Capitalism Research Articles

Towards sustainable livelihoods: A study of the contributions and challenges in tourism handicraft trade in Ghana

This study explores the dynamics of tourism handicraft trade in Ghana, shedding light on the contributions and challenges faced by individuals engaged in this economic activity. Drawing on the Sustainable Livelihood Framework and Principles of Pro-Poor Tourism, this study investigates how tourism handicraft trade serves as a multidimensional source of livelihood, impacting social, economic, and physical capital. Employing a qualitative research approach, this study collected data from 22 tourism handicraft traders in Cape Coast, Ghana, through in-depth interviews. This study reveals the transformative role of handicraft trade in advancing economic and educational opportunities and underscores tangible assets and financial resources as pivotal for sustainability. By embracing Pro-Poor Tourism principles, handicraft trade has emerged as an essential means of poverty reduction, livelihood improvement, and sustainable development, fostering social networks and cultural exchanges. However, persistent financial challenges necessitate external support, especially during off-seasons, financial stress, and increased costs. The study concludes with an emphasis on consistent stakeholders’ support, highlighting the need to navigate financial constraints and seasonal fluctuations to ensure the long-term sustainability of handicraft trade and livelihood support in the Cape Coast Metropolis and Ghana.

Abolitionist Ecological Security

As ecological crises deepen, many scholars have challenged dominant practices of security by developing more progressive environmental or ecological security discourses. Others, on the other hand, critique these moves by emphasizing the inherently repressive features of security discourse. This article engages this debate by proposing a more radical form of ecological security informed by the ‘abolitionist’ tradition – which I call Abolitionist Ecological Security. From this view, the problem with existing ecological security approaches is not their efforts to rethink the term ‘security’, but rather (1) their failure to foreground the political economy of racial capitalism as the structure that hegemonic security practices function to secure, and (2) their neglect of how ‘racial capitalist security assemblages’ – encompassing structures of militarism, policing, incarceration and border controls – produce ecological insecurity through their ecological impacts and violence against workers, the poor, migrants and racialized communities. Thus I argue, following the abolitionist tradition, that any genuine ecological security must necessarily be abolitionist in orientation, entailing the struggle for new worlds beyond racial capitalism and the creation of alternative security practices beyond militarism, policing and imprisonment.

Effects of migrant workers’ health capital on their returning home intentions: evidence from China

BackgroundThe health problems and migration problems of China’s huge migrant workers are related to the implementation effect of new-type urbanization and rural revitalization strategy. A thorough examination of the effect of migrant workers’ health on their returning home intentions and its mechanism is imperative.ObjectivesThis study aims to understand the influence of migrant workers’ health capital (HC) in their returning home intentions (RHI). For this, using capital theory, this study developed an empirical model to probe the impact of Chinese migrant workers’ health on their RHI and analyze the paths that this influence may follow to form the RHI of migrant workers.MethodsA theoretical model was established from the perspective of capital to study the relationship between health and migrant workers’ migration. A probit model was used to probe the impact of Chinese migrant workers’ HC on their RHI, and propensity score matching (PSM), replacing the explained variable (REV), and transforming the model (TM) were used for the robustness test. Stepwise coefficient test (SCT) and Sobel test (ST) were used to analyze the mediating effects of economic capital (EC) and social capital (SC) in the relationship of HC affecting RHI. Data were collected from a sample of 810 migrant workers from three provinces located in eastern, central, and western China using a survey questionnaire.ResultsMigrant workers’ HC had a significant and negative impact on their RHI, and mental health (MH) had a greater impact on migrant workers’ RHI than physical health (PH). There is regional heterogeneity in the effect of HC on the RHI of migrant workers in China. In addition, economic capital (EC) mediated indirectly the relationship between HC and RHI, while the mediating role of social capital in the relationship between HC and RHI was not significant.ConclusionMigrant workers’ HC is an important factor affecting the formation of their RHI, in which EC plays an intermediary role. This study extends and deepens our understanding of HC and helps to understand the role of health in shaping RHI from the perspective of capital, and the finding confirms the validity of the “salmon bias effect” hypothesis in the Chinese context. These findings can also help local government pay more attention to returning migrant workers’ HC.

Four First in Family Students’ Transition into Degree Study at a Vocational Education Institution

Students who are the first in family (FIF) to enrol in bachelor’s degree programmes, do not have the same familial cultural, social and economic capital that can help in their transitions into tertiary study than students whose parents are tertiary graduates. This qualitative study explores four FIF students’ experiences of transitioning from secondary school into a Bachelor of Nursing programme offered at one New Zealand polytechnic. It therefore contributes nuance to the abundance of research on FIF students’ experiences of transitioning into university degree programmes. The stressors identified included a lack of academic literacy and information about tertiary education; however, support from family, tutors, friends and classmates was pivotal in navigating the initial transition period. The participants were proud to be role models for other family members. The study identified that FIF students need scaffolding and support until the academic and self-efficacy skills required to succeed in tertiary education become embodied in their habitus.

