on ‘the inner marketization of the firm’ over the last 15 years, we discuss ‘indirect control’ as a mode of control that precisely addresses the problem of reconciliation and considers recent changes in the course of digitalization. On the basis of our empirical findings, we describe the contradictory forms of activating and restricting subjectivity in the digital workplace and its implications for the legitimation of managerial power and capitalist domination.

Somos Sordos

This autoethnographic study examines powerviolence in the predominantly Hispanic unincorporated area of El Rio, California, from the perspective of a drummer in a local powerviolence band. The unique human geography of El Rio, characterized by its demographic composition, urban layout, and cultural practices, shapes sonic cartographies and influences how individuals understand sound. Situating powerviolence as a form of “borderlands noise-music,” this article investigates the intersection of sound perception and cultural identity, particularly for Chicano noise musicians. By exploring how powerviolence subverts dominant music constructs through its sonic, linguistic, emotional, and iconographic elements, this article highlights the transformative potential of noise-music in marginalized communities. Drawing on a sonic lineage from hardcore punk to powerviolence in California, commonalities among hardcore punk, thrashcore, grindcore, and powerviolence are illuminated, providing a basis for understanding powerviolence through sound. Furthermore, this study foregrounds the significance of powerviolence and noise-music as accessible forms of expression, particularly for aspiring musicians who lack the means to pursue formal study. By amplifying voices that may otherwise go unheard, powerviolence allows noise musicians to feel audible to dominant capitalist society.

PUBLIC SCULPTURE IN WARTIME UKRAINE AS A FORM OF THE STATE’S MEMORY POLITICS

The authors argue that during wartime in Ukraine, public sculpture serves as a reflection of the memory politics of the contemporary Ukrainian state. As such, these politics are aimed at breaking away from the Soviet legacy that continues to exist simultaneously in the form of hidden or sometimes obvious remnants of older colonial narratives of Ukrainian history and in the form of aesthetic artifacts akin to those that can be seen in the public space of big cities, e.g. sculptures and reliefs, etc. However, in its efforts to shed the Soviet legacy, Ukraine's memory politics often uncritically adopt dominant capitalist narratives, inadvertently perpetuating another form of cultural oppression and colonization. In addition to critiquing contemporary market-driven discourse, the authors stress the importance of not overlooking the layer of mythological memory, as it constitutes one of the most fundamental elements of Europe's cultural landscape.

Cooperative Economics in Racially Marginalized Communities: Reframing Economics Education Through Racial Capitalism and Democratic Practices

This article reimagines economics education through culturally sustaining pedagogy and Ethnic Studies, emphasizing economic practices rooted in racially marginalized urban communities as alternatives to the dominant economic system. The article presents an economics curriculum that asks, how can cooperative economics help to sustain urban communities that have been marginalized by the dominant capitalist white supremacist economic system? Through teacher practitioner inquiry at a small urban public school, this study is grounded in a twelfth-grade economics course on cooperative economics in marginalized communities.

World-Traveling to the Servants’ Quarters: The Pseudo-Concreteness of Lugones’ Decolonial Feminism

Abstract This article focuses on the role of servants in María Lugones’ “Playfulness, ‘World’-Travelling, and Loving Perception.” I show that Lugones uses and erases the work of servants in developing her understanding of world-traveling. This theoretical marginalization and instrumentalization challenges her claim to capture concrete, lived experience. This article argues that Lugones’ theory is “pseudo-concrete”: it capitulates into the very abstractions it seeks to overcome. Focusing on the role of servants reveals the class character of world-traveling and, in turn, its inability to grasp class relations. This article, thus, invites decolonial feminists to reconsider the advantages of class analysis for understanding not only capitalist domination but also perception, identification, and love.

Care is the new radical: food and climate approaches from a peasant feminist perspective

ABSTRACT This article examines the work of ‘Fundación Entre Mujeres’ (FEM), a feminist peasant collective organized in cooperatives and working on food sovereignty, agro-ecology, and the economic, ideological and organizational empowerment of peasant women in the dry corridor of Nicaragua. I argue that by centring an ethics of care and the sustainability of human and more-than-human life in their thinking and responses to the food and climate crises, FEM has opened a space of radical contestations to a dominant capitalist and patriarchal rationale and worldview that is at the core of these crises and mainstream approaches towards agricultural transformation.

