Lost in transition: Life satisfaction on the road to capitalism

In the 1990s transition from socialism to capitalism in Eastern Europe life satisfaction followed the collapse and recovery of GDP, but failed to recover commensurately. By 2005, with GDP averaging about 25 per cent above its early 1990s level, life satisfaction was typically back to its earlier level, but was arguably still below pre-transition values. Increased satisfaction with material living levels occurred at the expense of decreased satisfaction with work, health, and family life. In the decade of the 1990s, disparities in life satisfaction increased with those hardest hit being the less educated and persons over age 30; women and men suffered about equally.     

中国金融不能照搬美国自由化模式——国际金融危机的一条根本教训

美国引发的国际金融危机,从反面给我国的金融体制创新提供一面镜子.鉴此,必须从根本上认识此次危机的社会制度原因,把握现代资本主义发展的阶段特征及其在金融领域的表现形式,廓清中国特色社会主义金融与美国资本主义金融六个方面的根本区别,坚持我国金融制度建设与创新的正确方向,处理好借鉴别人与自我完善的关系,决不能照搬美国自由化金融的模式.     

三种经济发展方式的考察与我国现阶段政策选择

本文认为,在资本主义、人本主义和物本主义三种经济发展方式中,资本主义是最强有力的,其次是人本主义,物本主义的力量是较为脆弱的。我国现阶段的发展状况决定:利用资本主义创造财富、利用人本主义促进人类社会发展、利用物本主义实现人与自然的和谐,政府应规强助弱实现三者的协调发展。     

Democracy and capitalism: Are they compatible in the long-run?

Starting from a discussion of Schumpeter's analysis of the relationships of capitalism, socialism and democracy, it is shown that, in a complex society, democracy is only compatible with a decentralized market economy with safe property rights. But in time democracy shows a tendency to weaken the capitalist system by more and more regulations and an ever-increasing share of government (including the social security system) in GDP. This tendency is a consequence of political competition because of the development of interest groups and the presence of rationally uninformed voters. It leads to a weakening of efficiency, investment, innovation and thus to lower growth rates of GDP. But in time forces opposing this development arise. First, because of the negative consequences of growing government the welfare and regulatory state is bound to move into a crisis in the long run. Thus innovative politicians have a chance to win the support of a majority of voters for reform projects, who perceive finally the ever-increasing burden of higher taxes and regulations and realize that these burdens are not worth the benefits bestowed on them. In doing so, they may face, however, the competition of ideologies. Second, there are other states with lower taxes and less unnecessary regulations which show higher growth rates of GDP, and gain thus relative advantages in international political and military competition since they can command greater resources with the passage of time. To maintain their relative international power position, reforms are thus considered as necessary by rulers. This may be helped by pressure resulting from comparisons of the standards of living done by their citizens.     

The Moral Basis of Global Capitalism: Beyond the Eclectic Theory

Dunning's recent discussions of the morality of global capitalism, as developed from his eclectic theory, are critically reviewed. It is argued that, in highlighting the benefits of globalisation, Dunning has underestimated the extent to which globalisation amplifies the costs of capitalism. The nature of capitalism varies according to the social and religious framework within which economic activity is embedded. An effective framework creates a high-trust form of capitalism based on self-regulation and self-control. This framework aligns private and social interests in cases where the forces of law and competition are weak. Late twentieth-century Western culture is secular and atomistic: it has fostered a low-trust form of capitalism, based on a selfish, individualistic and competitive concept of the entrepreneur. Low-trust capitalism provides entrepreneurs with unrivalled opportunities to manipulate consumer tastes, and frees them from any inhibitions about exercising this power. The globalisation of consumer product markets has reinforced this tendency, by strengthening the incentive to refine manipulative marketing techniques. The increasing reliance on mass media - especially television - for advertising distinguishes modern global capitalism from the international capitalism of the late nineteenth century. Because of these changes, people's wants are satisfied with unprecedented abundance, but their social needs are met much less adequately than before.     

