Wild Capitalism Research Articles

"La parola “progresso”: c’è vita oltre la morte? C’è vita oltre la guerra? "

"The Word ""Progress"": Is There Life Beyond Death? Is There Life Beyond War? This article’s purpose is to analyze as thoroughly as possible one of the most interesting dramas of the well-known French-Romanian dramatist Matei Vişniec. This work is based on some of the most horrible events that happened during and after the Yugoslavian wars and it narrates a global experience – on many semantic levels and utilizing hermeneutical instruments – throughout the story of a single family, making, in the process, stand out in a clearer way the rich relations between the living and the phantasmatic category of the “living-dead” that continues to communicate with the former. I’ve operated, to shed a light on those phenomena, an analysis based on some anthropological studies that take in exam the violence’s dynamics, but also, of course, I’ve used many auxiliary studies published in Italy and France, that analyze more in detail the drama in question. But the peculiarity of my study is to apply some of the anthropological aspects of war and to collocate this work in the context in which it belongs, demonstrating also how the dramatist has done some thorough research before composing the drama. Keywords: drama, Yugoslavian wars, physical dispossession, “wild capitalism” "

Zhenskij obraz v zhivopisi Kitaya vtoroj poloviny XX v.: osnovnye faktory i osobennosti transformacii

The article examines the artistic embodiment of Victor Pelevin's view on the historical transition of Russia from the era of wild capitalism to the era of vertical power. The author concludes that in Pelevin's image of Russia of the noughties, despite the existing legal institutions, their capacities are unable to satisfy citizens' demands for justice. It is not laws but mystical practices associated with the magic of numbers, including those associated with the ancient Chinese book of divination, the I Ching. Pelevin guesses the tendency for Russia to turn to the East.

Intellectuals and the Corona Crisis: From Self-Reflection to Criticism of the Political and Strategies of Globalization

The present study aims to highlight the most important axes of discussion and intellectual debate generated by the Corona virus at the end of the year 2019, in the intellectual and political arena in the world between thinkers and intellectuals, remotely from political argumentation between China and the United States regarding the responsibility of each side for the spread of the virus on the one hand, and irrespective of their differing ideological orientations on the other hand, as manifested and exemplified in the arguments of: Carolin Emcke, the Moroccan poet Muhammad Bnais, the two French philosophers Michel Onfray, Edgar Morin, and the American intellectual Naom Chomsky, and others. The study reached two conclusions: First: As a consequence of the feeling of "collective danger" which assaulted the world and humanity, there arose an orientation among intellectuals and thinkers advocating a return to "common roots" which unify humanity, and which impel it to solidarity to confront the overarching common challenges besetting the world and the universe. Second: There is almost total unanimity among the intellectuals and thinkers that notwithstanding the fact that globalization constitutes a "cornerstone" in the progress of humanity and its movement towards the future, it nevertheless represents a "wild capitalism" which rendered the Corona pandemic for the thinkers and intellectuals a "historic opportunity" to restore importance to the individual and humanity in "building the future

Relations of Debt and Credit Networks in Post-Soviet Uzbekistan, Russia and Kazakhstan

Any relations and practices of debt within credit networks include not only pure economic exchange, such as barter or non-monetary exchange, but diverse kinds of social relations of debt. In this article, we consider case studies embedded in the particular context of early and late post-Soviet economic and political crisis, in which economic informalization was characterised by ‘wild capitalism’ or the absence of cash and livelihoods. We observe the coping strategies and mechanisms of economic survival adopted by ordinary people in response to these crises and to the absence of state social and economic institutions. We portray people’s concrete experiences of debt, solidary social relations, and economic exchange based on debt relationships in post-Soviet economies. The case studies are drawn from ethnographic material from Uzbekistan, Russia and Kazakhstan. Our case studies reveal that debt relations are not about two individuals who owe money but serve as the basis for debt-based trade, survival, and socializing networks, as well as part of moral economies. The article builds on scholarly works related to informal economies and survival mechanisms in post-Soviet space, to anthropology of debt, as well as discussion of (dis)trust.

