Capitalist Relations Of Production Research Articles

“A Nonexistent Incapacity”

In the 1920s and 1930s, the French colonial phosphate mining company in Gafsa, Tunisia, used X-ray images to decide which of its workers’ injuries were fake and which were real. Through an analysis of X-ray photography in Gafsa, this article argues that a capacious history of capitalism—one connecting wage labor exploitation with other human and nonhuman work—requires methods that do not prioritize what is visible. Rather than asking what X-ray images show diagnostically, this article charts how the creation of visibility and invisibility was a political act, a tactic of capital accumulation, and an arena of contestation. Company administrators and doctors used X-rays to draw biomedical and temporal boundaries around chronic injuries, making them “nonexistent”—and thus noncompensable—despite workers’ claims. This colonial-racial project both reified and remade the company's semantic categories for defining what an injury was. The company mobilized the material and epistemological properties of X-ray light on a photographic negative to erase chronic injury within dark or blurred spaces. The resulting category, a “nonexistent incapacity,” acknowledged both the presence of injury and its disappearance, constructing visibility and invisibility within capitalist relations of production and exploitation. Read this way, Gafsa's X-ray images ultimately outline a political economy of (in)visibility.

Структурные метаморфозы политических процессов на пороге посткапиталистической эпохи: новые акторы, интеракции и феномены

The author of the study addresses the peculiarities of structural changes in political processes in the context of an interformational transition caused by the crisis of objective capitalist production relations. Based on the analysis of the dynamic model of the political process by G. Almond and J. The author concludes that modern political and economic transformations no longer allow us to effectively describe the structure of the political process from the point of view of established theoretical models built in the era of stable economic growth. Changes in the actor-resource base of political processes, generating new actors and modernizing the resource base of political interactions, are explained by the transition to network and horizontal management formats that destroy capitalist verticals and hierarchies. The author identifies new types of political actors and resources, and also attempts to describe the trends of their interaction through the prism of economic and technological transformations. In addition, it is suggested that it is more logical to study the structure of the political process in modern conditions from the point of view of actor-network theory, focused on the description of "assemblies" that take into account the multifactorial and chaotic nature of politics.

ADOLF BIBIČ’S INNOVATIVE CONTRIBUTION TO THE MARXIST CONCEPTUALISATION OF POLITICS

Abstract. The article analyses the innovative Marxist conceptualisation of politics proposed by the Slovenian political scientist Adolf Bibič. The latter built on the contributions of Heglo-Marxists and Gramsci to political theory. At the core of his theory, he placed the question of the political power–class exploitation relationship. He distinguished political politics from self-managing politics, and problematised the dominant Western understandings of politics as well as the theories of elitism and pluralism. Moving away from such theories and dogmatic Marxist notions about the withering away of politics, he formulated his project of humanising politics beyond class exploitation and capitalist relations of production. This project assumed a necessary transformation of political practice in terms of the dialectical process of the socialisation of politics and the politicisation of society. Keywords: Adolf Bibič, politics, political science, class relations, economic exploitation.

Urban agglomeration, glocalisation, and the governance of scalar transformation in the global south: a case study from Cape Town, South Africa

AbstractIn theorising the rapid expansion of urban agglomeration across the world, a significant body of work has examined the transformation of scale from the perspective of geographical size and the regulatory facets of devolved power. A further literature has examined what are seen as the relational dimensions in the transformation and constitution of space and the extent to which these are socially constructed. In this conceptualisation, scale is constituted and reconstituted by capitalist relations of production, social production, and consumption. The influence of capitalist relations on scale has most explicitly been illustrated by the impact of globalisation and the way it has served to weaken the regulatory powers of nation states and is simultaneously reordering the hierarchy of government power within them. Metropolitan governments have been exposed to global markets and to the influence of transnational corporations and, in a process of glocalisation, increasingly endeavour to create an entrepreneurial environment conducive to attract and retain foreign investment. Hitherto the interpenetration of the global and local has largely been studied in the context of urban agglomeration and scalar transformation in the global North. In an attempt to address this lacuna this article examines the manifestation of the process of glocalisation in metropolitan Cape Town in South Africa in the global South. It posits that the municipal government’s ambition to transform the city into a modern digitally based economy linked to global markets manifests many of the characteristics of glocalisation. Furthermore, it argues, far from promoting greater social inclusion in a highly unequal post-apartheid city, the economic model which has been adopted is exacerbating social inequality and poverty.