China as a laboratory to renegotiate globalization: Statecraft through the selective exclusion of foreign capital

Building on Ilias Alami's invitation to reconceptualize foreign investment screening mechanisms as state tools for renegotiating (post)globalization, this commentary mobilizes China's historical engagement with foreign capital, positioning it as a ‘laboratory’ for rethinking statecraft amid the transformations of global capitalism. By tracing the genealogy of selective regulatory practices – including the establishment of special economic zones – this analysis underscores how China's ‘exceptional spaces’ and ‘exceptional legal forms’ have actively reshaped globalization through the strategic exclusion of foreign capital from critical national sectors. Moving beyond reductionist framings of ‘state capitalism’ and ‘globalization’, the commentary foregrounds the layered and contingent processes of valorization and accumulation that characterize contemporary capitalist globalization.

Saudi Arabia’s Quest for Regional Hegemony on the Basis of Opposition to Iran

This study argues that Saudi Arabia’s increasing regional activism is not only limited to balancing the Iranian threat or competing with the Islamic Republic but is also related to its claim to be a regional hegemonic power. Within the framework of Robert Cox’s Antonio Gramsci-inspired approach to hegemony, Saudi Arabia has sought to establish hegemony through its oil revenues, integration with the global capitalist system, anti-Iranian rhetoric and institutional influence in the Gulf region. However, the inability to secure common consent among regional actors, failures on the ground and disagreements within the Gulf Cooperation Council are major obstacles to these efforts. By emphasising the interplay of ideas, material resources and institutions, the study reveals the limits of Saudi Arabia’s hegemony building and deepens the concept of regional hegemony through a neo-Gramscian analysis.

The disaster contradiction of contemporary capitalism: Resilience, vital systems security, and ‘post-neoliberalism’

The disaster contradiction of contemporary capitalism: Resilience, vital systems security, and ‘post-neoliberalism’

Games as Windows and Remedies to Modern Society: A Qualified Defense of Agonistic Encounters

In this article, I explore connections among sport, competition, and capitalist society by drawing from works in the philosophy of sport and critical theory. Initially, I identify games, especially sports, as fundamental activities in contemporary life. In particular, I claim that the glorification of victory in sporting contests permeates the attitude toward competition of individuals in capitalist societies. Thus, sports can be understood as windows to observe the “achievement ethos” inherent in capitalism. Subsequently, I explore both philosophical victory-centric and mutualistic views of sporting competition. What follows from this examination is that competition itself is not inherently negative. It becomes detrimental when pursued at any cost. In alignment with Robert L. Simon’s sport mutualism, I advocate that competition may yield positive moral and social outcomes when approached as a “mutual quest for excellence.” To conclude, I trace this positive, mutualistic conception of competition back to ancient Greek and post-Hellenic reflections on agōn and excellence.

Economy and state: The politics of citizenship and universality in Gillian Rose, Hannah Arendt and Rosa Luxemburg

This article examines Gillian Rose's understanding of the relationship between universality and diremption in the capitalist economy and the capitalist state. Adopting Rose's triadic discussion in The Broken Middle, I contrast her thought with Hannah Arendt and Rosa Luxemburg. Rose's investigation of the ‘political diremption’ of the modern state is conducted via a critical appraisal of Arendt's oeuvre. While Arendt is one of the most celebrated thinkers today, Rose's analysis has been virtually ignored. Strikingly, Rose makes a novel distinction between the problematic of diremption between economy and state in Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism and the idealism of The Human Condition. Rose argues that Arendt's shift is ahistorical and betrays the radical potential of her best insights. This critique helps assess current debates over universal human rights and the relation between the capitalist economy and nation-state. Identifying the exclusions of citizenship, Rose advances a politics of universal freedom from ‘the broken middle’.

Imaginative geographies of youth: negotiating precarities in higher education marketisation

ABSTRACT In a capitalist society, the marketisation of higher education is becoming increasingly prevalent. Inspired by Orientalism, this study analyses how various mediated representations, such as institutional advertisements, online newspapers, Instagram posts, and discursive communications, play an imperative role in reinforcing marketisation and shaping the imaginative geographies of self-financed associate degree students in Hong Kong. Through 40 in-depth interviews with students and key stakeholders, as well as media scrutiny and participant observations, this research sheds light on the creativity employed by these students to navigate and resist precarities and the positioning of “othering” embedded in their imaginative geographies and the complexities of everyday lives. It underscores the dual nature of precarities, from both top-down and bottom-up manners, and advocates for social recognition, caring support for self-financed students.

