Capitalism Research Articles

Editorial : Ashwamedh Yagya

Ashwamedha holds a very special place in the extensive history of Yagya in the Divine culture (Dev Sanskriti) of India. From Vedic times to the modern era, the performance of Yagya has been central to the journey of Indian civilization and culture. Among them, Ashwamedha Yagya is considered the king of Yagyas due to its purpose and vastness. Ashwamedha Yagyas are, in essence, spiritual experiments for the upliftment of mass consciousness, which is only possible when a united mass is involved in a specific ritual and lifestyle. A special edition is being released on the auspicious occasion of the Ashwamedha Yagya being performed in Mumbai, the economic capital of India, from February 21-25, 2024 CE. In the present modern era, All World Gayatri Pariwar has conducted 46 Ashwamedha Yagyas, and the Mumbai Ashwamedha Yagya will be the 47th. The special edition of the Dev Sanskriti Interdisciplinary International Journal introduces unique research pertaining to Ashwamedha Yagya.

Global Accumulation & Gendered Class Exploitation: Theory and Evidence from the Garment Industry During the Covid Pandemic

The paper conducts a gendered class analysis of the impact of the Covid pandemic on the global garment industry to explain the coproduction of retailers’ profits in the core, as measured by higher retailer markups, and the biopolitical control over the minds and bodies of women working on production lines via exploitation and oppression (wage-theft, intensification, violence) in the Global South. The paper proposes the concept of an SRT-augmented rate of exploitation to distinguish between necessary and surplus labor performed at two sites, that of the factory as well as the household. The framework demonstrates how, in the aftermath of supply-chain shortages, gendered forms of absolute & relative surplus-value became critical to retailers’ markups at the cost of immiserating working-class women in peripheral capitalist economies. We posit the ‘housewife proletarian’ as negotiating two crises, a crisis of accumulation at the factory and a crisis of care-labor at home, and show how a dynamic interaction of these twin crises led to increased violence and oppression against women at both sites. We then draw upon a host of empirical sources from recent quantitative/qualitative surveys to explore how working women reported these experiences themselves. The paper concludes by arguing that zooming into these differences, as well as similarities, across peripheral economies can not only improve our understanding of how victims of gendered class exploitation subjectively experienced the transformed biopolitics of manufacturing in the aftermath of the pandemic, but can also enrich our general understanding of SRT as a theory of under-development by unearthing the structural relations of violence between monopsonic power and gendered class exploitation.

Privatization and Oligopolies of the Renal Replacement Therapy Sector on Contemporary Capitalism: A Systematic Review and the Brazilian Scenario.

Worldwide the assistance on renal replacement therapy (RRT) is carried out mainly by private for-profit services and in a market with increase in mergers and acquisitions. The aim of this study was to conduct an integrative systematic review on privatization and oligopolies in the RRT sector in the context of contemporary capitalism. The inclusion criteria were scientific articles without language restrictions and that addressed the themes of oligopoly or privatization of RRT market. Studies published before 1990 were excluded. The exploratory search for publications was carried out on February 13, 2024 on the Virtual Health Library Regional Portal (VHL). Using the step-by-step of PRISMA flowchart, 34 articles were retrieved, of which 31 addressed the RRT sector in the United States and 26 compared for-profit dialysis units or those belonging to large organizations with non-profit or public ones. The main effects of privatization and oligopolies, evaluated by the studies, were: mortality, hospitalization, use of peritoneal dialysis and registration for kidney transplantation. When considering these outcomes, 19 (73%) articles showed worse results in private units or those belonging to large organizations, six (23%) studies were in favor of privatization or oligopolies and one study was neutral (4%). In summary, most of the articles included in this systematic review showed deleterious effects of oligopolization and privatization of the RRT sector on the patients served. Possible explanations for this result could be the presence of conflicts of interest in the RRT sector and the lack of incentive to implement the chronic kidney disease care line. The predominance of articles from a single nation may suggest that few countries have transparent mechanisms to monitor the quality of care and outcomes of patients on chronic dialysis.

Trans*agrarian Marxisms?