Capitalist development and land struggles in Africa: the role of engaged scholarship

The expansion of capitalism into Africa induced significant transformations of African societies which have continued to influence what people on the continent do today. Africa’s encounter with capital, though still limited in scope, has always been ruthless, coercive and violent, as displayed in the slave trade, colonial occupation and current neocolonial incursions. Although some political economy analysts have suggested that capitalism in Africa has not exploited Africans enough, this article shows that the encounter with capitalism on the continent has been, and continues to be, vicious, with its brutality often obscured by its stunted nature. The article draws on Lungisile Ntsebeza’s work on land to show that engaged scholarship can play a critical role in unveiling the mechanisms and nature of capitalist exploitation and brutality in Africa, often masked by weak capitalist penetration. Using examples of current land struggles, it shows that capitalist exploitation in Africa is not only limited to those engaged in capitalist relations of production (wage labour) but extends to people outside these relations.

Domination, social norms, and the idea of an emancipatory interest

Domination, social norms, and the idea of an emancipatory interest

Neoliberalizm, Siyasal Katılım ve Demokrasi

Democracy is defined as the system in which the people are determined as the source of sovereignty and the executives elected by the people, as representatives, perform the bargaining processes in the political arena regarding social demands. With the form shaped by the relation of capitalist production, 19th century gained a characteristic unique to the industrial society. In the industrial society, the people of the feudal society were obliged to work with a fixed, regular income. while job security and stability turned serf into proletariat, desubjectified them in the perception of participation in decisions and the sharing of resources. The participation of the productive classes in the decision-making by voting in the elections, facilitated the plunder of the commons by the capital. In the neoliberal phase of capitalism reached digitalization, the working classes lost their gains in the context of citizenship, as the relations of production turned into an unstable and precarious form. This loss, corresponding to publicity, created the source of the neofascist movement, fueled by identity politics. This text has discussed the change in the nature of democratic representation in the context of the transformation of the relations of capitalist production from industrial society to digital society, participation, the political projection of the commons of a politically agreed community, and the loss of publicity. The discussion was held through literature review and critical analysis of the conceptual framework.

The Brutal Face of the Violent Game of the Capitalist Competition: Squid Game

Globalization, which has gained momentum since the 1970s, is effective in almost every field, but its prominent dimension is economically based and it leads to increasing inequalities throughout the world. This inequality feeds an environment in which uncertainty, competition, risk and anxiety are intense in social life. The sense of weakness and defeat that people feel more and more, makes it easier for them to accept harsher and ruthless competition conditions and deepens the moral contradictions of modern man, who can risk everything for self-interest. Capitalist relations of production, where success is measured by money and where cooperation is replaced by competition, turns a large mass of people who fail in this game into a useless and unnecessary waste. In this study, the Squid Game series is analyzed through the concepts of capitalism, competition and game. The series, which describe people involved in a life-or-death game to solve their financial problems, shows the brutality of the competitive capitalist system in general. The study, in which the series is analyzed with descriptive analysis within the frame of the defined concepts, reveals the destruction of the exploitative system of today’s modern society on people.

Increasing returns and business cycles in a family of Goodwinian models with Leontiev technology

