Crisis Of Capitalism Research Articles

Is Green Energy the Pathway to Sustainability? – An Explanation From the Perspective of Degrowth Theory

The discourse surrounding energy transition is intensifying due to insufficient global energy resources. Nonetheless, given that the capitalist economy prioritizes expansion and growth, it remains uncertain whether green energy solutions can genuinely pave the way towards sustainability and address the challenges of climate change, energy shortages, and food security concerns. Degrowth calls for a radical reorganization of politics and economics to reduce resource, energy consumption. This paper discusses the crisis of capitalism from multiple dimensions. It uses the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) as an approach to explain degrowth and green energy. It also explores green energy in terms of three aspects of sustainable development: the profit-making industry, the high-efficiency paradox, and the re-challenge to the environment. Finally, it discusses the possible pathways for society to solve the global environmental crisis in the context of degrowth. These movements encourage critical thinking about the transition to green energy and offer a feasible pathway to sustainability without relying on growth ideology. This highlights the viability of the degrowth framework as a means to address a range of problems.

The Political Economy of Reparations and the Dialectic of Transnational Capitalism

ABSTRACTThe contemporary global capitalist crisis provides the context for studying reparations, the struggles for which face uphill challenges, foremost because transnational capital will only engage with reparations to serve its own interests. Far from being a panacea for historical wrongs, reparations campaigns are shaped by the historical logics of capitalist accumulation and the liberal racial social contract. The cases of Namibia and the Commonwealth Caribbean (CARICOM) that are examined in this study highlight the contradictions that underpin the demand for reparations arising from genocide in Namibia and capitalist slavery in the CARICOM region. The cases reveal an association of reparations initiatives with buying complicity or capitalist fixes rather than reparative justice for historical grievances, while more autonomous demands for reparations face violent suppression, as in the case of Haiti. Today's reparations struggles are further undermined by revolutionary innovations in digital and robotics technology, confronting exploited racialized populations with a rapidly dwindling supply of jobs. This article locates the contemporary reparations debate within the wider context of global capitalism and its racialized liberal foundations, tracing the links between colonial wrongs, international power relations and ongoing systems of capitalist accumulation which reparations are used to stabilize rather than challenge. It is thus difficult to make a case for the transformational potential of reparations.

An Ordoliberal Shift? The Biden-Harris Administration's Public Response to U.S. Capitalism in Crisis

An Ordoliberal Shift? The Biden-Harris Administration's Public Response to U.S. Capitalism in Crisis

Scottish Crofting and an Alternative to Capitalism

ABSTRACT Small-scale farming communities in Scotland engaged in a combination of food sovereignty, agroecology, or land sovereignty are, to some extent, offering an alternative to capitalism. These strategies have not only made them more resilient to the recent crises of capitalism but have done so by reducing their dependency upon it. During these crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, they were not only more able to sustain themselves when long food supply chains collapsed but they also increased their autonomy and sustainability through an increased demand for local food networks. What is more, in certain areas, these strategies have transformed social relations and, at times, revealed unalienated practices such as gift economies. This research was conducted over a 15-month period and primarily consisted of seasonal interviews with 14 small-scale food producers in Scotland. This paper will examine the manner in which the agricultural practices of these communities offer a glimpse of what an alternative to capitalism might look like through an analysis that draws on the work of James C. Scott, Marcell Mauss and John Holloway.

Book Review: Homes in Crisis Capitalism by Marnie Holborow

Book Review: <i>Homes in Crisis Capitalism</i> by Marnie Holborow

James O 'Connor's Ecological Thought and its Practical Enlightenment

James O 'Connor's ecological thought was born in the middle and late 20th century. By using the unique theory of double contradiction and double crisis of capitalism, James O 'Connor revealed the global ecological crisis caused by the development of capitalism, outlined a new model of ecological socialism, and tried to find a feasible path to solve the global ecological crisis. To mitigate the adverse effects of the ecological crisis on the capitalist world. James O 'Connor's ecological thought has been widely discussed by the academic community since it was put forward. Subsequently, many scholars in the field of ecology have analyzed and studied James O 'Connor's thought. Through the organic combination with the current actual situation and practical experience, they began to apply James O 'Connor's ecological thought to the management of ecological problems. The construction of ecological civilization in our country is also developing continuously, and O 'Connor's ecological thought has a very positive enlightening and instructive significance to the construction of ecological civilization in our country.

