Long economic cycles and the criminal justice system in the U.S.

Long cycles in capitalist development have been utilized as an analytical tool for political economic theory¹ and to explain major shifts in the social structure within capitalist political economies.² However, the potential impact that these massive changes in the political economy have on the historical development of criminal justice institutions and policies is an area not addressed within the literature. This article explores the relationship between long cycles of capitalist development and the historical formation of criminal justice policy in the United States.Earlier versions of this paper were presented at meetings of the American Society of Criminology (1984, 1986) and the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (1986).     

反垄断法的经济学分析——兼评中国《反垄断法》的适用和完善

《反垄断法》作为经济法的核心、市场经济国家的基本法律制度,在关国等现代资本主义国家具有悠久的历史,素有“经济宪法”、“市场经济大宪章”之称。我国的市场经济起步较晚,导致适用于现代经济的法律体系构建也比较迟缓和不健全。结合法经济学的理论对我国《反垄断法》适用中的一些问题进行分析,着重以经济学的博弈均衡理论分析行政垄断问题,以此说明经济学分析方法不仅是完善反垄断法律体系的理论基础,而且也是重要的辅助性工具,可以为法律的适用和执行提供新的思路和指引。     

The Molotov Milkshake: Corporate Social Responsibility and the Market

This article investigates links between the final scene—the milkshake scene—of P. T. Anderson’s film, ‘There Will Be Blood’, and a commercial advertisement for the sale of oil, which relies on a milkshake drinking analogy. The comparison probes a tension between the aspiration for capitalist economic growth and the self-regulation of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Business figures committed to the practice of CSR struggle with the possibility that deeper, systemic forms of violence inherent in market competition supersede their attempts at installing more responsible cycles of economic exchange. A risk remains, all the while, that social and environmental concern of the kind expressed in CSR is only able to acquire ‘value’ in the market, a relational or ‘dialectical’ system of exchange, where it meets contrasting cycles or events in the market: the value of alternatives (e.g. ‘going green’) is predicated on pre-existing products or earlier cycles of marketisation. The article discusses difficulties that CSR creates in terms of making interventions and raising conflict with corporate actors, and a tendency for the system to leave inert, exposed or abandoned, those that try. The capacity of CSR to eradicate the more vicious shadow of capitalist markets is challenged in the article. There is no release, the author argues, in a concept that is so essentially dependent on market mechanisms and on competitively motivated (ex)change.     

Policing the Anticommunity: Race,Deterritorialization, and Labor Market Reorganization in South Los Angeles

Recent decades have seen the rise of both community partnerships and the carceral state. Community policing in Los Angeles arose after the 1992 uprisings and was built on two conceptual building blocks—the territorial imperative and community partnership—which remain central more than 20 years later. At the same time, LA has undergone a significant black‐to‐Latino demographic shift linked with its restructured economy. This article discusses these changes using archival analysis and 5 years of participant observation in one South LA precinct. Police help to reshape the demography of South LA in ways conducive to post‐Fordist economic shifts. The “community” concept appropriated by urban governance initiatives is composed against an unwanted “anticommunity,” which serves to heighten territorial control over black and Latino residents. Rather than encourage community cogovernance over the institution of policing, community rhetoric facilitates racial preference in neighborhood transition under the auspices of an increasingly bifurcated labor market.     

Court Finance and Court Responses to Judicial Reforms: A Tale of Two Chinese Courts

This research studies the responses of two lower-level courts, one in rural and the other in urban China, to recent judicial reforms focusing on strengthening institutional building and professionalism. It finds that the court-funding structure under which the courts heavily rely on the local government for expenses, together with the unbalanced development of local economy, remarkably affects the two courts' behavioral pattern in different ways. The rural court, for the sake of litigation fees, tries to attract potential litigants to file certain lawsuits, even though it cannot effectively handle them. The efforts toward institutional building and professionalism only aggravate the already difficult situation. The urban court's institutional quality seems to have increased in the reform process, thanks to sufficient resources from the developed and diversified local economy. But it has also become more formalized and bureaucratic, as it tries to exclude difficult and problematic disputes from getting into the court. In illustrating the complexity of transitional China's judicial reform process generated by both the unbalanced economic development and the bureaucratization of the judiciary, this article suggests that the enhancement of institutional quality, which many argue is key to economic development, may itself be contingent upon the success of economic development.     