The main purpose of this paper is to build a family of tutorial Goodwinian (essentially Marxist) models of capital accumulation through industrial cycles that are less complicated than the author’s models of the extended capitalist reproduction in the USA already published. The subordinate purpose is to advance refinement of these models from the standard “neoclassical” assumptions that distort the generic structures determining perpetual disequilibrium in the reproduction of the aggregate social capital. The ascending from abstract to concrete applies the notion of twofold nature of capitalist production as creation of use value and labour value (prioritizing surplus value). This approach reveals substantial facets of endogenous increasing returns and technological progress induced by capitalist production relations. A three-dimensional Goodwinian model L-1, containing the greed feedback loops, reflects destabilizing cooperation and stabilizing competition of investors. Monopoly capital implements proportional and derivative control over the capital accumulation rate. The growth rate of output per worker directly depends on the growth rates of capital intensity and employment ratio in a technical progress function, whereas the capital-output ratio is constant. Oscillations imitating growth cycles are endogenous. A recession (mild crisis) is a manifestation of relative and absolute over-accumulation of capital. A knife-edge limit cycle maintains a growth cycle with the Kondratiev duration; a more solid limit cycle with a period of about 7.5 years upholds a business cycle with a recession without reduced net output. These limit cycles result from the subsequent supercritical Andronov–Hopf bifurcations. The transformation of the growth cycle into industrial cycle gives credit to raising status of capital-output ratio from auxiliary in L-1 to the level (phase) variable in four-dimensional L-2. A mechanization (automation) function mirrors induced technical progress. L-2 embraces new 11 intensive feedback loops involving capital-output ratio. Proportional and derivative control over this ratio by monopoly capital is taken into account. Pair of supercritical Andronov–Hopf bifurcations gives birth to two limit cycles. The second is a remote analogue for Kuznets cycle with the period of about 18 years; the first upholds the industrial cycle with period of about 7 years and declining net output in the outright crisis. Besides relative and absolute over-accumulation of capital, the specific positive and negative feedback loops containing capital-output ratio are required for crises in industrial cycles. Long-term enhancement of monopoly profit through lowering a targeted domestic capital accumulation rate and diminishing a targeted output-capital ratio is substantiated analytically and validated by computer simulations. The gained insights highlight caveats for hastily policy recommendations.

Production of space from the digital front: From everyday life to the everyday politics of networked practices

Everyday life expands the debates about the role of capitalist production relations in the production of space and urbanisation to everyday life practices. The digital space has become part of everyday life with extensive use of social media by individuals and institutions as a key communication sphere. Dwelling on these, this paper explores the role of the digital space in the processes of the production of space and the role of the networked practices of local governments within those processes. Investigating the practices of local governments and their engagement with individuals opens up areas of exploration for everyday life, local governance and institutional politics. The paper explores these via two case studies about acts of everyday life: holiday-making during the re-running of an election campaign and New Year's Eve celebrations in Turkey. It discusses the dialectical relationship between the lived space and the conceived space (Lefebvre, 1991) and how everyday politics submerges with everyday life via the practices of local governments by focusing on the networked (Castells, 2004) engagements among local governments and with ordinary citizens through the use of social media. It concludes that the digital space acts as a conduit where the conceived and the lived are submerged.

Capitalism, Socialism and the Human Right to Development

ABSTRACT The “right to development” (RTD) is an important third generation human right that interrelates political and economic rights, challenging traditional economistic conceptions of development. However, the abstract and socially neutral human rights framework of the RTD results in problematic ambiguities. The relative weights of individual and collective rights to development, and political and economic aspects of the RTD are unclear. This renders the RTD “operationally meaningless” and vulnerable to co-optation. I argue that capitalism is inimical to the realization of the RTD, owing to its exploitative, alienating, and crisis-ridden character. Development cannot be properly understood as an abstract right but must be conceived as a concrete historical process of socialist transition. Development is neither a purely technical nor a purely ethical process, but a fundamentally social and intersocietal one. The dialectic of forces and relations of production is at the heart of this process, therefore development necessitates going beyond capitalist relations of production. Thus, the framework of socialist transition foregrounds the systemic roots of underdevelopment, and in doing so provides a basis for prioritizing between contradictory development policies. Hence, development should be understood and pursued through historical materialism and socialist praxis rather than a rights-based approach.

Capitalism and Racism in theLongue Durée: An Analysis of Their Reflexive Determinations

The genesis of racism, its specific features, conceptual boundaries, and position within capitalist relations of production have been widely discussed. Although there is no consensus as to what came first, and neither as to what prevails in the complex and relational dynamics of social reproduction, there is a general agreement that racism is a multidimensional phenomenon that combines group discrimination and hierarchization, guided by naturalized assumptions and supposedly inherent differences. This study examines the historical features of several racist theories to provide a more accurate view of the reflexive determinations between capitalism and racism.