Governing Mobility Through Exemptions: Cross-National Dependencies, Immigration Policy, and Migrant Labour in South African Historical Perspective

Over the last century, the South African state has periodically engaged in the practice of ‘exempting’ various migrants from their otherwise irregular immigration statuses. Always backed by official legislation, exemptions represent one way by which dominant capitalist interests have relied on the legitimacy of the state to meet their labour needs by sometimes employing undocumented migrants from the Southern African region. Through insights from sub-imperialism and bordering, this paper discusses historical case examples from policy articulations, parliamentary debates, secondary literature and archival materials. By exploring cross-national relationships of exploitation and differentiation, the paper argues that exemptions should be understood as attempts by which the contradictions of ubiquitous informal cross-border mobility and employment in a regime of unfree regional movement might be resolved. Exemptions also attest to the challenge of governing human mobility in a region invested with a historically vast infrastructure of producing, attracting as well as exploiting cheap migrant labour.

Stavovi studenata u Republici Srpskoj prema trep muzici - od dominantnih narativa ka aktuelnim muzičkim preferencijama

Abstract: Historically speaking, different musical genres have periodically been a reason and a tool in the labelling of certain social groups, and recently, similar cautionary narratives have been found in trap music as well. They range from concern for young people's tastes, values and understanding to a moral panic that requires the regulation of public policies and the response of political actors. This observation of musical preferences is the result of a long-term understanding of cultural consumption through Pierre Bourdieu's theory of homology, where tastes appear as indicators of the status in society, that is, they indicate social hierarchies in which those who consume elite culture are at the top, while mass culture is reserved for the lower classes of society. As an alternative, Richard Peterson's theory of cultural omnivores and univores stands out in social sciences, indicating the necessity of a wider contextual positioning of cultural consumption and its perception in relation to other factors, thus showing that musical preferences can no longer be used as unmistakable indicators of social power relations, but that the cultural capital of those who are positioned higher on the social scale is reflected in the recognition and consumption of a wide range of genres and different cultural products. This understanding is complemented by the results of our exploratory research, which provide an overview of social and cultural factors that shape musical affinities and create certain perceptual frameworks regarding the trap genre. Research examines cultural and identity aspects of musical preferences among the student population in the Republic of Srpska, focusing on the phenomenon of trap music. The sample consists of 284 respondents (78.52% female students and 21.48% male students of the University of Banja Luka and the University of East Sarajevo). Through quantitative methodology, which included an online survey of the convenience sample, the goal was to uncover how dominant social narratives about trap music are reflected or challenged within the student community. Although the research has shortcomings (in terms of the non-representative sample and the necessity of using a local method), preliminary findings indicate that music preferences depend on a wider socio-cultural context, that the student population cannot be viewed homogeneously and that listening to trap music is part of a life stage (early youth). In addition, it is important to conclude that the audience of this genre separates reality from artistic expression, but also recognizes the dominant capitalist dimension of the music industry.

Trans* Joy as Resistance

Abstract Theorist Lauren Berlant defines inconvenience as an affect, one exerted by dominant forces onto subordinate populations. In the same way subordinate populations exert inconvenient affects as well, creating a dynamic of dominant and subordinate inconvenience through which social power relationships may be understood. Following this structure, this article charts the dominant and subordinate affects exerted by capitalism and trans* bodies, respectively, and how capitalist oppression responds to and shapes trans* embodiment. Through an autotheoretical lens, this relationship is here examined in the 2020 film Possessor and the 2015 film Tangerine, highlighting the points of interaction between trans*ness and capitalism's state structures of domination and oppression. Ultimately, I point to trans* joy as an affect that presents a danger to capitalism's domination, providing space for trans* persons to thrive.

EU green deal: between ecological transition and the struggle for power maintenance

Environmental, social, humanitarian, and economic crises are part of the contemporary world. The exceeding of Earth's limits manifests in various ways, including climate change, whose effects are already impacting various regions of the planet. Although this issue has been discussed for decades and subject to extensive international legal regulation, there are areas with significant potential for mitigation and adaptation to climate change that remain relatively unexplored. While traditional international trade arrangements are insufficient to promote well-being and the preservation of life on Earth, there is fertile ground for collaboration between international trade and climate change regimes. The European Green Deal, launched as a political project for ecological transition, has economic and trade-related objectives and implications. That stated, the overall objective of this research is to uncover the inconsistencies of the European Green Deal concerning ecological law parameters and its implications for global trade. This is a bibliographical research with descriptive purpose, deductive approach, and axiological interpretation. From the analysis of the European Green Deal based on selected parameters of ecological law, it was found that, although it reflects progress in the implementation of ecological law, the political project serves as a mechanism for maintaining power, reproducing the dominant capitalist logic, which diminishes its own transformative potential in the transition to an ecological paradigm.

Nation-builders and market architects: How social origins mold the careers of law graduates over 200years in Norway.

