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Full-Text Articles in Political Economy

Scarcity Or Economic Insecurity? Two Yardsticks For Measuring Capitalism’S Performance, Costas Panayotakis Dec 2021

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.


Marxist Implementation Of Climate Change As A Geopolitical Fear Tactic, Katelyn Larossa Apr 2019

Marxist Implementation Of Climate Change As A Geopolitical Fear Tactic, Katelyn Larossa

Senior Honors Theses

In recent years the climate change debate has shifted from the peripheries of international political discussions to center stage, manifesting in the Paris Agreement in November of 2016 under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. However, the science behind the climate change debate is disputed and does not support the claims made by global leaders who continue to push for increasing environmental regulations and financial aid to those most adversely affected by the supposed climate change (underdeveloped and developing nations). Examining the geopolitical and economic implications of climate change actions reveals the underlying political philosophies guiding global leaders. …


Worlds Ahead?: On The Dialectics Of Cosmopolitanism And Postcapitalism, Bryant William Sculos Feb 2017

Worlds Ahead?: On The Dialectics Of Cosmopolitanism And Postcapitalism, Bryant William Sculos

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation argues that the major theories of global justice (specifically within the cosmopolitan tradition) have missed an important aspect of capitalism in their attempts to deal with the most pernicious effects of the global economic system. This is not merely a left critique of cosmopolitanism (though it is certainly that as well), but its fundamental contribution is that it applies the insights of Frankfurt School Critical Theorist Theodor Adorno’s negative dialectics to offer an internal critique of cosmopolitanism. As it stands, much of the global justice and cosmopolitanism literature takes global capitalism as an unsurpassable and a foundationally unproblematic …


Technological Fetishism And Us Foreign Policy: The Mediating Role Of Digital Icts, Edward Comor Jan 2017

Technological Fetishism And Us Foreign Policy: The Mediating Role Of Digital Icts, Edward Comor

FIMS Publications

This article looks back at an Obama administration foreign policy initiative called Internet freedom and discusses US responses to anti-American extremism involving digital communications technologies. It does this by using Marx’s concept of the fetish to argue that technological fetishism played a constitutive and mediating role in policymaking. Through this analysis – relating international relations with political economy and Marxist theory – the empowering implications of these technologies for American state interests are shown to be also disempowering. Most US officials were likely to be aware that digital communications technologies did not have the inherent powers that their policies implied …


Moishe Postone And The Critique Of Traditional Marxism: Helplessness And The Present Moment Of The Great Acceleration, Alexander M. Stoner, Andony Melathopoulos Jan 2015

Moishe Postone And The Critique Of Traditional Marxism: Helplessness And The Present Moment Of The Great Acceleration, Alexander M. Stoner, Andony Melathopoulos

Book Sections/Chapters

This chapter situates Moishe Postone's critique of traditional Marxism in relation to the present moment of the Great Acceleration. We engage a close reading of Postone reinterpretation of Marx's mature theory of capital with specific focus on the linkage between economic growth and ecological degradation, and how this linkage is necessary connected to social domination in modern capitalist society. Postone's Marxian theory is significant because, as we demonstrate, it allows one to grasp societally induced environmental degradation following WWII in a critical and reflexive manner. The chapter concludes by discussing the growing sense of helplessness that defines the present moment …


Sociobiophysicality And The Necessity Of Critical Theory: Moving Beyond Prevailing Conceptions Of Environmental Sociology In The Usa, Alex Stoner Jan 2014

Sociobiophysicality And The Necessity Of Critical Theory: Moving Beyond Prevailing Conceptions Of Environmental Sociology In The Usa, Alex Stoner

Journal Articles

Today, to perceive the link between society and environment does not require that we engage in an effort of great abstraction. What remains paradoxical is that the intensity and scale of societally induced environmental degradation, which rose to historically unprecedented levels during the latter half of the 20th century, is synchronous with an equally impressive increase in public concern for and attention to the biophysical world. This article examines values-based and traditional Marxist-oriented approaches to environmental sociology in the USA in order to assess whether or not – and if so, how exactly – these approaches help us make sense …


The Virtual Debt Factory: Towards An Analysis Of Debt And Abstraction In The American Credit Crisis, Vincent Manzerolle Jan 2010

The Virtual Debt Factory: Towards An Analysis Of Debt And Abstraction In The American Credit Crisis, Vincent Manzerolle

Communication, Media & Film Publications

Emanating from the United States, the ongoing global credit crisis has provided important insights into a shady new area of capitalist exploitation: the consumer debt factory. In an effort to speed up and quantifiably increase the circula-tion of consumer credit to match the consumption needs of post-Fordist accumulation, this industry—comprising financial institutions, consumer database companies, and credit rating agencies—has created a highly detailed body of information to stand-in for the corporeal self. This paper therefore examines this industry’s conceptualization of the self as a disembodied mechanism for mass-producing debt, creating a highly volatile informational commodity divorced from all material con-straints. …