Karl Polanyi and the Problem of Corporate Social Responsibility

This article considers Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as part of the projects in ‘new governance and decentred regulation’, which draw social forces towards the regulation of economic behaviour. It uses Karl Polanyi to open up pertinent interfaces between society and economy for observation, and Gunther Teubner to substantiate a ‘regulatory’ view of the company's social relationships. The article finds that CSR combines movements for the recognition of social relationships, on an unprecedented scale, with rigorous simultaneous movements for market building and social abstraction. Twenty‐first‐century market economy is defined by a capacity to contain ‘the social,’ which is thrown between the two movements, creating opportunities for companies to void the market's social limits. The article counterposes that the social that ‘returns’ after marketization needs to find its way past market‐building CSR, to constructively unshackle and redefine the framing of social conflicts that concern the corporation.     

控权与保权的统一:现代宪政发展新趋势

控权的宪政设计像任何制度设计一样 ,是随着社会发展而不断演进的。产生于近代资本主义商品经济时代的传统控权理论 ,经过现代市场经济时代的转换发展到当代知识经济条件下 ,要求控权与保权的辩证统一 ,呈现出宪政发展新趋势。     

Participation by Soviet Foreign Trade Organizations in Joint Companies

One of the distinguishing features of the present state of international economic relations is the rapid development and diversification of forms of economic contact. Changes in preexisting forms and the appearance of new ones are characteristic of economic contacts not only between capitalist countries but also between countries with different socioeconomic systems.     

企业社会责任的宪法精神解读

宪法总纲确立了国家经济的基本制度,并同时规定,国家加强经济立法,完善宏观控制,依法禁止任何组织或者个人扰乱社会经济秩序。企业作为法律的承担者,必须在法律层面上把法律意识与社会责任意识进行有机结合。弘扬宪法精神的“以德治企”,根本目的是形成“以德治人心,以德治产品,以德治市场,以德治利益”的企业治理机制。弘扬宪法精神,构建和谐社会,企业是关键。企业追求自身利益与履行社会责任的统一,是社会发展对企业的基本要求,也是“以人为本”的宪法精神在市场经济下的最新体现。     

How Mafias Migrate: The Case of the `Ndrangheta in Northern Italy

What are the conditions conducive to long‐term transplantation of mafia groups in new territories? This article systematically reviews a number of factors that facilitate such an outcome and then explores two attempts at transplantation by members of the Calabria‐based mafia group `Ndrangheta to the town of Bardonecchia (Piedmont region) and to Verona (Veneto region). While the former case was successful, the latter failed. The article concludes that features of the local economy—the presence of significant sectors of the economy unprotected by the state and a local rather than export orientation—generate a demand for criminal protection, and successful transplantation occurs in the presence of such a demand. Generalized migration or forced resettlement of mafiosi are not sufficient to predict transplantation. The article shows that a high level of interpersonal trust among local law‐abiding residents is not sufficient to hinder mafia transplantation, contrary to established theories of social capital and trust.     

试析经济法与其他法律的协调发展

当前,我国正处在中国特色社会主义市场经济发展的关键时期,经济法的完善与发展对未来市场经济发展的秩序与规范具有重要意义。本文通过分析经济法与宪法、民法、商法以及其他法律的协调关系后认为,只有经济法与其他相关法律在相互协调中共同发展,才能实现经济法的与时俱进,才能不断适应市场经济发展的要求。     

The Market as a Matter of Money: Denaturalizing Economic Currency in American Constitutional History

Histories of the early American political economy present that world in fractured form, dividing political and constitutional dimensions from economic aspects. The fragmented approach reflects an old, oft-denigrated, but still powerful imagery, one that naturalizes economic activity as a set of myriad spontaneous and individuated exchanges, conducted with a conventional medium, money, and predictably composing a market sphere. The motif and its underlying assumptions in turn dissuade exploration of money and markets as territories of public decision, insulating by neglect the structural power of determinations made there. This essay traces the naturalization motif through a historiography of macroeconomic models of money. It then considers how money, recognized as a dynamics of value, would look if the law structuring it were approached as a complex set of relations that expressed, reiterated, and revised the distribution of authority in society. The early American political economy appears in a different light: money becomes a matter of value and governance at once, and therefore a crucial area of constitutional debate. Through that medium, the political economy of early America is transformed not once but repeatedly, from a mercantilist to a domestic paper to a liberal capitalist form.     

