Perspectives on Postwar Silence: Psychoanalysis, Political Philosophy, and Economic Theory

2011 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Jakob Norberg

Hannah Arendt and Alexander and Margarete Mitscherlich produced influential accounts of the postwar West-German population's silence or inarticuleteness. The Mitscherlichs claimed that this silence was symptomatic of a blocked process of mourning; Arendt saw it as a legacy of brutal totalitarian rule. However, both viewed the rapid economic recovery as evidence of the German inability to engage in discursively mediated therapeutic and political processes. Frantic busyness was a form of silence. This paper presents a critical reassessment of these approaches. By drawing on Albert Hirschman's theory of exit and voice, it argues that economic activity possesses a communicative dimension. The alleged retreat from politics is not a symptom of muteness but rather indicates people's preference for an alternative mode of communication. Arendt and the Mitscherlich may be right in assuming a correlation between the postwar economic recovery and ostensible political apathy, but lack the conceptual means to clarify the relationship.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bence Kiss-Dobronyi ◽  
Dora Fazekas ◽  
Hector Pollitt

AbstractThe article discusses how and why Green Recovery could be beneficial for the Visegrad countries based on a modelling exercise using the E3ME macroeconometric model. Green Recovery is defined as including policies in recovery plans that not only target economic recovery, but also contribute to environmental targets. The paper proposes that a Green Recovery could be valuable and suitable for the region contributing to both restoring employment and boosting economic activity as well as reaching climate goals. This is tested through a macroeconomic simulation, using the E3ME model. E3ME is built on Post-Keynesian economic theory and on econometric estimations of macroeconomic relationships. The results of the analysis focus on three dimensions: (1) social – employment, (2) environmental – level of CO2 emissions and (3) economic activity – gross domestic product (GDP). Outcomes indicate that a green recovery can shorten the time needed for employment and economic recovery as well as contributes to CO2 emission reductions. In Hungary, Czechia and Poland, the impact persists into the long-term; however, the paper also concludes that countries with high reliance on coal (e.g. Poland) could return to coal in the long term if no further policies are introduced.


2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 262-286
Author(s):  
Tamara Tkach ◽  
Anatoliy Tkach ◽  
Ivan Rekun

Introduction. The article is devoted to the issues of multidisciplinary interaction in new scientific fields, which involve a wide variety of convergences, no matter how strange at first glance they may seem. One of these phenomena is the interaction of psycholinguistics and neuroeconomics. The goal. The article examines the transition of modern science to multidisciplinary discourse, which makes it necessary to conceptualize and possibly operationalize methods of psycholinguistics. The conceptualization of new areas of neuroeconomics, in a psycholinguistic context, presupposes a certain mental experience that includes, in addition to the processes of creating new concepts and contextual economic knowledge, also defining the role of interests, intentions, emotions in human economic activity. Methods. Multivariate analysis, comparative analysis, extrapolation. Results. It is proved that in recent decades the development of new areas of economic science, namely those related to the development of neuroeconomics, has significantly expanded the field of psycholinguistics. The production of new paradigms of economic theory, the formation of the corresponding definitions, objects requires the design and definition of them both in form and in content. It considers the need for a theoretical and orderly definition of the functional meaning of the psycholinguistic context of new definitions, the result of which can be a conceptual system for communication between specialists in various fields of science at the level of their professional understanding. It seems that the central issues in the psycholinguistic discourse of neuroeconomics have become the relationship between economics, psychology, linguistics and psycholinguistics. Such connection is undoubtedly of a multidisciplinary nature, which contributes to the deepening of the relationship between scientific thought, culture and language and became the impetus for understanding the nature of human cognition at a higher, multidisciplinary level of development of science. This is a necessary component for understanding the meanings and structure of concepts, terms and definitions, as well as communications at a higher scientific level. Conclusions. It is concluded that new areas of neuroeconomics such as behavioral economics, behavioral finance, emotional economics, psychological economics, have become areas of economic theory that, explicitly or implicitly, take into account the psychological characteristics of human perception and behavior in the process of economic activity. These definitions catalyze the theoretical integration of various scientific fields, and, above all, psycholinguistic science.