This paper examines the types of work that jurists have historically undertaken and maps how opportunities for legal practice have been shaped by social origins across three centuries: after constitutional independence in the mid-1800s, during industrial capitalism in the mid-1900s, and at present-day advanced capitalism. I analyze historical archive data on law graduates from the 19th and 20th centuries in combination with administrative registry data from the 1990s onwards and employ correspondence analysis to explore how social backgrounds shape careers, considering transformations in class structures and the changing significance of juridical expertise over time. Within each period, jurists have served in very different roles including those that craft and cater to the institutional make-up of the state and the markets. My analysis shows that the impact of social origin on occupational outcomes has undergone significant changes, mirroring shifts in the broader social structure; from the importance of legal and political capital (within regional jurisdictions) in the 19th century to the significance of economic capital as the main structuring principle, but also a greater significance of cultural capital, in contemporary times. The ability to reach the most powerful positions among law graduates-within the polity in the 19th century, and the economy in the 21st century-has been differently structured by origins. I argue that expansion of the student body, the declining standing of the university, and heightened differentiation of the social structure and the juridical field have made intimate familiarity with the business world pivotal for forging mutually beneficial alliances between jurists and the increasingly dominant capitalist class. Today, a select group of jurists have managed to connect with and contribute to the rising power of private capital. Thus, the historical tale of jurists cannot be accurately captured by notions of uniform descent from national power structures.

Media, Journalism, and the Public Sphere in Private Family Ownership. On the Critique of the Political Economy of Capitalist Media Enterprises

In the context of a Critique of the Political Economy of the Media, this article exemplifies the fundamental effects of the globally dominant capitalist private ownership of media companies on media development, journalism, and the public sphere. Selected works by Marx and Engels as well as works from developments of the approaches of the “New Reading of Marx” and “Western Marxism” form the theoretical-methodological basis. Characteristic of capitalism is a mutually conditioning relationship between the socio-economic base and the political-legal superstructure, which makes the ”abolition” of private property and the associated relations of domination and power almost impossible. Therefore, possibilities of a de-capitalisation and de-commodification of journalism and the public sphere based on non-capitalist forms of ownership will be discussed. A special chance of realisation is seen for academic publications without capitalist publishing houses that is feasible because knowledge production takes place at public universities. Finally, a change of strategy is suggested that takes us out of the bourgeois-liberal trap of criticism and hope towards the development of media and social theories as well as humans’ active participation in the organisation of an independent content-based media praxis, which can be conducive to a transformation towards a socialist societal formation.

Is It Worth Enduring? Labor in Philippine Mango Fruit Farming

This article examines the process of labor exploitation in mango fruit farming in the Philippines. It provides a case study based on primary data collected through key informant interviews as well as secondary data. The article argues that contemporary mango fruit farming remains within the conventional labor dynamics inherited from historical capitalist domination and exploitation. The drive for transformative development has favored orchard owners and financiers leaving aside laborers’ well-being, welfare, and safety nets. Moreover, the ideological normalization of laborers’ dire conditions has led to acceptance of whatever conditions are allowed by powerful actors. The plight of laborers in the mango fruit industry remains a relevant and continuing struggle that requires relentless advocacy.

Just sustainabilities: lessons from the Lake Turkana Wind Power project in Kenya

ABSTRACT In the light of increasing socio-ecological crises, there has been a surge in the promotion of renewable energy in the Global South. Previous theories and research often hail these developments as a breakthrough. Yet, just sustainability theorists have pointed to logically plausible problems in these alternatives, suggesting that they do not go far enough and could, indeed, worsen the present crises. Africa’s largest wind power plant, the Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP) project in Kenya, provides a useful case study for this purpose. This article focuses on two questions: which are the dominant discourses on the LTWP project and what are the prospects of these discourses to drive just sustainability in Kenya? Drawing on interview data and using critical discourse analysis (CDA) set within a political-economic framework on just sustainabilities this article argues that the project is realised within the dominant capitalist frame, guided by a reliance on market forces, new technologies and a search for new frontiers of capital accumulation, processes that are erected on, and typically drive, local and global inequalities. Thus, the project has not been able to address wider concerns of inclusion in Northern Kenya. Analytically, this evidence shows that mainstream conservative and liberal theories of development and energy are insufficient for analysing the transition from fossil to alternative fuels. This evidence provides further basis to put the case for understanding alternative energy projects, and particularly the LTWP, within a broader framework of alternative, radical theories of just sustainabilities centred on concepts such as just land.

The lack of severe radical uprisings in multi-crises capitalism

A Marxist attempt to make sense of the current non-existence of fundamental resistance against capitalist domination. In contemporary times, that are characterised through the existence of multiple severe crises the question of capitalist stability reposes itself more urgently than in the last few decades. With the ongoing process of mass impoverishment and further precaritisation the general lack of important social uprisings against the reigning political relations can no longer be primarily explained by people’s active consent. It rather needs to be pointed out how capitalist stability relies on various interacting pillars. Some of them, on whom the essay concentrates, cannot be conceptualised as having capitalist stability as their primary goal. The basal positioning of workers under capitalism makes it appear rational to them to rather individually subordinate under the logics of capital than to collectively rebel against them. In addition, capitalism shapes the world in its own image and therefore structurally undermines fundamental conditions for radical change as it materialises its own logics and imperatives into the Earth as well as in people’s subjectivity. For that reason actors of socialist politics need to take into account how capitalism structurally reproduces its own and only its own conditions. This can be answered through working on holistic educational approaches with the aim of self-liberation of the subalterns.

