Nature, Labor, and the Rise of Capitalism

2017 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 42
Author(s):  
Martin Empson

Capitalism was a radical break with the past: for the first time, production of basic goods was driven by the accumulation of wealth for its own sake, and not primarily to satisfy human needs. Likewise, we are alienated from the natural world, as the products of our own labor are no longer under our control. Our very perception of nature is shaped by an economic system that treats "the environment" as a collection of commodities to be exploited.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Author(s):  
Mirjam Stocker ◽  
Gerda Schneider ◽  
Julia Zeilinger ◽  
Gloria Rose ◽  
Doris Damyanovic ◽  
...  

AbstractHousing plays a central role in everyday life and the fulfillment of human needs. Temporary housing demand can occur due to migration, extreme environmental events or personal decisions, and is expected to increase in the upcoming years. This study aims to create a general understanding of temporary housing. We conducted an integrated comparison of 66 international temporary housing examples via tabulation (table work), in an interdisciplinary manner considering details regarding built structure, open spaces, area, infrastructure, organizational and socio-economic aspects. It is the first time that a systematic comparison via tabulation (based on the approach of Braun-Blanquet) is used to classify temporary housing environments. The process is described in detail. The application of the systematic comparison creates a detailed typology that allows extensions and further differentiations. The types that emerge from the tabulation have specific concepts regarding the structural-spatial organization, technical infrastructure, and organizational matters, among others. The typology was further examined in the context of previous groupings in published literature. This novel approach of analyzing and structuring temporary housing offers a comprehensive perspective that can work as a universal understanding and language for precise communication among different disciplines regarding temporary housing.


Author(s):  
Vladislav Valentinov ◽  
Constantine Iliopoulos

AbstractIn a recent contribution to this journal, Deng et al. (2021) draw on an extensive range of theoretical and empirical literature to make the case for the tendency of social capital resources of agricultural cooperatives in the Western world to decline over time. The present paper revisits this argument by drawing on a Luhmannian systems-theoretic perspective that takes the capitalist economic system to be limitedly sensitive and receptive to a broad variety of human needs. Whereas many of these needs remain marginalized and neglected, some of them may be codified or translated into a profit-making calculus. Cooperatives are shown to present one of the channels through which this codification may be possible; namely, the codification effect of cooperatives enables the incorporation of a multitude of mutual self-help activities into the economic system. This incorporation gives rise to intrasystemic adjustment processes that can be considered complete when the mutual self-help activities introduced by cooperatives no longer require the cooperative form and are integrated into the activities of investor-owned firms. If this view is accepted, then declining social capital may be an indicator of the successful codification process, which helps to make the economic system less exclusionary and more sensitive to human needs.


2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (S2) ◽  
pp. 1893-1893
Author(s):  
I. Manor ◽  
G. Yazpan

ADHD is a well-known, chronic disorder that persists in adulthood. During the past 20 years its existence in adults is becoming clearer, yet its dynamic aspects are rarely discussed. The treatment of adults is vital, as much as that of children; however the literature discussing it, especially its non-pharmacological aspect, is scarce.We describe the results of our treatment with drama-therapy of two groups of adults with ADHD. These groups included 11 adults (from both groups), men and women, from most socioeconomic strata, aged ≥ 60 yrs., who were diagnosed as suffering from ADHD and were treated for it for the first time in their life. Drama-therapy was selected as we believed it to be a useful method with associative, distracted ADHD patients, since it enabled the use of transitional space through non-verbal images and acts.This presentation discusses the basic themes with which patients began therapy. Interestingly, all patients, however different, shared the same themes that were built on self doubt and the pre-presumption of disappointment. The impairment related to ADHD, that was felt, but not understood, led to a strong experience of heavy losses, which we tried to define separately: of a clear path, of control, of the inner perception of borders and of the loss of an integrative inner self. All these losses were accumulated in the transitional space in a place we named “Nowhere land”.We would like to present these themes of losses and of becoming lost and to discuss their meaning.


