While no one has yet announced the death of capitalism, reports of its imminent demise have been as numerous as they have been exaggerated. Such reports have usually been bolstered by thoughtful analyses of the fundamental contradictions of capitalism, which was expected to come sliding—if not crashing—down under the weight of its own inconsistencies. Leaving aside Karl Marx's own predictions, twentieth-century analysts as diverse as Joseph Schumpeter, Daniel Bell, and Jurgen Habermas have asserted that the contradictions of capitalism could only (...) mean that its days were numbered. Alas, all that has been established by these analyses is that predictive failure is no impediment to market success: either the consumer's demand for such theories of capitalism's failures is naturally robust, or supply continues to generate its own demand. (shrink)

In the Report of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to the Twenty-sixth Party Congress we find emphasized the importance of the idea "that everything surrounding us shall bear the impress of beauty, of good taste" . The shaping of good taste, of esthetic taste in particular, is one of the most important conditions for the development of mental and emotional culture in our society.

From artistic performances in the visual arts and in music to motor control in gymnastics, from tool use to chess and language, humans excel in a variety of skills. On the plausible assumption that skillful behavior is a visible manifestation of intelligence, a theory of intelligence—whether human or not—should be informed by a theory of skills. More controversial is the question as to whether, in order to theorize about intelligence, we should study certain skills in particular. My target is the (...) view that only a particular class/kind of skill (i.e., ‘theoretical’, or ‘intellectual’ skills, versus ‘practical’, or ‘embodied’ skills) manifests intelligence, or especially does so. I call this view ‘Intelligence Elitism’. Intelligence Elitism is pervasive in popular culture, in academic culture, as well as in psychometrics. It has, arguably, a long pedigree in philosophy (though explicit arguments for it are rare). But it is a substantive view which, if false, can promote unfairness. In this article, I defend Intelligence Socialism—the claim that intelligent behavior is everywhere skillful behavior is. I go on to isolate the best case for the further Elitist claim that, even if all skillful behavior is intelligent in some modest sense of ‘intelligence’, there is a principled difference in intelligence between theoretical, or intellectual, skills, on one side, and practical, or embodied skills, on the other, and I show it wanting. (shrink)

During the past ten years, China’s micro film industry has made a rapid development aided by technological changes. Focusing on three types of micro films, this paper reveals some characteristics of China’s micro films within socialist cultural production with Chinese characteristics. This model departs from a past when the government managed everything during the Planned Economy, but is also different from the models of cultural policy in the West. The micro films examined are A Murder Case Triggered by a Steamed (...) Bun, a parody of film Wuji, market-conspiracy micro films such asImminent and The Only Choice, and social-welfare micro films likeI will give you happiness when I grow up. All of them bring forth the issue of coordination and harmonization of conflict between social-welfare and market efficiency. (shrink)

This book presents a critical assessment of the political and social order in the post-revolutionary decade of the 1990s in both the transitional economies and Western welfare states confronting fiscal crises. As we enter the new post-socialist century, James M. Buchanan argues that we need to think and act on the premise that the future is uncertain. James M. Buchanan examines the political economy of the post-socialist era, analysing the events of 1989-91 and some of their predicted consequences. In addition (...) he reflects upon the influence of those revolutionary years and the reactions to the changes, as well as the role of economists in the new socio-political environment. The political economy of the post-socialist era will be determined by the forces of historical development, social and cultural evolution, directed political change and exogenous shocks. To a large extent, many of these forces cannot be planned for, except directed political change. This insightful new book will be welcomed by political economists, legal and political philosophers, political scientists and public choice economists. (shrink)

The Romanian communist cinematography has been analysed from the point of view of its value to the regime’s ideology or propaganda. The aim of this article is to examine Romanian cinema for its use of cultural heritage from the perspective of an art historian and museum curator. Using the current taxonomy of cultural heritage in Romania: movable cultural heritage—meaning paintings, drawings, decorative art—and immovable cultural heritage—build­ings, houses, inns, cultural monuments, the article follows these categories in the filmmaking industry. They were (...) both used in Romanian cinematography with the approval of the State and Party authorities. The main objective of this article is to „cut” the frames of selected films and see how and which cultural heritage objects were used in cinematography. (shrink)

This essay by the Dutch modernist writer Menno ter Braak, ‘National Socialism as a Doctrine of Rancour’, was written in 1937 just before the German annexation of the Netherlands. It is a rare examination of how the concept ressentiment can be used to analyse 1930s National Socialism, outlining the ways in which the fascist variant of ressentiment is both distinctive and also, nonetheless, connected to its democratic and socialist versions. The essay develops Nietzsche’s and Scheler’s understandings of ressentiment (...) by applying them to fascism, insisting on the centrality of the moral sentiment of ressentiment not just to populism but to all forms of democracy, and to any philosophical or political orientation committed to an ideal of equality, indeed to all of modern society, culture and politics. (shrink)

