Private Capitalist Research Articles

Touches to the portrait of I.M. Kovarsky

Ilya Matveyevich Kovarsky (1856-1933) - the founder and permanent head of the First Moscow Dentistry School, organizer and honorary member of the Moscow Dentistry Society, editor and publisher of one of the first Russian dental journals «Odontological Revue» - was deprived of his personal pension and suffrage in 1930 as a former owner of a private capitalist enterprise; his name was actually erased from the national dentistry. The portrait of Ilya Matveyevich Kovarsky - a remarkable doctor, teacher and worthy man - is reconstructed by the documents preserved in the Kovarsky family archive (on the basis of which this article was written) and the memories of his eldest daughter (published for the first time).

Media, Journalism, and the Public Sphere in Private Family Ownership. On the Critique of the Political Economy of Capitalist Media Enterprises

In the context of a Critique of the Political Economy of the Media, this article exemplifies the fundamental effects of the globally dominant capitalist private ownership of media companies on media development, journalism, and the public sphere. Selected works by Marx and Engels as well as works from developments of the approaches of the “New Reading of Marx” and “Western Marxism” form the theoretical-methodological basis. Characteristic of capitalism is a mutually conditioning relationship between the socio-economic base and the political-legal superstructure, which makes the ”abolition” of private property and the associated relations of domination and power almost impossible. Therefore, possibilities of a de-capitalisation and de-commodification of journalism and the public sphere based on non-capitalist forms of ownership will be discussed. A special chance of realisation is seen for academic publications without capitalist publishing houses that is feasible because knowledge production takes place at public universities. Finally, a change of strategy is suggested that takes us out of the bourgeois-liberal trap of criticism and hope towards the development of media and social theories as well as humans’ active participation in the organisation of an independent content-based media praxis, which can be conducive to a transformation towards a socialist societal formation.

The Origin, Current Situation and Trends of Racism in the West

ABSTRACT After World War II, and especially following the Civil Rights Movement, racism was generally rejected in the West, but the root of racism—capitalist private ownership—still exists. Since the Great Recession of 2008, racial problems have become increasingly serious. The living conditions of blacks and other minority groups have not improved, while ethnic and migrant conflicts are widening. At the same time, white supremacism has gone on the offensive, “neo-racism” has emerged, and far-right parties and organizations are on the rise. The anti-racist movement faces bleak prospects in the “post-ideological” era. The initiative of “building a community with a shared future for mankind” proposed by China advocates that all civilizations should draw on each other’s strong points, make common progress, and promote a higher level of liberation for the masses, including colored people. In this way, we can create better conditions for a transition to a more advanced social system.

Выбор приоритетного пути повышения уровня конкурентоспособности экономики России в условиях неопределенности мировой конъюнктуры

This article is debatable and is devoted to the consideration of the problem of choosing ways to reform the Russian economy in the conditions of the crisis of the world economic system. The relevance of the proposed discussion is determined by the need to find effective instruments of economic regulation that allow the national economy of Russia to take a worthy competitive place in the changing geo-economic space. The article analyzes the main cause of crises in the world capitalist economy on the basis of the theory of K. Marx, which consists in the contradiction between the social nature of production and the private capitalist form of appropriation of the results of labor. The statistics of the world cyclical crises for the period from 1825 to the present are given. Cyclical crises, generated mainly by economic factors, are repeated periodically through 7–9–11 years with minor deviations. The author considers the cause of the US mortgage crisis and its impact on the economy of other countries, including Russia. Three possible ways of development of the Russian economy are shown: 1) pro-Western; 2) the development of the economy in the interests of the national bourgeoisie; 3) the NEP period of Soviet power, which is successfully used by China. The third way is objectively justified. This is evidenced by the statistics provided in this article. The necessity of changing in the near future the disastrous liberal course of managing the country’s economy, of carrying out a left-centrist financial and economic course towards justified socialism, is justified. The conditions for the transition to a managerial revolution that provides a leap in the development of the country are outlined. The directions for reducing the dependence of the Russian economy on the conditions of the capitalist market are proposed.

