Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Scarcity Or Economic Insecurity? Two Yardsticks For Measuring Capitalism’S Performance, Costas Panayotakis

Publications and Research

This article argues that capitalism’s relationship to economic insecurity is as important for the evaluation of that system as its relationship to scarcity. Critically analyzing the neoclassical and Marxist focus on capitalism’s relationship to scarcity, the article describes how capitalism’s relationship to economic insecurity offers a more cogent elaboration of these traditions’ shared belief that the economic system should serve people. In particular, while critical of the neoclassical portrayal of capitalism as a system using scarce resources efficiently, this paper also argues, against Marxism, that an alternative to capitalism might be preferable even if scarcity is not abolished.

Economic Insecurity And Social Stability: An Exploration Of One Of Capitalism’S Vicious Cycles, Costas Panayotakis

Publications and Research

This article analyzes how capitalism’s connection to economic insecurity can, rather than fomenting social unrest, facilitate its reproduction. Also responding to contrasts in the literature between rising insecurity in recent decades and the containment of insecurity in capitalism’s post-war ‘golden age,’ this article explains why growing insecurity is more consistent with capitalism’s normal operation. Underlining the difficulty of replicating post-war efforts to mitigate insecurity through social and welfare policies, this article also sketches how the vicious cycle between capitalism and economic insecurity contributes to other serious social problems, including racism, sexism, xenophobia, the hollowing out of political democracy and a …

Red Sea, White Tides, And Blue Horizons, John P. Devine

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Eric Hobsbawm, in his effort to explain the fundamental divide which produced the Second World War, convincingly argues that “the crucial lines in this civil war were not drawn between capitalism as such and communist social revolution, but between ideological families: on the one hand the descendants of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment and the great revolutions including, obviously the Russian revolution’, on the other hand, its opponents.” This thesis argues that the American Civil War was a “great revolution” that represented a crucial transformative point in the formation of these two waring factions. The struggle was especially influential on the theory …

Runaway: A History Of Postwar New York In Four Factories, Andy Battle

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

At midcentury, New York City was among the preeminent manufacturing centers in the United States. Within a generation, this manufacturing economy suffered an extraordinary collapse. Beginning in the 1950s, workers and their unions began to use the term “runaway” to describe factories that pulled up stakes in New York and set them back down in other climes. This dissertation explores the deindustrialization of New York City through case studies of “runaway” plants, or factories that left New York for the American South or abroad between the years 1945 and 1975.

In general, the manufacturers that remained in New York at …

Teoria Da Crise E A Queda Da Taxa De Lucro, David Harvey

Publications and Research

Abstract:

David Harvey’s article argues against the importance given to the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall (TRPF), suggest­ing that Marx derived the « law » under « draconian » assumptions and that Engels was far more enthusiastic about it than Marx, who never went back to the theory later in his life despite its evident incompleteness. Therefore, he argues, we should not take his the­oretical conclusions too far. In his view, Marx perceived crises as momentary and violent eruptions that resolve the existing contra­dictions which can be considered as opportunities of capitalist re­construction rather …

Universal Alienation And The Real Subsumption Of Daily Life Under Capital: A Response To Hardt And Negri, David Harvey

Publications and Research

This contribution is part of a debate between Michael Hardt/Toni Negri and David Harvey on the occasion of Marx’s bicentenary (May 5, 2018). The discussion focuses on the question of what capitalism looks like today and how it can best be challenged. In this article, David Harvey responds to Hardt and Negri’s previous debate-contributions.

The New American Slavery: Capitalism And The Ghettoization Of American Prisons As A Profitable Corporate Business, David A. Liburd

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The labor of enslaved Africans and Black Americans played a large part in the history of colonial America, with the American plantation being the epicenter for all that was to be produced. While the two have never been completely tied together, capitalism and modern day slavery have been linked with one another. Some analysis sees slavery as a remote form of capitalism, a substitute, to an antiquated form of labor in the modern world.

Slave plantations adopted a new concentration in size and management, referred to by W.E. DuBois as a change "from a family institution to an industrial system."1 …

The Bourgeois Crown: Capitalism And The Monarchy In Thailand, 1946–2016, Puangchon Unchanam

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the age of capitalism, monarchy has been treated as if it were an irrelevant institution. Once capitalism becomes the dominant mode of production in a state, it is argued, monarchy must be either abolished or transformed into a constitutional monarchy, a ceremonial institution that plays no significant role in a capitalist state that is ruled by the bourgeoisie. The monarchy of Thailand, however, fits neither of those two narratives, as it enjoys hegemonic status in the capitalist state, preeminent status in the market, and popular support from the urban bourgeoisie. What explains the resilience of the Thai monarchy in …

By Beauty Damned: Millennial Feminism And The Exploitation Of Women's Empowerment In Pop Culture And Corporate Advertising, Maria L. Carreon

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Feminism has become a trendy cultural identity, leaving it open to exploitation by capitalists. Notions relating to “women’s empowerment” are used by capitalists to sell products to women, and yet many of those capitalists fund political campaigns that directly seek to quash or inhibit the advancement of women’s rights. With a little effort, any consumer can find out who their big purveyors are supporting politically. For example, Procter Gamble, who makes many products bought by women, gives the majority of its political contributions to republicans who oppose women’s reproductive rights. The same is true of McAndrews & Forbes, the parent …

Discourses Of "Cruelty-Free" Consumerism: Peta, The Vegan Society And Examples Of Contemporary Activism, Andrea Springirth

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper draws upon the principles of critical discourse analysis in order to examine the production of capitalist and consumerist discourses within contemporary nonhuman animal rights activism. The analysis presents evidence to suggest that the discourses being produced via the websites of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and The Vegan Society are consistently being constructed through market-centric ideologies that treat activists mainly as middle-class consumers. This paper argues that the consistent presence of neoliberal discourse signals an instructive entanglement with broader sociopolitical issues. Specifically, there are concerns as to how this discourse relates to what is thought …

Madison Vanguard: A Novel, Berni Moestafa

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone project takes the form of a popular fiction novel that introduces parts of the academic discussion on capitalism to a wider audience through storytelling. Using a fictional fiscal crisis in New York as its setting, the novel discusses the relationship between capitalism and democracy. It therefore aims to address the underrepresentation of the debate on capitalism in popular entertainment and raise awareness about some of the debate’s key issues.

Popular culture be that music, film, books, media, videogames or advertisement surround our lives and expose us to a plethora of messages that help shape our understanding of the …

Planetary Improvement: Discourses And Practices Of Green Capitalism In The Cleantech Space, Jesse Adam Goldstein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is money to be made in saving the planet. A whole host of actors, such as investors, entrepreneurs, engineers, and policy makers have mobilized around our ecological problems, seeking to innovate new `green' and `clean' technologies that can serve a rapidly changing environment. The presumption that such technologies are both necessary and necessarily profitable anchors visions of a `green' capitalism that can and must be brought into existence.

However, just as free markets have never been all that free, why should we presume that green capitalism would be all that green? Instead of attempting to arbit whether or not …

Joseph Reflects On Residency, Miranda Joseph

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

This year I have worked primarily on two sections of my book project, Performing Community. The paper I presented at my CLAGS colloquium, a version of the first chapter of the book, focused on the "discourse of community." The idealization of community as a site of identity, commonality, communion, communication, and consensus was heavily critiqued in the 1980s by feminist and poststrucutralist theorists who recognized that identity-based communities are, in fact, quite exclusionary and oppressive, defining themselves in opposition to others, universalizing the particularities upon which they are based, and erasing differences among community members.