Author(s):  
Inna Chuvychkina ◽  

The pandemic has had a negative impact on the socio-economic situation of many German citizens. Measures taken by government bodies to contain the spread of coronavirus infection significantly limit economic activity. The coronavirus crisis sets new challenges for the German federal government in terms of maintaining employment, stabilizing social security and strengthening the manufacturing sector. The paper examines the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic for the German economy and the prospects for its development. Pays special attention to the relationship between the rates of economic recovery and the quality of human capital.


Upravlenie ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petr Wawrosz ◽  
Radim Valenchik ◽  
Ondrei Roubal ◽  
Svetlana Sazanova

The development of modern economic theory is influenced by various factors of the external and internal environment. The factors of the external environment include: changes in the practice of economic entities, global economy, in the institutional environment, technological changes. The factors of the internal environment include: changes in the field of scientific knowledge in general, as well as changes in the methodology of economic science itself. The main driving force behind the development of economic theory is the evolution of economic paradigms, which has an impact on the methodological choice of researchers, their scientific worldview. An important component of human economic activity are economic communications, the essence and content of which have not been yet sufficiently studied from a theoretical point of view. Since economic communications are closely related to the behavior of economic agents, which affects, in turn, the results of economic activity, their study is an urgent task. The subject of research in the article is the relationship of economic paradigms and ideas about the essence of economic communication. The purpose of the article is to study the influence of the evolution of economic paradigms on the development of scientific ideas about economic communication. The authors have applies following research methods in the scientific paper: the method of rational reconstruction of science, the method of comparative analysis, the method of scientific abstraction and others. The relationship between the evolution of economic paradigms, theories of behavior of economic agents and the understanding of the role of economic communications in economic activity have been revealed. The authors investigated economic communications in the context of the theory of full, limited, procedural rationality, organic irrationality, as well as in the context of the theory of productive consumption. The main scientific results consist in identifying features in the understanding of the essence of economic communications from the point of view of various theories. The results obtained are the basis for the study of the systemic and humanistic foundations of economic communications, as well as the development of recommendations for improving economic communications.


2006 ◽  
pp. 79-95
Author(s):  
Petar Bojanic

Paraphrased within the title of this text is a note Hannah Arendt made in August 1952. After reading Carl Schmitt?s Nomos der Erde, Arendt tries to confront Schmitt?s idea of a just war. In the text I attempt to reconstruct Arendt?s readings of differing political philosophy texts within the context of her thinking concerning the relationship between violence and power, force and law. Arendt?s refusal to accept the existence of violence which can "conquer" freedom and "create" right and democracy, brings contradiction to the great tradition of the followers of Marx, to whom Arendt undoubtedly belongs: how is and is revolutionary violence even possible and does violence as resistance to injustice bring justice?.


Taxation ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 17-36
Author(s):  
Alan Hamlin

The modern economics literature provides three approaches to the analysis of taxation: one focused on the optimal balancing of a variety of normative considerations, a second focused on the relationship between taxation and (democratic) political processes, and a third focused on the possibility of constitutional limitations on the power to tax. This chapter outlines each of these approaches before discussing their compatibility and their implications for a more general normative political philosophy of taxation. It is argued that any coherent account of taxation in political philosophy should account for its non-ideal nature and draw on elements of all three economic approaches.