The Trend to Widening Wealth and Income Inequality in Sweden and its Causes

Sweden is a model of social democracy in which the Social Democratic Party has long been in power, and in which distribution under the conditions of monopoly capitalism has been the object of one-sided praise. Wealth and income inequality in Sweden was in the past relatively low, but in recent years has shown a tendency to undergo a structural increase, and some indicator values are already at comparatively high levels. Investigating the causes, we find that the ownership structure of the means of production, dominated by monopoly capitalist private ownership, has played a decisive role in the creation and evolution of wealth and income inequality within Sweden. The Swedish welfare system, whose core elements are social security provisions and the tax system, has played an important role in alleviating wealth and income inequality and in promoting social equity, but the degree of adjustment it achieves is relatively limited, and it now faces challenges in ensuring its sustainability. In recent years, the weakening of the organizational strength of trade unions in Sweden has resulted in an imbalance between the power of labor and capital, an imbalance that to some extent has promoted the widening of wealth and income inequality. With the deepening of the basic contradiction of capitalism, the trend to widening wealth and income inequality in Sweden represents a historical inevitability.

Islamic visibility in Lebanon, the banking sector and Eurocentric modernity: erasure, development, and the post-colonial nation-state

ABSTRACT This paper is based on in-depth reflexive and qualitative fieldwork conducted in 2018 thinking alongside visibly Lebanese Muslim women. Based on participants' shared experiences, the paper argues that visibly Muslim women are excluded from employment in the Lebanese banking sector in line with this sector's pursuit and larger alignment with Eurocentric modernity. It identifies powerful narratives of development, progress, and the Lebanese nation-state with its post-colonial imaginary as key forces underlying this exclusion as well as key horizons it pursues. Accordingly, it posits that private capitalist financial institutions such as Lebanese banking function as apparati of Eurocentric Modernity's contemporary hegemonic establishment and reproduction through everyday lived experiences. Challenging the dominant representations of Lebanese banking as emancipatory and progressive, it examines contemporary national banking ‘from below’ as a contribution to emerging decolonial research in political economy, international political economy (IPE), everyday IPE, and cultural IPE.

Proudhon criticizes political economy

Proudhon, who was in the same historical period with Marx, has also criticized the political economy. In The Philosophy of Poverty, Proudhon clearly shows his reasons for criticizing political economy. Proudhon aims to expose the evil of capitalist private ownership by criticizing political economy, and to reorganize socioeconomics, and then introduce his own anarchist proposition and mutual aid theory.

ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE CREATING AND FUNCTIONING OF REGIONAL RAILWAYS IN BUKOVYNA IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 19th – EARLY 20th CENTURIES

The purpose of this paper is to study the objective economic aspects and prerequisites for the creating and functioning of regional railways in Bukovyna in the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries. The deployment of railway construction on the lands of Bukovyna in the second half of the 19th century was associated with the processes of the capitalist structure formation in the economies of the countries that included these lands – Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire. The successful activities of the large railway companies in Bukovyna were facilitated by their strong ties with banks and close mutually beneficial cooperation with various parts of the state apparatus of Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire. There was certain dependence between railway companies and States that, on the one hand, companies could not do without financial assistance from the State. On the other hand, the State did not possess sufficient funds at the end of the 19th century to independently expand the railway network and it was forced to entrust the construction of railway lines to private companies. Banks willingly acted as founders of new private railway companies in Austria-Hungary, which intensively stimulated the development of railway construction in Bukovyna. The high degree of the capital concentration in comparison with the other branches of private capitalist production was one of the characteristic features of the railway companies of Bukovyna.