The Different Facets of Injustice

In her recent work, Nancy Folbre (2020, 2021) undertakes an ambitious effort: constructing an intersectional political economy that aims to identify the common mechanisms and logic underpinning the many wrongs that characterise capitalism. In this paper, we focus on what we deem the three fundamental theoretical pillars of her approach. First, she challenges the oppression/exploitation distinction within Marxian political economy and proposes a broader definition of exploitation that can take manifold forms. Second, she questions the Marxian concept of class, and emphasises the variety of forms of subordination and exploitation related to social identities that cannot be reduced to Marxian classes. Finally, she advocates a more comprehensive notion of the economy beyond a focus on capitalist relations of production. It is difficult to understate the theoretical relevance of these claims, which highlight the importance of various contemporary forms of injustice—of which the exploitation of workers by capitalists is only one. As a complement to the Marxian theory of exploitation and class, Folbre’s approach would broaden our understanding of oppressive social relations. Yet as an alternative to Marxian political economy, it is ultimately unconvincing: a shift of emphasis to ‘manifold exploitations’, social groups, and the economy does not yield a gain in analytical insight but rather an impoverishment of our conceptual toolbox. The struggle against capitalism is different from the struggle against patriarchy and racism, even if the ultimate aim should be the removal of all structures of oppression and domination.

The making of pastoralisms: An account of the Gaddis and Van Gujjars in the Indian Himalaya

The pastoral communities of the western and central Himalayas have, for centuries, presented the modern Indian state with a problem of governance (as it has often been projected). Their existence, largely outside the domains of fixed property and capitalist production relations, has long since been problematized. Their seasonal migrations and vertical movements in space and time have enabled neither a smooth nor complete assimilation of these peoples into one of the state’s existential imperatives—the sedentarized market economy. The interventions imagined and imposed in response, have largely shaped these unbalanced relationships which, I assert, closely follow the features of James Scott’s high-modern state projects (Scott 1998, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed). Through this, an articulation of the tension between the Indian state and two transhumant pastoral communities—the Gaddis and the Van Gujjars—will be attempted to be juxtaposed and contrasted. I will attempt to show how the state in its various forms has used an array of legitimizing arguments and tools—morality, conservation, revenue, development and climate change—to ‘settle’ the Gaddis and Van Gujjars out of their traditional roles, into a lifestyle more conducive to measurement, surveillance and control: a ‘de-pastoralization’ of the pastoralists (Caravani, J Peasant Stud 46:1323-1346, 2019), towards the larger statal goals of assimilation, measurement and appropriation (Foucault 1995, Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison). Through this, the changing and seemingly haphazard dynamics of legitimization will be attempted to be situated in their contexts and used to characterize the contrasting situations of both these communities—while highlighting the need to complicate the role of their social and religious identities in the making of their pastoralisms.

A new solution to the “difficult problem” of the object of study of political economy

PurposeAs there are different interpretations of the object of study in the preface to the first edition of Capital (Volume I) by Karl Marx, disagreements arise over the object of study on political economy, which becomes a “difficult problem.” The purpose of the paper is to bring a new solution to the “difficult problem.”Design/methodology/approachBased on the analysis of the logic of the original text, the authors attempted to give a new interpretation of the “difficult problem” by analyzing the structure of Capital. The object of study of political economy is “the relations of production in the broad sense” of the capitalist mode of production.FindingsIt comprises relations of production in the narrow sense and exchange relations in the broad sense, and the latter can be divided into exchange relations in the narrow sense and distribution relations. The three of them correspond to Volume I, II and III of Capital, respectively. Consumption in “the four-section theory” is not studied by the political economy.Originality/valueAnd the four-section theory is not a part of the theory of Marxist economics but a part of the classical economics criticized by Marx. Therefore, the object of study of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics is “the relations of production in the broad sense” regarding the socialist mode of production with Chinese characteristics, which is different from the capitalist relations of production in the broad sense.

