Source Of Capital Accumulation Research Articles

‘Let's Go to the Land Instead’: Indigenous Perspectives on Biodiversity and the Possibilities of Regenerative Capital

AbstractThe land has been a source of capital accumulation since colonization through extractive activities like mining and industrial agriculture. Indigenous peoples have profoundly different relationships with the land, which are more relational than extractive. However, their knowledge has been subjugated by and systematically excluded from Western conservation policies, which are based on colonial modes of control. We begin to address this issue by elaborating on a community‐based participatory project, namely a Conservation Impact Bond (CIB), developed in Canada with Deshkan Ziibiing. This CIB was unique since it combined Indigenous and Western knowledges and aimed at restoring ecosystems by building relationships of kinship between peoples and the land. Based on our findings, we propose a Two‐Eyed Seeing relationship‐building process model – a multi‐stakeholder initiative (MSI) incorporating Indigenous and Western knowledges. We discuss the implications of our findings for mobilizing capital to serve collective rather than private interests while promoting Indigenous resurgence and land regeneration. We suggest shifting from extractive to regenerative capital is necessary to address the climate and biodiversity loss crises. This transformation could be achieved by embracing a relational ontology through Two‐Eyed Seeing.

The making of a conservation frontier: Nation‐building, green productivism, and environmentalism in Patagonia

AbstractIn Patagonia, emerging concerns over environmental degradation in frontier territories suggest the constitution of a new type of frontier—the conservation frontier—in which nature is an object of consumption rather than extraction. Conservation frontiers are made through disputed forms of spatialization, in which wilderness can be a refuge, a source of capital accumulation, and a new space for political experimentation. Three overlapping yet conflicting processes constitute the conservation frontier: nation‐building, green productivism, and environmentalism. The material and discursive making of a conservation frontier illustrates how environmental conservation both disrupts and extends settler projects of territorialization.

Otros escenarios de la «hora navarra»: la ciudad de Corella y la familia Sesma (1630-1793)

Desde que Caro Baroja acuñara la expresión «hora navarra» para referirse al encumbramiento en la corte de hombres de negocios de esa procedencia a finales del XVII, numerosos trabajos han profundizado en tales trayectorias, en particular las de los baztaneses. Mi objetivo es presentar otro escenario en el mismo reino, origen también de exitosas carreras, pero con un entorno muy diferente: la ciudad de Corella, y en ella, la familia Sesma. Se describen algunos rasgos que definen la situación de Navarra tras su incorporación a Castilla. Con ayuda de la valoración de bienes de 1607 se trata de responder a la pregunta de cuál pudo ser la fuente primera de acumulación de capital que permitiera iniciar el despegue; el resultado apunta a que, además del comercio de la lana y del vino, pudo tener importancia el cáñamo, lo que además explicaría la vinculación de esta familia con la Marina. Su relación con Goyeneche justificaría su servicio a distintos miembros de la familia real. A mediados del XVIII los Sesma, ya encumbrados, abandonan la actividad comercial y Corella.

Development of Entrepreneurship During the Nep Years: Innovation, Forms, Technologies

This paper is concerned with studying the evolution of entrepreneurship during the NEP (New Economic Policy) years and the establishment of new forms of social stratification in Russia. The authors discuss the specifics of entrepreneurship, its scope and sources of capital accumulation in 1921-1925. The proportions of public sector vs. private entrepreneurial enterprises in 1923 are profiled. The evolution of entrepreneurship in urban and rural areas in 1925-1926 is described.

The Big Crowd and the Small Enterprise: Intracorporate Disputes in Crowdfunded Ventures

Equity crowdfunding is a financial innovation that allows small businesses and startups to access capital through soliciting investment over the Internet. The current literature on crowdfunding has focused on its theoretical background and on the development of crowdfunding exemptions from the securities laws permitting the practice. There is less discussion of the impact of crowdfunding on corporate governance. This article fills that gap by outlining the potential for a panoply of intracorporate disputes between and among majority shareholders and “crowd” minority shareholders, placing the discussion within the longstanding—if uneasy—divide in judicial treatment of disputes in public corporations and close corporations. From there, the article argues that courts adjudicating disputes in “close-but-crowdfunded” firms should adopt the contractual approach exemplified by Delaware law, and refrain from importing minority shareholder oppression doctrine into the crowdfunding context. The two primary justifications for providing special protections for close corporation minority shareholders are much weaker in the crowdfunding context. First, the mechanics of the crowdfunding process create both the incentive and opportunity to select appropriate terms upon which the founders will continue their relationship and which will be offered to the crowd. Second, and similarly, that same process undermines the inference that there are unwritten, yet reasonable, expectations about any shareholder’s role in the venture. Furthermore, the application of oppression doctrine in the crowdfunded firm would ultimately harm crowd and non-crowd shareholders alike, while undermining the potential gains from equity crowdfunding as a new source of capital accumulation.

