Public Knowledge and Financial Regulation: Two Post Crisis Periods

Abstract:

Since at least the days of Adam Smith there has been the recognition of essentially two forms of capitalism: in their theoretical extremes, one in which private companies determine the conditions of the social provisioning of credit and money, and one in which the State representing the general interest does. As we argue, the zeitgeist of the 1930s was a high water mark in the popular understanding of money and banking and its relationship with society. In contrast, today the general population is woefully ignorant on these points. As we argue, the relationship between financial governance and those governed hinges on the knowledge of the latter. Today’s public discourse reveals a widespread ignorance over financial matters that must accompany a likewise extreme moment of private control over nations’ money and credit. As we argue, the first steps towards a capitalism at the service of humanity and under public control, the first priority is publicly diffused knowledge.     

Marginal Economy: Growth Strategies for Post-Growth Societies

A sharp problem focus sharpens the problem. Sustainably growing bodies of literature on degrowth are not the key to post-growth scenarios because evocations of the limits of growth reinforce rather than transcend the economic principle, which is in the observation of scarcity. Therefore, I focus on alternative forms of growth rather than alternatives to growth. My form-theoretical analysis of growth dismoralizes growth and disembeds it from the economic medium in which it is preferably drawn. I suggest that the key to a post-growth society is in a regrowth of interest in growth in, so far, neglected non-economic function systems.     

Charles Sanders Peirce and the Social Ontology of the Firm: A Semiotic Perspective on Human Agency

The ontological framework developed in the article aims to contribute to the social ontology of the firm by achieving three objectives: (i) to provide a well-developed conception of the human mind and conscience, (ii) to define the role of human agency in an evolutionary context and (iii) to highlight the importance of semiosis for the emergence of social structures with an emphasis on the concept of the firm as a social entity. Peirce’s semiotic conception of mind and consciousness provides insights for combining human signifying practices and social emergent properties. Thereupon, the semiotic attributions of the human mind may be understood as a basis for the ontological perspective of the firm.     

Money Pools in the Americas: The African Diaspora’s Legacy in the Social Economy

Money pools are ancient African traditions that speak to the functionality of getting things done by a historically oppressed group of people. The analysis for this study is based on 583 interviews in five Caribbean countries: Haiti, Grenada, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana. African traditions of collectives reveal that Black people have long had money pools that focused on helping people thrive in commerce, including during the hard times of slavery and colonization. This research argues that throughout the Caribbean indigenous banking systems—with localized names such as susu, partner, meeting-turn, box-hand and sol—are long-standing ancient traditions that historically and currently are taking a bold stand against exclusionary financial systems. African-Caribbean people have an important legacy on the social economy through money pools. The ways in which persons of African descent organize in the social economy is vital to unravelling the market fundamentalist view that there is only a singular way to do business in society.     

James Steuart and the making of Karl Marx’s monetary thought

Abstract

This paper analyses the influence of James Steuart on Karl Marx’s monetary thought. It deals more specifically with Marx’s rejection of an automatic mechanism that links variations in the quantity of money to their direct impact on prices. Steuart’s pioneering discoveries in economics inaugurate an anti-quantity theory tradition that Marx supported and which fed his own conception of money and credit. Here, we deal with the criticism of the assumptions of the quantity theory of money (QTM), the specifically social character of labour which creates exchange value, the distinction between the functions of money, the difference between income spending and capital advances, and the difference between simple circulation and reflux of money credit.     

Are biotechnology and its clusters in crisis?

This paper asks whether biotechnology, in general, and the industry clusters of innovative biotechnology enterprises that have uniformly characterised its economic form, are now in a terminal crisis. Or are the difficulties that are clearly evident and described below surmountable and showing signs of being surmounted? The question of a crisis in biotechnology is important because so much faith has been placed in the technology over the past generation during which it has made great technical strides forward in medicine and other user communities (agro-food, energy, environment, security) and contributed significantly to healthcare and welfare gains while high hopes have long and justifiably been associated with its vibrant industry clusters. The paper postulates a crisis based on two key features of biotechnology. The first of these is an economic crisis in which enormous sums are required to research, develop and innovate new products, especially medical drugs. The second is epistemological and confronts the (reductionist) central dogma of biotechnology with the evolutionary implications of emergent systems biology.     

供应链核心企业社会责任研究——以复杂网络理论为视角

核心企业往往通过制定不合理契约将社会责任风险转移到供应链中的相关利益方.通过复杂网络理论构建核心型供应链网络拓扑结构模型,对核心型供应链网络中社会责任风险传播的非线性动力学行为进行分析,研究表明:一方面,由于供应链网络具有非线性的特点,导致社会责任风险在整个供应链网络中涌现,最终严重影响到核心企业以及供应链的适应性成长;另一方面,核心企业在供应链网络中具有较高的度,对供应链网络的稳定性起到决定性作用.因此,有必要通过强化核心企业的社会责任主导作用来实现供应链社会责任治理.     

