查看更多>>摘要：In "At the ''End of History'' Still Stands Democracy," Francis Fukuyama proposes that there has been no serious threat to his idea that Western style democracy is the "end of history" and that the United States does not damage global stability. Through analyzing and criticizing the main ideas of Francis Fukuyama, the conclusion is drawn that the China model is a powerful proof against his view of the "end of history." The tension in European and Asian regions is due to the instigation of the United States who in the 20 years since the end of the Cold War has wantonly launched wars under the excuse that human rights enjoy priority over sovereignty. Besides, a series of financial and economic crises in the Western world expose a set of disadvantages of capitalism, showing that human history has not ended up with the Western capitalist political system.
查看更多>>摘要：Marxism is well known for its two components: a "cold stream" which concerns objective scientific analysis; and a "warm stream" that concerns enthusiasm and hope and leads to commitment to Marxism as a cause. Ideally, they engage dialectically with one another. They are distinct, yet they necessarily interact to produce the richness of Marxism. My focus is primarily the warm stream, which continually reappears when the "cold stream" dominates. With an overwhelming focus on objective scientific analysis and on what is possible in the given circumstances, it risks confusing the final goal for short-term achievement and failing to inspire those who wish to identify with Marxism. At those times we find that the renewal of Marxism comes from the warm stream, with efforts to bring enthusiasm and hope back into Marxism. In order to understand this process, this article analyses some earlier historical examples of such renewal. It begins by dealing with the criticisms of utopian socialism in Marx and Engels, since this had a significant effect on the way the warm stream was subsequently perceived. Then the article analyses the contributions of Anatoly Lunacharsky before the Russian Revolution and Ernst Bloch in Western Marxism. The unexpected dimension of their work was to draw upon the religious revolutionary tradition as one source for the warm stream of Marxism.
查看更多>>摘要：This study argues that a historical materialist theory of what a capitalist empire is has yet to be fully articulated. It proceeds to lay out such a theory. The paper outlines a theory of capitalist empire situated in relation to a historical materialist conceptualization of how capitalism operates. In this I distinguish state and imperialism as aspects of capitalist empires, but empire itself as something related to, but larger than these historical processes. I also locate capitalist empires in relation to the logic of capitalism and its crises tendencies, and the way the logic of capital plays out over uneven development and the exploitation of a variety of labor forms. Additionally, the paper examines the racialized, gendered, and ecological aspects of capitalist empires in an attempt to begin to explain the political economy of capitalist empires as total social wholes.
查看更多>>摘要：The monopoly capital/under-consumption model of crisis posits that under conditions of oligopoly the system''s inability to absorb a rising surplus generates reduced growth rates and, in the absence of counteracting mechanisms, stagnation. This paper argues that the theory''s explanation for the crisis of manufacturing profitability that erupted in 1965 is not supported by the empirical data pertaining to profit rates, capacity utilization, and state expenditure. Specifically, the paper presents an econometric ARIMAX model which incorporates government expenditure as a control variable in order to test whether state spending serves as a counteracting mechanism to raise capacity and increase the manufacturing profit rate, as predicted by the monopoly capital school. It is argued that the model does not support the contention that system-wide stagnation is related to insufficient aggregate demand. Rather, the evidence suggests that the accumulation process continues to be governed by fierce competition. The implications of this conclusion for state policy and labor organizing are also discussed.
查看更多>>摘要：Many Keynesian economists envisioned a new dawn of Keynesianism in the 2007-8 financial meltdown in the United States. Nearly seven years later, it is clear that the much-hoped-for Keynesian prescriptions are completely ignored. Why? Keynesian economists'' answer: "neoliberal ideology," which they trace back to President Reagan. This study argues, by contrast, that the rise of neoliberalism has much deeper roots than pure ideology, that the transition from Keynesian to neoliberal economics started long before Reagan was elected president, and that the Keynesian reliance on the ability of the government to regulate and revive the economy through policies of demand management rests on a wishful/optimistic perception that the state can control capitalism. The study further argues that the Marxian theory of unemployment, based on his theory of the reserve army of labor, provides a much more robust explanation of the protracted high levels of unemployment than the Keynesian view, which attributes the plague of unemployment to the "misguided policies of neoliberalism." Likewise, the Marxian theory of subsistence or near-poverty wages provides a more cogent account of how or why such poverty levels of wages, as well as a generalized predominance of misery, can go hand-in-hand with high levels of profits and concentrated wealth than the Keynesian perceptions, which view high levels of employment and wages as necessary conditions for an expansionary economic cycle.
查看更多>>摘要：This paper argues that dependent countries are affected by the phenomenon of land grabbing, and that the major investors acquiring land come from countries of the "center." The phenomenon thus has two effects in terms of worldwide production specialization: (1) a "vertical" effect of bringing about greater differentiation between the traditional countries of the "center" and dependent countries, where the latter focus their development policies on deepening their foreignized and primarized productive structures; and (2) a "horizontal" effect, through which states such as China and the Arab countries, which are developing countries in terms of their productive structure, are differentiated from the rest of the dependent countries in terms of their capacity to export capital.
查看更多>>摘要：The West African Transform Margin (WATM) is the new centre of oil exploration in Africa. Less is known about its experiences and more work is needed to unearth them. Viewed through the eyes of Frantz Fanon, Aimé Césaire, and Walter Rodney, the available evidence shows not only the persistence of grave limiting dangers about the colonial economic structure in this subregion but also major possibilities about inter- and intra-regional linkages. A strategy of alternative indigenous regional vision that de-emphasises economic growth and stresses autonomy, distribution, and energy sovereignty is shown to be workable, and superior to the status quo. How to make the transition will be challenging but the effort is worth making for by doing so the region will take control and direction of its resources, to plan, to develop, and to manage them, and hence to free itself from the debilitating shackles of the unjust economic order of the world system.
查看更多>>摘要：The essay investigates America''s sordid gun addiction. It reviews actual gun usage during colonial times and the early independence decades to understand the rationale for the Second Amendment. Patriotic arguments by gun advocates that guns protect citizens from external invasion and internal tyranny are examined and found to be flawed and not believable. The issue of "gun equality" as personal self-defense as well as the widespread disbursal of handguns as a form of societal "gun détente" is also examined and found to be fallacious. Handgun distribution in the United States is argued to be a hidden form of class and race warfare, while the widespread disbursement of guns and military armament across the globe since World War II and increasing global violence represents the long-term failure of a gun obsessed American foreign policy. The Hobbesian state is explored as the ultimate dystopian refuge of gun rights proponents.
查看更多>>摘要：This article reviews the history of research on Rosa Luxemburg in China and concludes the characteristics of recent study. Although the study on Rosa Luxemburg has already made great progress, it still has many shortcomings and limitations. First, influenced by Western Marxism, the study contains a trend of over abstraction and modernization of the thought of Rosa Luxemburg; second, it may be far from reality to regard historical materialism as a totality method; additionally, the study is not sufficient in cognizing the limitation of Rosa Luxemburg''s thought. After elaborating these problems, this article will try to point out the possible prospects of the study on Rosa Luxemburg in the future.
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