Social challenges and social responsibility of business in wartime

The article examines the essence of social responsibility of business and its role in the development of the national economy, in facilitating the solution of social problems at various stages of ethical views formation regarding the organization of business, both in the world and in Ukraine. Peculiarities of the manifestation of social responsibility in different territories of our country, which in certain historical periods were part of different countries, are studied. It is revealed the influence of national culture and worldview, as well as political circumstances and restrictions on the identification and self-expression of Ukrainians in various aspects of social life, including economic one, on the formation of economic and socially responsible centers, the main goal of which is the support and social protection of the Ukrainian population, the revival of the economy and education in Galicia. The traditions of Ukrainian patronage, thanks to which the population of Left-bank Ukraine revived their language, culture, writing and painting, and had access to educational and medical services are mentioned. The negative impact of the colonial enslavement of Ukraine by the Soviet Union on the development of social responsibility is considered, primarily due to the destruction of the institution of private property and the introduction of command-administrative management methods. That later served as one of the reasons for the emergence of such processes as shadow economy, corruption, unscrupulous business conduct, tax evasion, non-compliance with legislation, and thus violation of the basic principles of ethics and social responsibility of business at the first stages of the revival of the national economy of Ukraine. However, the article substantiates those similar negative processes took place in most of the modern economically developed countries of the world, during the period when they passed the stage of «wild capitalism», which lasted until the second quarter of the 20th century. Ukrainian society passed this stage in a very quick period, in ten years. And already in 2000, Ukrainian business began to revive ancient Ukrainian traditions of patronage and moved to the next stage of the formation of social responsibility of business – local care, and now to full social management. Analyzing the tragic events and challenges faced by Ukrainian society during the modern Russian-Ukrainian war, the article reveals the extraordinary activity, initiative, and variety of social responsibility projects of domestic businesses that operate in various spheres of activity and on various forms of organization. At the same time, the article substantiates the need to improve conditions for doing business, improve legislation and the judicial system, as one of the components of encouraging entrepreneurs to expand their social responsibility.

Phronetic Workplace: A Step Forward into a Practically Wise Company

Phronesis (practical wisdom) is introduced in the management field as a possible solution to the problems associated with wild capitalism. Although its highly sustainable performance characterizes a phronetic company through innovativeness and shared value creation, there is yet a gap in the literature concerning workplace phronesis’ perspective in management. We propose integrating organizational spirituality and organizational phronesis theories in management research to address the phroneticworkplace. This study contributes to shedding light on the understanding of phronesis in management addressing group behavior and how individual phronesis spreads into the workplace towards the phronetic organization.

Идея прогресса в контексте современного дискурса

The article explores the idea of social progress in the context of the history of human society. The author considers the concept of progress in interrelation with the three revolutions. The first revolution was an agrarian one, which established the dominant religious consciousness and dependence on the divine intervention. Accordingly, the idea of progress as opposed to the perfection of God was not dominant. The world of nature is born, develops, and dies. This approach prevailed for about seven thousand years: from the first civilizations to the XV - XVIII centuries. According to the Judeo-Christian tradition, after the fall, the world fell away from God. This understanding corresponds to the primordial approach and is also opposite to the idea of progress. In the Renaissance, the secularization of consciousness and culture begins. Culture and values are formed on the basis of religious Judeo-Christian values, but a man becomes the bearer and guarantor of these values. The ideas of humanism and worshipping of a human being as the main creator are reflected in philosophy, art, and painting. In accordance with this approach, the idea of progress is born. The idea of progress is fully formed and takes possession of the masses in the age of Enlightenment. During this period, the industrial revolution is taking place. In European culture, the primacy of rationality, machine labor and equality is asserted. But at the same time, the industrial revolution entailed many social crises that are still relevant today. The United States and Europe were gradually able to overcome the challenges of the industrial revolution and create a system of “capitalism with a human face”, while partially imposing their system on other countries where production is cheaper. Therefore, the problems of the so-called “wild capitalism” still take place in the third world countries. By the middle of the XX century, science became the leading factor in manufacturing. Society is changing from industrial to post-industrial. The article focuses on the problems and opportunities of the modern post-industrial society with all the accumulated baggage of the previous stages of development. Humanity has achieved great technological success, and the scientific and technological revolution has brought material benefits to society. But at the same time, the consumer society creates many problems. What is progress in the context of modern discourse? The answer to this question is the purpose of this article.

