The Emergence of Mafia-like Business Systems in China

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Meg Rithmire ◽  
Hao Chen

Abstract A large body of literature on state–business relations in China has examined the political role of capitalists and collusion between the state and the private sector. This paper contributes to that literature and understanding of the internal differentiation among China's business elites by documenting the emergence of a particular kind of large, non-state business group that we argue is more akin to a mafia system than any standard definition of a firm. Drawing on large-N descriptive data as well as deep ethnographic and documentary research, we argue that mafia-like business systems share organizational principles (plunder and obfuscation) and means of growth and survival (relations of mutual endangerment and manipulation of the financial system). Understanding the particular moral economy that underlies mafia-like business systems and their interactions with the state challenges methodological foundations of research on China's political economy and helps to explain recent conflict between high-profile business people and the state.

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graziella Moraes Silva ◽  
Matias López

Abstract We analyze the cultural repertoires mobilized by elites to describe "Brazilian people." We rely on survey and in-depth interview data to capture how political, bureaucratic and business elites in Brazil frame poverty and inequality. Our data suggest that elites acknowledge poverty as a structural problem for the State to solve, but remain skeptical on the odds of actual solutions, indicating fatalistic perceptions that categorize the Brazilian poor as unorganized, passive, ignorant, and irrational. Moreover, in their definition of the poor, elites draw a symbolic boundary, separating an active sector (which includes the elites) and a passive one (the "people"). The paper also addresses the effects of such symbolic boundaries on the overall picture of Brazilian inequality.


EDUKASI ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hendra Karianga

Sources of revenue and expenditure of APBD (regional budget) can be allocated to finance the compulsory affairs and optional affairs in the form of programs and activities related to the improvement of public services, job creation, poverty alleviation, improvement of environmental quality, and regional economic growth. The implications of these policies is the need for funds to finance the implementation of the functions, that have become regional authority, is also increasing. In practice, regional financial management still poses a complicated issue because the regional head are reluctant to release pro-people regional budget policy, even implication of regional autonomy is likely to give birth to little kings in region causing losses to state finance and most end up in legal proceedings. This paper discusses the loss of state finance and forms of liability for losses to the state finance. The result of the study can be concluded firstly,  there are still many differences in giving meaning and definition of the loss of state finace and no standard definition of state losses, can cause difficulties. The difficulty there is in an effort to determine the amount of the state finance losses. The calculation of state/regions losses that occur today is simply assessing the suitability of the size of the budget and expenditure without considering profits earned by the community and the impact of the use of budget to the community. Secondly, the liability for losses to the state finance is the fulfillment of the consequences for a person to give or to do something in the regional financial management by giving birth to three forms of liability, namely the Criminal liability, Civil liability, and Administrative liability.Keywords: state finance losses, liability, regional finance.


Author(s):  
Karl Widerquist ◽  
Grant S. McCall

Earlier chapters of this book found that the Hobbesian hypothesis is false; the Lockean proviso is unfulfilled; contemporary states and property rights systems fail to meet the standard that social contract and natural property rights theories require for their justification. This chapter assesses the implications of those findings for the two theories. Section 1 argues that, whether contractarians accept or reject these findings, they need to clarify their argument to remove equivocation. Section 2 invites efforts to refute this book’s empirical findings. Section 3 discusses a response open only to property rights theorists: concede this book’s empirical findings and blame government failure. Section 4 considers the argument that this book misidentifies the state of nature. Section 5 considers a “bracketing strategy,” which admits that observed stateless societies fit the definition of the state of nature, but argues that they are not the relevant forms of statelessness today. Section 6 discusses the implications of accepting both the truth and relevance of the book’s findings, concluding that the best response is to fulfil the Lockean proviso by taking action to improve the lives of disadvantaged people.


Author(s):  
Adam Bodіuk

The subject of the study is the mechanism for determining the fiscal fee forthe main transportation of hydrocarbon goods as a resource concept. The purposeof this article is to justify the nature and prospects of using, instead of currentrent, hydrocarbon fiscal-main income as a fiscal payment, which is brought intothe state budget by operators of the main hydrocarbon-transport system as business entities for their transportation of hydrocarbons and products of their processing through main pipelines appropriate to the economic requirements. Theresearch methodology is determined by a combination of methods: a) cognition:legal analysis (study of the regulatory framework for the use of rent); b) justification: abstract logical analysis (definition of the concepts of hydrocarbon fiscalmain income); c) generalization (substantiation of conclusions and proposals).Results of work. In the process of analyzing the regulatory legal acts that regulate the use of current annuity as payment to the budget for the main transportation of hydrocarbons, it was established that it is not a tax in the interpretationof PKU, since the essence does not meet the official definition of tax, does notmeet the accepted definition of the concept of rent. The accepted nature andmechanism of paying rent for the transportation of hydrogen resources and associated revenues of the state and users of the main hydrogen transport systemand the unpromising nature of its use as a fiscal payment are analyzed. Conclusions.It is proposed that the state pay for the territorial pumping of hydrocarbon resources according to our triple principle as hydrocarbon fiscal-main income, whichcorresponds to its essence, and accordingly change the mechanism for calculatingand depositing funds to treasury accounts. Since the funds come to the revenueside of the state budget, that is, inherently belong to state revenue. The creationof such a mechanism needs certain studies, justifications and government decisions. The same applies to land use, since the quality indicators of soils, wherethe laid pipelines are territorially different. In addition, there is a process ofchanging land for its intended purpose, for the property. The fee for movinghydrocarbon resources should be calculated depending on the type of transport,including pipelines, for a set of indicators: quantity and quality of goods, time,main tariffs and distance of its movement. The amount may be adjusted usingfactors officially established by the CMU. Since the pipelines are located in territorial lands, part of this fee should be transferred to the territorial local budgets.Theoretically, the economic use of trunk pipelines should be considered as a typeof economic environmental management. Therefore, this type of government revenue should be determined by a set of indicators, as well as taking into account the economic interests of business entities authorized by the CMU. Thus, theimplementation of our proposed fiscal payment is relevant, has scientific noveltyand promising practical significance, therefore, for state recognition it is proposedto include it in the Tax Code of Ukraine.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 18-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. A. Strelkova

