scholarly journals Banking on the Underworld. A Strictly Economic Appreciation of the Chinese Practice of Burning (Token) Money

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 32-45
Author(s):  
G. G. Preparata
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Exchange ◽  
Economic Surplus ◽  
The Gift

   The custom of burning mock-money as a symbolic offering of nutrients and sustenance to one's ancestors in the Afterlife is here analysed in terms of its economic meaning and significance. The theme is treated from two different angles. One is that of the political economy of the gift, which concerns itself with the final uses to which society conveys its economic surplus. The other is that of monetary institutionalism, which seeks to understand what the practice itself actually represents in light of the monetary arrangements that rule the economic exchange within the community itself. The thesis is that, at a first remove, the custom appears to fall into the category of “wasteful expenditure,” in that it is not manifestly conducive to any augmentation of the system's efficiency. But on a subtler level, it is not precisely so for two orders of reasons. First, because the custom is habitually accompanied by subsidiary donations; second, because, in this donative moment, the custom importantly reveals, through its conversion of real cash into “sacrificial” token-money, a constitutive yet hidden, property of money, namely its perishability.

The Political Economy of the Market

2020 ◽  
pp. 57-69
Author(s):  
Itir Ozer-Imer ◽  
Derya Guler Aydin
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Static Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Market Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Market Structures ◽  
Dynamic Framework ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Social Concerns

In the modern period, there are two concerns regarding the nature of the market. One is associated with market structures that involve solely the economic sphere and exclude all other factors including historical, social, and institutional ones. Hence, it conducts a static analysis, while the other relates the market process with all the aforementioned factors in addition to the economic ones, and therefore, combines economic and non-economic spheres, and the analysis becomes dynamic. This chapter scrutinizes the conceptualization of the market; that is whether the market is considered as a “structure” or a “process”. With this consideration, authors relate the conceptualization of the market with the type of competition. When the market is regarded as a “process”, it is possible to claim that market becomes an “institution”. Thus, by taking the market as an institution and considering competition within a dynamic framework, the emergent economic theoretical structure provides an in-depth, comprehensive, analytical, and novel approach to real economic and social concerns.

Political Economy of the Green Innovations in the Construction Industry

2021 ◽  
pp. 527-546
Author(s):  
Begum Sertyesilisik
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Construction Industry ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Environmental Footprint ◽  
Industry Needs

Green innovations are important in enhancing sustainability performance of the industries and of their outputs. They can influence the carbon emissions, energy efficiency of the industries affecting global green trade, and energy policies. Construction industry is one of the main industries contributing to the global economy and sustainable development. It has, however, bigger environmental footprint than majority of the other industries. Green innovations can contribute to the reduction in the environmental footprint of the construction industry. For this reason, green innovation in the construction industry needs to be supported by the effective policies. This chapter aims to introduce and investigate the political economy of the green innovations in the construction industry. This chapter emphasizes that the effectiveness of the green innovations in the construction industry can be fostered by effective political economy and strategies.

Constellations of Power and Authority in the Political Economy of Illegal Timber Extraction in BTAD, Assam

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 146-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anwesha Dutta ◽  
Bert Suykens
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Field Research ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Commodity Chain ◽  
Wildlife Protection ◽  
Authority Structure ◽  
Timber Trade ◽  
Preferential Access ◽  
Power And Authority

This article seeks to comprehend the way the illegal timber economy in the Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Council (BTAD) in Assam is integrated within a constellation of power and authority. Based on over ten months of ethnographic field research, our analysis shows that the timber trade is indeed characterized by what can be conceptualized as an excess of sovereignty. However, a burdened agency is still exercised by those in the timber trade. Moreover, the authority structure consisting of state, rebel and non-armed actors do not directly engage violently in the trade, but are more interested in taxation, governance, or indeed wildlife protection, showing the other side of this multiple authoruty structure. As the article shows, different ethnic groups, which are often thought to be diametrically opposed to each other, collaborate in the local timber commodity chain. However, these collaborations are characterized by highly unequal relations of exchange. As we argue, those that have preferential access to the authority structure can use this to dictate the terms of interaction. Finally, while the timber economy is usually characterized by the operation of the constellation of power and authority, there are interstitial moments where the (violent) interactions among the actors embeded in the structure weaken the direct territorial control by them. As a result, times of violence are often also those in which the trade can flourish.

