Political Capitalism Research Articles

International relations and the critical history of International Law

Just as the contemporary global structure is a product of nineteenth-century economic and political developments, namely, industrial capitalism and global empires dominated by European metropoles, a misleading conception of the international system as composed of formally equal sovereign states is a product of the same period, as Vattel’s conception of states as equal moral persons was taken up and transformed in the early nineteenth century, especially in imperial Britain. This model continues to shape interpretations of global politics in International Relations (IR), despite the persistence of the imperial legacy in the form of a stratified globe. Historical work informed by postcolonial studies and recent scholarship in International Law can give IR greater analytical and critical purchase on the current global order.

The Capitalist Political Economy and Transformation of Public Spaces: The Case of Gençlik Parkı, Ankara

The Capitalist Political Economy and Transformation of Public Spaces: The Case of Gençlik Parkı, Ankara

Book review: Dismantling Solidarity: Capitalist Politics and American Pensions since the New Deal

Book review: Dismantling Solidarity: Capitalist Politics and American Pensions since the New Deal

Criticism of the Logic of the Ecological Imperialism of “Carbon Politics” and Its Transcendence

Within the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, international carbon politics inevitably presents itself as the logic or essence of “ecological imperialism,” reflecting a few Western countries’ expansion and development of their historically formed international hierarchical superiority or exclusive hegemony on the basis of their domestic capitalist economies and politics. This is an intrinsic obstacle to creating a more equitable, democratic and effective global climate or environmental governance system. Criticism of international carbon politics and its “ecological imperialism,” based on traditional “green-left” theories from Marxist philosophy and political economy, provides a theoretical basis for seeking an alternative way to cope with global climate change effectively. As a responsible developing country, China’s response to climate change is not only an internal requirement for the promotion of its own sustainable development, but also reflects its responsibility to create a community of shared future for mankind. This rationale for our time determines that it is necessary for China to become a world leader in coping with global climate change and environmental governance through a leadership which lies in making a contribution rather than fighting for hegemony.

POLITICAL CAPITALISM IN THE GILDED AGE: THE TAMMANY BANK RUN OF 1871

The Tweed Ring spawned a vibrant financial sector that was integral to its brief success but has never been previously examined. William “Boss” Tweed and his allies employed banks controlled or comanaged by Tammany politicians to embezzle funds, build political alliances, and invest in a wide array of business ventures. The capital of these savings and commercial banks—city money, deposits from Catholic charities, and the savings of immigrant laborers—was accumulated through political channels. During their operation between 1867 and 1871, politician-bankers engaged in a mix of patronage deals and profit-driven financial speculation. In effect, Tammany banks were ground zero for the Ring's conversion of political hegemony into a windfall of economic capital that fueled party activities and buoyed personal fortunes. Importantly, the anti-Ring mobilization by upper-class reformers was more than a revolt of wealthy taxpayers concerned with abstract goals of good government or rescuing city credit; it was also a reaction by old-line bankers in direct competition with Tammany upstarts. A dramatic bank run catalyzed by reformers in November 1871 drove them into bankruptcy, bringing this novel experiment in political capitalism to an end.

The Horatio Alger Myth in China: Origins of the First Generation of Visibly Richest Chinese Private Entrepreneurs

This article traces the socio-economic origins of the first generation of the visibly richest private entrepreneurs in China by analysing the roles of political background, family connections and culture capital. Based on a data set essentially reconstructed from two leading Chinese rich lists from 2003 to 2012, the author finds no clear evidence to support the hypothesis of strong political capitalism. The theory of interrupted embourgeoisement is applicable to those who come from pre-communist elite or petty-bourgeois families, but more than half of the rich founders were born into the lower-middle class, such as the urban working class or peasantry. Moreover, for those who majored in social sciences and humanities, having a college degree is considered a ticket for landing a job in a public institute early in their career, while those having credentials in sciences and engineering are more likely to start their business in relevant areas directly. The author concludes that although each factor is vital, none of these provides a satisfactory single explanation for individual super-wealth. There is also a significant distinction between pioneers (early adopters) and newcomers (the recently established entrepreneurs).

