The politics of mortgage credit expansion in the small coordinated market economies

Abstract

Recent contributions to the comparative political economy literature claim that liberal market economies are vulnerable to asset booms and busts because of financial deregulation, shrinking welfare states and a political ideology emphasising financial self-sufficiency. This article examines the rapid expansion of mortgage lending in three coordinated market economies (CMEs): Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands. This expansion is puzzling given that all three countries are CMEs with generous welfare states. Yet the pattern of mortgage lending resembles the Anglo-Saxon or liberal market economies (LMEs) more than other CMEs. The article argues that mortgage bubbles in the small CMEs emerged as the unintended outcome of pairing neoliberal programmes to expand home ownership with collectivist housing institutions. This resulted in supply restrictions and rising property values which saddled households with extraordinarily high mortgage debts. In short, mortgage credit bubbles are not unique to Anglo-liberal welfare states and may have different origins.     

马克思主义全球化思想论要

从思想学术角度看,从马克思到邓小平的马克思主义全球化理论是一脉相承的有机整体,其核心理念是:全球化是难以阻挡的历史趋势;全球化进程由资本主义所开创并由资本主义生产方式所主导,它对非西方社会的发展道路和前途会产生重要影响;融入全球体系是任何国家工业化和现代化发展的必要前提条件;社会主义只有开放才能存在,只有在与资本主义全球经济体系的联系中才能得到发展。     

西方马克思主义女权主义在当前的新发展--评《资本主义的终结--关于政治经济学的女权主义批判》

吉布森和格雷汉姆作为西方马克思主义女权主义者,在其合著《资本主义的终结》中从女权主义的角度,运用了后结构主义的认识论和方法论解构了原本对资本主义的认识方式。主张打破资本主义/非资本主义二元对立中资本主义类似于男性的等级优势和霸权地位,寻求性别和阶级的多样化联合,力图解构全球化中假定的资本主义一统天下的男性霸权。     

总结历史经验坚定社会主义信念

正确评价社会主义实践，是坚定社会主义信念的必要前提；正确分析苏东剧变的根本原因．有利于坚定社会主义的必胜信念：正确理解社会主义必然代替资本主义的客观规律．则是坚定社会主义信念的理论基础。     

A CROSS‐NATIONAL TEST OF BONGER'S THEORY OF CRIMINALITY AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS*

Using international data for 100 countries, we test two hypotheses derived from Bonger's Marxian theory of crime. The analyses support the hypothesis that the degree of capitalism significantly predicts homicide rates, but they fail to confirm that the de‐moralization of the population (loss of moral feelings for others) mediates the relationship between capitalism and homicide. Although capitalism is not the best predictor among those considered, overall, the results underline the importance of Bonger's ideas because both capitalism and corruption (our indicator of de‐moralization) show reasonably strong relationships with homicide rates and compete with other variables commonly used as predictors of international homicide rates. The results confirm the usefulness of attempting to subject Marxian ideas to positivist, quantitative tests, with an eye to integrating Marxian theories with other mainstream theories, such as institutional anomie theory.     

论市场经济条件下原则上的平等与事实上的不平等——重读《经济学手稿（1857-1858年）》的一点体会

市场经济的平等主要是原则上的交换平等.但由于种种原因,在结果上、事实上又是不平等的.社会主义市场经济具有市场经济的一般共性,因此也必然存在着事实上的不平等.但它的社会主义性质决定了它必须保证市场前提、过程和结果应有的公平.     

经济法基本原则的新视野——经济法基础理论的反思之三

经济法的基本原则是经济法学界极富争议的论题之一。这些争议存在的根本原因是学者们对经济法基本原则的内涵有不同理解。经济法的基本原则是反映在宪法和经济法之中,贯穿于经济法的立法、执法、司法、守法和法律监督诸环节的根本性准则。因为不同社会制度条件下人们对经济法存在的基础——市场经济的认识存在深刻的分歧,所以根本就不存在中西通行的具有普遍意义的经济法基本原则,所以需要以新的视野展示经济法的基本原则。中国经济法的社会主义属性是国家与社会关系的现实表现,强调它并非走意识形态的老路,因此,中国经济法的基本原则应当由两部分构成:一是社会主义市场经济原则,二是国家调控原则,它们集中反映了社会主义条件下社会利益的政治表达形式和范围,可称之为“资本的社会主义”,它与资本主义条件下社会成为面具的“社会的资本主义”大异其趣。     

Hedge Funds, the Deutsche Börse Affair and Predatory Anglo-American Capitalism

Boardroom trouble at Deutsche Börse, the company that operates Germany's main stock market, has recently provoked an important debate about competing capitalist models. Werner Seifert, Deutsche Börse's ousted Chief Executive, was eager to portray himself as the innocent victim of aggressive Anglo-American investors who had bought into his company but failed to understand its traditional operating ethos. In this, he was ably supported by key figures within the ruling Social Democratic Party, who, in order to shore up the party's core support, had increasingly come to blame overseas hedge funds for the development of German corporate governance models which prioritised profits over jobs. I review the SPD's structural reading of the Deutsche Börse affair, whilst comparing it to an alternative interest-based reading. The latter allows me to focus more closely on the issue which, more than any other, led to Seifert's downfall: his refusal to bow to the expressed interests of his own shareholders by pressing ahead, against their wishes, with a hostile bid for the London Stock Exchange. Seifert's eventual removal foreclosed the possibility of an integrated London-Frankfurt stock market and, somewhat ironically given the SPD's response to the affair, as a consequence it also prevented the entry of London's highly capitalised institutional investors into the German market for corporate control. The actions of Deutsche Börse's overseas shareholders might still be seen as evidence of a predatory Anglo-American capitalism. However, their successful removal of Werner Seifert may well have been responsible for temporarily keeping other financial predators at bay.     

冷战结束后英国的马克思主义研究状况综述

苏东剧变引发的世界社会主义运动的挫折,促使人们对马克思主义的基本理论和一切关系着社会主义命运的重大问题进行积极的探索和全新的思考.本文就冷战结束后英国的马克思主义者和马克思主义研究者们结合新的历史条件,在对马克思主义理论的解读、对马克思主义和现实问题的探讨及对马克思主义和社会主义未来命运的展望等方面的研究状况进行综合性的阐述,以期对我国的马克思主义研究提供借鉴.     

The Capitalocene Part II: accumulation by appropriation and the centrality of unpaid work/energy

This essay – Part II – reconceptualizes the past five centuries as the Capitalocene, the ‘age of capital’. The essay advances two interconnected arguments. First, the exploitation of labor-power depends on a more expansive process: the appropriation of unpaid work/energy delivered by ‘women, nature, and colonies’ (Mies). Second, accumulation by appropriation turns on the capacity of state–capital–science complexes to make nature legible. If the substance of abstract social labor is time, the substance of abstract social nature is space. While managerial procedures within commodity production aim to maximize productivity per quantum of labor-time, the geo-managerial capacities of states and empires identify and seek to maximize unpaid work/energy per ‘unit’ of abstract nature. Historically, successive state–capital–science complexes co-produce Cheap Natures that are located, or reproduce themselves, largely outside the cash nexus. Geo-managerialism’s preliminary forms emerged rapidly during the rise of capitalism. Its chief historical expressions comprise those processes through which capitalists and state-machineries map, identify, quantify and otherwise make natures legible to capital. A radical politics of sustainability must recognize – and seek to mobilize through – a tripartite division of work under capitalism: labor-power, unpaid human work and the work of nature as a whole.