The Political Economy of Trade Policy

1989 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 119-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E Baldwin
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
International Trade ◽  
Trade Policy ◽  
Machine Tools ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Social Concerns

International trade seems to be a subject where the advice of economists is routinely disregarded. Economists are nearly unanimous in their general opposition to protectionism, but the increase in U.S. protection in recent years in such sectors as automobiles, steel, textiles and apparel, machine tools, footwear and semiconductors demonstrates that economists lack political influence on trade policy. Two broad approaches have been developed to analyze the political economics of trade policy and the processes that generate protectionism. One approach emphasizes the economic self-interest of the political participants, while the other stresses the importance of the broad social concerns of voters and public officials. This paper outlines the nature of the two approaches, indicating how they can explain the above anomalies and other trade policy behavior, and concludes with observations about integrating the two frameworks, conducting further research, and making policy based on the analysis.

Critical legal studies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emilios Christodoulidis ◽  
Johan van der Walt
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
Social Production ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
Critical Legal Theory ◽  
The One

This chapter traces the tradition of critical theory in Europe in the way it has informed and framed legal thought. A key, and distinctive, element of this legal tradition is that it characteristically connects to the state as constitutive reference; in other words it understands the institution of law as that which organizes and mediates the relation of the state to civil society. The other constitutive reference is political economy, a reference that typically grounds this tradition of thinking about the law in the materiality of the practices of social production and reproduction. It is in these connections, of the institution of law to the domains of the state and of the political economy, that critical legal theory locates the function of law, and the emancipatory potentially it affords on the one hand, and the obstacles to emancipation it imposes, on the other.

A NATION OF BUREAUCRATS: POLITICAL PARTICIPATION AND ECONOMIC DIVERSIFICATION IN KUWAIT AND THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

2009 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 375-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Herb
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Diversification ◽  
Political Liberalization ◽  
Rentier States ◽  
High Level

Not long ago, two safe generalizations could be made about the Gulf monarchies: ruling families dominated their politics, and oil dominated their economies. In recent years that has begun to change. In Kuwait the parliament challenges the political predominance of the ruling family. Meanwhile, Dubai and, increasingly, the other emirates of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have made real progress in diversifying their economies away from oil—at least until the recent economic crisis. Yet political liberalization and economic diversification have not gone hand in hand: Kuwait's economy remains dependent on oil, and the United Arab Emirates remains resolutely authoritarian. This is no accident. Kuwait's high level of political participation encourages its dependence on oil while the UAE's economic diversification requires a lack of political participation by citizens. The reasons for this are specific to the peculiar political economy of these labor markets: in these richest of rentier-states, there is little need for the class compromise between capitalists and workers on which capitalist democracy usually rests.

The Free Press: Necessary Illusions

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 826-843
Author(s):  
John Charney
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
False Belief ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Free Press ◽  
The Press ◽  
The World ◽  
False Idea

This article claims that the relevance of the ‘truth argument’ to free speech theory is based on an illusion. According to some critical perspectives this illusion consists in the false belief that a free press is a proper means for the mediation of social reality. The Critique of the Political Economy of the Press attributes it to the modes of production of the press in capitalist systems. Some cultural theorists, on the other hand, claim that the press cannot adequately represent reality because reality is non-representable. Building upon but superseding these approaches, this article affirms that the illusion of the free press is not merely a false idea of what the press really is. The illusion is – in contrast – an epistemological necessity: we need the illusion of a free press in order to retain the belief of a correspondence between the world that appears through the press and that same world as it is in itself.

Exit, Voice and Values in Economic Institutions

1997 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Dawson
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Blood Donors ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Institutions ◽  
Political World ◽  
Economic Sphere ◽  
The Gift ◽  
Moral Superiority

Are there worthwhile values and ideals which flourish in the procedures of the state but wither in the transactions of the market? Are there equitable and fulfilling social relationships which are nurtured in the economic sphere but crumble in the political world? There is clearly some truth in the claim that at least in certain circumstances market systems inculcate in people not only ‘honesty and diligence, but also sensitivity to the needs and preferences of others’ (Gray, 1992, p. 24). On the other hand, it is difficult to deny the appeal of a tradition of thought which attaches moral superiority to the non-market ideals and values epitomised in the gift relationship. Titmuss (1970), for example, objected to treating blood as a commodity in part because it undermined the sense of fraternity or community which a system of voluntary blood donors enhanced. A contemporary statement of this position holds that gift values differ from commodity values in being ‘tokens of love, admiration, respect, honor, and so forth, and consequently lose their value when they are provided for merely self-interested reasons’ (Anderson, 1990, p. 203).

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