This article recasts agrarian studies’ concerns with nature, productivity, and subjectivity through the provocations raised by transgender Marxism. Transgender Marxism has interrogated how normative gender, sexuality, and racial dynamics are inseparable from the material and reproductive matrices required for capital. Critical agrarian studies has a long history of carefully tracing out the political economy of agrarian capitalism and resistance to it. Engaging with the unruly materialisms of transgender Marxism would further the work of critical agrarian studies, particularly in regard to the ways gender and sexuality are taken up in the field. The project of transgender Marxism offers a scathing critique of rights-based recognition, hetero- and homonormativity, apoliticized science, and the ways in which the biological family figures at the heart of capitalist reproduction. Such questions have been taken up in small corners of queer and feminist critical agrarian studies, particularly those rooted in the United States, but transgender Marxism offers a new opportunity to bring together the material and historical concerns of the ways agrarian capitalism takes place and creates conditions for unruly forms of resistance. The article demonstrates their possible interconnectivities by exploring three themes: theories of change, the centrality of gender/sex in the agrarian, and unruly, ungrounded materialisms. While primarily a theoretical intervention, the article draws some insights from the authors’ ethnographic work in Paraguay and Colombia to ground the theoretical possibilities in place.

The Venice Biennale, French porcelain and historical retrospective on marketing and expertise in the field of fine arts

The relevance of this article is based on shaping new modern world’s market relations one of which is the art market. The aim of the research is the analysis of the marketing interrelations and tendencies in the market of the 20th-21st centuries together with the previous historical periods. In order to hit the goal of the research, theoretical, empirical and comparative researching methods have been used. It sets theoretical foundations of the visual arts marketing and the ways of their practical application. Already before the modern art market as an element of a total capitalistic market came to exist, the movement of visual art works, in the ancient epoch, included elements of marketing approaches and technologies caused by the then-existing processes of sale and purchase of art works, their exchange and collecting. The article is about the expertise of their quality and originality; definition of the already existing methods of promoting art works in the society. It is worth paying a particular attention to ceramic products like porcelain (china) that, in its turn, occupies an important place among art works, together with paintings and sculptures. In the beginning of the 18th century, the porcelain arrived to Europe from China. Collectors have for three centuries admired porcelain products. It should be admitted, there is a particular category of the Venice Biennale visitors. They are porcelain collectors. The practical value of this research stays in the analysis of the marketing instruments in the modern art market for the benefit of not only modern artists but also of the managers of all levels who work in the field of visual arts, at exhibitions, for companies producing collection ceramics tableware, at auctions and in the world’s museums

Notes from the Editors, May 2024

buy this issueThe MR editors revisit the words of Monthly Review editors Harry Magdoff and Paul M. Sweezy, writing in the twenty-fifth-year anniversary issue. Writing on the innate contradictions plaguing the capitalist system, the editors in 1974 noted that the ecological limitations of capital accumulation was "unsolvable" under capitalism, thus setting the stage for the magazine's continued exploration of ecosocialism as humanity's future.

Extractivism and capitalism in the era of neoliberal globalisation: development and resistance dynamics in Latin America

This article explores the development and resistance dynamics of capital in the neoliberal era of capitalist development. The context for this exploration is Latin America, the region that has been most severely impacted by the globalising dynamics of the world capitalist system, which is in the throes of a multidimensional crisis that has assumed global proportions. The region has also seen the most powerful forces of resistance to this development, a resistance led by the Indigenous and farming communities on the extractive frontier. It is argued that each advance of capital in the development process, that is, each phase in the capitalist development of the forces of production – from the colonial era of mercantilism and extractive imperialism to the era of neoliberal globalisation – has generated corresponding forces of resistance, leading to a succession of development–resistance cycles in the evolution of capitalism as a world system.

Eurocommunism’s contribution to the idea of ???democracy without qualifying adjectives???

Óscar García Agustín talks to Gaspar Llamazares Gaspar Llamazares joined the Communist Party of Asturias in 1981. Between 2000 and 2008 he was the national coordinator of Izquierda Unida (United Left). In response to the rise of the 15M movement, he and others founded Izquierda Abierta (Open Left), with the aim of building a larger progressive coalition. The party remained within Izquierda Unida, but aimed to counteract the weight of the Communist Party within the coalition. In 2017 he co-founded the political platform Act??a (Do it) to give voice to those who did not feel represented by PSOE and Podemos. In 2019, he left Izquierda Unida. In 2023 he was elected as a member of the Oviedo council, representing the electoral coalition Convocatoria por Oviedo, and nowadays he is spokesperson for the coalition. He has written extensively about the left and is a defender of the legacy of Eurocommunism, understood as the defence of socialism and pluralism within the political and parliamentary system established during the Spanish Transition, and as the formation of a large progressive coalition to gradually change the capitalist system.