Russian Women and the End of Soviet Socialism: Everyday Experiences of Economic Change by McKinney Judith (review)

SEER, 99, 2, APRIL 2021 376 negative view of the socialist version of informal housing (Schwarzwohnen) which he considers as ‘perhaps the ultimate form of theft’ (p. 47). I might be overly sensitive here due to my own research on that topic but I wonder why someone who occupies an empty, derelict flat and makes it habitable at her/his own expense can’t be considered a grassroots version of ‘urban ingenuity’? Another consequence of Demshuk’s laudatory view of local authorities is that he downplays the involvement of his ‘heroes’ in the state apparatus. The ‘Bowlingtreff’ was a local prestige project which emulated, and perhaps even surpassed, comparable prestige projects of the SED in the capital. Its realization was a participatory dictatorship en miniature, with a governing body ‘Aufbaustab’ and practices of volunteer mobilization which were common in the GDR. After its completion, the SED used the ‘Bowlingtreff’ to gain legitimacy for the party dictatorship with a similar incorporating gesture to the people as its big brother, the ‘Palast der Republik’ in Berlin. Therefore, I consider the modification of Fulbrook’s notion of participatory dictatorship into ‘participation without dictatorship’ (p. 5) unconvincing. Applying the concept of ‘contested dictatorship’ would probably have been better suited. Moreover, the focus on the binary of ‘good’ local vs. ‘bad’ central officials leads to a slight neglect of the deeper problem of scarcity of resources. Overall, this a fascinating multifaceted book which explores an often overlooked aspect of urban informality in late Communism. It successfully uses urban microhistory in order to reveal characteristics of disintegrating late Communism. After the university church and the ‘Bowlingtreff’, I wonder what building comes next. My suggestion would be to focus on the demolished building of Karl-Heine-Str. 30. The subsidized demolition of that beautiful historical building in 2004 was one out of 446 historical buildings taken down in Leipzig between 1990 and 2006. After Communist barbarism and urban ingenuity, a third book on capitalist destruction in post-socialist Leipzig would bring the topic to full circle. Universität Leipzig Udo Grashoff McKinney, Judith. Russian Women and the End of Soviet Socialism: Everyday Experiences of Economic Change. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2020. xii + 285 pp. Illustrations. Notes. References. Index. £59.99; £44.99 (paperback & e-book). This volume makes a welcome and valuable addition to the literature on the everyday experiences of women during the tumultuous period of Gorbachev’s reforms during the late 1980s in the Soviet Union and in the years following REVIEWS 377 the country’s collapse in 1991. Judith McKinney has been a long-term visitor to the Soviet Union, having first gone to the country in 1968 and then returning as an undergraduate spending a semester in Leningrad in 1971. She went back again in the mid-1990s to a much different city and to a vastly changed postSoviet Russia. A decade later, she made the first of a series of visits that allowed her to see the now newly stabilized Russia at first hand. This book emerges from a series of interviews she conducted with thirty women in Iaroslavl´ in 2012 and these are supplemented by a smaller number of interviews conducted in the more ethnically diverse Astrakhan´ in 2010. As with many interview projects (my own included), McKinney draws attention to the fact that her respondents are drawn overwhelmingly from middle-class, educated women, many of whom were mothers of young children and adolescents at the height of the crisis period. Their experiences and testimonies provide individual detail to the findings of related studies. Based on these oral testimonies and with reference to related academic studies, the book provides a fascinating insight into a range of women’s life trajectories resulting from the dramatic economic changes of the lateSoviet and post-Soviet period. The material emerging from the interviews is investigated thematically with some focus on the respondents’ changing domestic circumstances and familial relationships, but mostly, as the sub-title indicates, it looks at women’s working lives in the rapidly and vastly changing economic landscape of the 1990s and the first decade of the twenty-first century — the impact of perestroika in the late 1980s, of ‘wild capitalism’ of the 1990s and...