Exchange ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-57

AbstractMons. Antonio Batista Fragoso has been bishop of Crateus in Northeast Brazil for the past ten years. Eighty percent of the 360,000 people in his diocese are impoverished peasants who engage in rudimentary farming. At least half of the peasants are landless. It is among these people that Bishop Fragoso has encouraged the formation of small grassroots Christian communities that are responsible for a profound change in the patterns of Christian living in his diocese. The following is LP's translation of excerpts from a talk that Bishop Fragoso gave to his fellow bishops and priests in Managua in October, 1980. This is the first time it has appeared in English. (Editor Latinamerica Press)


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Reich ◽  
Dajie Zhang ◽  
Tomas Kulvicius ◽  
Sven Bölte ◽  
Karin Nielsen-Saines ◽  
...  

AbstractThe past decade has evinced a boom of computer-based approaches to aid movement assessment in early infancy. Increasing interests have been dedicated to develop AI driven approaches to complement the classic Prechtl general movements assessment (GMA). This study proposes a novel machine learning algorithm to detect an age-specific movement pattern, the fidgety movements (FMs), in a prospectively collected sample of typically developing infants. Participants were recorded using a passive, single camera RGB video stream. The dataset of 2800 five-second snippets was annotated by two well-trained and experienced GMA assessors, with excellent inter- and intra-rater reliabilities. Using OpenPose, the infant full pose was recovered from the video stream in the form of a 25-points skeleton. This skeleton was used as input vector for a shallow multilayer neural network (SMNN). An ablation study was performed to justify the network’s architecture and hyperparameters. We show for the first time that the SMNN is sufficient to discriminate fidgety from non-fidgety movements in a sample of age-specific typical movements with a classification accuracy of 88%. The computer-based solutions will complement original GMA to consistently perform accurate and efficient screening and diagnosis that may become universally accessible in daily clinical practice in the future.


Zootaxa ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4996 (3) ◽  
pp. 492-512
Author(s):  
PAN-WEN HSUEH

Two new species and one new record species of the genus Pseudonereis are described from specimens collected from ecological surveys of coasts of Taiwan and an offshore island during the past 15 years: P. jihueiensis n. sp., P. kihawensis n. sp., and P. trimaculata. Epitokes of P. jihueiensis n. sp. and P. trimaculata are also described. Pseudonereis jihueiensis n. sp. can be distinguished from congeners by having edentate jaws, χ-shaped ridge pattern of Areas VI–V–VI, parapodial morphology (i.e., length ratio of dorsal cirrus to dorsal ligule or presence of small pennant-like dorsal ligule, shape of dorsal ligule in certain region of chaetigers), and no heterogomph spinigers in the subacicular fascicle of the neuropodia. Pseudonereis kihawensis n. sp. differs from congeners by having crescent-shaped pointed-bars in Area VI, λ-shaped ridge pattern of Areas VI–V–VI, parapodial morphology (i.e., length ratio of dorsal cirrus to dorsal ligule or presence of small pennant-like dorsal ligule or shape of dorsal ligule in certain region of chaetigers), and no heterogomph spinigers in the subacicular fascicle of the neuropodia. Pseudonereis trimaculata, a species originally described from Indonesia, is reported from Taiwan for the first time. A table of key characters for all species of Pseudonereis is provided.  


2021 ◽  
pp. 104973232110516
Author(s):  
Vincent Wagner ◽  
Jorge Flores-Aranda ◽  
Ana Cecilia Villela Guilhon ◽  
Shane Knight ◽  
Karine Bertrand

Young psychoactive substance users in social precarity are vulnerable to a range of health and social issues. Time perspective is one aspect to consider in supporting change. This study draws on the views expressed by young adults to portray their subjective experience of time, how this perception evolves and its implications for their substance use and socio-occupational integration trajectories. The sample includes 23 young psychoactive substance users ( M = 24.65 years old; 83% male) in social precarity frequenting a community-based harm reduction centre. Thematic analysis of the interviews reveals the past to be synonymous with disappointment and disillusionment, but also a constructive force. Participants expressed their present-day material and human needs as well as their need for recognition and a sense of control over their own destiny. Their limited ability to project into the future was also discussed. Avenues on how support to this population might be adapted are suggested.