Radio Caledonia: Scottish Nationalism and Nazi Radio Propaganda, 1940–1942

In June 1940, from somewhere in Scotland, a radio station named Radio Caledonia began to broadcast Scottish nationalist, anti-government and anti-war propaganda to Britain, on behalf of an organisation called the Scottish Peace Front. Its objective was to bring about Scotland's exit from the war, an end to the capitalist system, and the creation of an independent, socialist Scotland. The speaker and scriptwriter behind Radio Caledonia was Donald Grant, a Scot, since dubbed Scotland's Lord Haw-Haw. But Radio Caledonia was only superficially a Scottish nationalist station. In reality, the Scottish Peace Front was an entirely fictitious group, and Radio Caledonia's programmes were made in and broadcast from Berlin under the direction of Joseph Goebbels, as one element of his propaganda campaign against Britain. Radio Caledonia, like other similar ‘secret stations’ commissioned by Goebbels, was conceived of by the Nazi Propaganda Ministry, and its broadcasts written and produced by British renegades. This paper looks at Grant's background and political beliefs, the Nazi propaganda organisation within which he worked in Berlin, and the broadcast output of Radio Caledonia. It concludes that far from being an authentically nationalist or socialist enterprise, Radio Caledonia was devised by German Nazis and British fascists as a tool to achieve their shared aim of bringing about an end to Britain's involvement in the war.

Stakeholder mapping to explore social and economic capital of Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs) to increase demand for and access to healthy food

IntroductionSouth Africa, grappling with the complexities of malnutrition, faces a dual challenge of undernutrition in children and overnutrition in adults, particularly among women. This situation is exacerbated by high rates of food insecurity, affecting nearly one-fourth of households. In this context, the role of Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs), locally known as stokvels, becomes increasingly significant. These informal, often women-led, savings and borrowing groups present a unique opportunity to address dietary challenges and promote healthier eating practices in urban, low-income settings. This study explores the potential of stokvels in mitigating the dual burden of malnutrition by facilitating access to healthy, affordable foods.MethodsWe conducted stakeholder mapping to understand the roles and influences of various actors within South Africa's food system, particularly their interactions with stokvels. Our research focuses on how these groups, deeply embedded in the community fabric, can leverage their collective power to negotiate better access to nutritious food and influence healthier dietary choices. Stakeholders identified in the study span diverse sectors, including retail, agriculture, finance, and community organizations.ResultsThe research reveals that stokvels are perceived as vital social and economic entities capable of maximizing value through partnerships and networks. However, challenges such as the informal nature of stokvels and the lack of formal legal agreements often hinder their ability to form partnerships with formal institutions. The findings emphasize the importance of understanding and leveraging the social dynamics within stokvels, recognizing their role in enhancing food security and contributing to economic empowerment, especially for women. The study also identifies the need for formalizing stokvel structures to enhance their operational efficiency and increase their impact on food systems.DiscussionIn conclusion, this research highlights the untapped potential of stokvels in addressing South Africa's nutritional challenges. By fostering stronger connections between stokvels and various food system actors, there is a significant opportunity to improve food security and promote healthier eating habits in low-income communities. Future research should aim to include unrepresented stakeholders and explore strategies to enhance the role of ROSCAs in promoting healthier food choices and addressing affordability and accessibility barriers.

THE INCOMPATIBILITY OFGLOBAL WARMING AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

Global warming signifies an undesirable geographical status of the planet and highlights the alarming trend of the extinction of the planet due to this unprecedented phenomenon. It is mostly caused by the gradual increase in world temperature, deforestation, emission of greenhouse gases, the melting of ice, glaciers and other adverse climatic conditions. This negative trend carries a portent for the future - a future that looks bleak and alarming. Extreme and harsh weather conditions have become common in India and other Asian countries. India has been the worst hit due to frequent occurrence of floods and heatwaves. This alarming trend should force us to think of better planning and optimum utilisation of resources without their ruthless violation. The miserable conditions of contemporary life can be, in retrospect traced to the beginning of industrialisation and capitalist economy. The evils that plague our lives have been mostly caused by the ruthless exploitation of natural resources.

Singapore’s Temasek Model and State Asset Management in China

Since the late 1970s, Singapore has been an important policy reference for China. Some Chinese policymakers viewed Temasek, its government holding company, as a model for state asset management. They studied Singapore’s approach, but ultimately chose a different institutional design when establishing the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) in 2003. China’s engagement with Temasek subsequently concentrated on corporate governance, specifically boards of directors in state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Yet despite the Temasek model’s appeal, its influence in China was limited by the far greater size and indebtedness of the state sector; the weaker role of firm performance in asset and capital allocation; SOEs’ numerous social and welfare functions; lack of willingness to augment firm autonomy; and divergent interpretations of the Temasek model and its reference value. “Policy collage” by Chinese policymakers explains the existence of formal similarities between China and advanced capitalist economies without fundamental convergence in function.