Gated communities as spatial manifestations of moral differentiation and competition: an example from Istanbul, Turkey

ABSTRACTGated communities have received significant attention in academic debates. Despite this, there is a lack of studies on differentiation and tensions between them. This paper analyses differentiation between gated communities by adopting the theory of “symbolic boundaries” [Lamont, M., 1992. Money, morals, and manners: the culture of the French and American upper-middle class. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press]. It uses the data collected from fieldwork in two gated communities in Istanbul, Turkey, comprising semi-structured in-depth interviews with residents. First, the paper contributes to Lamont's “symbolic boundaries” [Lamont, M., 1992. Money, morals, and manners: the culture of the French and American upper-middle class. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press] by showing that morality is not independent from socio-economic context, but indicates the legitimate values of a given social context. This is shown in residents’ use of moral boundaries such as a law-abiding lifestyle, legitimate sources of capital accumulation and the existence of warmer relations with each other. Second, the paper contributes to the study of gated communities by demonstrating that they can be regarded as spatial manifestations of the division within the upper classes which results from competition for deserved status.

Resistance Is Fertile: Canadian Struggles on the BioCommons by Wilhelm Peekhaus (review)

Reviewed by: Resistance Is Fertile: Canadian Struggles on the BioCommons by Wilhelm Peekhaus André Magnan Resistance Is Fertile: Canadian Struggles on the BioCommons. By Wilhelm Peekhaus. Vancouver: ubc Press, 2013. x + 298 pp. Tables, photographs, maps, notes, references, index. $95.00 cloth. The “new” biotechnologies, including genetic engineering, have been a matter of public controversy since the early 1980s. No aspect of this debate has been more contentious than the commercialization of genetically engineered (ge) crops. Canada and the United States were early adopters of this technology, which transformed the production of key crops such as canola, soy, and maize. In Resistance Is Fertile, Wilhelm Peekhaus provides a wide-ranging assessment of social and political struggles over agricultural biotechnology in Canada. The analysis is developed through a critical, Marxist framework that places the development of science and technology in the wider context of capitalist social relations. Peekhaus argues that corporate control over the new biotechnologies is a form of primitive accumulation, the process whereby people are separated from the social wealth, knowledge, and tools needed for their survival and well-being. In the case of biotechnology, capital is appropriating the very building blocks of life, including genes, seeds, and biological organisms. These technologies provide “capital a new suite of tools to plumb the depths of biological existence at the genetic level in search of new sources of capital accumulation” (68). The privatization and monopolization of genetic resources have sparked a countermovement, the Bio-Commons, which seeks to carve out an alternative set [End Page 88] of institutions that protect the building blocks of life as a common heritage and resource. Peekhaus documents and analyzes the social actors on each side of this rather polarized debate. On the one hand, life sciences corporations and the Canadian state have been strong proponents of biotechnology development. The author traces the history of biotechnology policy in Canada, showing how successive governments have implemented industry-friendly regulatory processes and promoted biotechnology as an engine of innovation and economic activity. As for the resistance to corporate biotechnology, the scholar focuses on groups—such as the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, the National Farmers’ Union, Greenpeace, and the etc Group—who have led struggles for greater industry transparency and responsibility. Within the work, the empirical material consists of interviews with leaders of these organizations as well as detailed treatments of several of the sector’s hot-button issues. Here, Peekhaus critically examines the commercial practices of biotech seed companies, conflicts over the introduction of particular ge varieties, legal battles over patented genes, and civil society criticism of Canada’s regulatory system for ge foods. The author also tackles controversies over the environmental and health safety of ge crops. These are a highly contentious debate, particularly when it comes to the evidence around the health effects of consuming ge foods. Peekhaus describes at some length studies that have linked the consumption of ge plants to toxic effects in animals. Yet he downplays the fact that these studies have been criticized by scientific peers on methodological grounds. At best, we can say that the scientific evidence is contested. A better strategy for the book might have been to develop a sociology of science analysis of these controversies, asking how and to what effect such questions become politicized by actors with different agendas and interests. Indeed, the book is sometimes too one-sided in its analysis, tending to reduce the complexities of the debate to a Manichean struggle between capital and its opponents. In doing so, it glosses over the ambivalent positions of some of the key actors such as biotechnology scientists, who are not motivated by purely capitalist motives, and farmers, who have adopted ge crops on a large scale but face complicated trade-offs in using these technologies. André Magnan Department of Sociology and Social Studies University of Regina Copyright © 2015 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

The Third Sector and Development

The essay examines the essentiality of the third sector in context of the assumption that it can play a great deal of role in driving development and alleviating poverty in developing countries. It argues that the third sector useful as it may seem in the development process lacks the statist capacity to drive development. It further argues that it is only the state that has the capacity to dispense social welfare provisioning to the people. The historical fact of the absence of indigenous capital in Africa and the state as the primary source of capital accumulation lend credence to the pre-eminence role of the state in driving social welfare delivery. While calling for support for the third sector it welcomes efforts at re-inventing the developmental state in Africa.

