Neoliberalism as a real utopia? Karl Polanyi and the theoretical practice of F. A. Hayek

ABSTRACT

This article interprets Hayek’s theoretical practice with the help of Polanyi’s framework. Hayek aimed at renewing liberalism after the interwar period, thus helping transforming it into neoliberalism, a real utopia instrumentally concerned with the political and moral economies underpinning markets. The distance between neoliberal theory and practice is less pronounced than it is sometimes assumed. The strength of neoliberalism partially stems from a capacity to articulate an effort to think about real-world mechanisms with an effort to demolish, reconfigure or transform existing structures. Despite his failure to anticipate neoliberalism, Polanyi gives ample intellectual resources to critically interpret the tasks that neoliberals would collectively have to face at the theoretical level, in an epoch of ideological marginality, before their triumphal political deployment at the global level.     

Market/society: mapping conceptions of power,ideology and subjectivity in Polanyi,Hayek, Foucault,Lukács

ABSTRACT

In light of discussions around the common anniversary of the publication of Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation and F.A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, this article puts these texts – iconic representations of social democratic and neoliberal political theory – into conversation with Michel Foucault’s subsequent, influential critique of neoliberalism, The Birth of Biopolitics. There are interesting points of contact in the way each text constructs its argument, even as they arrive at distinct positions vis-à-vis the material and subjective nature of market society, while nevertheless sharing an opposition to Marxian approaches. Yet the work of Polanyi and Hayek’s Marxian contemporary, Lukács’ History and Class Consciousness, offers precisely a critical framework for understanding the relationship between markets, liberty and society in which the material and the subjective need not be read as antagonistic. It is thus also examined here, in an effort to shed light on how discussions of contemporary neoliberalism are framed.     

Colonized Silence: Confronting the Colonial Link in Rural Alaska Native Survivors’ Non-Disclosure of Child Sexual Abuse

Though there is evidence linking the history of colonialism and oppression of Indigenous people to the high rates of rape and child sexual abuse experienced by this population today, it is less understood how colonial processes, past and present, condition the decision to disclose or report victimization. Drawing on a survivorship storytelling study of rural Alaska Native survivors of child sexual abuse, this paper underscores the importance of centering colonialism in understanding the culture of silence surrounding sexual victimization among Indigenous people. Results show that reasons for non-disclosure are quite embedded within larger social, historical and political themes of colonialism, oppression, and marginalization. Implications for policy and praxes are discussed, as well as a broader mandate of social change to remove barriers to disclosure.     

On artistic and cultural generations in Northeastern Tibet

Beginning in the 1980s, and continuing for over three decades since, a particular generation of Tibetans from the Northeastern Tibetan region known as Amdo, and particularly from the northern parts of China’s Qinghai province, has proven extremely productive. Why has this generation, born primarily between 1959 and 1967, been so incredibly successful? This article examines the contextual factors that may have contributed to the incredible success of this generation. This ranges from the policies and circumstances that affected their births, and the state of the cultural field at the time they reached adulthood. Personal experience narratives, autobiographies, and scholarly studies then reveal how this generation was able to access the intellectual field. Finally, I briefly discuss how the Amdo Tibetan intellectual field compares with other Tibetan and ethnic experiences in the People’s Republic of China.     

Can Quasi‐market and Multi‐level Governance Co‐exist? Insights from the Case of Lombardy's Employment Services System

This article explores the functioning of Lombardy's networked employment services system, inspired by quasi‐market and horizontal subsidiarity principles, and specifically addresses a gap in the quasi‐market literature, where little attention is devoted to the role played by institutions at lower levels of government. A qualitative study of the Lombardy system, with a focus on the municipality of Milan, is relied upon in order to explore the extent to which the principles of quasi‐market and multi‐level governance pursued by the regional government are allowed to co‐exist in practice. Here, sub‐regional levels of government are directly involved in services provision, but enjoy a more privileged condition relative to the private providers, thereby jeopardizing the implementation of an effective quasi‐market. The article contributes to existing theories by suggesting that horizontal subsidiarity and marketization cannot neglect multi‐level governance in those sectors where public bodies at various levels of government are directly involved in implementation.     

