Capital Development Research Articles

In-depth and feedback analysis of the relationship between human activities, the environment and economic growth in Africa

PurposeThe literature argues that human activities are responsible for environmental pollution and world climate change. Africa is the second-largest continent by population and its socio-economic conditions are adversely affected by climate change due to environmental pollution. Therefore, this study investigates the relationship between human activities, the environment and the economic growth of 38 African countries from 2000 to 2018.Design/methodology/approachThis study employs a simultaneous equations model called Seemingly unrelated regression.FindingsHuman capital development (HDI) and environmental health (EH) have a positive and non-linear relationship, while HDI and ecosystem vitality (EV) are negative and non-linear. The relationship between gross domestic product per capita (GDPPC) and EH is negative and non-linear. However, the GDPPC-EV link is insignificant. Trade openness (TO) and EV have a negative and non-linear relationship, but trade significantly improves EH. Urbanisation-EV relationship is positive and non-linear. However, urbanisation significantly reduces EH. Technology has a positive and non-linear relationship with EH and EV. The study also found that EH and EV positively affects the economy.Originality/valueThis is the first study to analyse the most concerned countries in-depth. Thus, it provides appropriate and sound policies that consider the unique characteristics of the nations. Moreover, it uses a robust estimation technique that overcomes the endogeneity problem and offers insight into the relationship between the variables, including the feedback effect of the environment on growth.

Where in China is the labour unrest rising? Visualising workers’ collective actions in mainland China

China is an emerging epicentre of labour unrest in the world. However, the geography of labour unrest in China is not well known due to the lack of official data. This study draws upon data from the China Labour Bulletin to characterise the spatial patterns of workers’ collective actions in mainland China from 2011 to 2020. The results show that the incidence of labour collective actions was generally higher in the less-developed central and western areas than in the developed eastern areas. Three types of high-incidence regions for worker protests were identified: the industrialised region, the less developed but rapidly industrialising region, and the less-developed resource-based region. The industrial relocation from the eastern to western and central regions in recent years has shaped the geography of labour unrest in China as the latter became concentrated areas of worker protests. The geography of labour unrest reflects the spatially uneven impact of capitalist development on labour in China.

Indigenous Revolution in Ecuador and Bolivia, 1990–2005

Sociologist Jeffery M. Paige is the author of two important comparative works on revolution in the latter part of the twentieth century. The first examined cases of agrarian revolution in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, while the second focused on Central America. More than two decades later, he has produced a new comparative study that takes a surprising tack. Whereas in the past Paige deployed a structural economic and political framework for analyzing revolution, he now adopts a primarily cultural one. The cases that he takes up are “indigenous revolutions” at the turn of the twenty-first century in the Ecuadorian and Bolivian Andes, a region rarely considered in the global geography of revolution.Paige's concept of revolution in the new book emphasizes subjective consciousness, as seen in the political actors' utopian imagination. The aspiration to “turn the world upside down” is indeed a classic feature of revolutions, but less often a feature of classic social science definitions of them. Paige here moves away from Theda Skocpol and toward Pierre Bourdieu, who stressed the symbolic transformations that underlie political revolution. In the Andean case, Paige argues, Indigenous discourse provided a new way to think and talk about overturning the existing order, a pachakuti in native parlance. The communalist social organization and ethos in Andean and Amazonian society also provided a foundation for an ideology of “indigenous socialism” that inspired mass mobilizations. Paige goes on to highlight one other unusual factor in Ecuador and Bolivia. While symbolic transformation and mass uprising are common elements of revolutions, what stands out in the Andean cases is that social movements ultimately achieved a share of state power through electoral democracy rather than armed struggle.Here the two cases diverge, however. Whereas the Indigenous movement in Ecuador was unable to retain power in the center-left government of Rafael Correa (2007–17), it had more success in Bolivia under the Movement Toward Socialism government of Evo Morales (2006–19). Paige argues that the difference lay in the more heterogeneous and inclusive notion of Indigenous identity in Bolivia. He observes that the coca growers' movement, which combined peasant trade unionism, ancestral ethnic affiliation, and an anti-imperialist stance against the United States, played a key part in constituting a durable symbolic and political unity.To discern the symbolic and utopian dimension of the movements, Paige conducted 45 interviews, primarily with Indigenous intellectuals and political leaders in 2008, 2009, and 2011. They represent a gamut of influential organizations and constituencies in the two countries. In Ecuador, the interviewees come from the lowland and highland regional associations that are part of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador as well as from the Pachakutik political party. In Bolivia, we hear from intellectuals and activists from the radical indianista-katarista, coca-growing, and peasant trade union movements as well as from non-Indigenous Left intellectuals. The extensive testimonial accounts are an unusual feature of the book and are framed by coherent and accessible interpretations by the author.A panoply of key themes emerge from the interviews and form the basis for what Paige conceives of as the revolutionary vision in the Andes. A number of interviewees address the philosophy of “living well” (suma qamaña in Aymara, or sumak kawsay in Quechua), an approach to natural resources, territory, and development that would overcome historical patterns of extractivism and capitalist development. They consider the meaning of decolonization, whether in spheres of Indigenous autonomy, intercultural relations, or plurinational state formation. They also reflect on the relationships between social movements and state power, direct and representative democracy, mass mobilization and armed struggle, and Indigenous ideology and Marxism.One difficulty is that the book ostensibly focuses on the phase of powerful Indigenous and popular insurrections in the two countries between 1990 and 2005, while the interviews were conducted subsequently. Therefore we get the perspectives of the actors only in the aftermath of the events, when a series of new issues presented themselves. Chief among these were the tensions between some of the Indigenous intellectuals and activists and the Pink Tide governments of Correa and Morales. Nonetheless, these later conflicts are of significance in themselves, and the interviews do indeed provide ample evidence of the radical critiques of society and the utopian aspirations that animated the mass mobilizations at the turn of the century.Whether or not one accepts Paige's concept of revolution, his compelling cultural approach and the rich testimony that he supplies will be of great value to general students and specialists interested in revolution, Indigenous social movements, and the Andean region.