Towards a critical geography of disaster recovery politics: Perspectives on crisis and hope

AbstractAs disasters increasingly affect a greater proportion of the population with growing strength and frequency it is becoming even more important to comprehend how recovery from these events is mediated and managed by society. Emerging from several decades of concerted work on the social determinants of disaster, vulnerability and risk, research is now being established that underlies the importance of the politics and power in shaping the processes and outcomes of disaster recovery. In particular, there is a need to situate the central role of neoliberal capitalism in shaping the values and practices of reconstruction and recovery, particularly through engagements with crisis politics. At the same time, disasters may open up space for contestation and resistance that allows for alternative and transformative forms of recovery politics. In this paper I draw on geographies of crisis and hope to frame a theoretical perspective that encapsulates both the capitalist dynamics of disaster recovery and the radical potential of post capitalist politics for facilitating transformative action at the community scale.

Political capitalism: The interaction between income inequality, economic freedom and democracy

We study the relationship between income inequality and economic freedom for a panel of 100 countries for the 1971–2010 period. Using a panel Granger non-causality approach, we reject the null hypothesis of Granger non-causality running from income inequality to economic freedom, but not vice versa. From a series of dynamic panel estimations we show that the effect of income inequality on economic freedom is negative and robust to the inclusion of additional controls. In particular, inequality is negatively associated with those components of economic freedom related to international trade, domestic market regulation as well as the rule of law and property rights protection. We argue that the negative effect of inequality on economic freedom is due to the economic elite converting its economic power into de facto political power to defend its economic interests; these interests run counter to economic freedom, discouraging innovation and competition as well as protecting the elite's rents. Finally, we show that economic freedom decreases with income inequality even in democratic countries, suggesting that democratic institutions do not prevent economic freedom from eroding. We argue that the latter finding corresponds to a system of political capitalism or captured democracy, where a powerful economic elite can nevertheless exercise de facto political power by cooperating with politicians and other decision-makers for their mutual benefit.

Emerging Capitalism in Central Europe and Southeast Asia: A Comparison of Political Economies

Introduction: National sovereignty: Economic Markets and Legal Systems The Objects of Comparison 1. What is an 'Under-Developed' State in Historical Terms? Groups of Countries in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia The Historical Consequences of Underdevelopment 2. Political Capitalism and Market Economies Are the Different Systems of Legal Rule Complementary or Incompatible? Personal Rule, Rule by Law, and Rule of Law Two Categories of Capitalism: Political versus Market Conclusion 3. Patterns of Development in Southeast Asia The Transformation of the Japanese Evolutionist Model The Developmental State The Developmental Regionalism The Under-Developed Status of Mekong Delta Countries The Geopolitics of Foreign Investment Conclusion 4. State Liberalism and Market Socialism: A Comparison between Singapore and Vietnam Nomenklatura Capitalism Singapore Vietnam Conclusion 5. Cambodia: Political Capitalism and the Prebendal State The 'Hun Sen System' - The Power of Prebends Special Economic Zones Conclusion: The End of Developmentalism 6. The Improbable German Model: Lessons from German Social and Economic Reunification The Violence of Money: Full Conversion to the Deutschmark, July 1, 1990 The Impossible Transfer East German Dependency Conclusion 7. Industrial Companies and Territories: The Reform Process in Central and Eastern Europe A Non-political Vision of Economic Policy Weak Collective Action Industrial Policy Conclusion 8. Growing Capitalism: The Waves of Expansion in the EU and ASEAN Why Did the EU and ASEAN Expand? Deepening Divides The EU and Central and Eastern European countries: Top-down Deregulatory Pressures Strengthening the Political Personality of 'Smaller' States: The Limitations of Hegemony. Conclusion: Hybrid Forms of Dependent Capitalism ?

Hierocracia e inovação, dinâmica do conceito na Sociologia da Dominação

This paper aims to compare the use of the concept of hierocracy, in its dynamic complexity, in various historical roles it assumes, especially in terms of its influence on the development of Western modernity. The main text used for this analysis is Sociology of Domination , by Max Weber. The article discusses the relationship of hierocracy with political power, petty bourgeoisie, bourgeoisie, capitalism, democracy and human rights. It makes some considerations about hierocracy as fundamental to the development of Weber’s sociology, as a necessary step to understand what is rationality, modernity, disenchantment of the world and heroic individualism, which are essential elements of the author’s theoretical constructs. Keywords: hierocracy, Sociology of Domination, Weber.