货币政策的债券市场传导机制——对利率的预期渠道

从对利率预期的角度探讨债券市场在货币政策传导到实体经济过程中的作用十分重要,将该传导机制细分为两个阶段:货币政策对债券市场的影响和债券市场对实体经济的影响,经理论建模和实证发现:两阶段的传导都非常有效,货币政策的债券市场传导机制确实存在。将两阶段结合起来看债券市场的传导效果,发现存贷款基准利率、法定存款准备金率及公开市场操作利率等货币政策工具能够对经济增长和通胀水平产生显著影响。实证结果还表明:在货币政策的实施过程中应当充分挖掘收益率曲线中包含的信息;央行的货币政策遵循了逆周期的原则,很好地熨平了经济的异常波动;应当提高货币政策体制的可信度和透明度,形成稳定的长期利率目标。     

从“志在富民”到“文化自觉”:费孝通先生晚年的思想转向

本文是对费孝通先生晚年思想转向之成因的研究。费孝通晚年的研究强调理论与实践并重,力倡"文化自觉",由早年注重西方文化变而偏重于中国传统文化。通过对费孝通晚年著作的详细考察,本文认为,费孝通的思想转向是他在对中国现实社会的不间断的调查、实践和反思中形成的。这种思想转向是一种"社会科学"的转向,而不是文化立场的转变。本文以四个部分来论述这种转向的发生。前两个部分讨论费孝通晚年谱写的"两篇文章",即小城镇和乡镇企业研究、民族和边区开发研究。在这两个领域的经验研究中,费孝通都遇到了社会学和人类学上的挑战,他发现：乡村工业、民族和边区的发展都不只是经济社会政策的问题,甚至也不是经济和社会结构的问题,而是和其背后"只能意会、不能言传"的心态和文化有关。如何把握这些心态和文化,是本文的第三个部分,即费孝通晚年社会学方法论的主要内容。费先生从英国人类学家Leach因《江村经济》所提出的两个方法论问题入手,在生命的最后十多年里展开了漫长而严谨的反思。反思的结果一方面是对社会学研究方法论的新看法,也是对上述两个经验问题的总回答,另一方面是对"文化自觉"理论的方法论补充。本文的最后一个部分讨论的是费孝通作为一个社会科学家,晚年如何身体力行,在"差序格局"中"推己及人",延续了中国传统文化中以天下为己任的士大夫精神,是为真正的"文化自觉"。     

诸神之争的再阐释:一个社会学的结构视角

世俗化及逆世俗化范式的对立其实蕴含着更大的连续性,即如何理解宗教多元主义背后的诸神之争,总的来说,韦伯之后那些解释宗教变迁的理论范式均未突破韦伯对宗教的比较研究范畴,难以在当前复杂而多元的文化环境下为个人提供总体指导,但是二者共同揭露了诸神之争条件下西方宗教工具理性和价值理性交互作用所促成的理性化的动力机制,即西方宗教维护自身价值理性的方式从中世纪教会主导的政治性垄断过渡到现代性条件下宗教多元主义的市场化竞争。     

The complexities of cultural support planning for Indigenous children in and leaving out‐of‐home care: the views of service providers in Victoria,Australia

Indigenous children and young people are over‐represented at all stages of the Australian child protection system. Policy and legislative initiatives exist in the state of Victoria, Australia aiming to support the connection between Indigenous children and young people in state care and their culture and community. This exploratory research involved focus group consultations with seven child and family welfare agencies to investigate the impacts, barriers, benefits and limitations of cultural support planning for Indigenous young people in, and leaving care in, Victoria. Findings indicated that cultural planning was of value when it could be completed. However, various shortcomings of current systems were identified including limited resourcing of Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations to generate plans and provide direct and secondary consultation services to implement plans, difficulty gathering information for plans and some Indigenous young people expressing disinterest in connecting to their culture and community. Complexities in the relationships between the Indigenous and non‐Indigenous agencies that aimed to support Indigenous young people in care were also acknowledged. Participants identified a number of strategies to improve outcomes, such as facilitating better relationships between agencies, promoting opportunities for ongoing cultural training for staff in mainstream agencies and improving the resourcing of Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations to deliver planning and to support cultural connections.     

A social welfare perspective of market‐oriented social enterprises

The article analyses market‐oriented social enterprises from a social welfare perspective, within the context of the innate conflict between business and welfare orientations. After defining the concept of market‐oriented social enterprises and presenting some successful examples on such entities that employ different marginalised populations, particularly people with disabilities, the article asks three interrelated questions: (i) What policy environment is needed to encourage the development of social enterprises? (ii) Given the innate tension between the social and economic objectives in social enterprises, what structural principles are needed to enable them to meet those dual objectives? Lastly, (iii) What intervention modalities are best suited to help individual participants in those frameworks? Answers to these questions are discussed within conceptual frameworks from the worlds of welfare and business that jointly provide a base for a social welfare rationale for market‐oriented social enterprises.