scholarly journals Immanuel Wallerstein: History of Capitalism, Global Inequality and World Revolution

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 390-432
Author(s):  
Karel Černý
Keyword(s):  
Global Inequality ◽  
History Of Capitalism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Immanuel Wallerstein

The Dilemma between Aligned Expectations and Diversity in Innovation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timur Ergen
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
Historical Case ◽  
History Of Capitalism ◽  
Synthetic Fuel ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Technology Policies ◽  
Lock In ◽  
Innovation Processes

This chapter brings together arguments from economics, sociology, and political economy to show that innovation processes are characterized by a dilemma between the advantages of aligned expectations—including greater coordination and investment—and those of diversity, including superior openness to new technological possibilities. To illustrate the argument, the chapter discusses a historical case involving one of the largest coordinated peace-time attempts to hasten technological innovation in the history of capitalism, namely the US energy technology policies of the 1970s and 1980s. Close examination of the commercialization of photovoltaics and synthetic fuel initiatives illustrates both sides of the dilemma between shared versus diverse expectations in innovation: coordination but possible premature lock-in on the one hand, and openness but possible stagnation on the other. The chapter shows that even the exploration and interpretation of new technologies may be as much a product of focused investment as of trial-and-error search.

Capitalisms

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Tenth Century ◽  
History Of Capitalism ◽  
Commodity Production ◽  
Production And Distribution ◽  
History Of ◽  
National Boundaries ◽  
Small Producers ◽  
Circulation Of Knowledge ◽  
Industrial Revolutions

Conventional accounts often conceive the genesis of capitalism in Europe within the conjunctures of agricultural, commercial, and industrial revolutions. Challenging this widely believed cliché, this volume traces the history of capitalism across civilizations, tenth century onwards, and argues that capitalism was neither a monolithic entity nor exclusively an economic phenomenon confined to the West. Looking at regions as diverse as England, South America, Russia, North Africa, and East, South, West, and Southeast Asia, the book explores the plurality of developments across time and space. The chapters analyse aspects such as historical conjunctures, commodity production and distribution, circulation of knowledge and personnel, and the role of mercantile capital, small producers, and force—all the while stressing the necessity to think beyond present-day national boundaries. The book argues that the multiple histories of capitalism can be better understood from a trans-regional, intercontinental, and interconnected perspective.

scholarly journals “A Superior Kind of Working Woman”: The Contested Meaning of Vocational Education for Girls in Progressive Era Chicago

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 392-410
Author(s):  
Ruby Oram
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Vocational Education ◽  
Progressive Era ◽  
Female Students ◽  
Male Students ◽  
School Officials ◽  
History Of Capitalism ◽  
New School ◽  
Club Women ◽  
History Of

AbstractProgressive Era school officials transformed public education in American cities by teaching male students trades like foundry, carpentry, and mechanics in classrooms outfitted like factories. Historians have demonstrated how this “vocational education movement” was championed by male administrators and business leaders anxious to train the next generation of expert tradesmen. But women also hoped vocational education could prepare female students for industrial careers. In the early twentieth century, members of the National Women’s Trade Union League demanded that public schools open trade programs to female students and teach future working women the history of capitalism and the philosophy of collective bargaining. Their ambitious goals were tempered by some middle-class reformers and club women who argued vocational programs should also prepare female students for homemaking and motherhood. This article uses Chicago as a case study to explore how Progressive Era women competed and collaborated to reform vocational education for girls, and how female students responded to new school programs designed to prepare them for work both in and outside the home.