On How to Live Well: Houses as Theatres of the Good Life in Mexico City

In this article, the author explores the contours of housing as performance by examining a sampling of cases drawn from mid-twentieth-century Mexico City. In her analysis of the erection of modernist middle-class housing projects, suburbs, and architectural sculptures against the informal housing system that expanded throughout the national capital from the 1950s through the 1980s, the author reads housing as shifting performances of race, nation, citizenship, capitalist development, and class aspiration. Together, these readings reveal how houses are more than shelters; they are also theatrical practices that offer competing visions of ‘the good life.’

Common Men, Exceptional Politicians: What Do We Gain from an Embodied Social Biographical Approach to Leftist Leaders Like Germany's August Bebel and Brazil's Luis Inácio Lula da Silva?

AbstractLula and His Politics of Cunning explores the origin, roots, and evolution of Luis Inácio Lula da Silva's vision, discourse, and practice of leadership as a process of becoming. This commentary invites historians of labor movements and the left to think beyond their geographical and chronological specializations. It argues that there is much to gain from thinking globally if we wish to achieve meaningful causal insights applicable to the sweep of capitalist development.

The Stack as an Integrative Model of Global Capitalism

This paper investigates recent transformations in global capitalism’s political economy, concerned with the evolution of globally integrated production and exchange apparatuses, such as platforms, enabled through technological advances in computational infrastructures. These infrastructures are explicable in terms of the model of the Stack, understood as an accidental mega-structure of the contemporary platform economy that is integrating previously detached circulation and accumulation structures. The Stack is introduced as an integrative model of a multi-layered political economic system that allows to understand and explain recent developments in global capitalism. Focus is thereby given to intensified real abstraction of labour induced by the capitalist appropriation of planetary-scale computation. Building on the model of the Stack, we set in relation different perspectives on recent capitalist development in terms of planetary-scale computation: transnational informational capitalism, cognitive capitalism, intellectual monopoly capitalism and techno-feudalism. Thereby we highlight aspects of value creation as well as rent-seeking through the model of the Stack.

The Interactive Emergence of Capitalist Trade-Cycle Dynamics in Maritime Asia, 1640s–1760s: Overview and Prospectus

Abstract The analysis of cyclic movements in overseas trade provides a tool for exploring the emergence of capitalistic dynamics. Regularly recurring cycles of prosperity and recession have been considered a characteristic and novel feature of the modern type of capitalist economy that emerged in the early nineteenth century. In a strong form of this idea, credit-funded cycles of expansion and retrenchment are the basic process through which capitalist development happens. What then should we make of data that suggest the presence of regular cycles, similar in duration to classic industrial-era cycles, in East Asian maritime trade in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries? These preliminary results warrant deeper investigation and provide new support for the idea that capitalist-type developmental dynamics did not simply arrive in eastern Asia from Europe but rather emerged interactively on the spot.

‘The sanctions are good for some people but not for someone like me who actually genuinely does their job search.’ British Jobseeker’s Allowance claimant views on punitive welfare reform: Hegemony in action?