The domination and exploitation of working class values, identities and labour-power in Sweden’s comprehensive school extension and neo-liberal market reforms

ABSTRACT Questions about Sweden’s education system often consider the extent to which educational reforms between 1940 and 1990 contributed to social justice, equity and equality, and the extent to which neoliberal market reforms from the early 1990s onwards have reversed this tendency. Using Young’s model of structural injustice, Wodak’s critical discourse analysis, and a historical materialist research outcomes analysis relating to investigations of education justice, equity and equality, the present article explores this possibility. It suggests three things. 1. From a materialist perspective on class-history, social democratic reforms from 1940 increased system capacity and retention and created a well-resourced and extended comprehensive school system with a shared curriculum for all pupils up to age 16, except for those with serious intellectual and physical difficulties. 2. However, these reforms failed to generate educational justice, equity or equality. Contributing to modernisation, economic growth and the stabilisation of capitalist production relations were far clearer aims and were also attained. 3. Neoliberal reforms after 1990 led to decreased relative education equity, but they did not create inequality and injustice, nor remove statements about equality aims. They did however change their discursive associations and realisation possibilities.

When seed becomes capital: Commercialization of Bt cotton in Pakistan

AbstractThe multinational Monsanto effectively used a (non‐existent) patent in Pakistan to block approval of locally developed genetically modified (GM) cotton seeds during 2002–2010, despite their immense popularity with farmers. Monsanto also (unsuccessfully) tried to negotiate an arrangement with the Pakistani government that would create the conditions under which Monsanto could operate without subjecting itself to market vicissitudes. The Pakistani government denied biosafety approval to local GM seeds, but biosafety concerns were just a mask to cover government's reluctance to infringe Monsanto's patent. Thus, farmers could now purchase new seeds only from the informal market where quality assurance was lacking. They were dispossessed of their right to legally buy, use, and save new seeds. Farmers' dispossession was a prerequisite to their purchase of Monsanto's seed. The seed had to become capital, so that its use was possible only within capitalist relations of production. This paper provides empirical evidence of a continuing process of dispossession through a combination of state power and market institutions.

Institutionalizing Radical Democracy: Socialist Republicanism and Democratizing the Economy

ABSTRACT This article proposes a reorientation of the radical democracy research programs toward a greater attentiveness to the institutional realization of its principles. It does so by bringing the radical democratic tradition into conversation with socialist republicanism. I argue that the struggle against domination requires engaging with political and economic institutions to extend democratic principles from the governmental sphere to broader sectors of society. By combining insights from both traditions, the article suggests shifting attention from an emphasis on disruption and insurgent uprisings to the goals of equalizing power between citizens and instituting democratic ownership and control over the economy. This framework enables radical democracy to respond to long-standing criticisms concerning the need for a more robust articulation of the injustices caused by capitalist relations of production.

Considering Narcissism and Collective Identification via Places of Memory

Set against the background of the persistent success at the ballots of the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and recently attempted assassinations based on racist and anti-Semitic ideologies this paper addresses two aspects of Theodor W. Adornos work: the social causes of fascism as well as Germany’s accounting for its national socialist past. Taking Adorno’s theory of the constitution of the subject in capitalist societies into consideration, the text will focus on the question in what way social causes of Germany’s national socialist past are also part of contemporary negotiation processes of places of memory for its victims as part of the collective identification connected to the place-making. By establishing a perspective of social psychology this should demonstrate how capitalist relations of production are indirectly connected with places of memory, via subjective reasoning.

EDUCAÇÃO AMBIENTAL E EDUCAÇÃO CTS NUMA PERSPECTIVA FREIREANA: A NECESSÁRIA SUPERAÇÃO DA CONTRADIÇÃO ENTRE CONSERVAÇÃO E DESENVOLVIMENTO

No cenário mundial atual, marcado pelas relações capitalistas de produção, se faz necessário que o ensino de ciências problematize as contradições socioambientais na direção do enfrentamento da crise civilizatória vivenciada. Este artigo tem o objetivo de discutir as contribuições da Educação Ambiental e da Educação CTS, numa perspectiva freireana, para o desvelamento da contradição entre conservação ambiental e desenvolvimento socioeconômico no contexto da Educação em Ciências. Para isso, refletimos sobre os obstáculos e desafios à humanização, com destaque para as ideologias e situações-limite que impedem a percepção das condições existenciais dos sujeitos. Diante desse contexto, ressaltamos os contributos da Educação CTS e da Educação Ambiental no processo de desvelamento e transformação da realidade capitalista opressora, por meio de um ensino de ciências que possa contribuir para a construção de uma nova forma de sociabilidade em que a conciliação entre desenvolvimento e conservação esteja finalmente materializada no seio das relações sociais.