THE DAWN OF OTTOMAN POPULAR POLITICAL ECONOMY: THE TURKISH TRANSLATIONS OF OTTO HÜBNER’S DER KLEINE VOLKSWIRTH

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (03) ◽  
pp. 351-367
Author(s):  
Deniz T. Kilinçoğlu
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Exceptional Case ◽  
Economic Literature ◽  
New Science ◽  
State Administration ◽  
The Masses ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Comparative Examination

Otto Hübner’s (1818–1877) international bestseller introduction to political economy, Der kleine Volkswirth, appeared in Turkish in 1869 in two different editions. Two Ottoman officials translated the book into Turkish with different linguistic styles and pedagogical objectives. Beyond being an exceptional case in Ottoman-Turkish economic literature in this respect, the Hübner translations heralded the dawn of popular political economy in the Ottoman Empire. Economic literature before 1869 consisted of works written exclusively for the elite to introduce this new science as an instrument of state administration. Starting with the Hübner translations, we observe the burgeoning of a popular economic literature in the empire aiming at changing the economic mentality and behavior of the masses. This study is a comparative examination of the two Ottoman-Turkish translations of Der kleine Volkswirth in historical context.

150 Years of Das Kapital and No End in Sight. Unsystematic Remarks on a Never-Ending Story

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 23-46
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Formal Structure ◽  
Monetary Theory ◽  
Economic Crises ◽  
General Introduction ◽  
The Third ◽  
Social Forms ◽  
Adequate Understanding ◽  
Theory Of Value ◽  
The Masses

Michael Heinrich, one of the leading Marx scholars, provides a general introduction into Das Kapital with emphasis on the latest interpretations of it. The circumstances surrounding its writing and publication are shown to have interfered with an adequate appreciation of it. The formal structure and organization of the first volume are obstacles to readers and demand much from their education and intellect. The article summarizes the basic trajectories of Marx’s criticisms of political economy, including the critique of naturalizing social forms arising under capitalism and Marx’s original monetary theory of value. The author disentangles Marx’s Das Kapital from views mistakenly ascribed to it, such as the idea that value is determined solely by labor and the prediction of pauperization of the masses. First, Marx’s theory of value goes well beyond explaining prices under capitalism. Second, his main prophecy concerned the inevitable growth of inequality between the masters of capital and the employed classes and did not forecast impoverishment. The paper also points out that the sequence of publication of different volumes of Das Kapital caused lacunae in interpreting Marx’s oeuvre. For instance Engels’ efforts made the third volume more accessible to readers but also obscured the overall pattern of Marx’s thinking. the article shows that Das Kapital was a dynamic and fluctuating project to such an extent that Marx himself several times revisited his views of the causes of economic crises and falling profits and also intended to deal extensively with ecological issues. Reaching an adequate understanding of the theory contained in Das Kapital cannot depend on the manuscripts of those volumes alone. Marx’s notebooks, which have only recently published, are an indispensable aid to understanding it.

What Should We Know About the Origins of International Investment Law?

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 122-131
Author(s):  
Sarah M. Alshahrani
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
International Investment ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
International Investment Law ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Investment Law ◽  
Investment Treaties ◽  
The Impact

AbstractInternational investment law, particularly the global backlash against investment treaties, has evolved recently. This article aims to clarify how international investment law evolved over history, from the early Arab traders in the 7th century to the Ottoman Empire, to understand its hidden aims. It investigates the practice of signing investment treaties, which appear first during the Fatimid Caliphate2 and Mamluk Sultanate3 periods. It then explains when control over foreign investment started to diminish during the Ottoman Empire period.4 Further, it explains the links between the USA Friendship, Commerce and Navigation treaties (FCNs), and current investment treaties, explaining the impact of colonization and imperialism on drafting treaty provisions. Within this historical context, this article illustrates the need to understand the roots of international investment law in order to urge Arab countries to terminate or renegotiate current bilateral investment treaties (BITs) as a number of developing and developed countries have done.

