This book documents the growth of unproductive activity in the United States economy since World War II and its relation to the economic surplus, capital accumulation, and economic growth. Unproductive activities broadly consist of those involved in the circulation process, including wholesaling and retailing, banking and financial services, advertising, legal services, business services and many government activities. The results indicate that the level of unproductive activity in the postwar economy has been a significant factor in the slowdown in (...) the rate of capital accumulation, productivity growth and the overall growth rate. Here, the villain is shown to be the gradual but persistent shift of resources to unproductive activities. The consequence has been a reduction in new capital formation and productivity growth and an erosion in the rate of growth in per capita living standards. Moreover, the rise in unproductive activity is itself seen to be rooted in the logic of advanced capitalism. The forces of competition, which in the early stages of capitalism lead to rapid technical change and productivity growth, promote non-productive and even counterproductive activities in its more advanced stages. (shrink)

The relevance of Marx’s theory of value and his ‘law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall’ to the analysis of the financial crisis of 2007–8 and the ensuing global slump is affirmed. The hypertrophic growth of unproductive constant capital, including the wages of ‘socially necessary’ unproductive labour and tax revenues, is identified as an important manifestation of an historical-structural crisis of capitalism, alongside the increasing weight of fictitious capital and the proliferation of fictitious profits in the (...) lead-up to the financial crisis. These phenomena have obscured the deepest roots of the global slump in the long-term profitability problems of productive capital – that is, in a crisis of surplus-value production. With these considerations taken into account, a better empirical assessment of trends in the composition of capital becomes possible, and with it a more accurate understanding of the impact of the ongoing displacement of living labour from production on the average rate of profit and the future of US and global capitalism. (shrink)

We have become estranged from the cosmic movements, according to Bataille. We are confined by the error linked to the representation of ‘the stationary earth’. We have negated the immersive immanence of the whole and made nature into a fixed world of tools and things. How then do we recognise ourselves as part of the ‘rapture of the heavens’? Bataille urges us to consider life as a solar phenomenon, the free play of solar energy on the earth. This paper argues (...) how Bataille’s cosmic vision anticipates both planetary and ecological thinking. This entails a base materialism of difference based on a radical Nietzschean and Heraclitean theory of becoming and flux. This thought is developed along Bataillean concepts such as the movement of the whole, the labyrinthine, and compound beings, ipseity, as well as the concept of a communifying movement. This materialism paired with Vladimir Vernadsky’s biosphere lays the foundation for the laws of the general economy, which also constitutes an economy inclusive of a general ecology: a tragic vision of Gaia and Dionysos. Finally, poetry is considered, as a way we might reconnect with the universe and stimulate ecological imagination. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: American Liberalism The Constitutional System Federal Patronage Looking Forward.

Future mobility planning to cope with ongoing environmental challenges such as air pollution has to be anchored in the work of every public authority worldwide. One recent trend that could support public authorities to meet the European Union’s sustainability targets is the creation and sharing of transport and mobility “big” data between public authorities via tools such as crowdsourcing. While the benefits of the use of big data to increase public authorities’ efficiency and effectivity and their citizens’ lives is well (...) understood, examples from the public sector that highlight public authorities’ engagement in such sharing activities is still missing. To date relevant literature has highlighted issues around the capacity of public authorities that hinder shared activities. In this paper we want to raise distrust as a key reason for lack of engagement. Based on comprehensive data collected over the period of 4 years via several workshops and semi-structured interviews with seven public authorities in Europe, we are able to demonstrate that a major obstacle for not providing and sharing data via crowdsourcing for mutual benefit lies primarily in the hands of the public authority’s servants of the middle and high-level management. Our results show firstly, that distrust may emerge toward different referents such as the community, particular individuals, or the technology itself and thus, managerial implications have to be very specific to overcome distrust. Secondly, we show how distrust may spread from one referent to another through negative reciprocity and which, if unchecked may lead to an all-encompassing state that affects the whole sharing economy framework and inhibits potential benefits. (shrink)