社会断裂与社会支持:失独老人社会关系的重建

社会政策、传统文化、经济等因素使得失独老人面临着社会保障、经济困顿、养老、医疗、社会心理恢复等问题,表现为与他人、社区之间社会关系的\"断裂\"现象。对安徽省合肥市失独老人生活现状及社会支持网络作了实证研究。失独老人对现状不满意,社会关系\"家庭化\",存在社会支持方面的缺失。影响失独老人社会关系重建的主要因素为性别、教育程度、收入、失去独生子女的时间和社会政策。从多元的视角,提出建立失独老人社会支持体系,重建失独老人社会关系、融入社区的操作性对策。     

社会创业组织与政府的关系研究及其思考

本文从社会创业组织的经济地位演变出发,对其与政府的关系进行研究,指出政府的持续支持是社会创业组织有序发展的保障,社会创业组织的发展也为政府分担了很多的社会公共服务压力,而对政府持续支持的客观评价则是促进社会创业组织可持续发展的重要手段。     

The Social Ontology of Fear and Neoliberalism

Fear is a primal instinct; it is a survival mechanism the evolution of which allowed the early humans, indeed all species to adapt, evolve, and survive. When humans moved into settled communities with more advanced means of production, the nature of fear—much like the nature of social relationships—changed. Once the means of social reproduction were secured, fear became less necessary as a survival instinct and more useful as a heuristic device. Fear evolved. Fear cannot be characterized solely as a socially constructed phenomenon, nor as the instinctual response to personally felt traumas. The growth and nature of fear must be studied as a process that develops under its own inertia, feeding off its antecedent past, and as a phenomenon that is shaped by and in turn shapes its institutional setting. Fear should be understood as both structurally determined and socially transformative. This research seeks to examine the ontology of fear, specifically as it relates to neoliberalism.     

Resilience and Dynamism of Embedded Financial Transactions in Cameroon

Following the recent financial crisis, institutional economists have issued a “call” for institutionalist research on alternative financial systems. While suggestions have been forthcoming, (for example, in Volume 48, Issue 4 of the Journal of Economic Issues), most have centered on national-level innovations in advanced capitalist countries, prompting further calls for “community” and individual level anti-capitalist financial relations. With this article, we respond to such calls. We show how networks of finance in Cameroon bridge the formal/informal dualisms in lending/savings activities. We demonstrate that any debates about whether to formalize informal financial institutions or leave them alone weaken in Cameroon because, through networks, people access both formal and informal financial institutions for different purposes and at various stages in the life of these institutions. This dynamism explains why, in spite of the growth of money markets in Cameroon, informal financial institutions have not disappeared, nor declined. In fact, they have expanded, contrary to predictions in existing new institutional economics research. While informal institutions have evolved, they have not necessarily become formal banks, microfinance, or stock markets. Rather, the informal financial institutions have adopted and adapted in terms of both lending and saving practices in a country where growing formal financialization has become the norm. Our findings challenge neoclassical and new institutional economics theories about money, credit, and the actors in the money market.     

货币流通速度的再认识——对我国1992-2008年交易流通速度的分析

本文考察了我国1992—2008年期间交易流通速度的变动特征。研究发现,我国交易流通速度的波动具有较明显的顺周期特征,且2000年以后,交易流通速度与收入流通速度的同步波动性消失,二者出现发散趋势。对于交易流通速度的分析可以更好地指示货币需求的变化,为我国货币供给规划以及货币政策的实施提供参照。     

转型经济的货币深化与货币挤出:中国和俄罗斯的不同

通货膨胀是转型经济所要面临的挑战,因此分析转型经济的货币问题十分必要。通过构建货币深化和货币挤出两种不同货币现象的分析框架,并对中国和俄罗斯的现实情况进行比较,可以发现,货币超发并非通货膨胀的充分条件,只要能够控制好货币的流向,引导货币向货币资本转化,就能够防范和治理通货膨胀,以交易方程式和鲍莫尔—托宾模型的实证检验也印证了上述观点。     

一种劳资关系理论的新探索：劳资关系周期理论

劳资关系的矛盾与冲突日益加剧,实现劳资关系的和谐与稳定,对我国构建和谐社会有着极其重要的意义.企业中劳方与资方之间存在"劳资关系周期",各周期中具有不同的特点和应对策略.企业应通过构建和谐劳资关系享受收益,增加自身的无形资产,从而提高企业核心竞争力.     

我国转轨时期政府俘获形成的微观机理研究——一项扎根理论研究方法的应用

笔者运用扎根理论,以制度理论、企业行为理论和交换理论为依据,对我国俘获者企业的高管进行深度访谈,从微观层面上分析我国转轨时期政府俘获的形成机制。在此基础上,构建了\"制度—能动性—行为—关系\"的政府俘获分析的新框架,在总结政府俘获的原因特征的同时,重点探讨为什么\"关系\"在我国政府俘获形成中有不可替代的重要性。     

货币流通速度的再认识--对中国1993-2003年虚拟经济与实体经济关系的分析

经济虚拟化的发展和货币需求函数的不稳定性 ,使传统货币流通速度公式的前提条件不复存在。本文根据变化发展的客观经济环境重建货币流通速度公式 ,结合货币循环流模型提出货币流通速度的“两分法” :虚拟经济和实体经济货币流通速度。在对我国 1 993— 2 0 0 3年虚拟经济与实体经济关系进行量化分析后发现 ,2 0 0 0年以来两者协调性较差 ,原因在于进出虚拟经济的资金出现大幅波动。对此本文结合我国实际 ,根据新货币流通速度公式设计了一些长短期资金流量监控指标。     

Circulation and effective demand: a comment on Nell

In a recent paper in this Journal, Ed Nell presented a theoryof circulation intended to unify ‘the theories of money,production, and effective demand’. The current commentuses a very simple leakage and injection approach to arriveat some of Nell's results. In doing so, we are able to correcta small slip in Nell's original paper. More importantly, withthe slip corrected, the money supply and multiplier processesare seen to be one and the same.