The first British New Left formed in response to a crisis in international and British socialism. Although never a formal movement, its associated members set themselves the tasks of, first, confronting the rapid change transforming social life at both global and national scales, and second, articulating a new political culture able to accommodate the good and resist the bad of it. As part of this process, a series of intense debates took place on the role of the socialist (...) intellectual in stimulating such a culture. In this article, I consider three of the NL’s main protagonists, EP Thompson, Stuart Hall, and Raphael Samuel, and the different positions they took on this issue. I argue here that while all made important contributions to the argument, Samuel’s practice as an intellectual, currently the least well known of the three, is worth closer attention for its relevance to contemporary educational debates. (shrink)

The notion of ecological civilisation has become central to Chinese efforts to confront and deal with environmental problems. However, ecological civilisation is characterized by its proponents in different ways. Some see it as simply an adjunct to the existing system designed to deal with current ecological crises. Its more radical proponents argue for a socialist ecological civilisation that should be developed globally and transform every part of society, changing the way people perceive, live and relate to each other and to (...) nature, and the goals they aspire to. Ecological civilisation is a translation of the Russian notion of ecological culture, and tracing the history of ecology and the concept of culture in the Soviet Union, particularly in the 1920s, I will support this more radical view, arguing that ecological civilisation is not only underpinned by eco-socialism; it provides the means to clarify the meaning of socialism generally in a way that accords with deep assumptions of Marx’s critique of capitalism. That this notion has been officially embraced within China establishes a tradition of socialist thought that now has the potential to challenge and replace global capitalism. (shrink)

Increased participation in public affairs by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops during the highly contentious 2012 Presidential election has seemingly brought the traditions of Catholic social teaching and socialism into a high profile conflict. While it is clear that President Obama is not what most academics would consider a “socialist,” modern discourse still presents what I argue is a false dichotomy- one can be either endorse natural law (especially of the Catholic variety) or socialism, but not both. (...) While my goal in this article is to refute the alleged incompatibility, not to determine its historical roots, some speculation about its origin may be illuminating. Recent work on religious identity in the United States suggests that Americans largely identify Christianity with the right wing of the American culture war. Additional research is required to fully grasp where this perception comes from, but one can venture several guesses: the rise of the “Christian Right” in Republican Party politics of the late 1990s and early 2000s, the concept of “social justice” being lampooned by Right-wing talk show hosts, and decades of a Catholic Church that firmly opposed Cold War-era Soviet Communism. The contrast between left-wing and right-wing thought on social issues (same-sex marriage, abortion, etc.) is very well documented and widely discussed. Differences between leftists and natural lawyers on economic issues, however, are more often assumed than argued for. Perhaps this is a matter of “guilt by association,” with those arguing that leftist social policy is at odds with natural law simply assuming that the same must be the case with leftist economic policy as well. Thus, natural law, long tied to Christianity throughout its history, is gratuitously appropriated by right-wing political ideology. Against this claim of incompatibility, I argue that one can rationally hold both socialism and natural law to be true. In his landmark Natural Law and Natural Rights, John Finnis offers what is arguably the twentieth century’s most complete theory of natural law. I will argue that the conception of socialism laid out by G.A. Cohen in hisWhy Not Socialism? is compatible with Finnis’s account of the human goods, and that natural lawyers can therefore reasonably endorse Cohen’s prescription for socialism. (shrink)

In this article I discuss 'the transition' of Lithuanian health care. In order to illustrate the size of the difficulties the people of Lithuania presently face, I focus in particular on the problem of resource allocation. I believe my observations (both general and particular) reflect the experiences of other post-socialist countries, especially those nations which were directly incorporated within the former USSR. Certainly, the two other Baltic states -- Latvia and Estonia -- have a great deal in common with Lithuania, (...) both politically and culturally. I have identified four questions to act as a framework for my discussion: -/- • What were the main causes of the Soviet health care crisis? -/- • What was the basis for resource allocation in the former socialist health care system? -/- • What are the major obstacles set against the implementation of alternative principles of resource allocation in Lithuania? -/- • What ideas might underlie and inform the design of a new Lithuanian health care system? (shrink)

One impediment facing socialists is the widespread belief among their opponents that they advance only by destroying things. Ironically, socialists often help spread this belief by declaring defeat when they are unsuccessful at destroying their targets. The thesis tested in this article is that, instead, socialism at its best hopes to transform the institutions we all inherit. It tries to transform values, culture, governance, production, and finance. Destroying that inheritance leaves no secure basis for generating a better world. (...) The trick for the socialist realist is to find the right balance between radical destruction and timid gradualism. (shrink)

Provides a broad European and cross-cultural perspective on the theory and practice of literature and the Left over the past 50 years.