Belleten ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 76 (276) ◽  
pp. 385-402
Author(s):  
Murat Kılıç

The origins of the imperial cult in Smyrna date back to the Hellenistic period. It is a fact that political concerns were effective in the generation of such cults. Predicting the super power of the future and proving to be a loyal ally whilst acting in satisfactory behaviors were essential factors. The right preference made between two fighting or contending powers ensured that a city would benefit from various privileges in the future. For example, Symrna, which had established a cult in the city previously on behalf of Stratonice, the mother of Antiochus II of Seleucid dynasty, would do the same by building a temple in the name of the dty of Rome for the first time in Asia in 195 BC, after recognizing the rising power. Later on, while giving permission to the provinces that wanted to establish an imperial cult, the Roman emperors and the Senate would consider first, their relationships with Rome in the past and second, their origins. Smyrna, building its relationships with the Roman state on a solid basis, was granted the title of neokoros three times by the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Hadrianus and Caracalla, respectively. In this essay, the development of the Roman imperial cult in Smyrna is discussed within the historical process outlined above. An attempt has been made to put forth new opinions about the issue by discussing the academicians' evaluations on the imperial cult, which apparently was effectively executed in Smyrna between the first and third centuries AD, with the support of epigraphic and numismatic evidences.


2021 ◽  
Vol 90 ◽  
pp. 105-123
Author(s):  
Thaddeus Metz

AbstractOn the rise over the past 20 years has been ‘moderate supernaturalism’, the view that while a meaningful life is possible in a world without God or a soul, a much greater meaning would be possible only in a world with them. William Lane Craig can be read as providing an important argument for a version of this view, according to which only with God and a soul could our lives have an eternal, as opposed to temporally limited, significance since we would then be held accountable for our decisions affecting others’ lives. I present two major objections to this position. On the one hand, I contend that if God existed and we had souls that lived forever, then, in fact, all our lives would turn out the same. On the other hand, I maintain that, if this objection is wrong, so that our moral choices would indeed make an ultimate difference and thereby confer an eternal significance on our lives (only) in a supernatural realm, then Craig could not capture the view, aptly held by moderate supernaturalists, that a meaningful life is possible in a purely natural world.


2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 339-359
Author(s):  
Richard W. Hill ◽  
Daniel Coleman

This co-authored article examines the oldest known treaty between incoming Europeans and Indigenous North Americans to derive five basic principles to guide healthy, productive relationships between Indigenous community-based researchers and university-based ones. Rick Hill, Tuscarora artist and knowledge keeper from the Six Nations of the Grand River, publishes for the first time here the most complete oral history that exists today of that ancient treaty, from the early seventeenth century, known as the Two Row Wampum or the Covenant Chain agreement. Interspersed with Dr. Hill’s reflections, Daniel Coleman, a settler professor of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University, outlines five principles for research partnerships derived from the discussions of the Two Row Research Partnership seminars that Hill and Coleman have been hosting at Deyohahá:ge: Indigenous Knowledge Centre for the past four years. Formed between the Hodinöhsö:ni’ confederacy and Dutch merchants arriving near Albany, New York in 1609, the Two Row Wampum-Covenant Chain treaty set the precedent for nation-to-nation treaties between European colonial powers and Indigenous peoples with two parallel rows representing the Hodinöhsö:ni’ canoe and the Dutch ship sailing down the shared river. Each party agreed to keep their beliefs and laws in their separate vessels, and on this basis of interdependent autonomy, they established a long-lasting friendship. This article suggests that by renewing our understanding of the Two Row Wampum-Covenant Chain treaty, Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers alike can rebuild relationships of trust and cooperation that can decolonize Western presumptions and re-establish healthy and productive research partnerships.


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