Varieties of central banking: the Nordic Model beyond a fiscal-centric approach

ABSTRACT Since policymakers and scholars coined the term in the 1930s, the Nordic Model has often been considered to denote a homogeneous political entity in which the constituent countries are ostensibly interchangeable. As a result, seldom attention has been afforded to what fundamentally differentiates Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. By going beyond traditional ‘fiscal-centric’ accounts of the Nordic model, and instead focusing on the role of central banks and monetary policy, we show that each country bares far less similarities than has often been assumed in the literature. We trace this heterogeneity back to variegated responses to the 1970s crises of Fordist capitalism and draw on growth model theory to explain this divergent trajectory. We show how these differences shaped how each country responded to the Global Financial Crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, where a variegated array of monetary measures was employed to uphold their own distinct growth model. By accounting for the role of central banks within the Nordic Model, we propose that it is better understood as a series of models, drawing attention to the function of monetary policy within the growth models perspective in the political economy literature.

Habits of affluence: unfeeling, enactivism and the ecological crisis of capitalism

AbstractIn this text, I discuss the role that a range of habits in affluent societies play in upholding as well as masking an unsustainable status quo. I show that enactivism, as a philosophical approach to the embodied and embedded mind, offers resources for bringing into focus and critically interrogating such habits of affluence and the environments enabling them. I do this in the context of a critical theory of the unfelt in society: the systematic production of lacunae of emotive concern in social collectives. The lack of proportionate affective and practical responses to the ecological crisis epitomizes this. The article starts with considerations on societal unfeeling, then reviews key elements of enactive approaches to habit, before a fuller picture of habits of affluence is developed, informed by Brand’s and Wissen’s concept of the imperial mode of living. Finally, two dimensions of habits of affluence are discussed in some detail, which will help flesh out a thematically expanded, politically engaged version of enactivism.

Humanitarian capitalism: The labour regime of aid and the surrogate welfare state in times of global displacement

Recent literature on the geography and political economy of humanitarian migration governance has highlighted the diverse circuits of economic value being forged through ‘refugee crises’ across the world. However, there is a noticeable gap in the examination of what kind of labour relations sustain these new economic circuits. Additionally, there is limited analysis of how humanitarian labour practices intersect with existing geographies of labour precarity in regions where refugee aid operations are conducted. This article aims to address these gaps by exploring the dominant labour relations within the changing landscape of private and public service providers in Greece following the 2015–16 European ‘refugee crisis.’ The article argues that the growth of the refugee aid sector in Greece both capitalised on and exacerbated ongoing processes of labour market deregulation and public sector contraction. The burgeoning aid sector operated as a surrogate welfare state, relying on devalued local labour to address the basic social reproduction needs of global ‘surplus populations’. Extending discussions on the political economy of migration industries beyond profit-making to account for their role in transforming the welfare state and labour relations in spaces of accentuated capitalist crisis, the article demonstrates how the emergency temporalities of aid funding, the rise of public sector managerialism, and employment protection liberalisation impact migrant-facing services, effectively serving as both anti-labour and anti-immigration policy. Furthermore, it illustrates how politically induced migrant ruination is used as a lever to intensify and moralise humanitarian labour in a feedback loop detrimental to both working-class locals and migrants.

Debt, bubble policy, and the role of the repo market in the Federal Reserve’s management of capitalism in crisis

In the last decade, repurchase-agreements (repos) between banks and financial institutions have grown significantly as banks systemically low on cash see repos as the cheapest, safest, and quickest way to get the funding they need for running regular services. However, hikes in interest rates by the Federal Reserve since March 2022 have increased the cost of interbank borrowing. This causes stress on many banks, and ultimately, brings into question the financial system’s long-term reliance on repos and other obscure short-term funding methods. Awareness of the Fed’s repo market policy, and their monetary policy in general, ought to matter to political economists and workers alike because it reveals precisely how the economy is controlled by a few levers inside the marriage between state and finance capital. Consequently, in this article I outline the repo market and its significance to the Fed’s management of economic crises. This requires a relative understanding of their general monetary policy, which in itself requires significant material economic contextualizing. It is this context that ultimately matters most, and which will therefore be the focal point of discussion. Only after such contextualization does the discussion end with a word on the rise of repos, the risks of increased reliance on it, and possible future directions from the perspective of both capital and labor.