This article presents an analytical overview of the critical modernisation features of Socialism with Chinese characteristics doctrine in the new era, which was proposed at the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. The authors reconstructed and systematically represented the central philosophical and political principles of the doctrine of Socialism with Chinese characteristics in the context of the fundamental principles of Chinese Marxism. The authors also analysed and presented in a systematic form the essence and basic (...) theoretical principles of the concept of Socialism with Chinese characteristics following Xi Jinping's works and reports. The study includes a comparative analysis that concludes with the critical features of the modern concept of socialism with Chinese characteristics. These features embrace the need for constant modernisation of the very doctrine of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the state management system, as well as social and cultural practices, which are possible through the implementation of innovations and the integration of modern philosophical thought with traditional Chinese philosophy and culture. The article concludes that the main feature of the modernisation of Socialism with Chinese characteristics at the current stage reveals in the development and implementation of a system of creative practices at the level of everyday culture, high-tech sectors of social production and the practice of intercultural communication within the framework of China's Belt and Road Initiative. In the discussion, the authors argue that implementing creative practices and creative industries could become an effective tool for developing China's Belt and Road Initiative in European countries and improving mutual understanding in the intercultural communication practices between China, European countries, and Ukraine. (shrink)

The book examines disabled figures in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and Rebecca Harding Davis's Life in the Iron Mills, in African-American novels by Toni Morrison and Audre Lorde, and in the popular cultural ritual of the freak ...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Florence Kelley: Pragmatist, Feminist, SocialistJudy D. Whippssupreme court justice felix frankfurter said in 1953 that Florence Kelley “had probably the largest single share in shaping the social history of the United States during the first 30 years of the 20th Century” (Frankfurter x). Kelley is an unusual figure to discuss in a philosophical journal, perhaps because she has generally been classified only as a social scientist. Yet, as I (...) discovered, she is a wonderful thinking partner, sometimes raising more philosophical questions than she resolves. Her commitments, struggles, failures, and accomplishments problematize and reveal new insights into pragmatist pluralism, feminist political choices, and the role of socialism in early pragmatism. Bringing her into the feminist pragmatist discussion gives us more examples of how to approach problem-solving from feminist and pragmatist perspectives.1Florence Kelley and Jane Addams first met when Kelley knocked on Hull House’s door early one snowy December morning in 1891. She was fleeing with her three small children from her physically abusive husband in New York, needing an occupation and a home in Chicago. She became the only early resident who was a single mother. Kelley spent most of the next decade at Hull House. Kelley and Addams had similar family backgrounds and became close friends, although they had dramatically different personalities. One thing they shared in common was that both were very close to their politician fathers.Kelley’s father was a longtime progressive congressman from Pennsylvania. He helped to develop her social consciousness by taking her along on his investigations of industrial conditions when, as a child herself, she often saw the horrifying conditions of children’s work environments. At two in the morning, she witnessed the “terrifying sight” of boys younger than herself working near the steel mills’ red-hot furnaces and molten metal. With her [End Page 10] father, she also witnessed young boys called “dogs” working in glass factories. Each glass blower was assisted by one of these boys who knelt with his head near the oven as the glass came out from the furnaces to prepare the hot mold for the blower’s next project. These events left her with the “astonished impression of the utter unimportance of children compared with products” (Kelley, “My Philadelphia” 56–57).She entered Cornell University at age 16 and was drawn to the study of social science and economics. Like many college-bound young women in the late nineteenth century, she quickly became committed to social reform, focusing on women and children’s social and economic conditions. As Kelley said in 1882, in her first published article after college, “In the field of sociology, there is brainwork waiting for women which men cannot do” (“Need Our Working Women” 521). In their lives and studies, young college women like Kelley experienced the inequalities and suffering around them and were looking for a solution. Kelley developed an approach that focused on both the causes as well as the effects of the social problems she worked to eradicate. She believed that college-educated women and working-class women could work together to produce knowledge and change.Kelley was exposed briefly to Marxism and socialism in her college years when a family friend convalesced in their home. This man’s father had known Karl Marx, and he shared some Marxist pamphlets with Kelley (Autobiography 72). After college, when she continued her studies in Zurich, she became immersed in Marxism. She returned to the United States three years later, with her Russian Marxist husband and their three children. She expected to continue her Marxist work with the New York Socialist Labor Party, but the party expelled her and her husband. She then turned her attention to researching working women’s financial and social struggles.In Chicago, Kelley’s early research into local living and working conditions was published in the ground-breaking Hull House Maps and Papers, written by Hull House residents (Addams et al.), considered a pioneering work in sociology and an early example of what became cultural geography. Her investigations into child labor, sweatshops, and industrial conditions led to her position as Illinois’s first chief factory inspector. Armed with data and the support of... (shrink)

