THE EMERGENCE OF LIBERAL SOCIALISM IN CONTINENTAL EUROPE1

Socialism has repeatedly failed to match the accomplishments of capitalism, and yet it refuses to die. At the beginning of the twenty‐first century, a new type of socialism, ‘liberal socialism’, is growing in Europe. The rise of liberal socialism has been marked by the erosion of two key institutions of capitalism, private property rights and the freedom of exchange. Unlike communism, which used brute force to replace private property rights and free exchange with state ownership and central planning, liberal socialism focuses on redistributing wealth, creating entitlement programmes, supporting labour unions and promoting ‘fair’ trade.     

THEORIES OF MONOPOLY CAPITALISM

Abstract. This article presents a survey of theories of monopoly capitalism. The defining characteristic of monopoly capitalism is that developed capitalist economies are seen as essentially dominated by firms which operate in oligopolistic industries. It discusses in chronological order the contributions of Hilferding, Lenin, Kalecki, Steindl, Baran and Sweezy, and Cowling to the monopoly capitalism approach. By drawing out some common features of the authors discussed we arrive at an implicit view of the nature of theories of monopoly capitalism. The macroeconomic aspects of monopoly capitalism are discussed with emphasis on the implications for the level of economic activity. A further section discusses the international aspects of the monopoly capital approach. The final section of the paper reviews criticisms of the theories of monopoly capitalism with concentration on those advanced from a Marxist perspective.     

CATHOLICISM AND CAPITALISM1

Catholic social teaching can be used to help Christians understand the appropriate role of the state in economic life. There is an intrinsic opposition to socialism but also to many of the manifestations of ‘capitalism’. An application of Catholic social teaching to economic problems should lead to a redefinition of the role of the state in many areas of life. That redefinition certainly would favour more autonomy for individuals, families and communities acting independently of the state.     

INSTITUTIONAL FAILURES OF SOCIALISM

An effective economic system enlists the co‐operation of all production factors, increasing welfare and reducing transactions costs. The co‐ordination mechanism is activated through decentralisation that shifts decisions on resource control from a higher to a lower level in the institutional hierarchy. Failure to incorporate successful decentralisation into the structure of socialist economies ultimately leads to collapse. Real socialism collapsed because it did not involve decentralisation. Worker‐managed socialism collapsed because of its own inherent contradictions and the absence of properly functioning decentralised price mechanisms.     

SIR WALDRON SMITHERS AND THE MUDDLE OF THE TORY MIDDLE

Waldron Smithers was highly critical of Attlee's post‐war Labour government and placed much weight on Hayek having dedicated The Road to Serfdom to ‘the Socialists of all parties’. Accordingly, Smithers was assiduous in combating what he saw as a dangerous turn towards middle‐way policy within his own party in the late 1940s.     

LIBERTY BETWEEN THE LINES IN A STATIST AND MODERNIST AGE: UNFOLDING THE ADAM SMITH IN FRIEDRICH HAYEK

This article interprets F. A. Hayek as having been constrained by the statism and modernism of his times, and as writing in a way that obscured some of his central ideas. I suggest that between the lines we can see a focus on liberty understood hardily as others not messing with one's stuff– even though Hayek in The Constitution of Liberty defined liberty in ways that tended to obscure this hardy definition, and Hayek often used code words like ‘competition,’‘the market,’ and ‘spontaneous’ where ‘liberty’ or ‘freedom’ would have been plainer, albeit more offensive to the culture. Seeing the hardy definition of liberty between the lines in Hayek enables us to see his focus on the liberty principle and his case for a presumption of liberty. Such a reading of Hayek, I suggest, is true to Adam Smith, who expounded a central message that by and large the liberty principle holds, and that it deserves the presumption in our culture and politics.     

ECONOMIC RECESSIONS,BANKING REFORM AND THE FUTURE OF CAPITALISM1

In the 2010 London School of Economics and Political Science Hayek Memorial Lecture, the author argues that flaws in the design of the monetary and financial system were responsible for the global financial crisis and the subsequent recession. The crash reflected the unsustainable nature of the bubble induced by artificial credit expansion created by fractional‐reserve banking under the direction of central banks. Such boom–bust cycles will continue until radical reforms are implemented, including a 100% reserve requirement for demand deposits.     

HAYEK AND MARKET SOCIALISM: SCIENCE,IDEOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY1

F. A. Hayek's significant intellectual contribution to a number of scholarly disciplines was grounded in his critique of socialist economics. This article sets out how Hayek's critique of classical and market socialism led to the development of his wide‐ranging research programme in the social sciences and shows that the implications of this research programme remain crucial to academic research and public policy in the twenty‐first century.     

20 YEARS AFTER: THE FALL AND RISE OF SOCIALISM IN EAST GERMANY

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, public opinion in East Germany is dominated by a deep hostility towards free markets and an uncritical attitude towards state intervention. This article argues that the mistakes that have been made in the economic transformation of East Germany continue to have an effect to this day. Supporters of the free economy failed to explain why the grievances people faced were not caused by allegedly 'unbridled' markets, but by false policies. Hopefully, a future reunified Korea will avoid repeating these mistakes.     

马克思社会发展理论对当代中国社会发展的启示

当前我国仍处于社会主义初阶段,经济文化发展程度还有待提高,管理水平也有待加强,因此我国不能完全照抄照搬马克思社会发展理论的内容,而应有所选择,利用其观点、立场和方法指导并推进我国的社会主义建设。     

The economic system as an end or as a means, the socialization of consumption, and the future of socialism and capitalism

After the demise of “real” socialism, socialism can be salvaged as a social preference system oriented towards equality and social justice, to be implemented without systemic constraints in the organizational and institutional sense. At the same time there is a case for creating an institutional framework allowing different forms of economic organization, capitalist and non-capitalist, to compete on equal footing, in an evolutionary perspective. Another way for a spontaneous extension of the domain of socialism could derive from the socialization of consumption, if the consumption of public goods continues to make up a growing component of real consumption.     