This article shows that the unemployed are broadly supportive of welfare reforms which have led to increased poverty; exacerbated ill health; led some to engage in ‘survival crime’ or to disengage from the social security system. This support is predicated on the perceived need to discipline ‘undeserving’ groups; principally the feckless, those gaming the system and migrants. The authors argue that this reflects the success of a ‘two-nations’ hegemonic project that has sought to legitimise an ongoing phase of capitalist development characterised by the removal of social protections, widening inter-class inequalities and the implementation of punitive welfare reforms to submit the unemployed to insecure poverty labour. This article makes a significant original contribution to the field by demonstrating that the resonance of the ‘two-nations’ hegemonic project resides in both its relatability to lived experiences of the unemployed and its tendency to cast a stigmatising threat over their out-of-work status.

War and the Left: Considerations on a Chequered History

While political science has probed the ideological, political, economic and even psychological motivations behind the drive to war, socialist theory has made a unique contribution by highlighting the relationship between the development of capitalism and war. There’s a long and rich tradition of the Left’s opposition to militarism that dates back to the International Working Men’s Association. It is an excellent resource for understanding the origins of war under capitalism and helping leftists maintain our clear opposition to it. In this article, the author examines the position of all the main currents (socialist, socialdemocratic, communist, anarchist and feminist) intellectuals (Engels, Kropotkin, Malatesta, Jaurès, Luxemburg, Lenin, Mao and Khrushchev) of the Left on the war and its different declinations (‘war of defence’, ‘just war’, ‘revolutionary war’).

Ekonomi Syariah: Menjawab Strategi Pemulihan Ekonomi Pasca Pandemi

<p>The Covid-19 pandemic had a considerable influence, particularly in economic spheres. The occurrence of problems such as layoffs, unemployment, rising poverty rates, and economic growth is seldom enough to necessitate a remedy. The goal of this research is to see how Islamic economics might help with post-pandemic economic recovery. This research employs a qualitative descriptive approach, as well as content analysis and a literature review (library research). Secondary data was obtained from the institution's official website. The study's findings show that Islamic economics, when combined with the framework of the national economy, makes a positive contribution to dealing with and improving post-pandemic economic conditions, including: (a) special instruments that can protect vulnerable groups of people, such as philanthropic models of zakat management, infaq, waqf, shodaqoh, and tafakul; (b) philanthropic models of zakat management, infaq, (b) Islamic financial development features and tools that assist and recover the UMKM sector through risk-sharing economic growth and prosperity, as well as simpler processes that increase social welfare. c) Capital development and distribution as a means of reviving the green economy (green economy). The growth of Islamic financial assets, such as Islamic banking, Islamic IKNB, and Islamic capital markets, has made a significant contribution to the national economy's structure.</p>

The Revitalization Design of Regional Ethnic Cultural Capital in a Sustainable Perspective: The Case of Traditional Chinese Garment Yunjian

The formation of the globalization pattern of regional ethnic culture brings new opportunities for the sustainable development of cultural capital. In order to solve the problem of mismatch between the high development demand of regional ethnic costumes and their traditional design methods, this study proposes an innovative design method for regional ethnic traditional costumes, taking the Yunjian, a cloud-shaped sash-like shoulder garment as an example. Firstly, we deeply explored the historical and cultural connotation of the Yunjian through fieldwork and literature research. Then we sorted out and refined its elements, colors and structural features. We classified the patterns according to the composition forms and clarified the path of pattern creation based on fractal theory. We combined the representative elements of Yunjian with the fractal algorithm and proposed the design model of Yunjian fractal pattern. Finally we verified the feasibility of the proposed design method through design practice. The results show that the Yunjian garment created by the method of this paper can better reflect the characteristics of fashion art and ethnic culture.

A Comparison of Income Inequality in China and Russia and The Impact on Human Capital

Both China and Russia in economic transition are facing the risk of widening income gap and increasing inequality. This paper analyzes the degree of income inequality between the two countries from the perspectives of Gini coefficient, income quintile and decile. The income distribution system aimed at maintaining the stability has failed to curb the expansion of income inequality. Instead, it has resulted in an unfair distribution of educational opportunities and huge differences in family education investment, which increasingly affects the quality of education, especially the acquisition of high-quality higher education resources. So income inequality has become the main obstacle to the accumulation and development of human capital. Only by controlling income inequality within a reasonable range through a more inclusive system and giving individuals fair educational opportunities can the stock and quality of human capital be improved.

