论邓小平法制思想的理论创新

邓小平法制思想是邓小平理论的重要组成部分，是其政治学说的核心内容，也是十一届三中全会以来，党确定和坚持“发展社会主义民主，健全社会主义法制”方针的理论基础。邓小平高度重视社会主义法制建设，科学地总结了我国社会主义法制建设的经验和教训，对加强社会主义法制作出一系列例精辟论述，形成了完整的理论体系，邓小平法制思想在理论上的创新，丰富和发展了马列主义、毛泽东思想法主库，为我们建设社会主义法治国家奠定了坚实的理论基础。     

邓小平民主法治的执政新理念

在邓小平理论中，“什么是社会主义，怎样建设社会主义”与“建设一个什么样的党，怎样建设党”这两个问题是紧密相连的。在解决“什么是社会主义，怎样建设社会主义”的基础上，邓小平形成了他的民主法治的执政新理念：(一)民主法治必须与生产力和生产关系相适应。“我们的国家已经进入社会主义现代化建设的新时期。我们要在大幅度提高社会生产力的同时，改革和完善社会主义的经济制度和政治制度，发展高度的社会主义民主和完备的社会主义法制。”(《邓小平文选》第二卷，第208页)只有解放和发展生产力，社会主义的生产关系才能不断完善，党的执政基础才能不断增强，实行民主的成本问题才能解决。邓小平提出发展是硬道理，政治问题用经济的方法来解决，坚持在处理经济     

依法治国基本方略的新发展

本从毛泽东、邓小平等老一辈无产阶级革命家提出的“依法办事”和“有法可依，有法必依，执法必严。违法必究”的十六字方针分析入手，论述了以江泽民为核心的第三代中央领导集体，在全面继承和发展毛泽东、邓小平法制建设的重要思想基础上，提出“依法治国”与“以德治国”相结合，建设社会主义法治国家的战略目标，以及如何贯彻“依法治国”的基本方略。     

坚持贯彻依法治国的基本方略

党的十五大把“依法治国，建设社会主义法治国家”作为治国的基本方略，这是以江泽民同志为核心的党中央对邓小平民主法制思想的继承、丰富和发展，是我们党领导人民治理国家方式上的重大转变，体现了我们党从根本上走向了成熟。 一、深刻理解“依法治国”是我们党执政方式和领导方式的重大改变 １、依法治国，是邓小平民主法制思想的基本内容。邓小平同志在粉碎“四人帮”以后，反思以往，指出“解放以后，我们没有自觉地、系统地建立保障人民民主权利的各项制度，法制很不完备，也很不受重视”。由于治理国家的重大决策来自于少数或个别领…     

对邓小平法制思想的再认识

邓小平法制思想是邓小平理论的重要组成部分，其内涵十分丰富，涉及国家的经济、政治、民主建设的各个方面。在纪念邓小平诞辰100周年之际，学习和研究邓小平的这些思想，对于推进依法治国，建设社会主义法治国家的伟大实践，具有重大的理论和现实意义。本文仅从民主政治建设的角度，对邓小平的法制思想作一浅析。     

发展慢不是社会主义

邓小平是我国改革开放和社会主义现代化建设的总设计师。他“设计”的主要内容之一，就是关于我国的发展速度问题。能否完整地准确地把握邓小平的发展速度思想，直接关系着我国社会主义现代化建设的文钱。因此，对邓小平的发展速度思想进行研究，不仅是广大政治理论工作者，同时也是广大经济工作者的一个重要课题。力争较快发展是社会主义的内在买来在发展速度问题上，邓小平的指导思想可以概括为一个字：快，即要决不要慢。说得具体一点，就是力争校快发展。快和慢是相对而言的。邓小平的所谓快，一是指现在的发展速度要高于“文革”结束前…     

社会主义市场经济体制下依法治国方略的确立——兼论邓小平两个宣言书的独特贡献

中国特色社会主义的开创者邓小平的两个宣言书《解放思想，实事求是，团结一致向前看》和“南方谈话”，是邓小平理论的精髓，在马克思主义中国化进程中做出了独特贡献。在当前我国完善社会主义市场经济体制和建设社会主义法治国家的历史进程中，探究在邓小平两个宣言书指引下，社会主义市场经济体制与依法治国方略确立的关系具有重要的理论意义。     

邓小平科技思想及其实践意义

邓小平建设有中国特色社会主义理论 ,强调社会主义的根本任务是解放和发展生产力。正是从这一高度出发 ,通过对当代社会生产力发展规律的科学认识和时代特征的准确把握 ,邓小平提出了以“科学技术是第一生产力”为精髓的科技思想。学习和研究邓小平科技思想 ,对我国社会主义现代化建设实践有着重大的现实意义。1、邓小平关于“科学技术是第一生产力”的思想 ,为实现我国经济增长方式的根本转变指明了方向二战以后 ,特别是 60年代以来 ,科学技术取得了日新月异的发展。科学技术的发展及其在社会各领域的应用 ,极大地提高了社会劳动生产率 ,推…     