Thirty years after the demise of the Soviet bloc, there still persists a rhetoric of differentiation and a discursive polarisation between the Western and the non-Western educational thinking and practices. This rhetoric overshadows a potential similarity, or homogeneity, between the dominant and several marginalised contexts. Regional, local and personal variations are prematurely attributed to fundamental, if often poorly argued, cultural differences. We seek to introduce and to preliminarily summarise the existing understandings of refraction in education and social research. Sporadically used (...) but seldom defined, the refraction metaphor appears to feature: (a) a multiplicity of viewpoints as an incentive for social research, (b) non-relativistic, scientific progress as an end value for understanding social reality, (c) a balanced approach towards homogeneity and heterogeneity in social research, and (d) a substantially historical orientation towards analysing homogeneity and heterogeneity. Education in the former socialist European countries demonstrates how heterogeneity is rhetorically overstated and how variations can be more adequately addressed by analysing refractions. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to clarify the use and meaning of the concept of relativism in the context of National Socialism (NS). Section 1 examines the critical reproach that NS is a form of relativism. I analyze and criticize the common core of this widespread argument which has dominated discussions about the topic up to the present. Section 2 sketches the general debates on relativism before and during NS. I show that fascist thought could be associated with (...) both relativism and anti-relativism. In contrast to the received view, I argue that Nazi intellectuals regarded relativism as problem, and presented NS as the overcoming of relativism. Subsequently I turn to two major philosophers who connected their philosophy with NS. Section 3 investigates Bruno Bauch’s (1887–1942) nationalist philosophy. I show that he linked his concept of the nation with an objectivist value theory intended to oppose all kinds of relativism. Section 4 turns to Erich Rothacker’s (1888–1965) cultural anthropology. I argue that the revision of his philosophical views in the 1930s was accompanied by a political turn towards NS and a withdrawal from relativism. The brief conclusion (Section 5) summarizes the findings of the chapter. I conclude that, in the context of NS, relativism is mostly used in a pejorative sense. (shrink)

This article explores how the Slovenian women's lifestyle magazine Naša žena (Our Woman) helped the Yugoslavian socialist project construct and shape the ideal socialist woman, and argues that she became the crucial ally in implementing socialist ideas in the everyday lives of Slovenians. The article shows how texts on food preparation and consumption, as well as those touching on household management and family care, published in Naša žena from 1960 to 1991 played an important part in the ‘civilising’ process that (...) shaped behaviour, directed cultural and social practices, influenced social relations and constructed women's identities during socialism. We show how food-related texts (articles, recipes, columns, advertisements and advertorials) were never far removed from the larger political and economic socialist realities. In fact, they bore witness to changes in living standards and told stories about gender regimes, socialist ideologies and fantasies. These texts belong to a corpus of social transcripts that guide collective understandings of what it means to select, prepare, cook and eat food; what constitutes good cooking and eating; and who is responsible for preparing meals. Despite official socialist feminist rhetoric about freeing women from backward patriarchal arrangements, this article shows that texts offering food-related advice in socialist Yugoslavia contained explicit instructions for the ‘correct’ performance of the social roles of women, legitimising women's roles as worker, mother, wife and housekeeper. Above all, a woman was to be an ‘engineer’ of the private domain whose goals were to feed her family and keep the nation healthy and hence productive, and to modernise her kitchen in support of the technological and economic development of Yugoslavia. (shrink)

This book focuses on the often-overlooked mid period of Socialism in twentieth century Poland, tracing the transgressive variations of humanist thought that emerged as forms of resistance amid the intellectual crisis of the late 1960s and early 1970s. It analyses how an upsurge in anti-Semitism and discourses of exclusion in the period stimulated environmental explorations beyond the hegemonic notion of the human subject and humanity. Readers will find a synthetic analysis not only of the atmosphere of the mid-socialist period, (...) but also of fragmented, decentered, and marginalised phenomena in film, literature, theory, and theatre, in which transgressive moments in well-known work such as the theatre of Tadeusz Kantor, Stanisław Lem's writing, Maria Janion's cultural studies, or Jerzy Skolimowski's early films feature alongside artistic output that was never broadly known or is mostly forgotten now. By acknowledging the specificities of transgressive humanism in socialist Poland, the book enriches post-anthropocentric theory with a distinct perspective from the so-called semi-periphery. The volume is relevant for scholars of post-humanist studies, the history of knowledge, studies on socialist Europe and Polish studies. (shrink)

