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Energy and Institution Size
Get PDFWhy do institutions grow? Despite nearly a century of scientific effort, there remains little consensus on this topic. This paper offers a new approach that focuses on energy consumption. A systematic relation exists between institution size and energy consumption per capita: as energy consumption increases, institutions become larger. I hypothesize that this relation results from the interplay between technological scale and human biological limitations. I also show how a simple stochastic model can be used to link energy consumption with firm dynamics
Pricing Time: Outline and Discussion on Suhail Malik's 'The Ontology of Finance'
Get PDFThe following is an outline of Suhail Malik, 'The Ontology of Finance', Collapse: Philosophical Research and Development, Vol. VIII (2014), 629¬813, prepared by Ray Brassier, followed by a discussion after his lecture on June 28 at the School for Politics and Critique 2017 in Ohrid, Macedonia
Accumulating through Food Crisis? Farmers, Commodity Traders and the Distributional Politics of Financialization
Get PDFThis paper considers the domestic and international ramifications of financialization and grain price instability in the US agri-food sector. It finds that during the recent period of high and volatile prices, the average income of large-scale farms reached the earnings threshold of the top percentile of US households, and agricultural commodity traders markedly outperformed other corporate groups. In contrast, small-scale farms, particularly those involved in cattle and wheat production, have struggled to manage the uncertainty brought by price tumult. The paper goes on to examine the role that these uneven distributional dynamics play in debates around how hedging and speculation should be defined and regulated in the wake of the food crisis of 2007–08. It shows that a coalition of small-scale farmers has actively pushed for a far-reaching definition of speculation and concomitantly wide-ranging curbs on what they deem to be speculative activity. Conversely, the major commodity traders and a plurality of organizations representing large-scale grain producers have called for a narrower interpretation of speculation which leaves the extant regulatory regime largely in place. With these insights, I suggest that financialization and associated price volatility tend to reinforce inequality in rural America while possibly exacerbating social instability and hardship abroad
Power, Food and Agriculture: Implications for Farmers, Consumers and Communities
Get PDFOne of the most pressing concerns about the industrialization of agriculture and food is the consolidation and concentration of markets for agricultural inputs, agricultural commodities food processing and groceries. In essence a small minority of actors globally exercise great control over food system decisions. This means that because of increased consolidation of these markets globally – from the United States to China to Brazil, from South Africa to the United Kingdom – the vast majority of farmers, consumers and communities are left out of key decisions about how we farm and what we eat. Transnational agrifood firms are motivated by profits and power in the marketplace, leaving other social, economic and ecological goals behind. This creates an agroecological crisis in the face of climate uncertainty but one that is rooted in social and economic organization. In this chapter we detail the current economic organization of agriculture, and briefly describe its negative impacts on farmers, communities and ecology. We conclude by articulating stories of farmer-led resistance that imagine a new food system
Growing through Sabotage: Energizing Hierarchical Power
Get PDFAccording to the theory of capital as power, capitalism, like any other mode of power, is born through sabotage and lives in chains – and yet everywhere we look we see it grow and expand. What explains this apparent puzzle of 'growth in the midst of sabotage'? The answer, we argue, begins with the very meaning of ‘growth’. Whereas conventional political economy equates the growth with a rising standard of living, we posit that much of this growth has nothing to do with livelihood as such: it represents not the improvement of wellbeing, but the expansion of sabotage itself. Building on this premise, the article historicizes, theorizes and models the relationship between changes in hierarchical power and sabotage on the one hand and the growth of energy capture on the other. It claims that hierarchical power is sought for its own sake; that building and sustaining this power demands strategic sabotage; and that sabotage absorbs a significant proportion of the energy captured by society. From this standpoint, capitalism grows, at least in part, not despite or because of sabotage, but through sabotage
A Power Theory of Personal Income Distribution - Video and Working Paper
Get PDFDue in no small part to the work of Thomas Piketty, the empirical study of income inequality has flourished in the last decade. But this plethora of new data has not led to a corresponding theoretical revolution. Why? The problem, I believe, is an unwillingness to question and test the basic assumptions on which current theory rests. Most theories of personal income distribution are deeply wedded to the assumption that income is proportional to productivity. However, this approach has a simple, but little discussed problem: income is distributed far more unequally than documented differentials in human labor productivity. But if not productivity, then what explains income? I propose that income is explained most strongly by social power, as manifested by one’s rank in an institutional hierarchy. Using a novel array of evidence, I show (for the first time) that there is a strong quantitative relation between income and hierarchical power. Moreover, I show that hierarchical power affects income more strongly than any other factor. I conclude that this is evidence for a power theory of personal income distribution.
Refreshment will be served and everyone is welcome.