DIEVO TREJYBĖS TEOLOGIJA JONO PAULIAUS II ENCIKLIKOSE

The article analyzes the theme of the Trinity of God in the encyclicals of John Paul II. St. Pope John Paul II was one of those supreme pastors of the Catholic Church who, during a sufficiently long time of his pontificate (27 years), time wrote many encyclicals, apostolic exhortations, and other Church documents. They fought relentlessly for human rights, against the so-called “realism of socialism”, against communism, against liberal theology. He spoke out against abortion and euthanasia, against “wild capitalism” and liberalism. He spoke out against the women’s priesthood and allowing Catholic priests to marry. So, let’s say his teaching doctrine was conservative but balanced. He saw the signs of the time perfectly and was able to read them. This essentially gave one of the most peaceful times in every sense to the entire Catholic Church. He wrote a total of 14 encyclicals in which he touched on the theme of the Trinity of God in one way or another. It could not be otherwise, because in Christianity, to speak of God means to speak of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. One of the first encyclicals in which the Pope explored the doctrine of the Trinity of God in detail was Redemtor Hominis (1979). This theme was further developed in the encyclicals Dives in misericordia (1980), Dominum et vivificantem (1986). The Pope has always presented the teaching of the Trinity of God in a historical context of how the dogma of the Trinity has been perceived and accepted or rejected from early Christian times to the present day, clearly reflected in the sources of the Christian faith: Scripture, the Bible, the Church Fathers and its traditional official teaching – Magisterium. In dealing with these topics, the encyclical concluded with a pastoral call for the Church to evangelize believers and the world.

Health insurance reform in China after the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China

This article reviews the health insurance reforms in China for the period from 2002 to the present. It stated that 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China introduced significant amendments to health insurance system, balancing the negative impact of capitalist mechanisms, on the one hand, and justice and equality – on the other. This stage of development in China’s healthcare insurance system is described as the “second generation” in healthcare system, characterized with the change of government’s role in allocation of resources in healthcare sector: proliferation of “wild capitalism” in medicine is replaced with the concept of granting freedom to the market mechanisms under the government supervision. The reforms of PRC government in the area of health have a clear social focus. The state takes over responsibility for health of the citizens, which was released to a free market in the “new course” of the 1980s – 1990s. At the same time, the former paternalistic scheme is replaced by the equal system of interaction between society and the government. In all cases, the insurance funds are formed out of personal deposits of the citizens and deposits of local and central authorities. Municipalities are responsible for majority of decisions in the area of development of insurance schemes. The government’s role consists in establishment of minimum deposits and maximum coverage. This is how the central authorities, local administration and citizens are involved in insurance schemes on equal terms.

The Models of Corporate Governance

The approaches to defining the concept of “corporate governance” by various authors have been considered, analyzed, and systemized in the present article. The world experience and corporate governance models used in various countries have been regarded, and the characteristics of these models have been analyzed. The main peculiarities and causes of the emergence of models in an economic system have been determined. It has been revealed that the English-American system is characterized by the dispersal of investors, i.e., there are many independent investors, both private and institutional. Due to the inconsiderable use of stock exchanges and external investments, the German system has provided commercial banks with the dominant share of the companies’ governance. The system is distinguished by a high concentration of equity. The Russian model is a hybrid transitional variant that had arisen because of “wild capitalism” at the dawn of the transition from the planned to the market economy.