Malgorzata Fidelis in her bookWomen, Communism, and Industrialization in Postwar Polandsets out to examine gender policies during Stalinism and their transformation under the subsequent ‘Polish road to socialism’. She shows that the relative political liberalisation in the late 1950s was also accompanied by the abandonment of policies favouring women and the return to conservative prewar gender hierarchies. The essay finds that the book is a valuable contribution to the understanding of the vicissitudes of gender struggle during Communism in Poland. (...) It also makes a contribution to the understanding of how the principles declared by the Communist Party were modified in response not only to economic necessities but also to local cultures and popular struggles. In this way it sheds light on the process of the legitimation of the Communist regime in Poland and beyond by accommodating demands from below. (shrink)

This article proceeds from the assumption that the transition to socialism must take account of individuals as they are, not as they might be. The emphasis on the individual appears to be inconsistent with the marxian basis of socialist thought. Attempts to resolve this inconsistency have led marxists to concentrate on cultural and psychological explanations of people within capitalist society. We criticise these attempts, and argue for a view of the individual in society which recognises personal autonomy yet acknowledges (...) the role of structural forces in social change. Given this model, we then ask if there is any indication of individual changes within contemporary capitalism which promote the transition to socialism. In contrast to the pessimistic interpretations which dominate the literature, we argue that the present psychological and cultural states of individuals within capitalism can engender socialist change. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

The oil crisis at the end of the 1970s and, soon after, the sovereign debt crisis of socialist Romania had a huge impact on the domestic cultural system—mainly through austerity mechanisms of cutting production costs and increasing minimal mandatory revenues. One effect was the reshaping of cultural exports and exchanges on new, market-oriented bases, meant to also support the economic reorientation towards the Global South. In this article, I intend to follow the way the Romanian communist regime used culture, (...) in general, and particularly international film production and distribution as a tool for advancing not so much propaganda purposes, but prosaically more commercial ones. The article also shows how the contextual landscape led to a lack of consistency and efficiency in both the economic and propaganda efforts. (shrink)

Debates over relativism are as old as philosophy itself. Since the late nineteenth century, relativism has also been a controversial topic in many of the social and cultural sciences. And yet, relativism has not been a central topic of research in the history of philosophy or the history of the social sciences. This collection seeks to remedy this situation by studying the emergence of modern forms of relativism as they unfolded in the German lands during the "long nineteenth century"—from the (...) Enlightenment to National Socialism. It focuses on relativist and anti-relativist ideas and arguments in four contexts: history, science, epistemology, and politics. -/- The Emergence of Relativism will be of interest to those studying nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy, German idealism, and history and philosophy of science, as well as those in related disciplines such as sociology and anthropology. (shrink)

B a c k g r o u n d. Deng Xiaoping is considered the main architect of socialist reforms and the founder of China's modernization theory. He mastered and developed the socialist system, trying to adjust it to the national conditions of China. Deng Xiaoping believed that it was by following the course of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" that China would transform from a poor country into a highly developed one. The article provides a theoretical reconstruction of the (...) main content of Deng Xiaoping's concept of "socialism with Chinese characteristics." The main philosophical and socio-political aspects of the concept of building socialism with Chinese characteristics are presented in a systematic form in the context of the foundations of Chineseization of Marxism. M e t h o d s. In the article, a historical-logical approach was used to reveal the specified research topic, which allowed us to determine the socio-political prerequisites for the emergence of Chineseized Marxism. An interdisciplinary approach made it possible to carry out a theoretical analysis of social, economic, and political changes in modern China, which were caused by the proposed theory of Deng Xiaoping's "socialism with Chinese characteristics". Systemic, structural-functional, and constructivist methods, as well as methods of synthesis and generalization, were also applied. R e s u l t s. Because of the above, the purpose of this study was to carry out a theoretical reconstruction of Deng Xiaoping's theory of building "socialism with Chinese characteristics" and to find out how his ideas influenced the development of modern China after the completion of the "Great Leap Forward" and the "Cultural Revolution" of Mao Zedong. The key features of Deng Xiaoping's proposed theory of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" were established, including the idea of democratization of society and implementation of the legal basis of state functioning; the beginning of a new period of "reforms and openness"; determining the course for socialist modernization; following Marxism-Leninism and the ideas of Mao Zedong. C o n c l u s i o n s. In conclusion, it can be noted that the main feature of Deng Xiaoping's ideas was that they were inextricably linked with the national and cultural traditions of Chinese civilization, starting from Confucianism and the gradual synthesis with Marxist ideology. Evaluating the theory of Deng Xiaoping, it can be defined as a relatively complete scientific system that covers the fields of philosophy, political economy, and scientific socialism, it contains the doctrine of socialist ideology, and the doctrine of the essence and ways of socialist development, theories of the reform of socialist political and economic systems, the theory of building a socialist country. (shrink)