Formation of intellectual capital in the context of an innovatively oriented educational organization based on the principles of quality management

The article describes the approach to the formation of intellectual capital in an innovative organization, based on the example of private educational organization of additional vocational education. Based on the principles of quality management, the author studies the mechanism of formation of intellectual capital. The empirical material of the study is scientifc and educational events in the format of international seasonal online schools – short-term programs of additional vocational education. The method of observation and organizational analysis made it possible to typologize the features and elements of intellectual capital, to identify the contexts of implicit and explicit knowledge and to outline prospects for further research. According to the results of the study, the author made the following conclusion: taking into account the external challenges affecting the educational services market, it is necessary to pay close attention to the formation and development of the intellectual capital of the organization. The approach to describing the mechanism of intellectual capital formation has prospects for further development and can be validated through other scientifc and educational organizational activities and/or a set of such activities. This approach has prospects for replication in the context of other organizations with appropriate detail and necessary adaptation. To do this, you need to get a larger sample and validate data taking into account industry specifcs.

International experience of human capital management in higher educational institutions: the american model

The issues of training qualified specialists have become especially relevant in recent years, since the requirements imposed on higher educational institutions have increased significantly due to recent trends in the world. Universities today are not just knowledge transfer centers, but they are increasingly involved in social issues. Higher educational institutions have a direct impact on raising the standard of living, improving material well-being, career prospects, and the economic growth and prosperity of the state. Higher educational institutions play a key role in the formation, development of human capital, which is the main basic value of any economy, and especially an innovative economy. The purpose of this article is to study the foreign experience of formation and development of human capital, to identify the main trends, to study statistical data on the example of universities in the United States. The choice of American universities was conditioned by a number of factors, namely by the fact that the majority of American universities occupy leading positions in the world rankings. The main input data were the materials presented in the annual reports of the U.S. Department of Education, scientific journals. The authors provide an overview of statistical data on such indicators as the number of startups launched by students and faculty, their success in the market, and the scope of their activities. The conclusions offered in the article on the peculiarities of human capital management in higher educational institutions based on the analysis of the American higher education system can have a positive impact on the development of other higher education systems.

Empirical Study on the Impact of Key Audit Disclosure on Stock Price in Audit Reports

In order to meet the needs of capital market reform and development for high-quality accounting information and improve the information content of public company audit report, the financial statement audit business of capital market related subjects needs to be reformed. On December 23,2016, the reform of new auditing standards has been started in China，and 12 guidelines such as China CPA Auditing Standards No.1504- Communicating Key Auditing Matters in Auditing Reports were published. In order to steadily advance the reform of the audit report, the new audit report guidelines have taken a step-by-step implementation program, of which the first A+H stock listed companies were implemented on January 1,2017. This paper mainly studies the following two aspects: whether the disclosure of key audit matters will affect people's investment decision, and then affect the stock price fluctuation of listed companies；whether the disclosure of key audit matters in the audit report of state-owned banks and non-state-owned banks has different influence on the stock price. This paper takes the A-share listed banks , by collecting the enterprises 2013-2018 annual audit reports and the closing prices of the stock during the report day, to carries on the research and makes the hypothesis, and finally use the empirical verification, draw a conclusion.

The Merchant Bourgeoisie Fighting for Liberal Economy: Discussions on Tobacco Monopoly in the First Decade of the Republic of Turkey

This article is about the discussions on the tobacco business in Turkey after the abolishment of the monopoly of the private French Régie Company on tobacco in 1923. In these discussions which continued throughout the 1920’s, the Turkish merchants led a campaign to put pressure on the government to introduce a system of free trade and free market in tobacco business. By analyzing these discussions on tobacco monopoly, the article aims to reveal the nature of the relations between the relatively new business class in the country and the rulers of the newly build Turkish Republic. Since Turkey is a late developed capitalist economy, the origins and development of its capitalist class has always been an issue of discussion. The article tries to demonstrate that the Turkish businesspersons possessed the capacities and means of guiding and confronting the political government in the early years of the republican period. It argues that the campaign on tobacco organized by Turkish merchants proves their organization capacities to defend their common interest and that these businesspersons deserve to be called as the merchant bourgeoisie of the country.