Keadilan Ekonomi Islam sebagai Solusi Alternatif bagi Krisis Ekonomi Global

This study aims to analyze how Islamic economic principles can be applied effectively in the global economic system. This study uses a library research method with a comprehensive literature analysis with a descriptive and analytical approach. The results state that Islamic economics is a paradigm that offers alternatives and transformative solutions to build a more just, sustainable, and humane global economic system. By integrating the principles of justice, solidarity, and sustainability, Islamic economics can answer the failure of capitalism and socialism in overcoming social inequality, exploitation of natural resources, and financial instability. Through instruments such as zakat, waqf, the prohibition of usury, and partnership-based financing, Islamic economics creates a balance between individual and collective interests while maintaining ecological balance. Challenges in its implementation, such as resistance from the capitalist system, lack of global understanding, and the need for harmonization with modern market mechanisms, require collaborative approaches, technological innovation, and commitment across countries. If implemented consistently, Islamic economics can revolutionize the world's economic structure, create equitable prosperity, and strengthen human relationships with the environment, building the foundation for a more harmonious and sustainable world order.

A study of the commodification of Sinoperipheral writing in the linguistic landscape of China

ABSTRACT Previous studies have shown the usefulness of looking at ethnic minority languages of China through the lens of linguistic landscape (LL). However, with the exception of Cantonese, not much research has been conducted exclusively on the use of vernacular Chinese dialects in the LL of China. This study adopts an LL approach to examine the use of Vernacular Written Hokkien (VWH) as a kind of Sinoperipheral writing in Quanzhou, a geographically peripheral city of China. The commodification of VWH in the commercial frame of Quanzhou illustrates the local political economy of languages in Quanzhou where VWH has been reframed and recontextualised as an economic and symbolic capital. Despite the mobility afforded by globalisation, the commodification of VWH in the commercial LL of Quanzhou does not alter the hegemony of Standard Written Chinese (SWC).

Class Dynamics at the Margins: Capitalist Relations Among Shea Nut Collectors in Burkina Faso and Ghana

ABSTRACTIn recent decades, the increasing international demand for shea nuts has resulted in changes to the livelihoods of women collecting and processing these nuts in West Africa. Market integration of shea nut collectors affects social dynamics as capitalist relations and significant income differences among the collectors emerge. Using survey data, we establish a typology to describe shea nut collectors, based on the financial capital that they invest in shea and their other sources of income. We show that a small group of collector‐traders is able to benefit from the shea boom through the sale of shea nuts purchased from other collectors at a lower price. Conversely, a larger group of dedicated and diversified collectors are compelled to sell their nuts at a low price for their subsistence. This interdependence highlights capitalist relations, income gaps and social differentiation among the collectors. This process intersects with gendered access to ownership and income control. Our analysis challenges common assumptions about the potential of market integration to achieve win–win scenario and shows that unequal development is constitutive of such approaches. Despite the limited role of shea nut collection in household income, we argue that the social differentiation at play shares similarities with that observed for cash crops in other cases of agrarian change. We conclude by highlighting that shea nut collectors need to be perceived as a heterogeneous group, navigating the intricacies of capitalist market integration with different interests and opportunities.

Subverting speculative urbanism: Cityscape in New York 2140

This article is divided into two parts. The first part foregrounds the logic of contemporary financial capitalism, emphasising the increasing role of ‘speculative urbanism’ in urban transformation. While the literature on the ‘financialisation of the city’ often highlights the commodity as the paradigmatic social form in urban settings, I argue that this perspective no longer fully captures the dynamics of contemporary capitalism. The second part contends that urban studies can significantly benefit from engaging with speculative fiction. Through its imaginative and projective capacities, speculative fiction mirrors empirical social and technological trends, while also illuminating the logical and structural relationship between speculative financialisation and urbanisation. Analysing Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2140, the article demonstrates how the novel helps us understand the devastation caused by financial capital, while also presenting a city where people engage in horizontal forms of resistance against speculative urbanism. Ultimately, the article proposes that for urban studies to develop a pertinent theory of futures in the 21st century, it must engage deeply with the mechanisms of speculative financial capitalism and incorporate the critical potential of speculative fiction to analyse and understand speculation as a key aspect of financial capitalism, while uncovering suppressed contradictions and potentialities.