The paper highlights the dependence of the level of organizational trust on work ethic and aims to show that development of trust in organizations can be stimulated by raising the level of work ethic with organizational practices. Based on the framework by Kanungo, R. N. and A. M. Jaeger, Management in Developing Countries, pp. 1-23), historical-cultural analysis of the Lithuanian context is carried out. The country is chosen as an example of a post-socialist context where work ethic and trust in (...) the society tended to be rather low. The authors discuss organizational practices, particularly the ones related to people management, which can facilitate development of work ethic, and thus, trust in organizations operating in a post-socialist context. The importance of a processual approach to the development of organizational trust and the ethical content of organizational practices, which are aimed at developing organizational trust is highlighted. Directions for further research are indicated. (shrink)

Povod za beogradski skup?Socijalizam i kultura? s kraja 1969. godine bile su zabrane. Od juna?68. u Srbiji je bilo oko cetrdeset intervencija, sto je znatno vise nego u ostalim YU republikama. Izveden je zakljucak o provincijalnosti i nedovoljno razvijenom kulturnom zivotu. Autor ovog rada je prosirio temu na siri plan jer su intencije dijaloga to dopustale. Paralelno s tim cinjenicama, dobro se uklapaju podaci o Golom otoku, koje daje Milovan Djilas. Otok je bio najdrasticnija i najdramaticnija zabrana u celokupnom postojanju (...) Druge YU. I iz negdasnje, i iz sadasnje perspektive, skup bi se mogao protumaciti kao krik i vapaj za slobodom. Razgovoru su presudno doprineli predstavnici beogradskog krila Praxis grupe, uz potonje, mahom neslavno, ucesce u dogadjajima, pre svega versko-gradjanskim ratovima; za razliku od glavne, zagrebacke?centrale? Praxisa, koja nije bila zahvacena nacionalistickim virusom. Izlazu se, najzad, argumenti o Dobrici Cosicu kao srpskom Faustu, te se dovodi u pitanje teza o piscu kao ocu nacije. (shrink)

Erich Rothacker (1888–1965) was a key figure in early-twentieth-century philosophy in Germany. In this paper, I examine the development of Rothacker’s philosophy of culture from 1907 to 1945. Rothacker began his philosophical career with a völkerpsychological dissertation on history, outlining his early biologistic conception of culture (1907–1913). In his mid-career work, he then turned to Wilhelm Dilthey’s (1833–1911) Lebensphilosophie (philosophy of life), advancing a hermeneutic approach to culture (1919–1928). In his later work (1929–1945), Rothacker developed a cultural (...) anthropology. I shall argue that Rothacker’s later theory of culture retained key motifs of his earlier works. In this way, I trace central aspects of Rothacker’s reception of both Völkerpsychologie and Lebensphilosophie. The paper focuses on two aspects of Rothacker’s philosophical development that deserve more attention than they have received to date: his reception of Völkerpsychologie and the political character of his theories of culture. Rothacker’s theoretical work was closely connected to his political conservatism, which culminated in his engagement with National Socialism. The paper unearths problematic aspects of the legacy of Völkerpsychologie and Lebensphilosophie in early twentieth-century German thought. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article is concerned with manifestations of the memory of the Paris Commune in Britain in the decades after 1871. It is about how the Commune was incorporated into the mythology, the canon, of British socialism, and how the memory of the Commune furnished British socialism with powerful and useful symbols. In highlighting the ways in which the events of 1871 captured the British socialist imagination, what follows shows how, despite its oft-emphasised insularity, British socialism was (...) made through the incorporation and appropriation of both native and foreign ideas, symbols, and traditions. The powerful mythologies and symbolism associated with the Commune were taken up by socialists in Britain, and highlight an important intersection between British and French political cultures in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. (shrink)

How was this idealistic and utopian goal linked to specific political and economic programs? How do the policies of these particular regimes, based as they are on universal communist ideology, reflect national and cultural traditions? Cheng begins by exploring the origins of the idea of human perfectibility during the Enlightenment. His discussion moves to other European intellectual movements, and then to the creation of the Soviet Man, the first communist new man in world history. Subsequent chapters examine China's experiment with (...) human nature, starting with the nationalistic debate about a new national character at the turn of the twentieth century; and Cuban perceptions of the new man and his role in propelling the revolution from a nationalist, to a socialist, and finally a communist movement. The last chapter considers the global influence" --Book Jacket. (shrink)