On the Origins of the Changes of Mao Zedong’s Strategies towards National Bourgeoisie in 1952

This paper investigates the origins of the changes of Mao Zedong’s policy towards national bourgeoisie in 1952. After the founding of People’s Republic of China (PRC), judging from the development trajectory of the new democratic society designed by the Communist Party of China (CPC), China’s private capitalism would eventually transition to a socialist society, and this transition should start in a decade or two. However, Mao Zedong’s strategy of private capitalism underwent a critical change in 1952, and he began to consider suspending the new democratic society and brewing a transition to socialism. Based on historical data and documents, this paper analyzes the internal and external causes of Mao Zedong’s transformation of strategies regarding private capitalists in 1952. It not only provides a clear understanding of the historical context of socialist transformation of private capitalist industry and commerce, but also explains, to some extent, the historical reasons behind Mao Zedong’s changes and why it took place in that year.

Operating relations in the post-industrial and transitive economy

The paper is devoted to an in-depth study of the capitalist private property of adherents of various currents and schools. It is emphasized that the internal contradictions of private property, which are concentrated in the relations of exploitation, are actively studied by the authors of neoliberalism, neo-institutionalism, and analytical Marxism. The paper shows that most of the works of Western scholars deny the phenomenon of economic exploitation in the post-industrial model of capitalism. The conclusions of domestic scholars about the absence of economic and non-economic coercion to work of hired workers in debilitated, transitive economies are criticized. Based on the theoretical analysis of works devoted to the objective study of new aspects of the relationship between employers and employees, the existence of such non-economic forms of exploitation is proven: psychological, political, axiological, social. The paper considers the main tools of non-economic exploitation, which include euphemisation and speculation in the interests, motives, feelings, consciousness, preferences and even passions of people. The consequences of euphemisation and speculation as tools of non-economic coercion to work, excessive consumption, the introduction of consumerist psychology are revealed. The economic purpose of the most popular socio-political technologies for manipulating the conscious and subconscious behavior of society, groups, individuals in the interests of the ruling classes is clarified. It is shown that these instruments of influence are actively used in various national models of capitalism. The mechanism of total manipulation of behavior, consciousness, psychology of people who are involved in the processes of production, marketing and consumption is considered. It is shown that total manipulation includes a set of non-economic forms of influence on people's decision-making, beneficial to the state, direct employers, financial and commercial structures not only nationally but also globally.

The Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions in England and China: A View through the Lens of Dynamic Property Rights Theory

Abstract This article presents a dynamic land property rights theory based on the law of the limit to land productivity, and then uses this theory and a large amount of data to compare the history of the agricultural and industrial revolutions in England and China. The article finds that, in England, the arable land—especially sown land—per capita of the agricultural population trended downward before the Black Death, but after the Black Death, experienced a long-term upward trend. In China, however, over the same period, the sown area per capita of the rural population shrank. It is these opposing trends that account for the historical divergence between the economies of England and China. This article concludes that the agricultural and industrial revolutions in England, as well as England’s capitalist market and private property rights regime, are the result of the expansion of the sown area per capita of the agricultural population. The article also concludes that the claim that England’s capitalist system of markets and private property rights gave birth to its agricultural and industrial revolutions cannot be sustained.

Uniwersytet podczas informacyjnego tsunami

Luciano Floridi and Nick Srnicek claims that with a decline in manufacturing profitability, capitalism has turned to data as one way to maintain economic growth in the face of a slow production sector. In the twenty-first century data have become central to firms and their relations with workers and customers (Floridi, 2013; Srnicek 2017). The platform has emerged as a new model, capable of extracting and controlling immense amounts of data, and with this shift we have seen the rise of monopolistic firms. We are told that today we are living in an age of massive transformation. Platforms, big data, additive manufacturing, advanced robotics, machine learning, and the internet of things – create our current living environment. In the presented text I am going to ask what is the place of the university in such a new digital constellation? What are universities for in the time of platform capitalism? My main line of reasoning follows to idea of “entrepreneurial state”. An innovative university is understood as an analogue of an “entrepreneurial state”. Mariana Mazzucato has convincingly demonstrated that developments like railways, the internet, computing, supersonic flight, space travel, satellites, pharmaceuticals, voice-recognition software, nanotechnology, touchscreensand clean energy have all been nurtured and guided by states, not corporations. During the golden postwar era of research and development, two-thirds of research and development was publicly funded. High-risk inventions and new technologies are too risky for private capitalists to invest in (Mazzucato, 2014; Srnicek, Williams, 2015). Socializing of the risk and privatization of profits – this is the main climate of “non-innovative capitalism”.