Independence of Regulatory Authority: Türkiye’s Radio and Television Supreme Council

Independent regulatory authorities are expected to act as apolitical agents to prevent market failures in the sector they regulate. However, according to political signal theory, regulatory authorities cannot escape the interventions and control of the political power. In addition, according to capture theory, regulation is designed and operated for the benefit of dominant capital groups in the sector. This article applies both theories to the case of Türkiye’s radio and TV sector. Based on our analysis we claim that the Turkish Radio and Television Supreme Council is a unique case of a supposedly independent authority being captured by both the political power and dominant capitalist groups in the sector, which are intertwined with this power, by limiting its administrative and financial autonomy. Our findings show that the close relations between capital groups and important political figures, which have been clear since the the sector was first liberalized, have helped these groups gain a privileged position in Türkiye’s media sector. As a result, the main instrument that changed the media ownership structure was the interventions of the political power in line with the propositions of the "political signaling" theory.

Ontology as ideology: A critique of Butler's theory of precariousness

Ontology as ideology: A critique of Butler's theory of precariousness

Marxian Ecology, East and West: Joseph Needham and a Non-Eurocentric View of the Origins of China’s Ecological Civilization

ABSTRACT What is referred to here as the Needham thesis, after Joseph Needham, author of Science and Civilization in China , points to the strong affinity in China for dialectical materialism, and through it to modern ecological science, arising from the parallel roots in organic materialism associated with ancient Epicureanism in the West (which influenced classical Marxism) and ancient Daoist and Confucian philosophies in China. This parallel development of organic materialism in Europe (where it was largely submerged in the dominant capitalist culture) and in China embodied in each case deep ecological conceptions. Hence, dialectical materialism, once it arrived in China, served to mediate between these organic traditions within the framework of modern materialist science. It was in this general context that the notion of ecological civilization, arising initially in the last years of the USSR, was carried forward to China, where it took on added meaning. China’s own peasant-based revolution has induced further ecological developments. As a result of this general convergence, and due to China’s reemergence on the world stage, ecological Marxism is now rapidly coevolving in both East and West.

Embedding animals within a definition of sustainability

Current definitions of sustainability and sustainable development are problematic. They reinforce the dominant capitalist paradigm of economic growth as a goal—a system which has contributed in no uncertain terms to the current state of the planet—and they exclude animals as moral entities. We propose that sustainability is primarily an ethical issue which connects people, the planet on which we live, and the animals and other organisms which inhabit it. Our definition of sustainability states that in all decisions and actions on any scale, from the individual to the institutional, we should minimise our immediate and future negative impact on humans, other animals, and the planet, while simultaneously maximising our positive impacts on these domains. We take an interdisciplinary approach in discussing trade-offs between these three broad interests, providing a rationale for adopting this more inclusive definition at every level of society. Our definition calls for a normative shift in discussions around sustainability, one of which is more inclusive of the animals and other organisms with which we share the planet. We believe that the paper forms a strong and coherent foundation for policy and communication about sustainability going forward.

On the transformative potential of Hungarian local food-buying clubs

This study describes the development trends of local food-buying clubs (BCs) in Hungary and analyses how this type of grassroots initiative can contribute to the sustainability transition. BC are consumer-driven organizations which aim to connect local food producers with consumers. The study also discusses how the Hungarian implementation differs from other initiatives described in the literature. The empirical analysis employs qualitative techniques, including participant observation, in-depth interviews with three organizers and two external experts, and a survey of 82 BC producers. BCs may be instrumental in facilitating the sustainability transition: on the one hand, they reach a wide range of consumers, and on the other, they are in contact with a multitude of producers, so everything is in place for their successful scaling up, with a particular focus on the maintenance of core values. BCs can thus play an instrumental role in influencing attitudes and fostering community. One of their most significant advantages is that, while they can operate independently of the growth imperatives of the dominant capitalist paradigm, they can also be understood within it. The increase in the number of grassroots initiatives has led to the formation of a meta-organization aimed at generating and sharing knowledge and the joint utilization and development of specific resources, such as information technologies. The variety of organizational forms and operating modes allows the general approach of buying clubs to be tailored to specific micro-contexts. However, there is a potential danger associated with the large proportion of volunteer work. For BCs to be successful over the long term, it is vital that they are self-sufficient in terms of everyday economic activities and that organizers are at least partially compensated for their efforts.