Review: Zola: The History of Capitalism

2003 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 410-411
Author(s):  
R. Lethbridge
Keyword(s):  
History Of Capitalism ◽  
History Of

scholarly journals Manufacturing Germans: Singer Manufacturing Company and American Capitalism in the Russian Imagination during World War I

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
BENJAMIN SAWYER
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Business Model ◽  
International Business ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of Capitalism ◽  
American Capitalism ◽  
History Of ◽  
National Affiliation ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
The Russian Empire

Just months after the outbreak of World War I, rumors spread throughout the Russian Empire that Singer Manufacturing Company’s wholly owned Russian subsidiary, Kompaniia Zinger, was a German company that was actively engaged in espionage on behalf of the German military. Even though these rumors were untrue, they unleashed a wave of actions against the company that Singer’s officials were unable to stop, ultimately leading to tremendous losses for the firm. The central argument of this article is that the power of the accusations of Singer’s German ties rested far more on the nature of the company’s business model than on the national affiliation of its personnel or evidence of espionage. In the context of World War I–era Russia, many Russians took Singer’s operations not as those of an international capitalist enterprise, but rather as evidence of the company’s questionable foreign character. This perspective helps us to understand why Singer’s management had such difficulty shaking the accusations of its German ties; if what was suspicious about the company was the very foundation of its business model, then its continued operation meant that it necessarily exhibited characteristics that reinforced the basis for said suspicion. These findings have implications for international business history, the history of late-Tsarist Russia, and the history of capitalism.

scholarly journals Capital as Process and the History of Capitalism

2017 ◽  
Vol 91 (3) ◽  
pp. 483-510 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Levy
Keyword(s):  
Physical Factor ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
History Of Capitalism ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
American Capitalism ◽  
Core Dynamics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Economic ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Many Core

In the wake of the Great Recession, a new cycle of scholarship opened on the history of American capitalism. This occurred, however, without much specification of the subject at hand. In this essay, I offer a conceptualization of capitalism, by focusing on its root—capital. Much historical writing has treated capital as a physical factor of production. Against such a “materialist” capital concept, I define capital as a pecuniary process of forward-looking valuation, associated with investment. Engaging recent work across literatures, I try to show how this conceptualization of capital and capitalism helps illuminate many core dynamics of modern economic life.

The Risk-Taking Character of Wilderness Reading

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Belden C. Lane
Keyword(s):  
Karl Marx ◽  
British Museum ◽  
Zagros Mountains ◽  
History Of Capitalism ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
The Gift ◽  
History Of ◽  
Eldridge Cleaver ◽  
Prison Camp

Spiritual reading can be dangerous. I’m not talking about the devotional pabulum you find in most religious bookstores, but the truly risky stuff—from Hāfez and Eckhart to Toni Morrison and Oscar Romero. This is especially true of the spiritual “classics,” says theologian David Tracy. They confront us with the disturbing notion that “something else might be the case.” They haunt us with fundamental questions, overthrowing our previous ways of viewing the world. Reading a potentially dangerous book in a landscape perceived to be dangerous can be doubly hazardous. The place heightens the vulnerability occasioned by the text. Challenging books lose their bite when they’re read comfortably at home in a favorite armchair. Their riskiness increases, however, when read by firelight in a forest glade, ten miles from the nearest road. The place where you encounter a book indelibly affects the way you receive it. Claus Westermann read the Psalms in a Russian prison camp, discovering patterns that changed his life as well as his approach to biblical scholarship. Eldridge Cleaver read Thomas Merton in Folsom Prison. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn read Dostoyevsky in a Soviet cancer ward. Karl Marx read the history of capitalism in the elegance of the British Museum. Potentially revolutionary changes occur when people read explosive texts in unsettling places. The stories of the saints are filled with instances of this. Isaac of Nineveh’s world was turned upside down as he read the Scriptures in the desert solitude of the Zagros Mountains in sixth-century Persia. He allegedly made himself blind through his constant pondering of the tear-stained pages. Near the end of his life, Francis of Assisi read the story of Christ’s passion not simply from the pages of the Gospels, but from the huge, split rocks atop Mt. La Verna. He said these cracks had appeared on Good Friday when the stones on Calvary were also rent. He experienced their truth in the opening of wounds in his body through the gift of the stigmata. The mountainous terrain and his body’s interaction with it became active participants in his reading of the text.

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