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Full-Text Articles in Political Economy

Unwilling Gamblers And Loaded Dice: Considering Recession And Crisis As A Natural Effect Of Financial Capitalism, Darlene N. Moorman Dec 2022

Unwilling Gamblers And Loaded Dice: Considering Recession And Crisis As A Natural Effect Of Financial Capitalism, Darlene N. Moorman

The Downtown Review

Under financial capitalism, ordinary people are increasingly becoming 'unwilling gamblers' of a risky and unstable system. This paper explores the social and institutional change behind the neoliberal movement and considers how the politics and policies of neoliberalism have contributed to a certain environment of financial instability. Looking at the changing nature of the economy, the rapid expansion of the financial sector, and the persisting issue of moral hazard underlying risky and speculative behaviors among other items, reveals a financial system in which recessions and crises can be considered a natural, although not inevitable, effect.


Marx, Critical Theory, And The Treadmill Of Production Of Value: Why Environmental Sociology Needs A Critique Of Capital, Alex Stoner Jan 2022

Marx, Critical Theory, And The Treadmill Of Production Of Value: Why Environmental Sociology Needs A Critique Of Capital, Alex Stoner

Journal Articles

This chapter explores the domestication of Marx’s critique of political economy within Marxist-oriented environmental sociology, and treadmill of production (ToP) theory, in particular. The aim is to explicate the theoretical resources for a rigorous critique of capital-induced planetary degradation. Shortcomings of ToP theory pertaining to the conceptualization of capital and value are identified. The reasons for these shortcomings, including how they might be addressed, are elaborated by reconsidering key aspects of Marx’s critical theory of modern capitalist society. The chapter contributes to current discussions in both critical theory and environmental sociology by demonstrating the continued relevance of Marx’s critical theory …


Integration Of And Deliveries Among The World Zionist Organization, Israel, And Diaspora Countries: System Articulation With The Social Fabric Matrix, F. Gregory Hayden Mar 2020

Integration Of And Deliveries Among The World Zionist Organization, Israel, And Diaspora Countries: System Articulation With The Social Fabric Matrix, F. Gregory Hayden

Department of Economics: Faculty Publications

The religious economics (not economics of religion) concern here is the relationship between the World Zionist Organization (WZO) and Israel, which is known as a geopolitical power in its region and which is also known as an economic success story. Joseph Schumpeter and Karl Polanyi explained how the political economy of medieval Europe was influenced and guided by Christian morality. This paper extends the analysis of religious economics by using the social fabric matrix of original institutional economics to define and structure the integration of the WZO, Israel, and the Diaspora countries. This allows us to observe how to conduct …


The Post-Chicago Antitrust Revolution: A Retrospective, Christopher S. Yoo Jan 2020

The Post-Chicago Antitrust Revolution: A Retrospective, Christopher S. Yoo

All Faculty Scholarship

A symposium examining the contributions of the post-Chicago School provides an appropriate opportunity to offer some thoughts on both the past and the future of antitrust. This afterword reviews the excellent papers with an eye toward appreciating the contributions and limitations of both the Chicago School, in terms of promoting the consumer welfare standard and embracing price theory as the preferred mode of economic analysis, and the post-Chicago School, with its emphasis on game theory and firm-level strategic conduct. It then explores two emerging trends, specifically neo-Brandeisian advocacy for abandoning consumer welfare as the sole goal of antitrust and the …


Capturing Regulatory Reality: Stigler’S The Theory Of Economic Regulation, Christopher Carrigan, Cary Coglianese Jul 2016

Capturing Regulatory Reality: Stigler’S The Theory Of Economic Regulation, Christopher Carrigan, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

This paper offers a retrospective assessment of economist George Stigler’s classic article, The Theory of Economic Regulation. Stigler argued that regulation is a product that, just like any other product, is produced in a market, and that it can be acquired from the governmental “marketplace” by business firms to serve their private interests and create barriers to entry for potential competitors. He challenged the idea that regulation arises solely to serve the public interest and demonstrated that important political advantages held by businesses can contribute to industry capture of the regulatory process. Although his argument was largely based on …


Methodological And Theoretical Issues In Researching North African And West Asian Political Economy, J. G. A. Saviranta Apr 2015

Methodological And Theoretical Issues In Researching North African And West Asian Political Economy, J. G. A. Saviranta

Akseli Saviranta

This document addresses a few of the methodological issues encountered in political economy research related to North Africa and West Asia. Its first part presents notes from a previous study by the author that dealt with the issue of the political economy of integration, and its second part relates some of the aforementioned issues that were encountered while making the study.