Political Capitalism: The Interaction between Income Inequality, Economic Freedom and Democracy

In this contribution we study the relationship between income inequality and economic freedom for a panel of 100 countries for the 1971-2010 period. From a panel causality study we find that income inequality has a negative causal effect on economic freedom, while causation does not run in the opposite direction. We argue that the negative effect of inequality on economic liberty is due to the elite’s political power stemming from its disproportionate control over a country’s economic resources. The elite uses this power to curtail economic freedom to defend its economic interests by discouraging innovation, competition and protecting its rents. Running a series of dynamic panel estimations, we show that the negative effect of income inequality on economic freedom is robust to different sets of controls and estimation techniques. Finally, we show that the dynamics of the inequality-freedom nexus are to some extent conditional upon a country’s political regime. When inequality is low, democracies enjoy comparatively higher levels of economic liberty, in line with the interests of a large middle-class. By contrast, economic freedom is lower in democracies (compared to strongly autocratic regimes with the same income distribution) when inequality is high. We argue that the latter finding corresponds to a system of political capitalism or captured democracy, where a powerful economic elite cooperates with politicians and bureaucrats for their mutual benefit.

Managing whale-watching as a non-lethal consumptive activity

Marine tourism is a new frontier of late-capitalist transformation, generating more global revenue than aquaculture and fisheries combined. This transformation created whale-watching, a commercial tourism form that, despite recent critiques, has been accepted as non-consumptive activity. This paper uses four academic discourses to critique whale-watching as a form of capitalist exploitation: (1) commercial whale-watching and global capitalist transformation, (2) global capitalist politics and the promoted belief that whale-watching is non-consumptive, (3) the inherent contradictions of non-consumptive capitalist exploitation, and (4) whale-watching as a common-pool resource. These discourses lead us to critique whale-watching practices in relation to the common capitalist sequence of resource diversification, exploitation, depletion and collapse. Using specific impact studies, we conclude that a sustainability paradigm shift is required, whereby whale-watching (and other forms of wildlife tourism) is recognized as a form of non-lethal consumptive exploitation, understood in terms of sub-lethal anthropogenic stress and energetic impacts. We argue the need for a paradigm shift in the regulation and management of commercial whale-watching, and present the case for a unified, international framework for managing the negative externalities of whale-watching. The relevance of the issues raised about neoliberal policy-making extends beyond whale-watching to all forms of wildlife and nature-based tourism.

Political Capitalism: The Interaction between Income Inequality, Economic Freedom and Democracy

In this contribution we study the relationship between income inequality and economic freedom for a panel of 100 countries for the 1971-2010 period. From a panel causality study we find that income inequality has a negative causal effect on economic freedom, while causation does not run in the opposite direction. We argue that the negative effect of inequality on economic liberty is due to the elite’s political power stemming from its disproportionate control over a country’s economic resources. The elite uses this power to curtail economic freedom to defend its economic interests by discouraging innovation, competition and protecting its rents. Running a series of dynamic panel estimations, we show that the negative effect of income inequality on economic freedom is robust to different sets of controls and estimation techniques. Finally, we show that the dynamics of the inequality-freedom nexus are to some extent conditional upon a country’s political regime. When inequality is low, democracies enjoy comparatively higher levels of economic liberty, in line with the interests of a large middle-class. By contrast, economic freedom is lower in democracies (compared to strongly autocratic regimes with the same income distribution) when inequality is high. We argue that the latter finding corresponds to a system of political capitalism or captured democracy, where a powerful economic elite cooperates with politicians and bureaucrats for their mutual benefit.

SPARČIOS SĖKMINGOS POKOMUNISTINĖS TRANSFORMACIJOS IR JOS NESĖKMĖS „DĖSNIAI“: DAUGIAREIKŠMIŲ KINTAMŲJŲ KOKYBINĖ LYGINAMOJI ANALIZĖ