Mapping Self-Help Groups (SHGs) as alternatives to capitalist development: an ethnographic enquiry from India

Mapping Self-Help Groups (SHGs) as alternatives to capitalist development: an ethnographic enquiry from India

PEMIKIRAN IBNU KHALDUN TENTANG KETENAGAKERJAAN DAN RELEVANSINYA DI INDONESIA

Ibn Khaldun's thoughts on employment and its relevance in Indonesia”, with the background of the problem, namely, the enactment of Law Number 13 of 2003, is part of the government's grand scenario to organize and negotiate common interests between employers, workers and the government. If companies have an interest in capital development, workers have an interest in increasing income, then the government secures the macro economy. Because without conducive conditions, the economy of a country will be shaken. Ibn Khaldun was a Muslim scientist who had many thoughts in various fields such as economics. In his economic sub-study on employment, which is contained in Muqadimah's book on the theory of value, division of labor and international trade, the law of supply and demand, consumption, production, money, trade cycles, public finance, and several macroeconomic discussions.
 The type of research is library research. The type of data used is primary data, namely all of Ibn Khaldun's works that discuss employment, both implied and explicit, as well as data on employment in Indonesia. While secondary data is related to formal objects and enrichment that discusses employment in Indonesia.
 From the results of the researcher's analysis, it is known that, firstly, Ibn Khaldun's rationale for the emergence of the employment system because, to meet basic personal (dharuri), secondary (hajiyyah) and tertiary (tahsinat) needs, as well as to meet the needs of many people (subjective mass), is called " tamawwul” (company). then for that humans to meet personal needs and many people have to produce en masse, the more needs, the more they produce, the more alliances (employment) arise, this is because what drives humans instinctively to work, because they work as human intermediaries to get what they want. that God created. Second, the main points of Ibn Khaldun's thoughts on employment are that the concept of thought starts from production, namely one of the factors is labor, with its elaboration; there are three levels of division of labor, namely the community, industry and international levels. Next is the demand and supply of labor, labor wages, expansion of job opportunities, competence and technology. Third, Based on these points of view, it can be concluded that Ibn Khaldun's thoughts have relevance to employment in Indonesia today. The relevance is found in the constitution or positive law of Indonesia in Article 33 of the Basic Law (UUD) article 33 and Law Number 13 of 2003 concerning employment, namely first according to Khaldun about the nature of labor as mutualism, while in the Indonesian constitution it is reflected in the Constitution. Article 33 paragraph (1). Second, work competence at the community, industrial and international levels, in Indonesian regulations is regulated in law number 13 of 2003 articles 9, 10, 11, and 12. Third, expansion of job opportunities in Indonesian regulations is regulated in law number 13 of 2003. 2003 articles 39, 40 and 41. Fourth, the salary of Khaldun's workers is the benchmark for meeting basic living needs (dharuri) while Indonesian regulations adhere to the principle of meeting the needs of a decent living (KHL).

Determinants of Capital Market Development in Kenya

This study sought to determine the determinants of capital market development in Kenya. The empirical study was conducted using time series data for the period 2001- 2020. This study adopted quantitative approach and employed secondary data of twenty years; Pearson correlation test was used to evaluate the relationship between the variables. Furthermore, this study used multiple regression analysis by applying Ordinary Least Square (OLS) method. The macroeconomic variable data involved were stock market liquidity, investment, and foreign direct investment. For capital market development indicators, market capitalization, listed companies, value traded and turnover ratio were considered. The regression results demonstrate that all the variables, stock market liquidity, investment and foreign direct investment are important determinants of capital market development in Kenya. The findings from Ordinary Least Square (OLS) indicated that the model is significant in a whole and the three independents explain 91% changes in the dependent variable. The study recommends the following policies among others; the government should regulate and control financial sector in order to promote the capital market development. Policy maker should cut off restriction for the foreigner investors and to create strategies to increase the foreign direct investment and offer incentives.

Traversing Disability: Employers’ Perspectives of Disability Inclusion

Persons with disabilities still experience challenges in obtaining employment even though obligations associated with their employment are in place in legislative frameworks that strive to support transformation within the labour market. This paper explores employers’ perspectives on the employment of persons with disabilities in South Africa identified in a case study. The influence of social capital on disability inclusive employment was explored from the perspective of two employers who employed trainees who completed an auxiliary training programme for persons with disabilities, which provides opportunities to facilitate pathways to economic inclusion and/or employment. Findings reveal that despite the call for increased labour inclusivity, the development of social capital is not clearly apparent when persons with disabilities are considered for employment. Organisational attitudes and beliefs seem to stem from the obligatory standpoint of the organisations. The paper highlights the need for employers to look beyond impairments so that employment goals are shared and re-enforced by understanding and possibly re-evaluating their views on their organisation’s obligations, norms, values and mission, and goals. Insights can guide employers to think more holistically about ways to facilitate the economic inclusion of persons with disabilities.