Why Does China Implement the "Dual Reduction Policy" to Restrict Educational Industry? An Explanation Based on Marxist Political Economy

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels proposed in "The Communist Manifesto" the viewpoint of the inevitable demise of capitalism, Marxist political economy serves as an explanation and justification of this viewpoint. Marxist political economy forms a complete logical system, which elucidates the developmental path of capitalist collapse through three stages: surplus value, free competition, and monopoly capitalism. The theory of surplus value explains the intrinsic essence of capitalist society, wherein capitalists profit by exploiting labor, while free market competition and monopoly capitalism are external manifestations of the operational laws of capitalist society. In recent years, the disorderly expansion of educational capital in China has shown clear monopolistic tendencies. At this juncture, China promptly implemented the "dual reduction policy" to restrict the expansion of educational capital, which is a practical application of Marxist political economy. From the perspective of Marxist political economy theory, China's restrictions on educational capital serve three purposes: firstly, to prevent capital from excessively depriving laborers of surplus value; secondly, to avoid cyclical economic crises brought about by unregulated capital competition; thirdly, to prevent monopolies and thereby avert both economic crises and the social crises brought about by monopolies.

Water and fluidity in İz Öztat’s heterochronic imaginaries in the aftermath of genocide

Between the years 2013–2016, the artist İz Öztat created four distinct bodies of work, all of which engaged aspects of water. This period was marked in Turkey by the heightened tensions around the neoliberal (re)distribution of public space and public resources, which escalated in the aftermath of the Gezi Park Protests of 2013. In this article, the author argues that, beyond its immediate critique of contemporary capitalist appropriation, Öztat’s engagement with water builds relations across time, space, and species to recall histories of the Armenian Genocide, challenging the denials of official historiography. By tapping into the linguistic, cultural, and material imaginaries of water, and learning from the present-day water protection movements, Öztat engages the diverse histories carried across waterways. Water becomes a nexus through which the artist locates and articulates the physical and epistemic violence of modernity, particularly as it indexes community, conscience, and ecology from the late 19th century to the present.

HOW APPLES PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE CRIME INCREASES INEQUALITY: A RESPOND ON CAPITALISM, JURIDIFICATION, AND SOCIAL CONTROL

This essay examines the infamous contemporary crime called as planned obsolescence. The ramification of the capitalist system has made prominent mega-tech companies to shape technological standard and influence other to comply and acquire to such condition. It creates a regime of technological hegemonyin this case, I particularly place the utter focus to the Apple Companys alleged attempt to dominate the technology market by perpetrating certain time-window for science and technology inventions, inter alia“the manufacture, software system and design, to be out of date or deemed as obsolete when they have reached certain designated period of time, hence forcing the customers to make repeated purchase to keep up with the latest digital trend as the only way to survive technologically. Further, I will put into scrutiny the phenomenon of planned obsolescence regards to the framework of social crimes and its abominable excess of arbitrary social control that creates inequality to the society, particularly viewed from an overwhelmingly Foucauldian post-structuralist approach, specifically to the loyal technology customers. To present a thorough result of this study, I use a systematic overview of literature reviews by qualitative analysis.

Ill Fares the Land: Confronting Unsustainability in the U.K. Food System through Political Agroecology and Degrowth

The U.K. food system exhibits strong unsustainability indicators across multiple dimensions, both in terms of food and nutritional insecurity and in terms of adverse climate change, biodiversity, and physical resource impacts. These indices of an unsustainable and inequitable social metabolism are the result of capitalist agriculture and society in general and, more specifically, of neoliberal and austerity policies adopted with vigour since the global financial crisis. The causal, capitalistic, and, latterly, more neoliberal bases of the U.K. food system are delineated in the first section of the paper. These bases are then detailed in terms of their impacts in exacerbating climate change, biodiversity (and resource) decline and loss, and food and nutritional insecurity. The political narratives and policy frameworks available to dissemble, mitigate, or, more rarely, to address (resolve) these impacts are then delineated. It is argued that the only policy framework available that strongly integrates food security (social equity) with ecological sustainability is political agroecology and an accompanying degrowth strategy. The final section of the paper details what political agroecology and degrowth might entail for the U.K. food system.