Local Autonomy: State-Centered Government Wrapped in Citizen-Centered Governance in the Tourism Development

This city is called Batu Tourism City. Nine great modern-made tourism objects exist in this city. Four million tourist visits occur in this city. All built only since 16 years of local autonomy that they get. But many people said, That is not ours. We can't do anything.” “Miserable. Some authoritative actions of the local government appear to be different from the established policies. There was a conflict from communitiy elements. How exactly is the management of tourism development carried out? The results found four patterns in the management of tourism development. Tourism policy preferences regulated through participatory planning, tourism development is set to improve people's welfare, tourism development is facilitated by the Mayor and the City Government of Batu, and tourism development tends to be carried out by private capitalists through the entrance of tourism business investment. State-Centered Government Wrapped in Citizen-Centered Governance. Local autonomy that occurs is a type of autonomy in which the local government relies on its strong power to translate preferences into public policy under conditions of divergence. A type of autonomy in which public officials use the autonomy authority and the opportunities to free themselves from obstacles from social actors who have different preferences.

Is it possible to discern the pattern of the future in the present-day reality?

The author assumes that new processes and phenomena which are constantly emerging in capitalist economies mainly result from some changes in productive forces caused by technological progress; they also show how capitalism adapts to new challenges induced by the faults of unregulated market. These changes do not modify private capitalist property’s essence; neither do they eliminate the exploitation in labor relationships. The newest IC-technologies and large trade and production networks are instrumental in capital concentration and establishing partnership relations between the subsidiaries of some firms and corporations. However, they do not mitigate the market competition, making the struggle even tougher and more destructive.

The rise and fall of “individualism” before and after the May Fourth Movement

“Individualism” was one of the most important philosophical trends in the May Fourth era, heavily influencing youths seeking personal liberation and independence. However, not long after the May Fourth Movement, positive associations with individualism gradually receded. Compared with devotion to “nation” or “society,” the quest for individual independence was repeatedly criticized as almost synonymous with “selfish.” There were two reasons for this: first was opposition stemming from a traditional Chinese respect for collectivism; second was that individualism had become the theoretical basis for private capitalist production following the First World War and its founding values were coming under increased scrutiny. As the Second World War unfolded, the fight for survival benefitted the promotion of collectivist values and the idea of social organisms. Individualism declined and eventually became supplanted by a heavily politicized form of collectivism.

Government and Foreign Entrepreneurs in the Soviet Economy of the 1920s – 1940s: Relations, Contradictions and Results

Introduction. The article reveals motives of attracting foreign entrepreneurs to Soviet economy, difficulties with hiring local labor force in concessions, contradictions and solutions between Soviet organizations and concessioners. Relations between foreign entrepreneurs and Soviet government agencies as well as Soviet engineers and workers were regulated by the law. Methods and materials. The author uses the comparative historical method in the work, which makes it possible to compare the number of foreign and domestic labor in concession enterprises, to show the need of attracting foreign specialists to concession and state enterprises, to reveal the cooperation of foreign entrepreneurs with the Soviet state. Sources from The State Archive of the Russian Federation, The Russian State Archive of Economics and The Russian State Archive of Social and Political History were identified for the study. Regulatory acts of state significance (decrees, concession agreements) reflecting the policy of the state in relation to the economic activity of private capitalists; records management documentation (circulars, official correspondence, reporting documentation) covering the real state of affairs at concession enterprises allow to show the peculiarities of relations between Soviet state institutions and foreign entrepreneurs. Analysis. Sometimes concessioners did not meet the governmental requirements in labor force attraction, which caused mutual claims. The author also analyses hiring foreign professionals in Soviet state enterprises because of their important contribution to the Soviet economy recovery and development. Foreign professionals were involved in the production process organization and local labor force education at Kuznetskiy coalfield minery, Stalingrad tractor factory and other state enterprises. Concessions were equipped with brand-new techniques and technologies and were also involved in the local labor force education. Results. The article analyzes the reasons of early cancellation of contracts by foreign professionals and workers and their mass departure from the USSR in the 1930s – 1940s. For example, prosecution and custody for industrial accidents were among of such reasons. Despite this, new foreign engineers were forbidden to enter Sakhalin island by Soviet authorities. The article focuses on the correlation between the deterioration of the international situation from the middle 1930s and existence of Japanese concessions in the USSR until the middle 1940s.The author pays a lot of attention to investigate the issue of obeying to the Soviet labor law by concessioners using unpublished archived documents.

