scholarly journals Neoliberal Cricketing Subjects in Contemporary India: The State-Market Dichotomy in Two Cricket Movies

Author(s):  
Rakesh Ramamoorthy ◽  

This essay examines the ways in which two popular cricket movies from India — the Hindi movie Iqbal (2005) and the Tamil movie Jeeva (2014) — validate the tenets of “roll-back neoliberalism” (Peck and Tickell 2002), an ideology that calls for the withdrawal of State-regulatedwelfare mechanisms in favour of free market capitalism. The protagonists of these movies are talented cricketers from underprivileged backgrounds, and they are excluded from regional and national teams by corrupt cricket board officials. This essay critiques a common story arc that these narratives share: the protagonists are quintessentially neoliberal entrepreneurial subjects who overcome the marginalization through adept exploitation of commercial potential of the sport. The argument is that the discursive delegitimization of State intervention in cricket, and the concomitant framing of the free market as a progressive and inclusive entity, are disempowering for the cricketing public. While a State-regulated sporting culture does have its exclusionary aspects, this essay contends, contrapuntally, that the neoliberal validation of the free-market rationale can be problematic in that it absolves the State of the responsibility of fostering an inclusive cricketing culture. This study thus offers a contingent and strategic endorsement of the Indian State’s intervention in the nation‘s cricketing cultures.

This book critically reflects on the failure of the 2003 intervention to turn Iraq into a liberal democracy, underpinned by free-market capitalism, its citizens free to live in peace and prosperity. The book argues that mistakes made by the coalition and the Iraqi political elite set a sequence of events in motion that have had devastating consequences for Iraq, the Middle East and for the rest of the world. Today, as the nation faces perhaps its greatest challenge in the wake of the devastating advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and another US-led coalition undertakes renewed military action in Iraq, understanding the complex and difficult legacies of the 2003 war could not be more urgent. Ignoring the legacies of the Iraq War and denying their connection to contemporary events could mean that vital lessons are ignored and the same mistakes made again.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (38) ◽  
Author(s):  
Luiz Carlos Buchain

 Intervenção do estado na economia e direito da concorrência Intervention of the state in the economy and competition law Luiz Carlos Buchain *  REFERÊNCIA BUCHAIN, Luiz Carlos. Intervenção do estado na economia e direito da concorrência. Revista da Faculdade de Direito da UFRGS, Porto Alegre, n. 38, p. 178-198, ago. 2018. RESUMOABSTRACTO texto trata da intervenção do Estado na ordem econômica. Considerando-se que o mercado perfeito é uma hipótese teórica e que o mercado apresenta “falhas no mercado”, o legislador constitucional autoriza a intervenção do Estado na economia. De um lado o Estado poderá ser agente econômico e explorar diretamente a economia, sempre que essa atividade seja necessária aos “imperativos de segurança nacional” e, de outro, o Estado intervém indiretamente na economia como agente normativo e regulador da atividade econômica. Analisa-se a possibilidade de intervenção do Estado na econômica em face dos princípios de livre iniciativa e livre concorrência. Enquanto a livre iniciativa representa a liberdade de produção e distribuição de bens e serviços, a livre concorrência representa um “princípio econômico”, segundo o qual a produção e os preços das mercadorias e serviços não devem resultar de atos cogentes da autoridade, mas sim do livre mercado. Entretanto, seja como agente regulador, seja como empresário, ao Estado compete garantir a eficácia da livre iniciativa e defesa da ordem concorrencial. A intervenção regulamentar do Estado na economia não o autoriza a agir contra o livre exercício da atividade econômica ou com desrespeito aos princípios da livre iniciativa e legalidade. Mesmo nas hipóteses em que a lei concede ao Estado liberdade aos seus atos, este está submetido ao fundamento da livre iniciativa e ao princípio da livre concorrência, sob pena de responsabilidade civil objetiva. The paper deals with the intervention of the State in the economic order. Considering that the perfect market is a theoretical hypothesis and that the market presents "market failures", the constitutional legislator authorizes the intervention of the State in the economy. On the one hand, the State can be an economic agent and act on the economy directly whenever this activity is necessary to the "imperatives of national security" and, on the other hand, the State intervenes indirectly in the economy as a normative agent and regulator of economic activity. It analyzes the possibility of state intervention in the economy in the face of the principles of free initiative and free competition. While free enterprise represents the freedom to produce and distribute goods and services, free competition represents an "economic principle" according to which the production and prices of goods and services should not be the result of acts of binding authority but of the free market. However, whether as a regulatory agent or as an entrepreneur, the State is responsible for guaranteeing the effectiveness of free initiative and the defense of the competitive order. The State's regulatory intervention in the economy does not authorize it to act against the free exercise of economic activity or with disrespect to the principles of free initiative and rule of law. Even in cases where the law grants the State freedom to act, it is subject to the principle of free initiative and to the principle of free competition, under penalty of objective civil liability.PALAVRAS-CHAVEKEYWORDSLivre iniciativa. Livre concorrência. Intervenção do Estado na economia. Responsabilidade civil objetiva.Free initiative. Free competition. State intervention in the economy. Objective civil liability.* Professora adjunto da Faculdade de Direito da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. Doutorado em Direito Econômico na Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. Advogado.


