Capital,conflict and convergence: a political understanding of neoliberalism and its relationship to capitalist transformation

ABSTRACT

In this article we argue against influential analyses of neoliberalism that prioritize variegation and the role of ideas as key theoretical foci relevant to understanding neoliberalism’s diffusion into myriad national and political settings. Rather, we contend that crucial to understanding neoliberalism is the role of politically-produced convergence around market rationality that reflects two core processes: the reorganization of production and the ascendency of financialization. We present a theorization and analysis of neoliberalism’s political production and diffusion over time, explaining its contested evolution and impact across diverse settings (both ‘North’ and ‘South’) and emphasizing its ever-intensifying symbiotic relationship with the consolidating world market in which the former has increasingly come to serve as the latter’s operating system (OS). Further, we posit that neoliberalism’s form, function and impact demand analytically prioritizing the leverage of constellations of ideological and material interests within the contradictory context of consolidating relations of production and financialization. Our analysis thus challenges many previous expositions of neoliberalism for their failure to locate neoliberalism’s manifestation as arising out of social conflict within particular junctures that privilege certain social forces and ideas over others. We also distinguish our position by highlighting how manifestations of neoliberalism in various settings have combined to yield a greater world market in which variegation has gradually given way to ever-intensifying disciplinary pressures towards market-policy conformity (mono-policy). While current populist movements may well turn out to be important counter movements to neoliberal hegemony, especially if they can internationalize, the disciplining effect of the world market renders many nationally-oriented policy alternatives costly and politically fraught.     

Finance Capital and the Water Crisis: Insights from Mexico

This paper explores how finance capitalism materializes as socio-ecological process, shedding light on the complex causalities in which current shifts in control over natural resources are embedded. Housing is a critical aspect of financialization. A case study of the financialized housing sector in Central Mexico shows (i) how housing policy serves as a mechanism for the redistribution of wealth from the working class to global finance capital, and (ii) how mortgage-financed housing projects come into being only through an existing water governance regime, while in turn leading to new structures of groundwater governance with profound social and ecological implications. The paper concludes that current accumulation and natural resource regimes interact in complex and contradictory ways that go beyond straightforward resource grabbing. It suggests that Moore’s concept of ‘capitalism in the web of life’ could help to understand how finance capitalism simultaneously transforms the socio-natural world and is produced by it.     

Philanthrocapitalism as a Neoliberal (Development Agenda) artefact: philanthropic discourse and hegemony in (financing for) international development*

ABSTRACT

Based on a critical analysis of the structurally neoliberal financing for development (FfD) system established by the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, this article contributes to the literature that views the 2030 Agenda as a new phase of the Neoliberal Development Agenda (NDA), which has been consolidated as hegemonic within the international development (ID) field in recent decades. Additionally, considering philanthrocapitalism as an ideological framework that proposes its own diagnoses and prognoses, we analyse various discourses of relevant Philanthrocapitalist Institutions and International Organizations to point how they legitimate themselves. This article shows how philanthrocapitalism has been constituted not only as a key element within the current model of FfD but also as a genuine neoliberal artefact designed to encapsulate the NDA apparatus, and fostered by the discourse of international agencies to contribute to the meta-objective of consolidating the neoliberal model as hegemonic in the ID arena.     

实体企业扩大金融活动能够降低财务风险吗?

近年来,资本的逐利性导致许多实体企业"脱实向虚",引发了一系列风险问题.基于2007—2019年A股上市公司数据,实证检验了实体企业扩大金融活动对财务风险的影响.研究发现:我国实体企业扩大金融活动会加剧财务风险;特别是对高财务风险和主业具有竞争优势的实体企业,这种效应更加显著.机制分析结果显示,融资约束在企业扩大金融活动与财务风险关系中发挥了部分中介效用.进一步研究发现,企业配置金融产品的流动性水平不同,企业的产权性质不同,实体企业扩大金融活动对财务风险的影响均存在差异.因此,政府应继续深化供给侧结构性改革,完善引导经济"脱虚入实"的相关政策;企业应聚焦主业,着力发挥金融服务于主业的积极作用.     