Сryptocurrency as a Product of Development of the Modern Information and Economic Environment

It is necessary to systematize and classify cryptocurrency as a product of modern information and financial technologies and to analyze its genetic relations with other modern financial assets that traded on the currency markets. It is important to clear up to what extent the cryptocurrency is related to commodity or fiat money. The research was based on the methods of statistical and comparative analysis, graphic, dialectical, historical and logical methods. Cryptocurrency is neither full option money – not fulfilling all the monetary functions, nor a financial instrument – not creating requirements and obligations. Cryptocurrency cannot be considered as a fiat money, because the state is not to ensure its issue. The essential difference between cryptocurrency and private money lies in the fact that a private person stands behind the latter. It is possible to classify cryptocurrency as fiduciary money, the existence and functioning of which is provided by public trust. The research results allow much more deeply and comprehensively understanding of the nature of cryptocurrency. It gives a possibility to form an effective anti-crisis financial policy. Cryptocurrency is the second derivative of classical financial assets. It is a tool for redistributing social wealth from its customers, secondary owners, and unsuccessful participants of this pyramid in favor of creators, primary owners of cryptocurrency, and successful participants of the crypto-pyramid. Cryptocurrency is a tool of primitive accumulation. By using dialectical logic by analogy to economic history it is possible to conclude that in the world of cryptocurrency, the period of competitive ‘wild capitalism’ was ended and the period of ‘monopoly capitalism’ has begun.Article received 24.04.2019

JUSTICIA AMBIENTAL Y LA GESTIÓN DE LOS BIENES COMUNES: Environmental Justice and the Management of Common Goods

Worldwide concerns about the impacts of climate change and in line with the international agreements reached in Rio to Paris, a new generation of experts, scientists and citizens have begun to look for rational solutions that can be implemented by local and national governments and international institutions. We are facing an abundance of possible solutions, both technological and scientific. The problem is that, in implementing the new actions, they encourage the most powerful minorities in the world, which have created the problems under the model of consumer and wild capitalism, while those with the least resources are still the victims, suffering the consequences of climate change. This situation has been called an issue of environmental justice.

О цивилизационных типах цинизма: Запад и Россия

<p>Глобализм порождает особую, «глобалистскую», культуру и особое, расширяющееся до глобального, мировоззрение — цинизм, который становится как бы следующей стадией эволюции идеологии. В современной глобальной культуре он заполняет лакуны исчезающей духовности, создает особую атмосферу и вызывает новые формы поведения людей. Существуют объективные и субъективные причины усиления цинизма: объективные — противоречие между жизнью и смертью, обществом и природой, властью и подчинением, бедностью и богатством — присутствуют во всех современных культурах, субъективные возникают как ответ отдельных цивилизаций на вызовы эпохи. Поэтому каждая культура как особая система ценностей порождает свой духовный антипод — собственную форму цинизма.</p><p>В истории развития мировых цивилизаций существуют как бы две фазы их духовного состояния — кинизм как устремление к духовности и цинизм как реванш бездуховности. Трансформация кинизма в цинизм отражает в реальности глубинный процесс «объективации» (Н. А. Бердяев), или «кристаллизации» духа (А. Бергсон). Гипотезой статьи является идея о том, что самые яркие формы цинизма рождаются как антиподы самых сильных духовных движений в поле мировых религий — их мистических направлений.</p><p>В Античности кинизм становится цинизмом — мировоззрением закатного времени, которое формируют интеллектуалы данной эпохи, чтобы выразить свое презрение окружающему миру. В европейской культуре цинизм рождается из атеизма и двойственности «просвещенного ложного сознания», которое, с одной стороны, несет знание, а с другой — становится базисом для нового усиления власти и неравенства. Особые черты западного цинизма — пустота, презрение, бесстыдство, ирония без смысла.</p><p>Если западный цинизм есть результат постепенной инволюции духа, цинизм русской цивилизации рождается из крайностей ее метаний. Балансирование между крайностями как особый путь отражается в духовной практике юродства, пытавшегося преодолеть внутренний цивилизационный раскол путем своеобразного социально-религиозного синтеза. Последним примером духовных метаний русской цивилизации стала революция1917 г., которая «в одно мгновение» заменила религию атеистической идеологией. Хотя революцию можно назвать величайшим в истории человечества «социальным экспериментом» (А. А. Зиновьев), но она закончилась крахом, оживившим цинизм «дикого капитализма», отрезающего путь к духовной цели, без которой цивилизация не может жить.</p>

