Autorytarna merytokracja — zarys modelu i jego legitymizacja na przykładzie Chin

The article analyses the model of authoritarian meritocracy and its legitimisation on the example of the Chinese People’s Republic. The discussed model is based on three principles: 1. power is exercised by a monoparticle elite that legitimises its position on the basis of moral and substantive criteria; 2. patriarchal and anti-democratic governance; 3. the authorities’ policy aims to meet the material needs of citizens, but without granting them political rights. The Communist Party of China in its official narrative, on the one hand, refers to the assumptions of Maoism, but on the other hand, to a much greater extent — especially in the field of economic cases and the operation of the administrative apparatus — to the Confucian tradition. The model of authoritarian meritocracy in China should be treated as an ongoing experiment, whose final shape has a much more local nature than universal one, which it tries to claim. Nevertheless, the economic success and rapid modernization progress of the “Central State” undermined the theses formulated in the West after 1989 that economic development must be accompanied by the implementation of liberal democracy principles. For this reason, the Chinese authoritarian meritocracy may be perceived as a real alternative to the existing hegemonic vision of the West — the need to combine a free market economy with political freedoms and autonomy of individuals.

Investment in Agriculture and Increasing Its Efficiency

Annotation: Investments are made in any socio-economic formations. Because they are spent on strengthening the state, the industry, enterprises, and, finally, the economic base of the population. It is an objective necessity to invest in the development of agriculture in the Republic of Uzbekistan, where a free market economy is gradually being formed. In this article, we will learn about investment and capital investment in agriculture and how to increase their efficiency. Keywords: investments, population, efficiency, capital investments.

Social Mobility and Political Regimes: Intergenerational Mobility in Hungary, 1949–2017

This paper measures social mobility rates in Hungary during the period 1949 to 2017, using surnames to measure social status. In those years, there were two very different social regimes. The first was the Hungarian People’s Republic (1949–1989), which was a communist regime with an avowed aim of favouring the working class. The second is the modern liberal democracy (1989–2017), which is a free-market economy. We find five surprising things. First, social mobility rates were low for both upper- and lower-class families during 1949–2017, with an underlying intergenerational status correlation of 0.6–0.8. Second, social mobility rates under communism were the same as in the subsequent capitalist regime. Third, the Romani minority throughout both periods showed even lower social mobility rates. Fourth, the descendants of the eighteenth-century noble class in Hungary were still significantly privileged in 1949 and later. And fifth, although social mobility rates did not change measurably during the transition, the composition of the political elite changed rapidly and sharply.

Several Unfavorable Estimates on African Americans Implicate Poverty: Need for More Understanding and Participating in the Market Economy

This empirical study references estimates of the critical economic misery indices such as unemployment, incarceration, poverty purchasing power disparity to present the stunted economic status of African American in the contemporary free market economy.  Most especially, the estimates of the unemployment present that African American is in an economic depression when the white is in an economic recession. These estimates have led a disproportional purchasing power disparity faced by the group. The study encourages elevated market entrepreneurship, business partnership, and education to minimize the misery economic indices. 

Competition and Antitrust Law: A Very Short Introduction

Competition and Antitrust Law: A Very Short Introduction draws on case studies from across the EU and USA to examine the benefits of competition and the laws which safeguard competitive markets. Competitive markets deliver lower prices, better quality, abundance of choice, and increased innovation. But while competition benefits consumers, it can prove challenging for sellers and producers who may try to dampen the competitive process. This VSI elucidates the key challenges to competition — cartels and anti-competitive agreements, monopolies, and mergers — and looks at the policy considerations which affect competition law enforcement. There exists a delicate relationship between a free market economy and government intervention.

The Problem of Dualistic Worldviews in a Season of Climate Change

This article addresses the dualistic worldview surrounding climate change to be found among evangelicals in the United States. Since the majority of the traditionalist American evangelicals identify themselves with the Republican party, their views towards climate change tends to be highly skeptical: they tend to favour policies that protect the free-market economy. The Cornwall Alliance and its evangelical constituency, in particular, has provided a ground for a critical discussion concerning an association of Christian faith with conservative political ideologies from a particular biblical viewpoint. The key framework in the Alliance’s theological claims against environmentalism in general is an assumed dualism. This interpretive lens increases political bias/prejudice thereby impeding constructive discussion and a much needed co-operation between parties in the era of climate change.

To the subject of detecting the attributes of cartel collusions in proofing of illegal ceasing of competition

Sustainability of free market economy is stipulated by positive competitive environment which presupposes the relationships among different ventures and entrepreneurs, achieving their individual goals. According to this legislation restricts any illegal interactions, violating Antimonopolistic Law and ceasing the competition. The analyzing of investigating and courts practice of such criminal cases reveals certain complications, concerned with detection and proofing of cartel collusions. Thus, the investigation needs to define, clarify and evaluate all the points and attributes of cartel itself and illegal collusion. The main features are: special subjective structure of participants; coordination and coherence of all participants in common illegal intentions; achieving of common goals for criminal subjects. Herewith, the organizing role considering as the particular attribute of cartel collusions.

Is archaeology conceivable within the degrowth movement?

Since the 1980s, archaeology has been further embedded in a reinforced and accelerating capitalist ideology, namely neo-liberalism. Most archaeologists had no alternative but to adapt to it through concessions to the free-market economy and to the so-called mitigations taking place within development. However, it is now apparent that the ongoing global socio-ecological disaster we are facing cannot be reversed with compromises but rather with a radical engagement against the injunctions of competition and growth. I suggest that we must anticipate the necessary transformations of archaeology in the coming decades, before archaeology becomes a technical avatar of the neo-liberal dogma, or before its complete annihilation for being deemed ‘superfluous’ (Wurst 2019, 171) by the capitalist regime. In this paper, I will use the idea of ‘degrowth’ to propose a new paradigm for archaeology by applying the concepts of civil disobedience, voluntary simplicity, redistribution of means and the ethics of no-growth.