Literature and Postcolonial Capitalism in Contemporary Vietnam: Indian Characters in Hồ Anh Thái’s Writings

This paper explores the relationship between literary representation and nationalism in contemporary Vietnam, a socialist state which has opened up to capitalist forms of economic organization. It asks if Vietnamese literature has changed its political role in the context of Vietnam pursuing policies of economic liberalization, engaging with global capitalist relations and opening to global private capitalist sectors. In other words, the paper asks how national literature, a body of literary works in the Vietnamese language that was historically constructed in anti-colonial, anti-imperial terms, has participated in the contemporary cultural, economic and political projects that the Vietnamese state has undertaken in order to retain its socialist and nationalist goals, while practicing transnational negotiation and socialist flexibility. In continuing the tradition of constructing Indian characters as “capitalists” and “foreign invaders,” Hồ Anh Thái’s writing suggests that the so-called political and economic relaxation of post-reform Vietnam is a strategy for the Vietnamese state to maintain itself on the path of socialism and nationalism. Through its examination of Hồ Anh Thái’s novels and short stories, focusing on their construction of Indian characters, the paper argues that socialist realism remains the guiding principle of contemporary Vietnamese literature. The choice of Hồ Anh Thái and his writing about Indians is based on the fact that the author and the Indian setting of his work embody important political and economic characteristics of post-reform Vietnam.

Understanding How Open Government Data is Used in Capital Accumulation

This article examines the role of open government data in capital accumulation. Open government data is a relatively new phenomenon that involves the pro-active and regular release of government data, in the form of downloadable records, for use and re-use by anyone. Private capitalist enterprises are among those who make use of such data. Publicly produced data is transferred into the hands of private capital through a non-rivalrous form of enclosure. Capital then uses government datasets to create new commodities by the application of skilled labor to the data, in processes including data mashup and data visualization. Inherent in all commodity production is the extraction of surplus value from labor by capital. This, together with the process of enclosure, provides opportunities for capital accumulation from open government data.

자본주의 사적 토지소유의 역사적 한계와 대안적 토지재산권의 구성

자본주의 사적 토지소유의 역사적 한계와 대안적 토지재산권의 구성

Una aproximación al mundo del dinero en el Madrid isabelino: el Banco de Economías

Este trabajo dirige su atención al fenómeno de las cajas de ahorro privadas constituidas en Madrid durante los años sesenta del siglo XIX y, en especial, a una de las entidades más significativas: el Banco de Economías. Pretendemos aproximarnos al estrato intermedio del incipiente sistema bancario español de aquellas fechas. Un estrato donde también se encuentran sociedades de seguros mutuos o banqueros, prestamistas y comerciantes particulares capaces de componer una red abierta a la captación del ahorro local y al interés de otras sociedades de crédito situadas en la cúspide bancaria. De este modo centramos nuestro interés en los rasgos genéricos de tales establecimientos y en las lineas particulares descritas por el Banco de Economías, desde su constitución en 1860 hasta su crisis y liquidación durante los años del Sexenio Democrático.