Identity Transition of English Pre Service Teachers Studying at Teacher Profession Education Program

The identity transition of four prospective professional teachers while undergoing a professional development program is essential to consider. This research aims to understand the dynamics and processes that allow professional identities to develop and change. This research uses qualitative research and Schlossberg's transition model as a framework. The research participants were four prospective teachers from the Teacher Professional Education program. Data collection was carried out using the narrative inquiry method. The data analysis technique uses qualitative descriptive analysis. This study found that identity trajectories from the pre-transition period contributed to their current identity transition. Their previous change in identity was because teaching is an honorable profession with other perceived benefits, such as economic and cultural capital. In this program, prospective teachers said there was a transformation in their professional experience. The study emphasizes the importance of continuing education for prospective teachers to become professional teachers. Teacher education plays a vital role in ensuring that teachers have a strong foundation in the theory and practice of education. Qualified teachers are critical in providing effective and quality education to students, so teacher education is essential to the education system.

From Classical Political Economics to Neoclassical (Mainstream) Economics: The Ideological Reproduction and Depoliticization Process of Economics

The first school of thought that allowed economics to be treated as a separate discipline was classical economics, known as classical political economy. Classical economics is described as the science of distribution. However, the extent to which science prioritises distributional dynamics is debatable. On the other hand, after the marginalist revolution in the 1870s, the birth of neoclassical economics led to the separation of economics from social sciences. Pure economic logic has separated the economy from society, politics, and all kinds of social factors and put it into positive sciences that operate with an autonomous mechanism within itself. In this way, it is thought that it is aimed to exclude the secrets that can question the structural depth and distribution dynamics of the capitalist system. In all these contexts, the ideological-based reproduction and depoliticisation process of classical and neoclassical economics will be discussed within a historical materialist framework. Thus, it is thought that it will be possible to reveal the theoretical and ideological realities behind the visible faces of classical economics, characterised as classical political economy and neoclassical economics, known as mainstream economics.

Coping strategies of food insecure households with children and adolescents in Uruguay, a high-income Latin American country: A qualitative study through the lens of Bourdieu's theories of capitals and practice

Food insecurity has been associated with negative short, medium, and long-term health consequences, which are more detrimental for children and adolescents. These effects may depend on the coping strategies developed to deal with food shortages. The present research aimed at exploring coping strategies in food insecure households with children and adolescents in Uruguay, incorporating sociological theoretical insights from Bourdieu. A qualitative approach based on individual semi-structured interviews was used. A total of 40 interviews were conducted with adults who had parental responsibilities of children and adolescents and who received different types of food assistance, between July and December 2022, in four cities. Results showed that adults tend to develop a wide range of coping strategies aimed at: reducing food expenditure, increasing the availability of money for purchasing food, increasing food availability and/or rationing the food available in the household. Some of the strategies were implemented regardless of the severity of food insecurity, whereas others were characteristic of the moderate and severe levels of the construct. Evidence to support the mediation effect of coping strategies on health outcomes was found. Discourses suggested that lower accumulation of economic and cultural capital may be aligned with the adoption of less socially accepted mechanisms to access to food. Expressions of a specific habitus aimed at securing food were identified among participants with more deprivations. Taken together, the findings suggest that coping strategies may not be a universal or invariant sequence according to the severity of food insecurity and stress the importance of considering households’ resources and local context for the development of strategies to improve access to food.

Survival, Sustenance, and Self-Sufficiency in a Tale of Two Sisters: Plant Geographies in Jean Hegland’s "Into the Forest"

As evidenced by its title, Into the Forest (1996) by Jean Hegland traces the movement of two adolescent girls ever further into the forest in a post-apocalyptic account of the near future. Set in Redwood, California, it depicts a world where trees are gigantic and long-lasting while humans are diminutive and diminishing, while contemporary human technological society has fallen apart. Plants, trees, and the forest, and an increasingly intimate and Indigenous knowledge and relationship with these, play a key and ever-growing role in the novel and illuminate its otherwise dark vision of the future. Ultimately, the sisters’ taking of an increasingly plant-based perspective offers an alternative trajectory and path toward survival, sustenance, and self-sufficiency for the two young women. Although not necessarily written for young adults exclusively, the novel, whose international impact is evidenced by the fact that translated into over a dozen languages, made into a film in Canada, and adapted as a graphic novel in French, focuses on young adult protagonists and tells a post-apocalyptic tale that is both dark and inspiring in its vision of self-sufficiency and reintegration with nature, forest, and plants. It thus shows itself to be a work of young adult literature in many respects, as well as in its implied ecofeminist critique of capitalist society and a more sustainable vision of the future represented by the young. This article examines various plant geographies in Into the Forest and the way in which the forest represents a space of refuge from mankind and society; provides healing and sustenance; serves as an alternative abode; and represents a birthplace of the future. It argues that an increasingly plant-based perspective figures centrally in the book’s narrative arc from beginning to end, from its title and setting to the trajectory of its unfolding plot, and in its conclusion and vision of the future.