和谐法治：中国特色社会主义法治发展的理想图景

“和谐法治”是中国法理学回应当前建设“和谐社会”的时代课题、推动法治思想在中国语境下生长的最新努力,也是中国法学参与或引领世界法律对话的一种理论范式。和谐法治范畴的提出和展开,必将成为中国特色社会主义法治发展的理想图景。     

邓小平精神文明建设思想在张家港的成功实践

精神文明建设思想是邓小平理论极其重要的组成部分，是我国社会主义精神文明建设的根本指针。在社会主义精神文明建设进程中，全国各条战线涌现出一大批英模人物和创建精神文明的先进典型，张家港市即是其中一分子。党的十一届三中全会以来，特别是1992年邓小平同志视察南方发表重要谈话和党的十四大以来，张家港市坚持以邓小平理论和“三个代表”重要思想为指针，大力践行邓小平精神文明建设思想，坚定不移地以经济建设为中心，两手抓、两手都要硬，在短短几年内便迅速崛起，以其社会主义物质文明和精     

Pleasure and belief in Hume's Decision Process

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to introduce explicitly pleasure and belief in what aims at being a Humean theory of decision, like the one developed in Diaye and Lapidus (2005a). Although we support the idea that Hume was in some way a hedonist – evidently different from Bentham's or Jevons' way – we lay emphasis less on continuity than on the specific kind of hedonism encountered in Hume's writings (chiefly the Treatise, the second Enquiry, the Dissertation, or some of his Essays). Such hedonism clearly contrasts to its standard modern inheritance, expressed by the relation between preferences and utility.

The reason for such a difference with the usual approach lies in the mental process that Hume puts to the fore in order to explain the way pleasure determines desires and volition. Whereas pleasure is primarily, in Hume's words, an impression of sensation, it takes place in the birth of passions as reflecting an idea of pleasure, whose “force and vivacity” is precisely a “belief”, transferred to the direct passions of desire or volition that come immediately before action. As a result, from a Humean point of view, “belief” deals with decision under risk or uncertainty, as well as with intertemporal decision and indiscrimination problems.

The latter are explored within a formal framework, and it is shown that the relation of pleasure is transformed by belief into a non-empty class of relations of desire, among which at least one is a preorder.     

Globalization,Neoliberalism and the attack on social security

Neoliberal political movements advocate privatization of public pension systems. Globalization imposes pressure on nations to conform to neoliberal policy views with respect to the design and structure of social insurance, including public pension systems. The paper begins with an investigation of the economic, ethical and ideological dimensions of the privatization debates in the U.S.; it argues that privatization advocates may be largely moved by ideology, since the other reasons advanced appear weak or unfounded. The second part discusses the history of Social Security, the purposes for its creation, and some of its economic effects. Differences between public and private pension systems are considered. A brief international comparison of some aspects of public pension system finance and benefit structures is presented. The final section considers the ethical, macroeconomic and distributional implications of privatization, prefunding and payroll tax funding, and argues for a pay as you go system financed with income taxes. In order to promote equity, economic security, community, and social cohesion, public pension systems should be universal in coverage. In order to reduce the inequality, income insecurity, and aged poverty generated by market economies, public pension systems ought to be progressive: benefit/contribution ratios should be inversely proportional to income, and progressive income taxes should finance the system. To promote economic growth, the systems should be financed on a pay-as-you-go basis, and should not be prefunded except for an emergency reserve. The fiscal policy recommendations partially depend upon the theory developed by Abba Lerner in the 1940s, and recently advanced by Wynne Godley and Randy Wray: Lerner's “principle of functional finance.”     

Interest on reserves and inflation

The payment of interest on reserves has been a common practice in inflationary economies. This policy may seem paradoxical since it involves returning part of the seigniorage, generated by the inflation process, with the intention to finance the fiscal deficit. This paper argues that the motivation for this policy can be captured by the discretionary regime, where the policymaker pays interest on reserves because he is concerned with the erosion of real liquidity by inflation, which is in part beyond his control. However, this policy is an unlikely outcome in the commitment regime, where the policymaker is in full control of inflation.     

Bayesian estimation of duration models: An application of the multiperiod probit model

The multiperiod probit model is presented and Bayesian estimation using the Gibbs sampler with data augmentation is described. As an empirical illustration, the multiperiod probit model is then used to estimate a duration model using employment duration data for the Canadian province of New Brunswick. Bayesian estimation with unobserved heterogeneity is shown to be a simple extension of estimation of a duration model with no unobserved heterogeneity. More importantly, perhaps, some numerical problems encountered by other authors using Maximum Likelihood are avoided.I would like to thank M. Baker, G. Koop, A. Melino and D. Poirier for helpful comments and discussions. I would also like to thank M. Baker for providing his data.     