The formation and distribution of procapitalist perspectives in Mongolia

ABSTRACTMongolians not only perform capitalist activity in everyday life but also form their own capitalist philosophies and concepts. Since the mid-1990s, Mongolian intellectuals, including professors, translators and columnists, have translated dozens of procapitalist books from English and Russian into Mongolian. Some have established NGOs, student clubs, and foundations to promote capitalism by organizing lectures, as well as summer schools for the public. This article explores how these processes contribute to the understanding of capitalism and Mongolia’s current socio-economic situation. It ethnographically demonstrates the persistence of evolutionist thinking in the making of capitalism and development in Mongolia. It explores how procapitalist intellectuals tried to find ways to outgrow a perceived period of zerleg kapitalizm (wild capitalism) to reach jinhene kapitalizm (genuine capitalism). It examines the implications of these intellectual frameworks, exploring how the outgrowing of these perceived ‘developmental stages’ is often considered to be a ‘solution’ for Mongolia’s development.

Oportunidades existentes para proyectos de intervención socio-educativa en Nicaragua

Considero que Nicaragua en los últimos treinta años ha cambiado sustancialmente en los diferentes ámbitos: social, económica, política, ecológica y espiritualmente. El período del neoliberalismo, del capitalismo salvaje, de los años 90 y parte de los 2000 sólo favorecía a la clase empresarial, pues su economía estaba pensada para hacer más pobres a los pobres y más ricos a los ricos.

WILD CAPITALISM VERSUS ETHICS OR PROPRIETY CONFLICT

Humanism is strongly related to ethical principles. Here - to professional and also global ethics. Wild capitalism versus ethics or propriety conflict is strikingly highlighted in the economy, science and politics. Professional ethics is divided into business, medical, sport, military, political, research ethics, and so forth. All of them have their own specific problems, but also common parts. Global ethics investigates problems regarding relations between nations, countries and religions. The aim of this publication is the analysis of the humanism principle in the professional ethics in Europe. This section is focused on propriety conflict or inconsistency between personal conscience and social standards or interests of the corporation (office). Scientific novelty is analysis of contradictions of wild capitalism in relation to business, science and global ethics and also analysis of problems of professional ethics: our conscience does not allow us to do things required from us by the society (the state) or the business firm or organization.