2003 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 281-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas A. Papandreou

Economic theory has generally acknowledged the role that institutions have in shaping economic space. The distinction, however, between physical and institutional descriptions of economic activity has not received adequate attention within the mainstream paradigm. In this paper I show how a proper distinction between the physical and institutional space in economic models will help clarify the concept of externality and provide a better interpretation of the relationship between externality and nonconvexity. I argue that within the Arrow-Debreu framework externality should be viewed as incongruence between the physical and institutional descriptions of the economic space. I also argue that, contrary to conventional wisdom, detrimental externality has no special association with nonconvexity. Starrett's (1972) fundamental nonconvexity has to do with the specific institutional structure of Arrow markets rather than the detrimental nature of externality. Indeed, Arrow markets may not eliminate externalities. In a similar vein, it is not detrimental externality, however intense, that causes the production possibility set to become nonconvex, as argued by Baumol and Bradford (1972), but the particular interpretation of intensity that would make even conventional production possibility sets nonconvex. These points become apparent when one distinguishes between the convexity of the physical and institutional production sets.


Author(s):  
Thomas J. Miceli

This article discusses the use of economic models for understanding law. It begins by describing the nature of economic models in general, and then turns to the specific application of economic models to law. It distinguishes between ‘economic analysis of law’, which concerns the use of economic theory for describing the incentive effects of legal rules (positive analysis) and for prescribing better rules (normative analysis); and ‘law and economics’, which concerns the relationship between law and markets as alternative institutions for organizing economic activity. The article concludes with some comments on the actual process of building economic models of law.


2014 ◽  
pp. 147-153
Author(s):  
P. Orekhovsky

The review outlines the connection between E. Reinert’s book and the tradition of structural analysis. The latter allows for the heterogeneity of industries and sectors of the economy, as well as for the effects of increasing and decreasing returns. Unlike the static theory of international trade inherited from the Ricardian analysis of comparative advantage, this approach helps identify the relationship between trade, production, income and population growth. Reinert rehabilitates the “other canon” of economic theory associated with the mercantilist tradition, F. Liszt and the German historical school, as well as a reconside ration of A. Marshall’s analysis of increasing returns. Empirical illustrations given in the book reveal clear parallels with the path of Russian socio-economic development in the last twenty years.


2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (8) ◽  
pp. 830-839
Author(s):  
E. Ya. Litau

Aim. The presented study examines and develops theoretical and methodological foundations that make it possible to distinguish innovative entrepreneurship among other economic phenomena.Tasks. The author identifies the specific features of entrepreneurship and its qualitative differences from other types of economic activity aimed at obtaining benefits, specifies the relationship between creative destruction and economic development, determines the attributes of innovative entrepreneurship.Methods. This study uses systematic analysis of professional literature on entrepreneurship to highlight the main attributes of entrepreneurial activity. The methodology of dialectical contradiction in its original Hegelian interpretation plays an important role in elaborating and substantiating the definition of entrepreneurship. The author considers innovative activity as creation of new values, which, according to the logic of dialectical development, destroy the old ones, triggering the process of economic development.Results. An approach to understanding the phenomenon of entrepreneurship is proposed, making it possible to distinguish this type of activity as significantly different from other types of economic activity, which may be externally similar but have different content. During the development of this approach, the concept of “anti-ideology” of entrepreneurship is introduced, which reflects the essence of innovative activity as a process of creative destruction. The necessary and sufficient attributes of entrepreneurial innovation are identified, making it possible to reflect the meaning of this phenomenon and verify this complex defining structural element in the system of economic relations. The study substantiates that the level of anti-ideology and public benefit can be used as criteria for assessing the significance of an entrepreneurial idea. A progressive model of anti-idea realization (PMA) is proposed based on the methodological principle. It can be used to develop an efficient system for evaluating startups within the framework of venture capitalism.Conclusions. Specification of the relationship between creative destruction and economic development is crucial to understanding the importance of innovative entrepreneurship. Each historical period creates its own demand for a specific type of entrepreneurs. The principle of anti-ideology, which lies at the heart of the PMA model, is key in identifying competitive commercial ideas, making it possible to focus resources and attention on projects that can make a significant contribution to economic development.


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