The paper examines various approaches to the definition of the term «digital economy» in the scientific and business environment along with factors and forms of its development in different countries taking into account the specifics of the current stage of the Russian economy, which is a matter of particular importance in seeking new sources of the world economy growth. The subject of the research is opportunities and threats inherent in the process of digitalization of economies and their impact on the operation of international and national markets as well as the development of the world economy as a whole. The purpose of the paper was to analyze the practical experience in the formation and development of the digital economy in foreign countries and Russia and identify the changes it brings to the activities of state institutions and business structures, established rules of market exchange, the process of promotion and use of innovations. All the above made it possible to determine the country-level specifics of the digital economy evolution reveal the contradictory nature of its manifestations and justify the necessity for active participation of the state in stimulation and support of potentially promising digital innovations in various sectors of the economy. It is concluded that the level of the digital economy development depends on the real-sector performance, the maturity of markets, the state of the national economy. It is highlighted that the criteria for a comprehensive assessment of the results of the economy digitalization must be developed.


Author(s):  
Marina Aleksandrovna Kalievskaya

In this article, a model of the mechanism of ensuring public security and orderliness in accordance with the principles and tasks of the relevant institu- tions in public administration, taking into account resources, technologies, mea- sures for the state policy implementation in the spheres of ensuring the protection of human rights and freedoms, the interests of society and the state, combating crime, maintaining public security and order. It was found that ensuring public security and order in Ukraine is a mechanism for the implementation of national goals of state policy in the areas of ensuring the protection of human rights and freedoms, the interests of society and the state, combating crime, maintaining public security and order, by defining tasks according to certain principles. The idea is that if one considers the state policy in the spheres of ensuring the protec- tion of human rights and freedoms, the interests of society and the state, combat- ing crime, maintaining public security and order as a national priority (purpose, task), then the mechanism of ensuring public security and order in Ukraine needs coordination with the state development strategy. From the point of view of the implementation of the state policy in the areas of ensuring the protection of hu- man rights and freedoms, the interests of society and the state, combating crime, maintaining public security and order, the mechanism of ensuring public security and order in Ukraine can be considered as the main system providing intercon- nection such elements as institutions (implementing the specified state policy), resources (human resources, logistical, natural and so on, with the help of which it is possible to implement state policy), technologies (skills, knowledge, means and so on the implementation of state policy), measures (action plans), as well as external (internal) threats.


Author(s):  
Peter D. McDonald

The section introduces Part II, which spans the period 1946 to 2014, by tracing the history of the debates about culture within UNESCO from 1947 to 2009. It considers the central part print literacy played in the early decades, and the gradual emergence of what came to be called ‘intangible heritage’; the political divisions of the Cold War that had a bearing not just on questions of the state and its role as a guardian of culture but on the idea of cultural expression as a commodity; the slow shift away from an exclusively intellectualist definition of culture to a more broadly anthropological one; and the realpolitik surrounding the debates about cultural diversity since the 1990s. The section concludes by showing how at the turn of the new millennium UNESCO caught up with the radical ways in which Tagore and Joyce thought about linguistic and cultural diversity.


This book takes a fresh look at the land question in India. It goes beyond re-engagement in the rich transition debate by critically examining both theoretically and empirically the role of land in contemporary India. Springing from the political economy discourse surrounding the classic capitalist transition issue in agriculture in India, the book gravitates toward the development discourse that inevitably veers toward land and the role of the state in pushing a process of dispossession of peasants through direct expropriation for developmental purposes. Contemporary dispossession may look similar to the historical process of primitive accumulation that makes room for capitalist agriculture and expanded accumulation. But this volume shows that land in India is sought increasingly for non-agricultural purposes as well. These include risk mitigation by farmers, real estate development, infrastructure development by states often on behalf of business, and special economic zones. Tribal communities (advasis), who depend on land for their livelihoods and a moral economy that is independent of any price-driven markets, hold on to land for collective security. Thus land acquisition continues to be a turbulent arena in which classes, castes, and communities are in conflict with the state and capital, each jockeying to determine the terms and conditions of land transactions or their prevention, through both market and non-market mechanisms. The volume collectively addresses the role of the state involved in the process of dispossession of peasants and tribal communities. It provides new analytical insights into the land acquisition processes, their legal-institutional and ethical implications, and captures empirically the multifaceted regional diversity of the contestations surrounding the acquisition experiences in India.


1983 ◽  
Vol 31 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 60-76
Author(s):  
Patricia A. Morgan

Patricia Morgan's paper describes what happens when the state intervenes in the social problem of wife-battering. Her analysis refers to the United States, but there are clear implications for other countries, including Britain. The author argues that the state, through its social problem apparatus, manages the image of the problem by a process of bureaucratization, professionalization and individualization. This serves to narrow the definition of the problem, and to depoliticize it by removing it from its class context and viewing it in terms of individual pathology rather than structure. Thus refuges were initially run by small feminist collectives which had a dual objective of providing a service and promoting among the women an understanding of their structural position in society. The need for funds forced the groups to turn to the state for financial aid. This was given, but at the cost to the refuges of losing their political aims. Many refuges became larger, much more service-orientated and more diversified in providing therapy for the batterers and dealing with other problems such as alcoholism and drug abuse. This transformed not only the refuges but also the image of the problem of wife-battering.


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