The Fair And Laissez-Faire Markets: From A Neoliberal Laissez-Faire Baseline To A Fair Market, Eric L. Dixon Jun 2014

The Fair And Laissez-Faire Markets: From A Neoliberal Laissez-Faire Baseline To A Fair Market, Eric L. Dixon

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

The essay begins with a brief overview of the role of the neoliberal conception of the laissez-faire market in modern political economy. The essay then goes on to defend three claims: 1) the laissez-faire version of a market should not be considered the economic ideal or baseline version of a market because often the fundamental conditions required to reach a genuine equilibrium are unfulfilled under a laissez-faire environment, 2) a distribution resultant from a laissez-faire market should not be considered the ultima facie just distributive baseline because an unregulated market may allocate commodities according to morally arbitrary factors and requires …


Being Consumed: Economics And Christian Desire, William Cavanaugh Dec 2007

Being Consumed: Economics And Christian Desire, William Cavanaugh

William T. Cavanaugh

Are Christians for or against the free market? Should we not think of ourselves as consumers? Are we for or against globalization? How to we live in a world of scare resources? William Cavanaugh brings us a theological view and practice of everyday economic life with the use of Christian resources. He argues that we should not take the free market, consumer culture, globalization, and scarcity as givens, but change the terms of debate in each case. His consideration of the free market is not a question of for or against, but when exactly a market is truly free. He …


The Political Economy Of The Production Of Customary International Law: The Role Of Non-Governmental Organizations, Donald J. Kochan Dec 2003

The Political Economy Of The Production Of Customary International Law: The Role Of Non-Governmental Organizations, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Increasingly, United States courts are recognizing various treaties, as well as declarations, proclamations, conventions, resolutions, programmes, protocols, and similar forms of inter- or multi-national “legislation” as evidence of a body of “customary international law” enforceable in domestic courts, particularly in the area of tort liability. These “legislative” documents, which this Article refers to as customary international law outputs, are seen by some courts as evidence of jus cogens norms that bind not only nations and state actors, but also private individuals. The most obvious evidence of this trend is in the proliferation of lawsuits against corporations with ties to the …


The Political Economy Of Perverse Financial Liberalization: Examples From The Asian Crisis, Nancy Neiman Auerbach, Thomas D. Willett Jan 2003

The Political Economy Of Perverse Financial Liberalization: Examples From The Asian Crisis, Nancy Neiman Auerbach, Thomas D. Willett

Scripps Faculty Publications and Research

Debates continue to rage about the causes of recent currency and financial crises around the globe and their implications for the desirability of domestic and international financial liberalization. Beneath the heated exchanges of the most vocal disputants, a quiet consensus is beginning to emerge among serious scholars and policy officials. The big lesson from these crises is that while financial liberalization is still a desirable goal, it must be approached very carefully. It’s not just that without the proper pre-conditions liberalization will not provide full benefits. The results can sometimes be disastrous. What was once considered to be an arcane …


Theory, Application And The Canon: The Case Of Mill And Jevons, Sandra J. Peart Jan 2001

Theory, Application And The Canon: The Case Of Mill And Jevons, Sandra J. Peart

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Whatever disputes remain about the nature and content of the "canon" of economics, it is widely accepted that the boundary of economic science was narrowed throughout the nineteenth century (Winch 1972). This chapter offers a partial explanation for that narrowing in the methodological developments that occurred during the second half of the century. For reasons of practicality in the face of pronounced "multiplicity of cause," John Stuart Mill called, In his 1836 Essay On the Definition of Political Economy; and on the Method of Investigation Proper to It, and again in his 1843 Logic, for a separate …


John Stuart Mill's Method In Principle And In Practice: A Review Of The Evidence, Samuel Hollander, Sandra J. Peart Jan 1999

John Stuart Mill's Method In Principle And In Practice: A Review Of The Evidence, Samuel Hollander, Sandra J. Peart

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

We believe an additional, and contrasting, interpretation of Mill’s method is supported by the evidence. For in our view Mill insisted on the possibility of theory modification in the light of inadequacies revealed by empirical evidence, and also held that the central behavioral axiom is not of universal relevance but is pertinent only to the local circumstances of contemporary Great Britain and America—and, even so, qualified as we shall see—that axiom itself is empirically based. On our reading, there is more in common between his research strategy and that of Milton Friedman than is sometimes granted, at least when Friedman’s …