2019 ◽  
pp. 143-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rainer Kattel ◽  
Ines Mergel

Estonia’s transition to free-market capitalism and liberal democracy is marked by three distinct features: economic success, digital transformation of its public sector, and a rapid increase and persistence of social inequality in Estonia. Indeed, Estonia has become one of the most unequal societies in Europe. Economic success and increasing social inequality can be explained as different sides of the same coin: a neoliberal policy mix opened markets and allowed globalization to play out its drama on a domestic stage, creating winners and losers. Yet Estonia has been highly successful in its digital agenda. Particularly interesting is how the country’s public sector led the digital transformation within this highly neoliberal policy landscape. While within economic policy, Estonia did indeed follow the famed invisible hand in rapidly liberalizing markets, in ICT, Estonia seems to have followed an entirely different principle of policymaking. In this domain, policy has followed the principle of the hiding hand, coined by Albert Hirschman: policy-makers sometimes take on tasks they think they can solve without realizing all the challenges and risks involved— and this may result in unexpected learning and creativity. The success of Estonia’s e-government has much to do with the principle of the hiding hand: naïvety and optimism propelled initial ‘crazy ideas’ in the early 1990s to become ingrained in ICT policy, enabling the creation of multiple highly cooperative and overlapping networks that span public–private boundaries.


Author(s):  
Jan Bryant

This chapter traces the tactics used by the art Slovenian collective, Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK), specifically the art section, Irwin and the music group, Laibach, to criticise the socialist state of Yugoslavia. The chapter offers a brief overview of the political climate at the time leading up to and during the Yugoslavian wars (1980s and ‘90s). Closely analysed is NSK’s use of ambiguity and parody to hold a mirror up to authoritarianism and Irwin’s appropriation of early Russian avant-garde motifs to criticise socialist-realism and the State’s ‘misuse’ of art. As protection against retaliation by the state, NSK never prescribed their intentions, so audiences and viewers needed to bring their own context and perspective to events. Once Slovenia left the Yugoslavian Federation to enter into free-market capitalism, NSKs tactics seemed far less potent, flowing neatly into a 1980s western art context (a moment in history) that embraced ambivalence and indeterminacy. As an approach that hides a work’s political intent, allowing its viewers to have their own political views affirmed, it is argued that such a tactic fails to shake the political aesthetic. [181]


Author(s):  
Joshua Armstrong

This chapter reads Lydie Salvayre's Portrait de l’écrivain en animal domestique (2007). In this novel, Salvayre’s anxieties about allowing oneself—and even herself as author—to be domesticated by the logic of global capitalism are condensed into the pathological relationship between her narrator avatar (who incarnates politically-engaged literature) and the satirical Jim Tobold, the richest man on the planet and ‘uncontested champion of globalization’—a character who, incidentally, bears more than a passing resemblance to Donald Trump. Tobold sees the world at the level of the master, corporate map, from which he can make boardroom decisions in perfect disregard for their harmful, ground-level side effects. This chapter revisits and further explores Bruno Latour on cartographic megalomania, and draws on Fredric Jameson on cognitive mapping, and David Harvey on the self-defeating contradictions of the infinite expansion paradigm of capitalism in a world of increasingly finite resources. Moreover, it develops the Salvaryean notion of the paralipomenon, offering a new perspective on Salvayre’s underlying (engaged) literary strategy, one that, by focusing on the seemingly insignificant details of a hegemonic discourse—such as that of free-market capitalism—reveals its inherent contradictions and flaws.


2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leo Panitch

AbstractGiovanni Arrighi made a remarkably broad-ranging and original contribution to comparative political economy and historical sociology over five decades. His last book shares these qualities. But Adam Smith in Beijing is unfortunately not mainly about the origins and dynamics of Chinese capitalism over the past three decades. It presents Adam Smith not as the apostle of free-market capitalism, but rather of a ‘non-capitalist market society’; and it uses this to make the case that since China’s economic development takes place outside the European/North American capitalist ‘core’, it must, almost by definition, not be capitalist. Markets are conceived here as the instruments of states, yet the theory of the state advanced is severely undeveloped. Arrighi’s argument that China’s economic development is part and parcel of the demise of the US project for establishing itself as the ‘world state’ misinterprets the nature of the US empire as well as misses the extent of China’s integration with US-led capitalist globalisation.


2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Atencio ◽  
Becky Beal ◽  
Emily Chivers Yochim

The recent emergence of “skurban” (the fusion of skateboarding and urban) reflects the racially diverse history and culture of skateboarding within urban areas in the United States. Skurban follows on from skateboarding’s integral link with the urban since the 1980s. We aver that urban skateboarding is now underpinned by proliferating racial formations that reproduce a version of masculine authenticity that is highly marketable. Through our interrogation of two mainstream media skate videos featuring Stevie Williams and Paul Rodriguez, we propose that skurban reflects the ascendancy of highly valued urban racial masculinities. These masculinities enhance youth and action sport brand marketing strategies. Simultaneously, these diverse racial masculinities gain currency in alignment with discourses of individual entrepreneurialism, “free market” capitalism, and multicultural notions of diversity.


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