Critical Race Theory, Marxism, and the Problem of Ideology

Critical race theories of ideology, surprisingly, replicate key tensions in early Marxist thought. Following a selective review of several Marxist theorists, this article examines critical race conceptions of racial ideology within the influential work of Charles W. Mills and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, probing three related problem areas: an “expressive” theory of society, the correspondence of ideologies to racial groups, and an overreliance on standpoint implications. In response, the author develops a heterodox, nonreductive Marxist theory in which racial ideologies, although historically durable, are seen as contingent, relatively autonomous constructs that take shape unevenly within capitalist societies, do not correspond to fixed social groups, and may or may not facilitate the reproduction of capitalism. Developing a less deterministic theory of the relation between social structure, group identity, and racist belief opens up more generative approaches to the problem of racial ideology.

Proficiency-chasing and goalodicy: In prioritising checklists, are we gambling with the future of mental health nursing?

In this discussion paper, I take a critical approach to the use of standardised checklists in practice assessment documents as a valid method of assessing mental health nursing students in the UK. The game Bingo is applied here as a metaphor, highlighting the folly of using standardised cross-field checklists to assess mental health nursing students in practice. Such practices, I argue, amount to little more than a game of proficiency-chasing at the expense of seeking more meaningful learning experiences, especially where practice assessment documents currently prioritise physical health care skills above those required for successful mental health nursing. Furthermore, where the current path to qualification as a mental health nurse in the UK is determined by the navigation of a complex system of checklists and targets, I also argue that goalodicy (as in the goal and actions taken to achieve this becoming the focus, over the very reason the goal exists in the first place) becomes an inevitability; shortcuts justified in the name of achieving broader goals of passing a practice module and eventual qualification as a mental health nurse. This situation, I suggest serves neoliberal, capitalist systems, reinforcing the mechanisation of care while undermining the deeper relational, ethical and philosophical focus of what it means to be a mental health nurse. Alternative methods of practice-based assessments for mental health nursing are considered.

Chronological approach to the characteristics of Ecuador's debt with the IMF and the WB.

Where did Ecuador's foreign debt originate and grow to alarming levels? The purpose of this article is to describe, from an analytical perspective based on the contributions of various authors, the origin of Ecuador's external debt with international institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as well as the support that these organizations provide for the development of the countries of the South, case Ecuador. To achieve this purpose, a documentary methodology was implemented that included an exhaustive review of studies focused on the specific variables subject to analysis, the PRISMA tool and Atlas.ti 23 were used. The results show that the creation of these financing agencies in their attempt to support the financial stability of developing countries has not been sufficiently effective in improving the welfare conditions of a good percentage of the population and has generated an imbalance in the sustained development of the poorest countries. It is concluded that the capitalist system gives predominant priority to the economic growth of nations, thus relegating in its model the consideration of human development. This orientation does not contribute effectively to the improvement of crucial aspects such: education, health and the standard of living of the population.

The political drivers of antipoverty policy in Italy: persistence, change and reversals

Abstract This article analyses the political determinants of antipoverty policy in Italy between 1948 and 2022, providing a long-term analysis of the Italian minimum income scheme. We look for an explanation of that evolution drawing on three theoretical perspectives: veto players, gradual institutional change, and party competition. Our methodology is process tracing which involves the examination of ‘diagnostic’ pieces of evidence for our broad political-historical analysis. We argue that the so called ‘neglect’ phase until 1992 can be explained by the veto players theory, the period after 1992 by gradual institutional change, whereas the final introduction of a minimum income scheme in 2018 is the result of competitive dynamics. The main lesson is that a case study analysis of the politics of anti-poverty policy offers fresh insights into a major challenge in capitalist systems, combating rising poverty trends.

Political Business Cycles in Varieties of Capitalistic Systems

ABSTRACTThis study contributes to the literature on political business cycles by assessing the effect of elections on growth expectations based on expert survey data instead of using actual performance data. We analyze the different roles opportunistic and partisan politics play in varieties of capitalistic systems as a source of heterogeneity. Our results show that expectations differ remarkably between Liberal and Coordinated Market Economies (LME vs. CME) even independent of election outcomes.

“The scandal that shocked the world”: conspirituality and online scam ads

ABSTRACT Drawing on a collection of online ads for scam bitcoin exchanges, this article situates their appeal and aesthetic within the longer history of populist political marketing. This history connects with current forms of commercial “conspirituality” that thrive on social media platforms, inviting users to suspend their disbelief in miracle cures and get-rich-quick schemes. The scam ads we examined mobilize critiques of existing social and economic inequality to enhance the appeal of the false solutions they offer. Following recent work on conspirituality, the article draws upon Jacques Ranciere’s notion of “dissensus” to analyze the ways in which the style and content of scam ads invite a form of “conspiracy believing” that challenges common sense understandings. It then turns to Alenka Zupančič’s critical psychoanalytic theory to argue that these beliefs, far from critiquing contemporary capitalism, work to disavow its pathologies.