Imperial Presidency and the Neo-patrimonialization of Disorder in post-Authoritarian Nigeria

1970 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-77
Author(s):  
Adeniyi S. Basiru
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
The Political ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Imperial Presidency ◽  
Political Struggles ◽  
Presidential Democracies ◽  
Data Source ◽  
Public Disorder

The president and the network of offices that are linked to him, in modern presidential democracies, symbolize a neutral state that does not meddle in order-threatening political struggles. It however seems that this liberal ideal is hardly the case in many illiberal democracies. Against this background, this article examines the presidential roots of public disorder in post-military Nigeria. Drawing on documentary data source and deploying neo-patrimonial theory as theoretical framework, it argues that the presidency in Nigeria, given the historical context under which it has emerged as well as the political economy of neo-patrimonialism and prebendalism that has nurtured it, is a central participant in the whole architecture of public disorder. The paper recommends, among others, the fundamental restructuring of the Nigerian neo-colonial state and the political economy that undergird it.Keywords: Imperial Presidency; Neo-patrimonialism; Disorder; Authoritarianism; Nigeria.

Hobbes's Political Philosophy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.P. Martinich
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Literal Meaning ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
New Science ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Apparent Conflict

Hobbes’s Political Philosophy: Interpretation and Interpretations extends a position first explained in The Two Gods of Leviathan (1992). Hobbes presented what he believed would be a science of politics, a set of timeless truths grounded in definitions. In chapters on the laws of nature, authorization and representation, sovereignty by acquisition, and others, the author explains this science of politics. In addition to the timeless science, Hobbes had two timebound projects: (1) to eliminate the apparent conflict between the new science of Copernicus and Galileo and traditional Christian doctrine, and (2) to show that Christianity, correctly understood, is not politically destabilizing. The strategy for accomplishing (1) was to distinguish science from religion and to understand Christianity as essentially belief in the literal meaning of the Bible. The strategy for accomplishing (2) was to appeal to biblical teachings such as “Servants, obey your masters,” and “All authority comes from God.” Criticisms of the author’s interpretations are the occasion for (a) fleshing out Hobbes’s historical context and (b) describing the nature of interpretation in dialogue with opposing interpretations by scholars such as Jeffrey Collins, Edwin Curley, John Deigh, and Quentin Skinner. Interpretation is updating one’s network of beliefs in order to re-establish an equilibrium upset by a text. Interpretations may be judged according to prima facie properties of good interpretations such as completeness, consistency, simplicity, generality, palpability, and defensibility.

scholarly journals Antiessentialismus und Wahrheitspolitik

2008 ◽  
Vol 38 (151) ◽  
pp. 203-219
Author(s):  
Urs Lindner
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Parallel Universes ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Social Relativity

Discussing aspects of Marx's critique of political economy and Foucault's analytic of power, the text seeks to separate the reflexive stance of anti-essetialism from two positions wich are often seen as being part of it: judgmental relativism and the ,anti-depth war'. To recognise the historical and social relativity of knowledge does not necessarily imply the view that all theories are equally true. And to analyse social structures and dispositions as underlying conditions of events and behavior is not tantamount to a search for metaphysical parallel universes. Criticising Badiou, the paper concludes with a plea for a realist politics of truth as an alternative to either relativist or rationalist conceptions of this topic.

scholarly journals From Islamization of Knowledge to Islamization of Education

1999 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. v-ix
Author(s):  
AbdulHamid A. AbuSulayman
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Standard Of Living ◽  
Reform Movements ◽  
World War ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
Political Independence ◽  
Muslim People ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Masses

Any Muslim intellectual who has a serious concern for the relativelydeteriorating condition of the Muslim Ummah with respect to the WesternWorld would be depressed and confused. However, the recent history of theMuslim World shows how many determined reformist movements playeda positive role in changing the Muslim condition. But these movements metwith partial or limited success.It was in the late seventeenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries,an ascendant Europe undermined and overran much of the UthmaniDuwlah (Ottoman Empire) and finally put an end to it, much to the shockand dismay of the Muslim World. The powerful European challenge andthis drastic event elicited two contrasting responses from the Muslim eliteand the masses. While many of them resorted to superficial imitation andinitiated capricious copycat reform movements, some harnessed the risingawareness and the attendant spirit of resistance to launch more genuineefforts and reform movements. Understandably, these efforts were conflicting,emotional, and limited in their scope but they eventually helpedMuslim societies to gain political independence in the post-World War IIera. At the heart of these reforms and political liberation was the Muslimpeoples’ desire to realize their Islamic, national, and cultural aspirationsalong with the hope of enjoying a standard of living comparable to that ofthe West.Unfortunately, these hopes were not achieved and the cultural reformscontinued to be emotional, arbitrary, and patchwork (talfiq). The conditionof the Muslim people continued to deteriorate and the gap between theWestern world and the Muslim world continued to widen. The former continuedto dominate and exploit that latter. All this proved that arbitrary,emotional, superficial, and limited patchwork reforms would not have aserious impact on the conditions of the Muslim people and will fail to realizetheir national or Islamic aspirations ...