Scenarios and creativity: Thinking in new boxes

To be creative and make change happen, leaders must do more than simply ‘think outside the box’, as the traditional business manuals suggest, using the popular American expression. After all, the space outside the box is infinitely expansive. Moreover, there can be no guarantee that a solution to the problem will be found. The answer: ‘Think in new boxes.’ This requires developing the right new box; in other words, useful new models, a helpful new approach to a problem. That is the real art of practical creativity. This short article outlines the approach (Thinking in New Boxes) and its application to classic scenario planning with a few examples. The authors also present the ‘Expressway to Scenarios’, an approach that wins in impact and practicality what it loses in deep analysis, by having top executives involved in key steps.     

On the Role of Paradigms in Understanding Economic Globalization

Any adequate analysis of economic globalization necessarily requires fundamental understanding of the worldviews underlying the views expressed with respect to the nature and role of economic globalization. This paper is based on the premise that any worldview can be associated with one of the four basic paradigms: functionalist, interpretive, radical humanist, and radical structuralist. It argues that any view expressed with respect to economic globalization is based on one of the four paradigms or worldviews. It, therefore, discusses four views with respect to the nature and role of economic globalization which correspond to the four broad worldviews. The paper emphasizes that the four views expressed are equally scientific and informative; they look at the nature and role of economic globalization from a certain paradigmatic viewpoint. Emphasizing this example in the area of economic globalization, the paper concludes that there are opportunities for each paradigm to benefit from contributions coming from the other three paradigms.     

A Humean theory of choice of which rationality may be one consequence

For the reader who considers economic theory of choice as a special case of a more general theory of action, Hume's discussion of the determinants of action in the Treatise of Human Nature (1739?–?40), in the Enquiry on Human Understanding (1748) and in the Dissertation on Passions (1757) deserves attention. However, according to some modern commentators, Hume does not seem to have given any evidence that would favour what nowadays we would consider as the kind of rationality involved in modern theories of rational choice. On the contrary, this paper arrives at the conclusion that consistency between preferences and choice, like the usual properties of completeness and transitivity, may be considered as outcomes of a mental process, described by means of a decision algorithm that aims to represent Hume's theory of choice.     

The concept of freedom and its relation to economic development--a critical appreciation of the work of Amartya Sen

Following a brief review of the conception of freedom as employedin economic discourse, this paper focuses on the evolution ofthe concept of freedom in the work of Amartya Sen. It tracesthe development of Sen's thought from the capability analysisof the late 1970s to his more recent separation of freedom intoits opportunity and process aspects. While broadly appreciativeof Sen's development of the concept of positive freedom, thepaper identifies some difficulties arising from his definitionof capability as a set of options as well as from his separationof the opportunity and process aspects of freedom. Aspects ofthe relationship between Sen's conception of freedom and thatof Marx are discussed briefly in the context of Sen's recentdiscussion of the market as a source of freedom.     

How chaebol restructuring after the 1997 crisis has affected corporate decision and performance in Korea: debt financing,ownership structure,and investment

ABSTRACT

Korean chaebol firms, characterized by excessive debt financing and overinvestment, experienced restructuring after the 1997 crisis. By reducing debt financing and thus overinvestment, they tried to reorganize financing structure and ownership structure. Chaebols’ debt reduction turns out to have improved performance. However, polarization between chaebol and non-chaebol firms has become more significant. Even after the crisis, firms that give higher cash flows to a controlling shareholder take more capital investment, indicating that agency problems still exist within chaebols. Chaebol-affiliated firms continue to be more active in R&D than non-chaebol firms. However, the pattern is limited to the group of top 10 chaebols after the crisis.

Abbreviations: KFTC: Korea Fair Trade Commission     

Types of technology

Technology is a concept rife with confusion. Here, I argue that technologies can be distinguished as a combination of type of producer and an idealized artefact life history. Using this definition, a number of technologies are identified. The first technology historically, in the Protostomes, was the production of individual or family dwellings. Next came objects such as spider webs for trapping prey. Stigmergy followed, with the social insects, as a collective endeavour to construct a mega-structure using simple rules of accretion. Some birds and primates began to make tools, or simple technological objects whose function is closely related to their form. Humans are distinguished by their ability to make machines. Traditional technology took place once people voluntarily organised into groups with specialised knowledge to produce more complex objects and structures. Monumental objects like ceremonial pyramids came with the command economies of the early agrarian societies, which also resulted in a new category of artefact, the network. Finally, with modern civilizations came ad hoc accretion, or population-level adding-on, to make truly complex technological systems. Developing a theoretical framework within which artefacts, production processes and ways of interacting with them are identified should help the study of technology to become more scientific.