Conservative twist and challenges for Peru and Latin America: civilizing crossroads in a context of epochal change (reflections in process)

ABSTRACT

The paper takes stock of the WSF experience and the running out of steam of the pink wave in Latin America. It is written from the perspective of radical feminism in the region to interrogate the interrelations between the multiple systems of power formed by patriarchy, capitalism and colonialism and their impact on people’s lives, arguing that feminist struggles for sexual and reproductive rights, for the right to decide, for a secular state that breaks the religious tutelage over women’s bodies, along with many kinds of other struggles, demand not only recognition but also the defence of diverse ways of life and visions of the world. In these struggles, the paper claims, it is fundamental to expand the epistemological and social space and to recover other cultural matrices and frameworks of meaning.     

The coming revolution of biotechnology: A critique of Buttel

Frederick Buttel was one of the pioneers in studying the social impacts of biotechnology, claiming originally that it will involve profound changes in social structure. Recently Buttel turned around his argument proposing that, rather than revolutionary, biotechnology is more a substitutionist technological form to be applied to declining sectors of the economy than an epoch-making technology. This paper provides both external and internal critiques of Buttel's new position based on the concept of the third technological revolution, looking at the impact of new technologies as a global and interrelated phenomenon, and not on an individual case-by-case basis. The concluding section suggests the necessity of bringing into the analysis those living in the Third World: 60% of this population lives from agriculture and will be affected by the deployment of agricultural biotechnologies, whether through substitutionism or through totally new products.     

资本主义“中产阶级化”评析及其现实思考

＂中产阶级化＂是资产阶级理论家根据资本主义国家的经济结构、从业方式、收入水平等方面发生的变化而提出的社会发展理论,认为资本主义社会的发展已经超越马克思两大阶级对立的理论,赋予＂中产阶级＂独立实体性。马克思关于资本主义本质的总体性理论,从最抽象的层面揭示了总体资本与总体劳动的对立,从而指出了＂中产阶级化＂的实质。从总体性理论出发,有助于我们了解资本主义社会的固有矛盾,在发展中国特色社会主义市场经济的过程中坚持共同富裕的根本原则,彰显社会主义制度的优越性。     

当代发达资本主义国家阶级结构与收入分配关系分析

当代资本主义的阶级结构已经发生的巨大变化,国内外的学者依据不同的标准得出了不同的分析判断。把生产资料的占有关系、对物质资本权力的拥有和依存状态作为基本分析依据,同时从与市场经济相联系的资本一般范畴分析后认为,尽管当代资本主义的阶级结构和阶级关系从表面上看呈现出多层次化的表象,但从总体上看,仍旧可划分为当代资本家阶级和现代雇佣工人阶级。     

资本主义生态危机探源与救赎——丹尼尔·A·科尔曼生态政治思想探析

生态危机何以愈演愈烈并对人类社会安全造成威胁,抛开传统而简单的归因,美国生态政治学者丹尼尔·A·科尔曼敏锐指出,根源在于资本主义制度本身,同时又从文化、经济、政治和社会制度等方面给出了应对之策。科尔曼的生态政治思想具有值得借鉴的深刻理论价值,但其变革措施的局限性也更加表明共产主义才是生态危机的根本救治之道。     

世界体系理论与资本主义批评——以社会发展问题为视角

以两极化为本质特征的社会发展问题,在民族国家的框架内不能得到正确地理解。只有在世界体系的范围内,才能得出合理解释。现代世界体系与资本主义是一个硬币的两面。资本主义世界体系本质上是在边缘地区复制不发达状态的机制。唯有改变不平等的资本主义世界体系,才能真正解决发展问题。     

列宁利用资本主义文化的思想审视及当代启示

列宁主张利用"国家资本主义"来发展社会主义经济,利用西方先进设备、科学管理技术来发展现代工业。列宁"利用资本主义文化"思想的现实依据是俄国落后的国情,理论依据是马克思的"卡夫丁峡谷"理论,根本目的是为了战胜资本主义,建设共产主义。当前,我们要在正确认清资本主义文化实质的前提下,按照"吸收与批判并举,更重批判"的基本原则来利用资本主义文化;要树立社会主义文化自信心,走中国特色社会主义文化创新之路,推动社会主义文化大发展大繁荣。     

推进中国特色社会主义事业发展的整体性思考

中国特色社会主义已到一个拐点,要在科学发展观指导下实行“五位一体”的科学发展;要正确认识、处理社会主义与资本主义的关系;要将中国特色社会主义实践与共产主义远大理想统一起来,正确认识市场经济的双刃效应,经受市场经济的严峻考验;要将适时提出并解决直接影响其发展的关键问题作为第一要务;要将进一步解放思想、深化改革建立在实事求是的基础之上。     

THE MICRO-ETHICS OF EVERYDAY LIFE

In this article I offer an unfashionably ideological critique. I argue that, in the USA, ideology now appears in the form of the narratives that capitalism tells itself about itself, in particular at sites of commodity consumption. I examine three everyday sites in which capitalism constructs an Imaginary version of itself as it exhorts contemporary consumers to consume ethically: during a visit to a Target Superstore; on an overnight stay in a hotel room; and while purchasing a bag of fair trade coffee. In these moments and at these sites, corporations instruct us in the ‘ethical’ use of their commodities, and obeying those instructions promotes us to the rank of ‘consumer activist’. This article attempts to explain how this ‘ethical consumption’ – a form of what I call ‘micro-ethics’ – has displaced more social, or ‘macro’, forms of ethical action. To make my case, I argue that globalized capitalism denies many of us the social coordinates, or handholds, that are necessary if we are to feel that we can act meaningfully within the Symbolic Order, or social reality itself. This ‘deworlding’ effect, as Alain Badiou calls it, encourages us to reject social forms of ethical and political life and to retreat to a careful policing of the Imaginary boundaries of our ‘inner selves’ instead. In other words, global capitalism logically produces, as its own ideological support and supplement, a micro-ethics that attends only to what the single person can do, and only within the realm of consumption. We participate in this fantasy version of ‘eco-capitalism’ that advertising, publicity and other discourses establish to the extent that we accept consumption as the ultimate horizon of our ability to intervene in problems of ecological depredation and the exploitation of labour in the First and Third Worlds.     

金融全球化与“股东导向型”公司治理制度的跨国传播——对中国公司治理改革的社会学分析

自20世纪80年代以来,由于金融全球化和美式“股东资本主义”的兴起,“股东导向型”公司治理制度在全世界的影响越来越大,被誉为最佳公司治理模式或“国际惯例”。它不但影响了德、日等发达国家,也影响了中国等发展中国家和转型国家的公司治理改革。本文认为,“股东导向型”公司治理制度在中国的传播主要由内生性和外生性两大动机驱动,经过两个阶段和通过三种机制完成。第一阶段是在跨国层面,“模仿性同构”机制和“规范性同构”机制发挥了重要作用;第二阶段是在国内企业层面,政府通过法律法规和政策等手段要求企业采用新的公司治理模式,即“强制性同构”机制发挥了主导作用。对中国公司治理改革的社会学分析有助于我们从一个不同于经济学和管理学的新视角加深对中国金融市场和上市公司的理解,对于反思西方新自由主义企业制度,构建具有中国特色的现代企业制度具有较为重要的理论和现实意义。