State Monopoly Capitalism and the Working Class

A comprehensive Marxist-Leninist analysis of state monopoly capitalism offers the key to understanding the most important economic and political trends in contemporary bourgeois society and to developing proper strategy and tactics for the revolutionary struggle of the working class.     

告别i奴：富士康、数字资本主义与网络劳工抵抗

什么是数字资本主义条件下的世界工厂？它与过去的资本主义世界体系有何区别,又有何关联？在互联网和智能手机的时代,劳工真能形成自己的网络,抵御资本吗？本文以史鉴今,首先回顾17世纪“大西洋三角贸易”的奴隶制世界体系,再讨论当代富士康劳工问题、“21世纪奴隶制”及其内在的新三角贸易结构。四百年沧海桑田,不料在变劳工为奴隶这个问题上,无论是实证材料的细节,还是世界资本主义体系的宏观层面,依然存在种种勾连。文章在此基础上勾勒出网络化抵抗与新三角团结关系,并强调：劳工研究需要重新认识过去,让思想在全球历史的长河中重新扎根。 在关注生产过程之外,还须重视消费,特别是虚拟空间里的生产性消费行为。     

Our Capitalism: Between Oligarchic and Bureaucratic

The socioeconomic structure of Russian society is currently undergoing fundamental changes. It is natural, therefore, that interest in how people relate to their work has increased. This interest is based, in particular, on Max Weberys classic finding that the fundamental socioeconomic changes associated with the emergence of capitalism would not have occurred without the development of a new work ethic. The purpose of the present article is to analyze two types of normative and motivational structures regulating the work activity of the populatioe those determined by society's oficial ideology and those that characterize people's personal attitudes toward the importance of work in general as well as toward its particular aspects.     

Trust,Capitalism and Contract in English Economic History: 1500-1750

As most market transactions involved the extension of informal credit because of a lack of ready cash, this meant that interpersonal trust was of central importance, and, as a result, a reputation for honesty and fair dealing in the community was vital to being successful. Money was used only in a limited number of exchanges, and credit, in the form of household reputation, was a “cultural currency” of trust used to transact most business. Trust, belief, and credit all went together, and no distinction was made between economic and social credit, as credit produced wealth and status of the middling sort. As the market expanded in the late sixteenth century, networks of credit became more intertwined over longer geographical distances, and thus trust became more problematic, and disputes over debts led to contention. These produced an enormous amount of litigation as the common law was increasingly used to enforce contracts. This led to much downward mobility through over-indebtedness, which reinforced the social importance of having good credit, and consequently the culture of credit became increasingly legalised. Although competition for credit together with the need to maintain household profitability put stress on the social maintenance of trust in the market, the economy could not work without it. As a result, the increase in commerce was seen as an essentially sociable activity because it required trust. Trust gradually came to be interpreted as the basis of justice, and the necessity of keeping promises, as the foundation of all social organisation. But by 1750 litigation had collapsed to a very low level, and self- control and politeness on the part of rational individuals came to play a more important role in dispute settlement than legal means. Whereas in the early modern period conflict occurred and was dealt with after its occurrence, self-control aimed to prevent inter-personal conflict and litigation before they happened. As a result, the concepts of “capital” and “savings” developed in the eighteenth century, and the structure of credit networks was changed.     

资本主义和社会主义:趋同还是相斥?

在运用“资本主义”和“社会主义”这两个术语之前 ,必须约定它们的基本涵义 ,否则就不能在现代概念的各种不同意见分歧中确定研究方向。众所周知 ,在马克思主义的社会理论中 ,这两个术语被用来表示“原始公社制度、奴隶占有制度、封建制度、资本主义制度和共产主义制度”历史系列中彼此相互连接的两种社会经济结构 ,并且 ,共产主义制度的第一阶段叫做社会主义 ,它还带有资本主义制度的胎记。社会发展的进化理论认为 ,人类社会的历史演化是由低级向高级分阶段地逐步前进的 ,该理论的拥护者正是在上述术语的这个最初涵义中运用这些术语的。有…     

Guns,Hollywood, and School Safety: Defining the School‐Shooting Problem Across Public Arenas*

Objective. Research in agenda setting has demonstrated that dramatic news events can drive particular issues to the top of the media and governmental agendas. The objective of this study is to analyze how different aspects of an event‐driven problem compete for attention in those arenas. Methods. The method is content analysis of media coverage and congressional legislative activity following the 1999 Columbine High School shootings. Results. The results show that while both agendas converged on the gun‐control aspect of the problem, they substantially diverged on other understandings of what kind of problem the Columbine shooting represented and how to address it. Conclusions. We conclude that the differing institutional structure and incentives of the news media and Congress can create or inhibit interinstitutional positive feedback in the problem‐defining process. Agenda divergences are amplified when prominent politicians cue the media to follow particular story lines that depart from actual legislative activity.     

Prometheus by the Bay: Hollywood and tech capitalism in Silicon Valley

A sequence of recent science-fiction films set in the San Francisco Bay Area suggests that Silicon Valley corporations have become a major concern for Hollywood. These films present Silicon Valley capitalism in thrall to a technological experimentation that prompts disastrous outcomes, which the films collectively argue emerges from the corporations' drive for profit and ignorance of the precautionary principle. Yet Hollywood's response to Silicon Valley involves the valorizing of a kinder, less rapacious capitalism than that of Silicon Valley, a position that prevents a thorough critique of a major challenger to its position within our culture.