Circular economy thinking has become the subject of academic enquiry across several disciplines recently. Yet whilst its technical and business angles are more widely discussed, its philosophical underpinnings and socio-economic implications are insufficiently investigated. In this article, we aim to contribute to their understanding by uncovering the circular economy role in shaping a new vision, highlighting the social and economic dimensions of future imaginaries and the mechanisms that can enable them to bring about change in the social context. (...) We believe that defining the vision that the circular economy is contributing to shape is key to explain its conceptual framework and activities. Drawing on the concept of fictional expectations, we uncover one of the plausible social dimensions inherent to the circular economy thinking thereby opening up a new perspective on the current debate in the circular economy literature wherein authors, by contrast, are emphasising the lack of an explicit social dimension. Fictional expectations are introduced to refer to those imaginaries of the future that can catalyse social action in the present and counteract societal addictions, in which modern society seems to be trapped. We show how a circular economy inspired vision can be instrumental to the emergence of a fictional expectation that can provide therapies to the current societal addiction of wasteful production and consumption systems. This philosophical background allows us to provide, in conclusion, a new conceptualisation of the circular economy as a cognitive framework instrumental to the emergence of a future imaginary. (shrink)

This paper draws upon the events surrounding two small United States Department of Agriculture-funded projects in order to explore some preliminary ideas about the influence of corporations in US policy-making through federal advisory committees created by the 1972 Federal Advisory Committee Act. Following a synopsis of the political controversy created by the efforts of these projects to generate more discussion of geographical indications in the US, this paper outlines a path for further analysis of the relationships between members of advisory (...) committees to the US Trade Representative and a newly established non-profit, the Consortium for Common Food Names. After a brief discussion of two worlds of geographic indications defined on the one hand by key principles of terroir and on the other hand those embodied in US Patent & Trademark Policy, the paper concludes with short discussions of two approaches for bringing geographic indications into federal and state policy discussions. (shrink)

In the middle of 2020, Buddhism in Thailand looked quite different than it had just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Monasteries had closed their doors to the public, and monastic ordinations ceased. The institution of Thai Buddhism stayed relevant, however, largely by promoting a quite unusual practice. In addition to the typical religious activity of lay followers offering food to monks, and receiving merit from the monks in return, the path that food traveled during the pandemic also turned the other (...) way around. In a curious series of events, monks at monasteries throughout the country began to hand out food to lay Buddhist followers. In a religious landscape with a very codified system of exchange, this was spiritually precarious: if monks give out food, where does the merit lie, and what are the karmic results? To answer this, I examine attitudes about monks’ activities, drawing on interviews conducted in Chiang Mai in 2021, and relationships to textual accounts of nutrients and healing across Buddhist history. Rather than signifying a break from spiritual relationships, I argue that this a-typical movement during the pandemic helps to highlight the continuing importance of monastic hope within interpersonal affective economies of Thai Buddhist practice. (shrink)

Andrew Sayer and Dave Elder-Vass are both advocates of ‘moral economy’. To this end, Elder-Vass offers a theory of appropriative practices that enables us to evaluate the enormous variety of forms...

Many worry that global warming may produce dire consequences not just for humankind, but for many other living organisms on the planetEarth. This has raised concerns about the desirability of the political and economic policies that brought us to this point in history, a period of markedly higher levels of consumptionConsumption that produce higher levels of CO2. That, in turn, has raised new concerns about the ideologies and theoretical paradigms upon which such political and economic policies are based. Many now (...) call for a rejection of free marketFree Market economies to make room for more centrally planned economic systems. Even the idea of Homo EconomicusHomo Economicus – the primary actor in the modern free marketFree Market economy – is under fire in favor of a new conceptualization of the primary actor: Homo CuratorHomo Curator. This essay explains why these changes are both unnecessary and dangerous. I argue they are unnecessary by showing: (1) Homo Economicus and excessive consumptionConsumption are not the root of the problem, and (2) how the theory of market failure already gives us proven means to address problems like global warming. I argue that abandoning Homo Economicus and the free marketFree Market economy is dangerous because it will inevitably lead to a world that is far less likely to support individual and collective human flourishing; one that poorer, less free, and less respectful of the sanctity of the individual. (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)