The Evolution of Grain Policy: The Ottoman Experience

2013 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 571-598 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seven Ağir
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Price System ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Fixed Price ◽  
Grain Trade ◽  
The Creation

Ottoman reformers' re-organization of the grain trade during the second half of the eighteenth century had two components—the creation of a centralized institution to supervise transactions and the replacement of the fixed price system with a more flexible one. These changes were not only a response to strains on the old system of provisioning, driven by new geopolitical conditions, but also a consequence of an increased willingness among the Ottoman elite to emulate the economic policies of successful rival states. Thus, the centralized bureaucracy and political economy of the Ottoman Empire at the time had remarkable parallels with those in such European states as France and Spain.

scholarly journals The Initial Period of Activity of the Central Council of Ukraine: Since March 3 (16) till the National Congress in April 1917

2021 ◽  
pp. 110-123
Author(s):  
Oleksandr Kucheruk
Keyword(s):  
Initial Period ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Initial Stage ◽  
Central Council ◽  
Public Consciousness ◽  
National Life ◽  
National Congress ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
The Masses

Among many issues related to the phenomenon of the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917–1921, the specifics of the development of the earliest stage of its history attracts special attention of the researchers. It is no accident, because during this period the Ukrainian national movement in the Russian Empire, which was in fact totally banned with the outbreak of the First World War, proved its strength and its ability to become a real factor in mobilizing the masses. The logic of historical events initiated almost immediately by the appearance in early March 1917 in Kyiv of the organizational center of Ukrainians led to a revolutionary transformation of public consciousness in terms of moderate demands made in pre-revolutionary times by a relatively small group of public figures, as well as to a strong assertion of the sovereign will of the Ukrainian people, who had irreversibly embarked on the path of state formation. The demands mainly concerned schooling, basic opportunities for development of national culture and extremely limited forms of local self-government.In view of this, the article considers both the historical context, circumstances and conditions of the establishment of the Central Council of Ukraine, and the peculiarities of positioning the representatives of various political currents during the least documented period: from the end of February 1917 to the All-Ukrainian National Congress (April 6-8, 1917). Based on the analysis of the recollections of participants and witnesses of the process, periodicals and official publications of the Central Council of Ukraine, the names of the Ukrainian figures who were its founding members, were clarified. It was emphasized that, despite the dissatisfaction of the older Ukrainian activists associated with the Society of Ukrainian Progressives, this revolutionary parliament began to form as a broad union of groups, parties and organizations representing the full range of Ukrainian political forces at the time. Particular attention is paid to the fact that at the initial stage of formation of the Central Council of Ukraine the problem of consolidation has become one of the most pressing on the agenda of national life.

Political Economy and the Science of Economics in Victorian Britain

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Tribe
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Public Education ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Access To Higher Education ◽  
Teaching And Research ◽  
Victorian Britain ◽  
New Science ◽  
University Life

This chapter looks at the historical understanding of political economy. It also describes the transformation of political economy as a general understanding of wealth and its distribution to a new science of economics. This transition can be linked to the expanding system of public education during the later end of the nineteenth century and the reorganisation of university life around teaching and research in modern subjects. The movement for wider access to higher education was associated with the formation of new university subjects in the humanities. Among these modern subjects, commerce and economics were prominent as new disciplines of study relevant to the modern world.

The Corn Laws and the Casuistry of Free Trade, 1813–1815

2021 ◽  
pp. 111-144
Author(s):  
Ryan Walter
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Comparative Advantage ◽  
Food Supply ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Diminishing Returns ◽  
Corn Laws ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Conceptual Progress ◽  
Policy Question

This chapter examines the Corn Laws debate from 1813 to 1815, focusing on the contributions of Malthus, Ricardo, and Robert Torrens. This episode has traditionally been studied as a moment of conceptual progress for political economy, above all through the emergence of the concepts of diminishing returns and comparative advantage. The account here produces different results by returning the texts of Malthus, Ricardo, and Torrens to their historical context, which is shown to be one where casuistical argument was deployed to counsel Parliament on how to resolve a policy question. In particular, the issue was whether or not Parliament ought to diverge from the principle of free trade in the pursuit of other principles of statecraft, the stability and security of the food supply preeminently. Once the texts are read as instances of casuistry, Ricardo’s famed theoretical brilliance instead appears as clumsiness and detachment from the needs of Parliament.

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