Tales from Albarado

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Smoki Musaraj
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Market Reforms ◽  
Global Capital ◽  
Neoliberal Capitalism ◽  
Economic Formation ◽  
Free Market Reforms ◽  
Transnational Social Networks ◽  
Financial Practices

This book revisits times of excitement and loss in early 1990s Albania, in which about a dozen pyramid firms collapsed and caused the country to fall into anarchy and a near civil war. To gain a better understanding of how people from all walks of life came to invest in these financial schemes and how these schemes became intertwined with everyday transactions, dreams, and aspirations, the book looks at the materiality, sociality, and temporality of financial speculations at the margins of global capital. It argues that the speculative financial practices of the schemes were enabled by official financial infrastructures (such as the postsocialist free-market reforms), by unofficial economies (such as transnational remittances), as well as by historically specific forms of entrepreneurship, transnational social networks, and desires for a European modernity. Overall, these granular stories of participation in the Albanian schemes help understand neoliberal capitalism as a heterogeneous economic formation that intertwines capitalist and noncapitalist forms of accumulation and investment.

State, Market and Neoliberalism in Post-Transition Argentina: The Menem Experiment

1991 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 45-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
William C. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Washington Consensus ◽  
Market Reforms ◽  
Economic Decline ◽  
Consumer Prices ◽  
Economic Collapse ◽  
Free Market Reforms

Argentines Fervently hoped that the transition from authoritarianism to democracy would reverse decades of economic decline and return their country to the path of modernization. Raúl Alfonsín and his Radical party assumed office in December 1983 confident of reconciling democratization with rapid development and social justice. This optimism was soon shattered, the victim of a succession of failed stabilization plans. Finally, a catastrophic economic collapse led to a convincing victory by Peronist Carlos Menem in the May 1989 presidential contest.Carlos Menem assumed the presidency on 8 July 1989 in the midst of raging hyperinflation: from August 1988 through July 1989, consumer prices had risen 3,610% and wholesale prices had skyrocketed 5,062%. Menem responded with neoliberal, “free-market” reforms designed to restructure radically the beleaguered Argentine economy along the lines of the so-called “Washington Consensus.”

Corporatism and Democratic Transition: State and Labor during the Salinas and Zedillo Administrations

2002 ◽  
Vol 44 (04) ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
James G. Samstad
Keyword(s):  
Transition State ◽  
Labor Relations ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Democratic Consolidation ◽  
Market Reforms ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
Free Market Reforms ◽  
Ruling Party ◽  
Practical Level ◽  
New System

Abstract A long process of free-market reforms and gradual democratization seems to be dismantling Mexico's corporatist system of labor representation. A thorough analysis of the country's corporatist institutions yields theoretical reasons to believe that Mexico's practice of labor relations is indeed changing. An empirical examination of the nation's labor congress and ruling party during the two previous presidential administrations (1988–2000) demonstrates that corporatism is being transformed at a practical level, although the process of reform has been complex and uneven at best. The continuing strength of an officialist labor sector will complicate the task of establishing a new system of labor representation, a problem that may have important implications for future democratic consolidation.

scholarly journals Editorial: Austerity and some contemporary challenges for professionalism

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-14
Author(s):  
Nigel Malin
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Economic Organization ◽  
Market Reforms ◽  
Economic Pressure ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Capitalist Economy ◽  
Welfare Benefits ◽  
Free Market Reforms

The early post cold-war consensus - that bourgeois democracy has solved the riddle of history and a global capitalist economy will usher in worldwide prosperity and peace - lies in tatters; but no plausible alternatives of political and economic organization are in sight (Mishra, 2013). Globalisation has everywhere rapidly weakened older forms of authority. ‘Conservatives’ institute revolutionary free-market ‘reforms’; meanwhile technocrats slash employment and welfare benefits, and immiserate entire societies and generations. Both main UK political parties - Conservative and Labour - advocate continued austerity, albeit for the latter it has been defined as ‘austerity-lite’, with a mainstream position arguing for a slower reduction of debt, involving some combinations of spending and tax adjustments that would depend on the growth of the economy and tax revenues. This position however has proved to be not uncomfortable with people becoming very rich – putting the blame for the crash and the economic pressure for a recovery from the crash, on labour rather than the greed, avarice and shady practices of capital.

Tolerating Economic Reform: Popular Support for Transition to a Free Market in the Former Soviet Union

1993 ◽  
Vol 87 (3) ◽  
pp. 590-608 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond M. Duch
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Market Reform ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Market Reforms ◽  
Popular Support ◽  
Market Culture ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Free Market Reforms

The mass public in the Soviet Union is not enthusiastic about free-market reform. How, then, do citizens in a former communist regime develop an appreciation for free-market reforms? Different explanations for attitudes toward free market reforms are tested using data from a survey of the European USSR conducted in May 1990. First, negative assessments of recent economic performance is a catalyst for popular support for the market economy. Although very underdeveloped, there is a nascent free-market culture in the Soviet Union that makes a modest contribution to support for free-market reforms. The free-market culture that is developing in the former Soviet Union resembles that of social democracy, rather than laissez-faire capitalism. Democratic values and support for free markets are mutually reinforcing, suggesting that support for democracy makes a very important contribution to support for free-market reform.

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