Building on previous works which argued that scalar implicatures can be computed in embedded positions, this paper proposes a constraint on exhaustification which restricts the conditions under which an exhaustivity operator can be licensed. We show that this economy condition allows us to derive a number of generalizations, such as, in particular, the ‘Implicature Focus Generalization’: scalar implicatures can be embedded under a downward-entailing operator only if the scalar term bears pitch accent. Our economy condition also derives specific (...) predictions regarding the licensing of so-called Hurford disjunctions. (shrink)

In 1984, William Friedland proposed a Commodity Systems Analysis framework for describing the stages through which a commodity is transformed and how it acquires value. He challenged us to think of commodities as entities with a social as well as a physical presence. Friedland's argument enriched the concept of commodity production, but it remains essentially a supply side perspective.Since then, many commentators have argued that power is shifting from producers to consumers. Furthermore, some are claiming that, contrary to much traditional (...) Marxist thinking about how individuals find meaning through their productive capacities, it is now through consumption that individuals are identifying themselves. Given the significance of this view, it seems timely to extend Friedland's framework to incorporate the consumption perspective.In light of other claims that the distance between production and consumption is increasing, it is equally important to acknowledge the processes that structure the relationship between the two spheres. This entails using new retail geographical and cultural studies to explore further what takes place in distribution and exchange.This article describes a new model for understanding power in commodity systems, one that acknowledges the input and interests of a range of actors beyond the agricultural sector. The proposed cultural economy model also emphasizes a range of value adding processes that are wider than those that apply to commodity production. (shrink)

There have long been calls from industry for guidance in implementing strategies for sustainable development. The Circular Economy represents the most recent attempt to conceptualize the integration of economic activity and environmental wellbeing in a sustainable way. This set of ideas has been adopted by China as the basis of their economic development, escalating the concept in minds of western policymakers and NGOs. This paper traces the conceptualisations and origins of the Circular Economy, tracing its meanings, and exploring (...) its antecedents in economics and ecology, and discusses how the Circular Economy has been operationalized in business and policy. The paper finds that while the Circular Economy places emphasis on the redesign of processes and cycling of materials, which may contribute to more sustainable business models, it also encapsulates tensions and limitations. These include an absence of the social dimension inherent in sustainable development that limits its ethical dimensions, and some unintended consequences. This leads us to propose a revised definition of the Circular Economy as “an economic model wherein planning, resourcing, procurement, production and reprocessing are designed and managed, as both process and output, to maximize ecosystem functioning and human well-being”. (shrink)

"Religion," Mark C. Taylor maintains, "is most interesting where it is least obvious." From global financial networks to the casinos of Las Vegas, from images flickering on computer terminals to steel sculpture, material culture bears unexpected traces of the divine. In a world where the economies of faith are obscure, yet pervasive, Taylor shows that approaching religion directly is less instructive than thinking about it. Traveling from high culture to pop culture and back again, About Religion approaches cyberspace and Las (...) Vegas through Hegel and Kant and reads Melville's The Confidence-Man through the film Wall Street. As astonishing juxtapositions and associations proliferate, formerly uncharted territories of virtual culture disclose theological vestiges, showing that faith in contemporary culture is as unavoidable as it is elusive. The most accessible presentation of Taylor's revolutionary ideas to date, About Religion gives us a dazzling and disturbing vision of life at the end of the old and beginning of the new millennium. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct a Christian theology of “hospitality” through a critical reading of Jacques Derrida and Friedrich Nietzsche as well as through an in-depth biblical and theological reflection on the ethics of hospitality. Out of this reconstructive investigation, I propose a new Christian ethics of hospitality as a radical kind. As a new paradigm, this radical hospitality is distinguished from other types in that it is no longer conceived on the model of “gift”. The new (...) Christian ethics of hospitality is rather reconstructed on the model of “forgiveness” by critically appropriating the concept of “invisible debt” that lies between the hosting citizens and the migrants in the senses of “you owe us your presence” and “I owe you my security and success.” While the hospitality of the gift defines the relationship between the hosting citizens and the migrants as givers and givees, the new paradigm of hospitality identifies this relationship as between creditors and debtors. In this regard, a new Christian hospitality called for unto citizens of the hosting society is a radical kind that challenges them to transcend the creditor-debtor consciousness. (shrink)