The paradox of global capitalism in crisis and global popular free mobilisation: The merger of the tourist and the temporary resident

Instability is inherent in global capitalism, impacting all countries, particularly those directly reliant on this economic framework. The USA shapes tourism metrics in dependent nations and influences inbound tourism spending. Using logarithmic models and power tests, the study delineated four dynamic fields (Cn) supporting the thesis of the fusion of tourism and temporary residency. This study demonstrates that tourism and migration correlate with political, economic, and social instability, as evidenced by high statistical correlations. Variance increases during instability, leading to more residency petitions per tourist entry. This pattern is repeated during three major crises: the 2008–2009 financial crisis, the 2011–2013 conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, and the 2016–2017 regional political turmoil and Venezuelan migration. Economic classification tests confirm the association between instability, armed conflict, and heightened tourism and residency tendencies. Tourism income rises steadily, and residency averages increase, especially during periods of regional instability. The study highlights the tight link between tourism and migration with political, economic, and social instability. The statistical analysis reveals significant correlations, showing higher residency pressure during unstable periods. The applied tests confirm that countries in turmoil exhibit heightened tourism and migration tendencies.

Niño, infancia y educación en las páginas del periódico Estado de Minas en la década de 1930

The article presents and analyzes conceptions of children, childhood and education contained in the pages of the Estado de Minas newspaper in the 1930s, indicating the existence of two predominant tendencies within the news: one new, more liberal and modern, called Americanism; the other old, more conservative and traditional, called Iberian Federalism. The interpretation of the news’ contents occurred based on authors such as Bardin (1988), Werneck Vianna (1997), Nunes (1998) and Guimarães (2013), among others, aiming to systemize, group, describe and categorize the conveyed messages. As a result, it is shown that the symbiosis between the new and the old stems from the moral, medical and psychological discourses which leave their mark on the debate about the assistance and education of the children. The newspaper Estado de Minas, as a space of ideological dispute for the power to form the Brazilian people and nation was not immune to this movement and this simbisosis. Liberals, "moderns" and Americanists advocate schoolnovism. Conservatives, "ancient" and Iberian defended religious and Christian education with fervor. However, the crisis of capitalism in the world manifested in the American crisis of the 1930s does not cease to appear in the pages of the newspaper and in the educational debate.

How “baked in” ideas hinder ideational robustness: the International Monetary Fund and “fiscal space”

Abstract This paper brings insights into ideational robustness to bear on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) fiscal policy thinking. It advances understanding of both the IMF and the concept of ideational robustness by focusing on economic ideas as they are put into practice by expert economic institutions. The IMF has traditionally enjoyed a reputation as a hawkish enforcer of neoliberal doctrine and conservative fiscal discipline, foregrounding deficit bias and fiscal sustainability concerns. Capitalist crises, notably the 2008 crash and COVID, have seen public debt increase while rendering growth and stability increasingly elusive. This turbulence has spurred some rethinking of Fund fiscal ideas. The IMF has added the new concept of fiscal space to its policy commentary and advocacy. Fiscal space seeks to reconcile economic stabilization and supporting growth to the Fund’s overarching concern to maintain fiscal discipline and sustainability. A focus on how ideas are put into practice shows that long-standing Fund fiscal priorities are hardwired into operational frameworks, curtailing the new emphasis and adaptions. Thus, key to the institutional conditions of IMF fiscal policy actions are “baked in” economic ideas. These are operationalized through economic models, analytical tools, fiscal evaluation frameworks, and standard operating procedures. The “politics of economic method,” in the form of deliberation and contestation over different normative ideas that can underpin alternative constructions of such policy frameworks, plays an important role in shaping which economic ideas come to matter, and how, for the IMF. The Fund’s “fiscal space” episode can be interpreted as a quest for ideational robustness (through increased flexibility), which thus far remains unrealized due to the crucial role of these mechanisms, institutional conditions, and ideational path dependencies.

Rural social movement strategies confronting global food crises: ‘overcoming the crisis of capitalism or exiting altogether from capitalism in crisis?’

ABSTRACT This essay examines the impacts of global food crises on rural social movements (RSMs) and recalls the context of the capitalism in crisis within which their resistance efforts are situated. It reviews key areas of RSM action: building alternative practice, deconstructing dominant narratives, boosting organizational strength, deepening political education, mobilizing to win battles that impact peoples' livelihoods, expanding convergence among movements, and reclaiming governance from corporate capture. It suggests that the transformative potential of this multitude of activities might be further sharpened by setting them within a long-term strategy of contrasting and progressively supplanting the capitalist mode of organizing the economy and society.