This article considers the nature of Marxism as a species of Enlightenment Utopian Socialism, the relation of both these to a denial of nature of common sense properly understood. It argues that underlying all species of Enlightenment Utopian Socialism are psychological principles that deny the reality of evidently known first principles of understanding that are measures of truth in all forms of psychologically healthy human knowing and reasoning. In addition, it maintains that, as a result of these essentially (...) anarchic psychological first principles inherent in its nature, any attempt to apply any species of Utopian Socialism to develop healthy social organizations and cultural institutions—such as forms of human communication and educational and political instittions—is doomed to fail. Utopian Socialism will always destroy common sense in whatever it infects with its disordered habits of understanding and reasoning. (shrink)

While individuals and movements openly advocating “Buddhist socialism” only begin to appear in Japan in the first decade of the twentieth century, germs of the idea can be traced back to the writings of a few scholars and social activists of the 1880s. One example of the latter is the Eastern Socialist Party, founded by TARUI Tōkichi 樽井藤吉 in 1882. Though the party was short-lived – setting a dubious precedent for left-wing parties over the next 50 years in being (...) forcibly suppressed by the government within months of its inception – the writings of Tarui and other founding members were, for their day, quite radical, and provide an early example of the tension involved in attempting to transform the world – “make it new!” to use the modernist catchphrase – while remaining true to one’s cultural roots. The “draft of the party’s regulations”, written by Tarui, contains 17 articles, along with a number of sub-clauses. Here, we see several of the tensions that would haunt Japanese experiments in progressive and radical Buddhism over the next several decades. First is the natural but difficult attempt to “indigenize” socialism by appealing to traditional Asian concepts and ideas; second is the appeal to the East Asian values of peace and harmony, which was frequently accompanied, among early socialists, with an appeal to the Emperor as benevolent protector of the social welfare of the Japanese people. This essay will explore socialist movements and their connection to Buddhist ideas in modern Japan. (shrink)

This article examines the making of Romanian diplomatic practices during the first two decades of the Cold War by analyzing the activity of the Romanian Institute for Cultural Relations with the Foreign Countries in the field of architecture. I investigate how transnational cultural exchanges conducted jointly by party members and architects adjusted the professional careers of the latter. Questions related to what was good or bad, which images were still valid iconic representations of the country, what values the architects should (...) share, or how to depict architecturally modernisation and the nation dominated the IRRCS debates. Using archival information consisting of reports of cultural activities abroad, foreign travelers’ statements, itineraries, exhibitions’ materials and photographic records etc., I address Romania’s self-representation practices at home and abroad constructed in relation to the Other – the Easterner and Westerner, in close connection to the shift in the country’s economic interests. (shrink)

Steering a middle course between the strong neoliberalization thesis and arguments that deny that neoliberalization has occurred, this article accounts for the complex and hybridic shift in Sweden from pension reform through share ownership as a socialist strategy to an as-of-yet incomplete and contradictory neoliberal process. Noting the broader significance of Sweden for the international debate over pension reform, the article unpacks the concept of “mass investment culture” to discern the significant headway toward neoliberalization in Swedish pension savings and (...) provision while still noting profound sources of crisis tendencies. (shrink)

On reflecting about the prospects of advancing the egalitarian cause in the United States, John Roemer makes the case for more traditional strategies than the coupon socialism model he advocated in earlier work. First of all, he suggests, an ethos of solidarity must be developed and the super-rich be subjected to higher taxation. This comment assesses this proposal. On the one hand it is discussed whether the ethos of solidarity Roemer calls for in order to counteract the culture (...) of greed among American elites requires nurturing an undesirable culture of envy among the rest of the population. On the other hand it is considered whether the neoclassical principal-agent model - that Roemer believes must be contested in order to popularize a steep progressive income tax - might be one of the more promising tools to restructure the incentives of economic elites and curb casino capitalism. (shrink)

On reflecting about the prospects of advancing the egalitarian cause in the United States, John Roemer makes the case for more traditional strategies than the coupon socialism model he advocated in earlier work. First of all, he suggests, an ethos of solidarity must be developed and the super-rich be subjected to higher taxation. This comment assesses this proposal. On the one hand it is discussed whether the ethos of solidarity Roemer calls for in order to counteract the culture (...) of greed among American elites requires nurturing an undesirable culture of envy among the rest of the population. On the other hand it is considered whether the neoclassical principal-agent model—that Roemer believes must be contested in order to popularize a steep progressive income tax—might be one of the more promising tools to restructure the incentives of economic elites and curb casino capitalism. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that a mistaken economy–culture dualism underlies the pitting of identity politics against class. I propose we be ‘non-dualists’ instead, viewing economic distributions and cultural representations as importantly co-constitutive, since this non-dualism lets us best theorise the intersections of injustices like class and race. I argue that the most sophisticated dualist attempt to transcend class versus identity debates – Nancy Fraser’s ‘perspectival dualism’ – inadvertently instantiates ‘methodological whiteness’ and struggles to illuminate the intersections of race (...) and class, overlooking how culturally specific representations and understandings importantly constitute economic structures and distributions. Jodi Dean’s contemporary restaging of the class versus identity debate, I suggest, repeats some of Fraser’s dualist missteps. To end, I propose a non-dualist approach which understands the economy as an ideological objectification of certain practices – an objectification which naturalises relations of raced, classed and gendered domination. Building on social reproduction currents of thought, I suggest a counter-hegemonic understanding of the economy – one informed by anti-racist, feminist and socialist rethinkings of what constitutes labour and who constitutes the ‘public’ of the economy’s imaginaries of public value. (shrink)