马克思、恩格斯、列宁论房租

本文主要摘自《资本论》、《马克思恩格斯选集》、《列宁选集》,旨在摘录、总结马克思、恩格斯、列宁等先哲对房租问题的认识,以期为现行房租研究奠定理论基础。     

ON THE DELIBERATE CENTRALITY OF AN INVISIBLE HAND: REPLY TO GAVIN KENNEDY,RYAN HANLEY AND CRAIG SMITH

We previously showed that ‘led by an invisible hand’ was physically central in original editions of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations. We suggested that Adam Smith did that deliberately. Three authors commented on our paper, Gavin Kennedy, Ryan Hanley and Craig Smith. In this article we reply to their comments.     

马克思、恩格斯、列宁论房租

本文主要摘自《资本论》、《马克思恩格斯选集》、《列宁选集》,旨在摘录、总结马克思、恩格斯、列宁等先哲对房租问题的认识,以期为现行房租研究奠定理论基础。     

SHIFTING BOUNDARIES IN ECONOMICS: THE INSTITUTIONAL COGNITIVE STRAND AND THE FUTURE OF INSTITUTIONAL ECONOMICS

This paper aims at contributing to the debate on the future of institutional economics and of the field as a whole by starting from the literature that discusses the relationship between Old‐Original Institutional Economics and New Institutional Economics. It suggests that the process of reunifying OIE and NIE (and evolutionary economics) prompted by part of the literature could be improved by the contribution of the Cognitive Institutional Economics. The paper follows a two‐stage pathway: first, it frames the debate on the relationships between NIE and the OIE and it concentrates on a subset of the literature that shows that NIE's recent developments complicate the distinction between NIE and OIE, and it explores the possibility that NIE and OIE may merge so that an amalgam of NIE, OIE and Evolutionary Economics becomes the next economic paradigm. Secondly, the paper argues that a step forward in the direction outlined by the literature has been made by CIE, which is a research stream that developed from cross‐fertilization among NIE, OIE and the Hayekian contributions to the analysis of institutions. In the concluding remarks, the possible emergence of a single institutional paradigm is discussed in the light of the literature about change in economics.     

ADAM SMITH AND THE ROLE OF THE METAPHOR OF AN INVISIBLE HAND

Daniel Klein and Brandon Lucas's ‘In a Word or Two, Placed in the Middle: The Invisible Hand in Smith's Tomes’, following a vague hint by Peter Minowitz (2004) , offers original physical evidence that Smith ‘deliberately placed the phrase “led by an invisible hand”– at the physical centre of both his masterworks’. Further, it suggests that the invisible‐hand paragraphs are a response to Rousseau (1755 ); and that in ‘numerous and rich ways’, centrality holds ‘special and positive significance in Smith's thought’. This paper acknowledges the physical centrality of the invisible‐hand metaphor, but questions whether centrality alone gives weight to wider claims that the ‘invisible hand’ was Smith's ‘central idea’. It draws upon Smith's Rhetoric Lectures (1763), and argues that the invisible‐hand paragraphs in The Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations identify the actual objects of the invisible‐hand metaphor. This paper insists that Adam Smith is the most reliable source for revealing what he meant. In contrast, most modern attributions of special meaning to Adam Smith's use of the metaphor ignore Smith's teaching on the use of metaphors and, instead, make numerous, and often mutually exclusive, claims that Smith had a ‘doctrine’ of ‘an invisible‐hand’.     

文化、城市文化与城市主题文化辨析

当前城市文化建设的最大误区,是城市领导对文化、城市文化、城市主题文化三个概念没有搞清楚,错把狭义的文化概念当成了城市文化,这将对城市造成新一轮文化上的开发性破坏和破坏性开发,所以在新一轮的城市文化建设中,我们必须明确文化、城市文化、城市主题文化的基本概念,从而彻底解决城市文化建设中的盲区与误区问题。     

我国农村村庄整治的意义、误区与对策

当前正值社会主义新农村建设之初期,全国一些省份正在开展声势浩大的村庄整治工作.本文正是基于这样的背景,从总结历史经验和教训出发,分析村庄整治工作的重要意义和基层干部容易陷入的四种误区,进而提出村庄整治必须做到五个"先行"来确立正确的方针政策,同时还强调必须在整治过程中同步建立五种长效机制来纠正我国农村公共品提供不足的问题.     

IN A WORD OR TWO,PLACED IN THE MIDDLE: THE INVISIBLE HAND IN SMITH'S TOMES

We explore the conjecture, first hinted at by Peter Minowitz, that Smith deliberately placed his central idea, as represented by the phrase ‘led by an invisible hand’, at the physical centre of his masterworks. The four most significant points developed are as follows: (1) The physical evidence: the expression ‘led by an invisible hand’ occurs pretty much dead centre of the 1st and 2nd editions of The Wealth of Nations (WN), and of the final edition of the tomes containing The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS). (2) The rhetoric lectures show that Smith not only was conscious of deliberate placement of potent words at the centre, but thought it significant enough to remark on to his pupils, noting that Thucydides ‘often expresses all that he labours so much in a word or two, sometimes placed in the middle of the narration’. (3) The invisible‐hand paragraphs in TMS and WN both contend with Rousseau and hearken back to the Rousseau passages that Smith had translated and provided in his 1756 article on literature. (4) There are numerous and rich ways in which centrality and middleness hold special and positive significance in Smith's thought.