Straipsnyje pateikiama dedukcinė pokomunistinės transformacijos kelių tipologija ir jų kokybinė lyginamoji analizė (KLA), naudojant kom­piuterinę programą TOSMANA. Tipologijoje naudojami trys politominiai (4 reikšmių) kintamieji (pokomunistinės transformacijos orientacija, ekono­minis ir politinis išėjimo iš komunizmo būdai) pokomunistinės transformaci­jos pradinėms sąlygoms ir eigai apibūdinti. Jos baigmės apibrėžtos penkiais dichotominiais kintamaisiais: liberalus demokratinis kapitalizmas; raciona­lus antrepreneriškas kapitalizmas; liberalioji demokratija; politinis oligarchi­nis kapitalizmas; valstybinis kapitalizmas. Pokomunistinės transformacijos keliams apibendrinti atliekama daugelio reikšmių KLA, į kurią, be 29 em­piriškai stebimų atvejų ir 17 sąlygų konfigūracijų, yra įtraukiami 37 logiš­kai galimi, bet empiriškai nestebimi sąlygų konfigūracijas reprezentuojantys fiktyvūs atvejai. Pirmą kartą KLAtaikančioje tyrimų literatūroje atliekama sisteminga ir disciplinuota minimalių Boole’io formulių kontrafaktinių prie­laidų analizė, kurios pagrindas yra Boole’io distancijų tarp empiriškai stebi­mų ir vien tik logiškai galimų sąlygų konfigūracijų matavimas bei logiškai galimų atvejų lyginimas su artimiausiais jiems empiriškai stebimais atvejais. Papildžius duomenų rinkmeną kontrafaktinės analizės rezultatais, išvedami du nomologiniai komunistinės sistemos sparčios (per 10 metų) transformaci­jos į liberalų demokratinį kapitalizmą sąlygų apibendrinimai, kurie gali būti papildyti analogiškais komunizmo transformacijos į racionalų antrepreneriš­ką kapitalizmą, liberalią demokratiją, politinį oligarchinį ir valstybinį kapi­talizmą apibendrinimais.

Basic Features of the Transition from Nominal Socialism to Political Capitalism: The Case of Serbia

This text reconstructs the two decade long period of the transition from nominal socialism to political – criminal and corruptive – capitalism in Serbia. The analysis covers the three most important social subsystems: political, economic and cultural. It demonstrates that the new capitalist and nationalist orthodoxy led on the one hand to the replacement of old “communist” irrationalities with new neoliberal ones and on the other hand to the destruction of healthy economic structures and civilizational accomplishments from the previous system. A special accent is placed upon the unbroken historical pattern of petrifaction of certain social structures over the long term, regardless of seemingly radical political changes. The article points out that in order to pursue its own material interests, the governing nomenklatura carried out the transition process from a one party to a multiparty system in a systematic way, from an organized and relatively stable economy based on industry to a devastated and parasi...

Gentryfikacja, własność i polski kapitalizm polityczny

Gentrification, property and political capitalism in Poland My point of departure in this piece is the putative “under‑urbanization” of East and Central European cities, still very much entrenched in the global urban studies literature. I explain this by harking back to the classic of Polish urban studies (such as Paweł Rybicki and Marcin Czerwiński) and their concept of umiastowienie, as opposed to urbanization. They employed it in order to explain the “urbanization without cities” that unfolded in the socialist Poland. I then turn towards an analysis of the idiosyncracies of the “territorial logic of power” (Giovanni Arrighi and David Harvey’s term) in Poland. I agrue that its stems from the way “scale” and “property” work in Polish cities. Drawing my examples form the city of Poznań, I describe what Katherine Verdery dubbed as “fuzzy” property regime and explain how this results in the absence of the “gentrification frontier” – a concept coined by Neil Smith. Instaed, I argue that gentrification is more scattered and we can speak of a shifting “gentrificaiton front”, wherein the speculative and largelly local capital initiates the gentrification cycle from the “weakest link” in the chain of property structure.

Poder político e capitalismo

Poder político e capitalismo

The Genesis and Ethos of the Market, Luigino Bruni. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, 240 pages.