Introduction: Marxifying IR, IRifying Marxism

Although the neglect of Marxism has been a pervasive characteristic of IR theory, there has been a marked revival of interest in Marxism. Marx’s materialist insights into the general historical development of societies, as well as his critique of capitalism and political economy, have served as alternative starting points for different critical approaches to IR and offers a welcome alternative to neorealism, constructivism, and poststructuralism that have dominated IR for several decades. Marxism provides a redefinition of IR by focusing on changes in material circumstances, historical conditions, and society instead of assuming unchanging and fixed structures of anarchy or the state. Marx’s analysis and insights into the dynamics of international relations have become even more important given the ongoing crisis of neoliberal capitalism, the rise of authoritarianism, right-wing nationalist populisms, and the racial and gendered subordinations accompanying them pointing to the importance of Marxifying IR and IRifying Marxism.

The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism

Doug Elmendorf of Harvard University reviews “The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism” by Martin Wolf. The EconLit abstract of this book begins: “Promotes the argument that economic disappointment is one of the chief explanations for the rise of left- and right-wing populism in high-income democracies, focusing on what can be done to restore the relationship between capitalism and democracy.”

Democracy, Participation, and Capitalist Crisis

Democracy, Participation, and Capitalist Crisis

Wolfgang Streeck on the Origins of Capitalist Crisis

Abstract Shortly after the financial crisis of 2008, Wolfgang Streeck emerged as a highly influential and ambitious critical theorist of capitalism and crisis. Streeck's crisis theory of capitalism is built around an account of neoliberal policy reform as a family of responses to economic upheavals that first emerged during the 1970s. Based on an analysis of four major shocks all occurring in that decade, I argue that Streeck's crisis theory is excessively economistic in its understanding of the crisis tendencies that first propelled neoliberal reform and insufficiently attentive to the global context of their emergence. Theorising the significance of this pivotal historical moment requires more attention to the conflictual entanglements between societies of the Global South and North in the context of decolonisation, war and revolution, and a more nuanced appreciation of the political context of economic reform.

Capitalist crisis, reactionary advance and the challenges for marxist pedagogies

O texto decorre da participação na mesa redonda com o tema: “O avanço da extrema direita e os desafios das Pedagogias Marxistas hoje”, realizada no dia 30 de outubro de 2023, na XVI Jornada do Histedbr, realizada em João Pessoa, na Universidade Federal da Paraíba (entre os dias 30 de outubro a 01 de novembro de 2023). O tema central dessa XVI jornada do Histedbr foi o 40º ano do livro “Escola e Democracia: contribuição histórica e novos desafios”, de Dermeval Saviani. A mesa redonda faz a articulação de dois aspectos: o avanço da extrema direita e os desafios que esse avanço coloca para as Pedagogias Marxistas. Busquei tratar, aqui, essas duas questões, a partir dos estudos que tenho feito e que me remetem para as profundas crises estruturais do capitalismo e que é um processo a um só tempo destrutivo - do modo de produção capitalista -, mas também de transição para um novo modo de produzir a vida material, social e espiritual. Nesse processo histórico, como parte da totalidade histórico-social, está a educação, que cumpre igualmente um papel contraditório. Nesse processo histórico, a educação não tem uma posição de determinação dos rumos da transformação, mas isso não significa que não tenha um papel importante, formando as novas gerações em conformidade com os interesses contraditórios e que se expressam nas lutas entre as classes fundamentais da sociedade burguesa - quer para aprofundar a alienação (na perspectiva do capital) ou para a formação crítica das novas gerações (na perspectiva da transformação histórica e da formação crítica). É nesse aspecto que o livro “Escola e Democracia” é importante, pois foi a partir da análise dos limites das teorias educacionais que Saviani fez a proposta de uma teoria educacional histórico-crítica.

Capitalism, Austerity, and Fascism

Abstract There is a strong resonance between events of the inter-war years and today. These include a questioning of laissez-faire capitalism and austerity, and the rise of so-called ‘populist’ parties on both the left and right. Clara Mattei’s (2022) The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism thus makes an interesting contribution, by locating the key argument of her book in the febrile period of European history between the wars. According to Mattei, the First World War disrupted the pre-war capitalist system to such an extent that it created a crisis of capitalism, itself. As a result, following the end of hostilities, there was a conscious effort to restore the pre-war ‘capital order’ by means of a technocratic ‘austerity strategy’, and this was strongly linked to the rise of fascism. We argue that the inter-relationship between capitalism, austerity, and fascism during the 1920s and 1930s was rather more complex, and that to make sense of this, it is necessary to broaden the focus beyond Italy and Great Britain and the international financial conferences at Brussels (1920) and Genoa (1922). Otherwise, we risk misunderstanding and mis-diagnosing our own times, as those inter-war politicians, financiers, and economists discovered to their cost. We therefore also include Germany and the USA and base our analysis on the events of the entire inter-war period.