CAPITALISM,SOCIALISM AND CALCULATION

The merits and demerits of what we call ‘capitalism’ have been a source of much attention since Adam Smith wrote his seminal treatise on the salutary effects of free commerce and before. We consider the criticisms of the capitalist system as stated most prominently by Karl Marx, and we evaluate Marx's proposed solution to the evils of capitalism – specifically, socialism. We also explore the contributions of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek to the debate about whether Marx's proposed alternative was really an alternative. Mises and Hayek provide powerful critiques of Marx's socialist vision by addressing the problem of economic calculation and the inability of central authorities to acquire knowledge diffused and distributed across an entire society. We question whether Marx offered a solution and then consider more recent attacks on capitalism and its alleged destruction of cultural capital. The theoretical contributions of Mises and Hayek are supported by recent empirical contributions suggesting that liberal political economy is robust.     

Political Economy and Islamic Politics: Insights from the Indonesian Case

It is argued in this study that the trajectory of Islamic politics in Indonesia has been shaped within larger processes of state formation and socio-economic and political changes associated with the advance of the market economy and the pressures of globalisation. It incorporates the Indonesian case into a vast and well-developed debate that has hitherto focused on North Africa and the Middle East. As such it offers a distinct interpretation that goes beyond the prevailing understanding of Islamic politics in Indonesia as the product of conflicts over ideas, doctrine or culture or the institutional requisites of authoritarianism or democracy. Specifically, it is proposed that Islamic politics has been underpinned variously by the conservatism of small propertied interests, the populism of marginalised urban and small town middle classes and the ambitions of the upper middle classes and business. While these dynamics are found across much of the Muslim world, the political outcomes have been diverse. We show that the Indonesian trajectory has been greatly influenced by the failure of Islamic politics to establish effective cross-class alliances behind the banners of Islam and the ability of the secular state to effectively establish its own apparatus of populist politics.     

Women's Magazines: Construction of Identities and Cultural Consumption in Hong Kong

Consumption is an integral part of contemporary capitalistic society. By means of a textual analysis of letters to the editor of a women's magazine in Hong Kong, as well as in-depth interviews with readers and editors, this paper examines how women's cultural consumption creates, constructs and circulates women's identities. Results reveal that the processes of identification can be constructed on three equivalent consumption levels. Firstly, women readers identify certain "imaginary communities" through reading the magazine, and by modeling the behaviors and styles of the communities they feel they are sustaining their relationship with them. Secondly, women identify with an idealized community-constructed beauty and seek to consume products which collectively suggests this idealized beauty for them. Thirdly, women regard the "communities" as providing shelter for rapport and comfort from the emotional and relational problems of real life. In sum, structured identification-consumption has shaped working class women into an identity, which conforms to society's dominant capitalist logic. Despite these findings, however, there are always a few women who attempt to seek alternative lifestyles.     

略论建国后毛泽东经济思想的几个方面

新民主主义革命胜利后,如何恢复和发展国民经济,使我国尽快地由农业国发展成为工业国提上了中国共产党的议事日程.新中国的经济问题成为当时毛泽东思考的最为紧迫的问题之一.本文拟对建国后毛泽东对待资本主义的态度、商品经济观及对外开放思想作一略述,以期对社会主义现代化建设事业有所借鉴.     

‘A new paradigm of British business history’: A critique of Toms and Wilson

We provide a critical reflection of Toms and Wilson's ‘new paradigm of British business history’ by focusing on the logical consistency of their model, the robustness of its predictive powers, and its explanation of transitional change related to stages of business capitalism. For example, central to the paradigm is the importance of accountability and external economies of scale, assumed as exogenous parameters in the analysis of British business history. This assumption is challenged, as is the predictive powers of the analytical matrix in providing an all-encompassing model for British business evolution. In particular, the transitional processes in British business history are not simply reducible to an assessment of accountability and economies of scale and scope, but rather to enhance our understanding there is a need also to engage with the concept of personal capitalism. While business historians should engage with theoretical frameworks, it must also be recognized that firms are idiosyncratic, a feature of business organizations that should not be lost.