Organization Of Economic Life Research Articles

Participation of the Volhynian Gentry in the Urbanization Processes of Early Modern Volhynia: On the Problem Definition

The article considers scholarly interpretations related to the urbanization process and its periodization, which may be different for Western and Eastern Europe and depend on the peculiarities of the society. The approaches and assessments common in Ukrainian historiography regarding the emergence and evolution of cities and the participation of the gentry in these processes are analyzed. It has been established that most of the city-founding initiatives in the early modern period in Volhynia were related to the activity of the nobility. The stages of founding cities, mutual influences during this process of the city and the village and the importance of the market as a factor that directly revived the new city are considered.In the article, based on the source material of the Volhynian record books of the 16th–17th centuries and previously published documents, several documents that certify the active participation of the gentry in the process of creating cities in the early modern Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1795) are analyzed. It is discovered that the process of founding a new city by a nobleman was quite a troublesome task and required great effort and maximum assistance, starting from finding a place in their own land for a new city and help in obtaining Magdeburg rights, ending with getting people in there, giving them “freedom” and the internal organization of a city’s life. It has been investigated that various factors could be the motivation for such initiative, such as those related to the external Tatar threat, and personal beliefs, when, according to the source, the locator realized that the functioning of the city would be better for him and his area. It was traced that besieging new cities, the nobles were interested not only in their appearance, but also cared for the population that had to live in them, as evidenced by the privileges granting exemptions from taxes for a long period of time (“freedoms”), which deprived the gentry of a theoretical profit. No less important in this sense was also the organization of economic life in the city and the constant mentioning in the location privileges of the right to hold auctions and fairs.

«Nadproizvodstvennyj» menedzhment v sovetskoj ekonomike (1930—1980-e gg.)

The article analyzes management, concentrated in the organs of the Communist party, Soviet, and economic bodies. Their place in the organization of economic life is considered, the specifics of the functions of different management segments are defined, and information about their number is provided. The methods of work of “over-production” management, the material status of the highest part of the managerial class are also analyzed.

A Forgotten Chapter in the History of International Commercial Arbitration: The Slave Trade's Dispute Settlement System

AbstractThis article is part of the ongoing efforts to write a critical history of international arbitration in commercial and investment matters. It examines the ways in which the Spanish crown and its concessionaries set up a mechanism to settle legal disputes pertaining to the transatlantic slave trade. The transformation ofasientos de negrosfrom limited royal contracts to large-scale monopolies awarded to foreign chartered companies during the sixteenth, seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries was accompanied by the creation of an international commercial arbitration system. Why was this system set up, how did it work, and what was its faith? The overall aim of the article is to invite international lawyers to rethink the history of international arbitration and pay closer attention to the ‘private’ dimensions of formal and informal imperialism. It also attempts to bridge the historical investigation and contemporary commentary. In the conclusion, I argue that this study allows us, in a mirroring effect, to question the idea that today's dispute settlement mechanism was conceived as a means to ‘depoliticize’ international investment law. What the introduction of arbitration achieves is to place some fundamental questions out of sight. Today, as in the past, arbitrators work from within the system; their work rests on a series of unspoken – and yet highly political – premises about the organization of economic life and the distribution of values.

Formation of paradigmatic theory of regional economy

This paper reviews the evolution of scientific ideas about the regional economy as an independent direction of economic knowledge. The growing interest of scientists, university lecturers and specialists to the regional economy is noticed. The authors pay special attention to the origins of the regional economy, the contribution of Russian scientists to the disclosure of the content and nature of economic regionalization of the country as well as highlight the role of Soviet geographers and economists in developing the theory of clusters and the study of challenges to the rational distribution of production forces. It is emphasized that the new scientific discipline — regional economy — was born in the acute scientific discussions between Soviet geographers and economists, particularly regarding the subject of investigation. The conclusion is substantiated that so far in economic science four major views on the subject of understanding and interpretation of the regional economy were formed. The authors pay attention to the fact that at present there is a further extension of the subject of the regional economy, mainly over the border of the material space and location of productive forces. The paper concludes that the formation of a modern paradigm of regional economy should be based on several basic principles, among which are the following ones: consideration of the regional economy as an evolving complex structural discipline; territoriality as a dominant feature of any research in the regional economy; the imperative of any study that claims to belong to a regional economy is not only to establish general patterns of development and organization of economic life in the territory, but also the identification of its regional (local) specific.

Gandhi's Philosophy of Work and Its Contemporary Relevance

There is a crisis of work in contemporary technological society. Afunctional definition of work feeds, and is fed by, an economico-technological ideology that valorizes the cult of productivity and of "total work". This in turn reflects a utilitarian conception of the human being, whose worth is now measured in terms of his or her contribution to total "output". Gandhi was one of the sharpest critics of this notion of man and society; he sees it as materialistic, soulless and fundamentally violent. In its place he proposes a moral conception of work that reflects his spiritual view of the human person. E.F. Schumacher takes Gandhi's ideas further in terms of an organization of economic life that promotes simplicity, beauty, social responsibility and ecological sustainability. The phenomenon of globalization heightens the stark contrast between the world-views of Gandhi and Schumacher on the one hand, and that of global capitalism on the other.

Labour as Commodity

He examines that distinguishing feature of the organization of economic life in the modern era, that one that sets it apart from both the feudal economy and the ancient, the fact that in it one person works for another in return for a wage. This relation dominates and characterizes economic life in the developed world. And the modern era has moved more or less steadily towards the purification of this relation, so that the wage and the obligation to work are the only things connecting the employer and the worker. The company house, the company store, the compulsory temperance or attendance at church, the allowance of coal, and other non-cash and semi-feudal connections and obligations standing between employer and worker have slowly been eliminated, leaving the wage on the one hand and the obligation to work on the other as the only link between the worker and the employing person or company. At managerial level, there may still be other non-cash connections that are designed to elicit loyalties and performances that are not contractually specifiable, the company car, the country club subscription, stock options and other non-taxable 'perks', but for the worker on a weekly wage, that wage and his obligation to work for it are the only connection. And it is one that can be broken with little or no notice on either side.

The New Sherman Act: A Positive Instrument of Progress

T HE issue of competition and monopoly is fundamental to the development of legal machinery for the effective and progressive control of the national economy. Competition is not a cure-all for our economic ills. But measures to increase the degree of competition in the organization of economic life are important items in the tool-bag of techniques with which we can reasonably hope to control our economic destiny. The amount of competition we achieve in industrial organization will have a good deal to do with our success in reaching the basic goals of the Employment Act of 1946-high and sustained levels of productive employment in a free society. The organization of industry and commerce is a matter of central consequence to national policy in at least four basic particulars. First of all, the degree of monopoly in the business structure is important in relation to the simple problems of economic welfare-whether goods and services cost more than they might, and whether resources and income are being allocated and used in ways which correspond to the preferences of the community.' Factors of competition as against monopoly are of direct, though not exclusive importance in determining the rate of technological progress and the rate at which cheaper methods of production are introduced.