The article draws attention to the exceptional importance of the concept of culture in the development of early Soviet models of governance. It proposes an analysis of party cadres’ conceptualization of culture that provided the basis for the creation of the state monopoly on cultural production of the young Soviet regime in the early 1920s. Particular attention is given to Lenin’s differentiation between “bureaucratic” and “cultural” motivations to labour that, after the October Revolution of 1917, allowed to substantiate (...) the shift in the point of view on socialism from a political to a cultural one. The building of the new Soviet statehood required a moderate depoliticization, the renunciation of the radical revolutionary rhetoric of class struggle in internal policy and the reinterpretation of class, social and cultural contradictions. Attention is drawn to the importance of cultural debates for the creation of the unique Soviet mechanism of governance that separated the principal ideological role of the party from the operative administration of the state machinery. At the centre of the analysis there will be no “theories” of culture or doctrinal diversity of Marxist-Leninist approaches but there will be the modes of culture’s problematization within the sphere that was defined by Michel Foucault as gouvernementalité. A group of specific texts is analyzed, in which governmental rationality and problematization of cultural policy were directly presented. This refers to verbatim reports and party congresses’ materials. (shrink)

After more than 40 years of development, China has established a relatively complete system of lawyers, including laws and regulations, a unified qualification examination, and lawyers associations. Today, there are nearly 600,000 lawyers working in various fields. However, the Communist regime in China has never adopted the so-called Western values of freedom and equality, the guarantee of human rights, and the rule of law, while the socialist ideology emphasizes the obedience of the individual to the collective and to the power (...) of the State, and thus the Communist Party has always emphasized management and control in its attitude toward lawyers. At the same time, because of its consistency with socialist ideology in many aspects, various concepts of traditional Chinese law have been preserved, which allowed a prejudice against lawyers based on traditional Chinese legal culture to persist to this day, to the extent that many Chinese people lack trust in lawyers. Chinese lawyers have no choice but to tactfully try to come to terms with the Communist Party and overcome traditional attitudes and unfavorable publicity against lawyers. (shrink)

Focusing on Judith Butler's highly influential work on gender, this article draws attention to a certain feminist inheritance of an emphasis on mimesis and imitation that resonates with the ways in which theoreticians responded to the calamitous events of essentialist politics and versions of belonging that were central to the political vision of Hitler's National Socialism and to the events of the Second World War. The intention is to point to this trajectory, to give Butler's work a genealogy that (...) traces the notion of mimesis back into work which employed the concept within socio-theoretical responses to anti-Semitism, in order to initiate a discussion of mimesis in a new contemporary agenda. The question of mimesis in this new agenda is significant in its reutilization of the concept in a way that moves the focus away from assumptions of the repressed natural process that underpinned Adorno and Horkheimer's thesis, and towards the complex manoeuvres of continued performances and continued `tradition', away from judgements of authenticity and towards the reasons why people maintain certain embodied subjectivities. Such a perspective raises the questions of generational relations, of foreclosed possibilities and of affective attachments to identity that reach beyond the Nietzschean sense of a wounded attachment. A focus on the responsibilities and pressures of `cultural survival' seems fruitful as a guiding concept in this exploration of the connections between identification, affiliation and the power contexts within which mimesis, as a form of repetition or `citation', occurs. (shrink)

The article examines the way in which, after a short period of liberal­isation and opening to the West, the Romanian Cinema during the Ceaușescu regime follows a path of increasing ideological themes and political control. The process began shortly after the consolidation of the power by the new Secretary General and unfolded gradually, culminating in 1971 with the “July Theses”. Like the rest of the cultural activities, the effects of this retraction into the ideological shell of national-communism, marked by strong (...) xenophobic and isolationist accents, can be seen in the film industry as well. The article relies on the files in the fonds of the Central Committee of Romanian Communist Party to cover the specificities of the cultural policies in Ceaușescu’s Romania. The way these policies were received by the cinema industry is reflected in the issues of Cinema magazine from the second half of the ‘60s to the mid-70s. Finally, the specific Romanian case is analysed in the broader context of the other communist regimes of Eastern Europe during the years of Cold War detente. (shrink)