This book provides a systematic commentary on the first two books of the Bible: Genesis and Exodus. Drawing on these two essential books, it subsequently offers new readings of several issues relevant for today’s economic and social life. Western Humanism has its own founding cultural and symbolic codes. One of them is the Bible, which has for millennia provided a wealth of expressions on politics and love, death and economy, hope and doom. Biblical stories have been revived and reinterpreted (...) by hundreds of generations, and have informed many of our most beautiful works of art, not to mention the dreams of children and adults alike. And they have given us hope during the many painful times of exile and oppression that we have gone through, and are going through still. Among the books of the Bible, in both the Jewish and Christian traditions, Genesis and Exodus represent the true foundation of biblical theology and anthropology, but in them we also find the roots of the culture of markets, money and commerce, which would go on to flourish during the Middle Ages and ultimately form the ‘spirit of capitalism’ or the ‘religion of capitalism’ in the modern era. This book examines the Biblical foundations of our conception of social relations, and offers new insights on the present economic and social discourse. (shrink)

This book provides an alternative foundation for the measurement of the production of nations, and applies it to the US economy for the postwar period. The patterns which result are significantly different from those derived within conventional systems of national accounts. Conventional national accounts seriously distort basic economic aggregates, because they classify military, bureaucratic and financial activities as creation of new wealth, when in fact they should be classified as forms of social consumption which, like personal consumption, actually use (...) up social wealth in the performance of their functions. The difference between the two approaches has an impact not only on basic aggregate economic measures, but also on the very understanding of the observed patterns of growth and stagnation. In a world of burgeoning militaries, bureaucracies, and sales forces, such matters can assume great importance at the levels of both theory and policy. (shrink)

Before the Doi Moi reforms in 1986, Viet Nam’s economy was devastated by 30 years of warfare with two major military powers, France and the US, ending in 1975. In the subsequent 10 years, Viet Nam suffered from failing economic experiments, including agricultural cooperatization, “industry-commerce rehabilitation,” price-wage-currency reform, among others, under the centrally planned mechanism (Wood 1989), as well as the international isolation and a US trade embargo when its troops entered Cambodia to overthrow the Khmer Rouge (Riedel and (...) Turley 1999). Its per-capita gross domestic product (GDP) declined to USD 97 in 1989 whereas the ratio of external debt to GDP reached 330%. 1 The economy languished and became one of the poorest in the world (VGP 2016). (shrink)