Both modern political economy and capitalism rest on the separation of economics from ethics, which in turn can be traced to a number of shifts within philosophy and theology – notably the move away from practices of reciprocity and the common good towards the sole pursuit of individual freedom and self-interest. In his latest book, Luigino Bruni provides a compelling critique of capitalist markets and an alternative vision that fuses Aristotelian-Thomist virtue ethics with the Renaissance and Neapolitan Enlightenment tradition of ‘civil economy’. The book develops three broad yet closely intertwined theses. First, that Greco-Roman Antiquity and the Christian Middle Ages invented models of civil life that transcended tribalism and political absolutism but produced sacral communities wherein the power and privilege of the ‘few’ denied freedom and equality to the ‘many’. Second, that modernity inaugurated the primacy of free and equal individuals over communities but that it undermined and destroyed the social bonds on which societies ultimately depend. Just as in Antiquity and the Middle Ages we had communities without individuals, so in the modern era we have individuals without communities. Beyond these two similarly undesirable conditions, Bruni proposes the ‘civil economy’ model as the most radical alternative – the book’s third and most important thesis. Accordingly, the ‘civil economy’ alternative combines the relationality and sociability of all human beings with the flourishing of each and everyone by fusing self-interest with wider social benefit. Crucially, the ties of public faith (fides) and friendship (philia) can overcome the false divide between egoism and altruism in the direction of a moral market that is governed not just by the pursuit of profit but also by the practice of virtue.

Book review: The Birth of Capitalism: A 21st Century Perspective, by Henry Heller

Henry Heller The Birth of Capitalism: A 21st Century Perspective, Pluto Press: London, 2011; 320 pp: 9780745329598, 17.50 [pounds sterling] (pbk) For progressive academics, knowledge and sciences are not ends in themselves, but important levers for change--it is our self-understanding that 'before we can change the world, we first have to understand it' (Hyman 2012: 163). And as Henry Heller writes in this book, 'if we want to understand the present, and act effectively within it, knowledge of the past is more necessary than ever', because 'to understand what is happening now, we have to understand how we got there'. In this tradition, the new series 'The Future of World Capitalism' wants to 'foster intellectual renewal, restoring the radical heritage that gave us the international labour movement, the women's movement, classical Marxism, and the great revolutions of the twentieth century'. It is therefore no surprise to find, given this understanding of history, that the first book in this series deals with the past. Henry Heller, a professor of history at the University of Manitoba, Canada, sets the stage for the discussions on the future of capitalism as well as making the discussion about the transition from feudalism to capitalism ('the birth of capitalism') accessible to the wider public. This is a discussion that has been going on for quite some time, and involves Maurice Dobb and Rodney Hilton as well as Immanuel Wallerstein, Robert Brenner and Perry Anderson. Building on their seminal works, Heller tries to add the political dimension. In his view, capitalism is certainly a mode of production, but must be understood as a political entity too. The author makes the political order central to his account of capitalism's history, underscoring the role of the state in nurturing capitalism at its beginnings, overseeing its development through mercantilism and through combined and uneven development, and then being itself transformed by revolution. The book is organised across six chapters, which follow the narrative on the rise of capitalism more or less chronologically from its origins 500 years ago to the present, where it unfolded in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Brenner starts with the decline of feudalism and the first, not fully sustainable experiments with capitalism in Italy, Germany and France. Capitalism was only here to stay in England, which is the focus of Chapter 3. Brenner then looks at the bourgeois revolutions in Holland, England and France, which were in his view indispensable to the full flowering of capitalism. The subsequent chapter deals with the role of the state in supporting or instituting capitalism (political capitalism), for which the author uses the diverse examples of the USA, Prussia, Scotland and Japan. It also treats the issues of free trade, colonialism and slavery, which were important drivers in the development of capitalism. Chapter 6 deals with the industrial revolution from a Marxist point of view, drawing heavily on the works of Eric Hobsbawm, E. P. Thompson and Perry Anderson. …

Underground political ecologies: The second Annual Lecture of the Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers

Based on the 2011 Annual Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group Lecture, this paper makes the case for a political ecology of the subsoil. Arguing that subsoil resources have received comparatively little attention within the wider corpus of political ecological writing, the paper explores several ways in which the extraction of mineral and hydrocarbon resources is constitutive of, and constituted by, wider capitalist political, economic and institutional arrangements. Drawing on material from El Salvador and the Andean countries, the paper explores the contemporary governance of extractive industries, and points to significant convergence among the approaches taken by neoliberal and ostensibly post-neoliberal regimes alike. The intersections between the extractive economy, livelihoods and patterns of social protest are also explored. Through these examples, the paper also highlights the ways in which “activist political ecologists” play important roles in counter-movements seeking to re-govern the extractive economy. These countermovements are found in both civil society and different parts of the state. Such activist political ecologists are central to the broader enterprise of an “underground political ecology” and are often vital to the success of scholarly interventions in such political ecologies.