商品金融化下大宗商品价格对股市的影响：一个文献综述

随着商品指数基金大量涌入大宗商品衍生品市场,大宗商品的金融化程度不断提高,不同类别商品价格变化之间的相关性以及与金融资产的价格联动不断提高。在商品金融化这一现实背景下,分类综述了能源与非能源商品价格影响股票市场的国内外文献,发现大宗商品价格变化对股票市场的影响模式发生了变化,尤其是次贷危机所带来金融动荡对这种影响模式的冲击较大。     

我国粮食安全与农业“走出去”

粮食安全关系国计民生,农业"走出去"作为增加粮食供给的重要途径,能够有效保障粮食安全。通过分析目前影响我国粮食安全的国际和国内因素,在实地调研我国海外粮食开发重点企业的基础上,挖掘了农业"走出去"在保障粮食安全方面遇到的问题和挑战。据此本文提出在党中央十八大精神的指引下,借鉴发达国家海外开发的成功经验,发挥政府宏观调控和细微支持的功能,降低"走出去"企业的风险,实施更加积极主动的开放战略,更好的保障粮食安全。     

How Do Neoliberal Policies Affect Income Inequality? Exploring the Link Between Liberalization,Finance, and Inequality

It is commonly asserted that economic liberalization increases income inequality in advanced industrial societies. However, the empirical evidence is inconclusive. The current investigation thus attempts to shed light on this important topic by presenting the argument that economic liberalization indirectly augments income inequality given its tendency to expand financial activity. This contention is tested using a panel dataset of 20 developed economies for the years 1988 to 2009. According to the fixed effects two‐stage least squares models, economic liberalization is positively associated with financialization, while financial activity is positively connected to income inequality. These results are found to be consistent across a variety of regression parameters and robustness checks.     

Ethopolitics and the financial citizen

While personal debt has been the subject of intense research activity over the past decade, in particular from think tanks and government bodies, it remains relatively undertheorized and neglected in general by the social sciences. This article offers a novel theoretical frame for the analysis of personal debt – and personal overindebtedness in particular – by highlighting the construction of deviance from financial behavioural normativities. Using Nikolas Rose's concept of ‘ethopolitics’ to describe the relocation of government from questions of rational administration to those of everyday morality and ethics, this article presents two characterizations of deviance from an ethopolitical imaginary of financial citizenship: irresponsibility and incapability. From this framework, the article explores the nature of the state sponsored normalization of indebtedness and the stigmatization of overindebtedness as a corollary of ‘delinquent’ dispositions and dependencies. This article suggests that UK government policy concerning financial responsibility has been shaped by an ethopolitical imaginary of financial citizenship which is based upon a skewed understanding of structure and agency which has its parallel in the attribution of unemployment to ‘worklessness’.     

Gentrification without Gentry in a Declining Global City?: Vertical Expansion of Tokyo and Its Urban Meaning1

This article explores the reasons for the vertical expansion of cities till the 2020s by analyzing the history of urban space production for about half a century, using Tokyo as an example. As a concept, gentrification partially explains the changes in Tokyo. However, summarizing the entire urban transformation as a gentrification trend can lead to some misunderstandings. Most of the development took the form of simply rebuilding skyscrapers in limited areas, rather than the displacement of an entire class in the whole district. Consequently, the sharp contrast between island‐like skyscrapers and the densely populated small houses surrounding them became the typical landscape of current semi‐gentrified Tokyo. Instead of gentrification, “gentrification without gentry” would be a better expression for describing most cases in Tokyo. Alliances for urban speculation are always embedded in multi‐scale conditions in a globalizing world along with the inherent historical and structural constitution of the city. Through dynamic but contingent processes, a structure was constructed to promote urban development in a way that might exceed the actual demands. In the case of Tokyo, the bubble economy era and its effects, a would‐be global city ideology, mega‐events such as the Olympic Games, and expected earthquakes had a distinct influence on other common factors.     

后金融危机中再审中东原油“亚洲溢价”

一类国家定标准，二类国家搞工艺发明，三类国家加工生产产品，这已成为全球产业分工的趋势，而本次金融危机又进一步强化了这一格局。中国需要通过参与国际游戏规则的制订来提升自身的软实力和消弭在国际交往中强加给中国的不公平待遇。而亚洲溢价就是已经存在了近30年并对包括中国在内的东北亚国家盘剥的不公平的国际贸易规则。可用国际法、国际贸易、金融学以及数理统计等理论研究亚洲溢价的起源、演变以及发展趋势，以寻求消弭此溢价的路径。