A ‘Lasting Transformation’ of Capitalist Surplus: From Food Stocks to Feedstocks

In this article I link surplus food with the politics of capitalist production and consumption in order to shed some useful light on the strange case of food not being food once it has been discarded but not thrown away. I develop an analysis of waste policy as a dimension of capitalist surplus management (after Sweezy, 1962 ) by reconfiguring Claus Offe's (1984) essay on the state and social policy and construe waste policy as effecting a ‘lasting transformation’ of non-accumulating capital into accumulating capital. My intention is to provide a sketch of the labyrinthine semantic and political structures emerging around waste (in general) and waste food (in particular). I show that transforming waste food into capitalist surplus is a multi-layered and multi-stranded endeavour embedded in larger political, economic and cultural arrangements and cosmologies. I undertake this analysis of the transformation of waste into surplus by exploring, first, waste as an imaginary construct; second, the strange case of discarded food not being ‘discarded’ (and not being ‘food’, either); third, the convoluted cosmology of European waste policy; and, fourth, aspects of political sociology which help to reveal the status of waste as a source of capital accumulation. I conclude by proposing a sociological account of food waste that situates the critique of excess not in the ignorant, sordid voraciousness of individual citizens but in the structures and institutions of capitalist accumulation.

The Impact of Neoliberal Policies on Historic Urban Space: Areas of Urban Renewal in Istanbul

The state's role in recasting urban space in Turkey entered a new phase during the last decade. The key difference compared with the past is that the inner city has now become the main source of capital accumulation. Interventions based on the rationale of clearing away obsolescent urban space to encouraging capital accumulation by private investors have led to the loss not only of local incomes but also of the cultural capital of local inhabitants. In addition, historical urban housing areas are no longer seen as ‘common public assets’ and designated renewal areas are not viewed as society's common cultural capital. This paper focuses on restructuring policies in historical urban spaces in Istanbul, as authorised by the Law on Renewal enacted in 2005. This law essentially defines the designation of renewal areas, instructions for preliminary and application projects, and the processes of organization, management, supervision, participation, and use. The paper critically analyses the ways local municipalities have made the use of the new legal framework on the basis of four case studies from Istanbul; namely, Sulukule, Tarlabasi, Suleymaniye and Fener-Balat renewal areas.

Political Stability and Economic Growth in Asia

This study investigates the effects of various factors of political instability on economic growth in selected ten Asian economies during 1990-2005. Our empirical findings show a close relationship between political stability and economic growth. We have analyzed the data by using ordinary least squire econometrics methods, which conclude that 32.35 scores increasing of index of political stability leads to one percent increase in economic growth. From these finding based on Asia experiences, we can conjecture that political stability plays a dominant role in determination of economic growth and sources of capital accumulation. This study uses the average proportion methods and Tinbergen diagrams to show the relative importance of political stability than economic freedom to accumulate capital, measured by four sources of capital accumulation which are proximate causes for economic growth. The results also clearly show that the role of political stability in accelerating economic growth is more vital than economic freedom.

Exploring Corporate Culture and Strategy: Sainsbury at Home and Abroad during the Early to Mid 1990s

In this paper the UK food retailer, J Sainsbury pic, is used as an example to illustrate the intimate power relationship between corporate culture and corporate strategy, and it is argued that corporate culture plays a key role in determining the economic performance of firms. Specifically, it is shown how corporate culture can concurrently be advantageous and burdensome within the same firm. Indeed, it is argued that the strength of Sainsbury's corporate culture prevented it from reacting to competitive changes rocking its ‘home’ market in the early 1990s. However, the very corporate culture that was becoming increasingly inappropriate within the UK food retailing market was being successfully employed ‘abroad’ by Sainsbury. In the paper it is demonstrated that the ‘Sainsburyisation’ of its US subsidiary, Shaw's Supermarkets, released Shaw's from its limited trajectory of growth. It is suggested that this move will allow Shaw's to become an increasingly important source of capital accumulation for the Sainsbury Group once opportunities within the ‘home’ market decline further.

Fifty Years of Economic Measurement: The Jubilee of the Conference on Research in Income and Wealth

This volume contains papers presented at a conference in May 1988 in Washington, D.C., commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Conference on Research in Income and Wealth (CRIW). The call for papers emphasized assessments of broad topics in economic measurement, both conceptual and pragmatic. The organizers desired (and succeeded in obtaining) a mix of papers that, first, illustrate the range of measurement issues that economics as a science must confront and, second, mark major milestones of CRIW accomplishment. The papers concern prices and output (Griliches, Pieper, Triplett) and also the major productive inputs, capital (Hulten) and labor (Hamermesh). Measures of saving, the source of capital accumulation, are covered in one paper (Boskin); measuring productivity, the source of much of the growth in per capita income, is reviewed in another (Jorgenson). The use of economic data in economic policy analysis and in regulation are illustrated in a review of measures of tax burden (Atrostic and Nunns) and in an analysis of the data needed for environmental regulation (Russell and Smith); the adequacy of data for policy analysis is evaluated in a roundtable discussion (chapter 12) involving four distinguished policy analysts with extensive government experience in Washington and Ottawa.