From the leader of the nation's most powerful animal-protection organization comes a frontline account of how conscience and creativity are driving a revolution in American business that is changing forever how we treat animals and create wealth. Wayne Pacelle of the Humane Society of the United States reveals how entrepreneurs, Fortune 500 CEOs, world-class scientists, philanthropists, and a new class of political leaders are driving the burgeoning, unstoppable growth of the "humane economy." Every business grounded on animal exploitation, Pacelle (...) argues, is ripe for disruption. Indeed each one of us is, and will be, touched by this far-reaching transformation in food and agriculture; in the pharmaceutical, chemical, and cosmetics industries; in film, television, and live entertainment; in tourism and wildlife management; in the pet trade for dogs and cats and exotic wildlife; and in fur and leather fashions. Collectively it promises to relieve or end the suffering of billions of creatures, while allowing businesses aligned with the best instincts and values of their customers to flourish. Pacelle shows, for instance, how the cruelties of industrial chicken farming are quickly becoming obsolete with a visit to Hampton Creek, the makers of a plant-based egg substitute and the world's fastest-growing food startup ever. Pacelle also recounts the stories of how established companies are joining in this economic transformation: from Petco and PetSmart, which have turned the conventional pet store model on its head by forswearing puppy mill suppliers in favor of shelter dogs; to John Paul Mitchell Systems, the Body Shop, and Lush, which use safe ingredients instead of animal tests for their cosmetics; to major food retailers like Whole Foods, Chipotle, and even Costco and Walmart, which are embracing animal welfare standards that are one by one unwinding the horrors of the factory farm. The Humane Economy is a clarion call to business leaders and to the world's growing animal protection movement; it is equally a warning to the static thinking of animal-use industries and their apologists: "Here, in this humane economy," Pacelle argues, "human ingenuity meets human virtue, and we discover at last that we can have it both ways--a better world for us and for animals, too. (shrink)

In the wake of the 1980 CSCE follow-up meeting US human rights objectives should be defined contextually so as to include besides the traditional human rights ingredients, i.e. the right to personal integrity, civil and politica! liberties, such values as peace, national security, nuclear non-proliferation, economie growth and redistribution. To this effect, the US should stress more a proper «world order» as its ultimate policy goal. Doing so would provide it at once with the flexibility needed in the international forum (...) and with the credibility needed on the domestic scene, in order to achieve some visible results. A high-pitched declaratory policy in favor of human rights leads to ineffectiveness with Communist nations and to arbitrary pressures on authoritarian countries which somehow rely on US assistance.Thus, the US should proceed contextually on the basis of a more balanced «human rights» concept. (shrink)

We all know that Ramsey argued that the best way to understand how the theoretical entities of a theory function is to picture them as existentially bound variables. If the entities of our theory are a, ß, and y, the best way to write our theory, he tells us, is: 3 a,ß,γ. The theory’s ‘Ramsey sentence’, the existentially bound variables are the carriers of ontological commitment. If the Ramsey sentence is true, they tell us what there is.

This article aims to reposition Nietzsche's thought within contemporary fields of research through the prism of its reception by Pierre Klossowski. Our analysis makes use of Klossowski's unpublished manuscripts, allowing us to better articulate and situate Nietzsche's thought within Klossowski's thought, which is nourished by a dialogue that goes beyond his work devoted to Nietzsche and develops an analysis that is particularly amenable to updating. In developing a Nietzsche-informed general economy of subjectivation, Klossowskian theory tends toward various aspects of (...) theoretical explorations present in media thought and the posthumanities. In doing so, we show that Nietzsche's thought, as approached by Klossowski, allows for unprecedented connections that shed light on the genealogy of the posthumanities, conceptually enrich research in Media archaeology and Science and Technology Studies, and anticipate the crucial role of affect and information in contemporary processes of subjectivation. (shrink)

Collaborative economy emerged as a response to the need of people to exchange, produce and share in a more humane and cooperative manner. However, the growth of collaborative economy organizations and the terminological confusion have led to debates about their possible effects, both positive and negative. In this study, we have created a guideline that can be used to evaluate the contribution of organizations considered within collaborative economy to common good. We used the conceptualization of common good, (...) which, from its Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy, was developed by the personalist-humanist perspective of management. Our analysis leads us to conclude that the evaluation of the contribution of any organization to the common good must take into account how the participants develop their virtues, the creation of the community and its impact on the common good of society. At the end of the article, we present the aspects that society must take into account regarding collaborative economy. Firstly, society, in general, must approach collaborative economy as a tool that must complement others in the search for solutions to economic and social problems and, secondly, the governance of the platform-network is essential to foster organizational models that favour the common good. (shrink)