WHERE: Verney Room, South 674 Ross Building, Keele Campus, York University
WHEN: 2:30 - 5:30 pm, Tuesday, 17 October 201
2017 Capital as Power Essay Prize
Get PDFThe Review of Capital as Power (RECASP) announces an annual essay prize on the subject of capital as power. The best paper will receive a prize of 500 will be awarded to the second best contribution, while a $300 prize will be given to the third best article.
Submitted articles should not have been published in a refereed journal or book before. The particular topic is open. The paper can be theoretical, historical or empirical, and it may support or cri-tique the capital as power framework. Winning essays will be pub-lished (with revisions, if necessary) in the Review of Capital as Power.
DEADLINE: January 31, 201
Can Capitalists Afford a Trumped Recovery?
Get PDFThe presidential election of Donald Trump has rekindled hopes for a U.S. recovery. The new president promises to ‘make America great again’, partly by creating many millions of new jobs for U.S. workers, and judging by the rising stock market, capitalists seem to love his narrative. But if Trump actually delivers on his promise, their attitude is likely to change radically. In our 2016 paper, ‘A CasP Model of the Stock Market’, we developed the concept of a ‘CasP policy cycle’, the idea that government policy, insofar as it caters to the imperative of capitalized power, favours low employment growth in order to enable low rates of interest and sustain the capitalist share of income. Should Trump proceeds with and succeeds in reversing this CasP policy cycle, his authoritarianism may end up undermining rather than boosting capitalized power. In this sense, his regime could well mark the beginning of the next major bear market
The Tragedy of Human Development. A Genealogy of Capital as Power
Get PDFFROM THE BACK COVER: How might an objective observer conceive of what humans have accomplished as a species over its brief history? Benjamin argues that history can be judged as one giant catastrophe. Liberals suggest that this is to sombre an assessment and that human history can be read as a story of greater and greater progress in human rights, prosperity and the decrease of arbitrary and extra-judicial violence. But is there a third reading of history, one that neither interprets human history as a giant catastrophe or endless progress? Could we not say that human development has been a tragedy?
This book explores the idea of human development as a tragedy from the perspective of capitalist power. Although the argument of this book draws heavily on critical political economy, the analysis considers interdisciplinary literature in an effort to explore how major revolutions have transformed human social relations of power and created certain path dependencies that may ultimately lead to our downfall as a species. Intellectually sophisticated and readable, this book offers a provocative genealogy of capitalist power and the tragedy of human development
Kapitalizm: Sabotaj Yoluyla Büyüme – Üç Kağıt Serisi
Get PDF1. Kapitalizm: Sabotaj Yoluyla Büyüme – 1 (No. 42, December 2017, pp. 22-23)
Kapitalizmi geleneksel yöntemlerin dışında inceleyen akademisyenlerden oluşan CasP projesine, Meydan Gazetesi’nin bir önceki sayısında yer vermiştik. Anarşist Ekonomi Tartışmaları yazı dizimize, aynı proje kapsamında yayınlanan ve kapitalizmin büyüme yanılsamasını inceleyen bir makale ile devam ediyoruz. Makalenin kısaltarak alıntıladığımız ilk üç bölümü, kapitalizmin stratejik sabotajını ve büyüme şeklini açıklıyor. Bu yazı ayrıca, tarih öncesi ekonomik faaliyetleri bugün ile karşılaştırmaya olanak veren, sosyo-biyofiziksel bir ölçütü, enerji yakalamayı kullanması açısından ilgi çekici, çünkü bu karşılaştırmayı para ya da üretim miktarları kullanarak yapmak imkansızdır.
2. Kapitalizm: Sabotaj Yoluyla Büyüme – 2 (No. 43, February 2018, pp. 22-23)
Anarşist Ekonomi Tartışmaları yazı dizimize, önceki sayılarda ilk üç bölümünü aktardığımız ve kapitalizmin büyüme yanılsamasını inceleyen makale ile devam ediyoruz. Makalenin yine kısaltarak alıntıladığımız 4-8. bölümleri, genel olarak iktidar odaklı yapıların ve hiyerarşinin sosyoekonomik özelliklerini inceliyor. Bu bölümler, büyük ve ekonomik olarak gelişmiş toplumların zorunlu olarak hiyerarşik olacağı iddiası gibi, egemen devletçi düşünce akımlarının yarattığı mitleri parçalaması açısından önemli bir okuma olarak karşımıza çıkıyor.
3. Kapitalizm: Sabotaj Yoluyla Büyüme – 3 (No. 44, March 2018, pp. 20-21)
Anarşist Ekonomi Tartışmaları yazı dizimizde, Bichler ve Nitzan’ın kapitalizmin büyüme yanılsamasını inceleyen makalelerinin ilk 8 bölümünü aktarmıştık. Makalenin sonundaki 9-12. bölümlerinde enerji ve iktidar ilişkisini inceleyen alternatif bir model sunuluyor. Makalenin bu bölümü ayrıca, neoliberal ve Marxist ekonomi teorilerin indirgemeci yapısını göz önüne sermesi açısından ilgi çekici