How a War for the Past Becomes a War in the Present

Nothing is new under the sun: whether in Soviet times, before, or after, was used and misused in Ukraine for numerous aims and occasions. In the 19th century, Ukraine followed the classic pattern of 19th-century revivalist nationalism characteristic of stateless nations (e.g., Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, and Ukrainians). Here the absence of the state predetermined the mode of action undertaken by social agents (the intelligentsia, for instance): their aim was to liberate their nations-in-the-making from the empires in which they found themselves. Their appeal to was part of the creation of the nation's Self, the formation of identity (in which was construed as the nation's memory), and the legitimization of the nation's right to existence and its claim to statehood. (1) The nationalizing state of Ukraine after the 1990s took up this tradition but with an important twist: the state was presented as--and itself became--the commissioner of the discourse and policies. Therefore, and historians were mobilized to perform a major task: to construct (or to reconstruct) a picture of the past that would explain the present and that would legitimize the new nation-state and its titular nation. History (which in many respects was readily and unwittingly confused with collective memory) became a part of civic education of the nationalizing state. The pattern of self-assertion after 1991 was the same as before, although the conditions were different. The resulting version of national was inevitably essentialist and culturally exclusivist in the sense that it construed the of Ukraine as the of ethnic Ukrainians, largely ignoring the other peoples who have inhabited the country's terrain. Its promoters presented it as a and as a part of the collective memory of the Ukrainian people. The retreat to this true history was also presented as an antithesis to die historical lethargy or amnesia imposed by Soviet rule on the Ukrainian people. It was accordingly challenged by die Soviet version of history--itself represented as collective memory in the same manner--which retained purchase among considerable portions of Ukraine's citizenry. Officially, that Soviet version was not banned by die state, and elements of it persisted everywhere--in school curricula, in lieux de memoire, in commemoration practices. In some regions, particularly the Donbas, Crimea, and southeastern Ukraine, the Soviet version was deliberately cultivated by members of the local elite. This promotion was partly the function of their own ideological preferences and partly a way for them to preserve Soviet-style patrimonialism--the top-down relationship between protective red directors, top bureaucrats, and their dependents. The Soviet-nostalgic variant of history/memory was also attractive (mostly to members of the older generation) because of the excesses of wild capitalism and the social crisis of the 1990s, and on account of the uncertainties of the post-2008 period, which featured a new social and economic crisis. For this part of the population, the principles of cheap bread and social benefits characteristic of the Soviet past, together with memories of the great country that was victorious in the Great Patriotic War, remained a normal part of their cultural baggage. (2) According to a sociological survey of the Ukrainian population in 2010, 46 percent of respondents regretted the dissolution of the Soviet Union. A majority of them (55-65 percent) lived in eastern and southern Ukraine. (3) Western Ukraine represented a contrasting attitude: there only 16 percent viewed the USSR's end unfavorably. It might be said that by the beginning of the 2000s, three major types of history/collective memory had emerged, two of which stand in direct opposition to each other. One is a national(ist) version, which emphasizes the exclusive role and position of Ukrainians in Ukrainian history. …

Individualism and Morality in the Post-communist Capitalism

Today, there has been an increasing interest in the likely existence of a moral capitalism, which is able to combine the capitalist's own interest with the public good. In fact, real capitalisms could be positioned on a scale with the wild capitalism at one end and the moral capitalism at the other. This debate is even more important and topical in the former communist countries, which want to implement a capitalist economic system and which, unfortunately, are faced with extreme forms of wild or crony capitalism. On the other hand, the capitalist system involves individualism as its underlying ideology. However, individualism is far from being a unitary ideology; rather, it is more appropriate to discuss individualisms. For instance, the post-modern society has imposed the hedonistic individualism, which constitutes the foundation and drive of consumerism. In the communist regimes, which are officially connected to a collectivist ideology, forms of a survival individualism appear as a perverse effect of the economic, political, and social context, which continue even after the fall of communism. However, the deep vein of individualism, which has certain humanistic characteristics, is not in opposition to the moral capitalism; on the contrary, it sustains it. In the former communist countries, which are still in the process of building and consolidating their new political and economic system, the influence of these individualisms is deeply felt and they generate and manifest various and often contradictory forms of capitalism.

From Workers’ Self-management in Socialism to Trade Unions Marginalization in “Wild Capitalism”: A Case Study of ArcelorMittal in Bosnia and Herzegovina

This paper explores the largest steel producer in Bosnia and Herzegovina asit shifted from a state-owned company to a foreign-owned private company.The impact of the transition on industrial relations, effect of new managementon employment conditions within the company and the changing role of tradeunions is explored. The extent to which the findings can be considered a typicalconsequence of the inexorable encroachment of capitalism and privatisationacross Eastern Europe is considered. The paper commences with brief summaryof the historical and political context of the transitional economies. Thisis followed by a brief history of the steel industry in general, and in Yugoslaviaand Bosnia and Herzegovina in particular, detailing the main features of industrialrelations. The background to the specific case study is then presented,providing a short history of Mittal Steel and its restructuring challenges in thetransitional post-communist period. This provides the foundation for the analysis,which explores the impact of privatisation on industrial relations in thecompany, looking in particular at the effect of new management and its culture,and the concomitant effects on employment contracts, working conditions andthe changing role of trade unions. The paper concludes with a discussion of theextent to which the transformations can be explained by the various theories ofpost-communist capitalism.