A Tale of Two Chinese Courts: Economic Development and Contract Enforcement

The way in which formal contract enforcement becomes effective is a critically important but understudied question for law and development studies. Primarily drawing on field investigations, this article compares the enforcement performance of two basic‐level courts in China, one in a more‐developed and the other in a less‐developed region. The level of economic development is found to be crucial in contributing to the courts' performance. Unlike the court users in the less developed area, those in the more developed area become more market‐oriented as the local economy diversifies, paving the way for more rigorous judgment enforcement; a developed local economy also allows the court to strengthen institutional building and staff professionalism. The comparison of the two Chinese courts provides empirical evidence with which to evaluate the relationship between formal contract enforcement and economic development.     

Profits of disorder: images of the Transnistrian Moldovan Republic

This article looks at the multiple constructions that constitute the image of the Transnistrian Moldovan Republic (PMR), a separatist region located in eastern Moldova. The European Union (EU) and the international community construct the area as a ‘black hole’, a security and terrorist concern. The PMR has constructed the state's image on the basis of the memory of collective suffering at the hands of Moldovan oppression, in a fashion that resembles state building in nineteenth-century Europe. The best-selling author Nicolai Lilin invests a criminal Ruritania in his fake memoir of criminal tales and exploits. The article shows that a degree of order and legitimate means to make money exist in the PMR while it highlights a key and largely ignored element of the political economy of the PMR, namely the economic role and monopolistic practices of Sheriff and the strong interconnection between politics and economic activities.     

The revival of the Honourable Merchant? Analysing private forest governance at firm level

In the context of global climate governance, multinational corporations (MNCs) are increasingly seen as financial, technical and political partners. Looking at MNCs with core business activities linked to deforestation, this article analyses private governance activities focused on sustainability that occur at firm level. These activities include newly enacted, concrete policies and activities aimed at climate protection, such as the concept of carbon insetting. The current body of the literature on global governance focuses largely on collective action, with activities at firm level still under-researched and under-conceptualized. To better understand (a) what drives MNCs to undertake such activities and (b) why their performance differs both within and between industry sectors, three motives are proposed—preventing reputational damage, building resilience and assuming ethical responsibility—with the latter indicating a revival of the Honourable Merchant, an economic role model created in the early 16th century. The empirical analysis is, therefore, embedded in a theoretical framework that seeks to capture the complexity of corporate rationality.     

Competing for the Highly Skilled Migrants: Implications for the EU Common Approach on Temporary Economic Migration

Abstract:  Globalisation has increased the mobility of people while rapid development of the knowledge economy places human capital at the centre of economic progress. Both result in competition for highly skilled labour among states, particularly the more-developed states. The EU has a particular role in this global competition for the highly skilled. It is faced with the ageing of its population. Furthermore, the quest to revitalise the EU's economy by implementing the ambitious Lisbon Strategy requires an additional 700,000 research positions. Lastly, the EU is trying to design a common European policy for economic migration, starting with the Green Paper in 2005. This article aims to contribute to a common policy design in the area of highly skilled temporary migration. It compares the UK and German schemes for highly skilled immigrants (the only two in the EU) with the successful US scheme, still seen as the benchmark for the EU. The findings are twofold. First, there is a set of obligatory characteristics that should be introduced to the schemes to make them more attractive. Second, as the programmes are not the only factors that determine the attractiveness of a respective country, the article argues that an EU common policy for highly skilled migrants would make the EU area more attractive as a whole and therefore increase its competitiveness in the global economy.     

"Interdependence": The Reality,the Concept,and the Policy

During the entire postwar period, the term "interdependence" has figured repeatedly in statements by American governmental figures and in the writings of bourgeois political scientists. In the past two or three years, it has acquired a new ring. Whereas previously American expressions regarding "interdependence" applied to relationships within the framework of NATO, today they have to do with a considerably broader sphere of foreign policy relationships of the United States, including those involving the entire capitalist world and the developing countries. In a number of cases, American writers working on the "interdependence" problem have also included certain aspects of the relation between capitalist and socialist states. They undertake to analyze, from the standpoint of bourgeois political science, various aspects of "interdependence" — economic, physical-geographical (deriving from mankind's ever more intensive joint utilization of the atmosphere, the waters and floor of the world ocean, near outer space, solar and subsurface energy, etc.), military-political (having to do with the threat of destruction of world civilization should a nuclear war occur), cultural, and so on.     

Corporate Colonialism and the “Crimes of the Powerful” Committed Against the Indigenous Peoples of Canada

Canada is both a capitalist and colonial society, one founded on the seizing of Indigenous lands for capitalist purposes. In the process, a variety of “crimes of the powerful” were committed, including the theft of Indigenous lands, the forcible confinement of Indigenous people onto reserves, and the subjection of Indigenous children to physical and sexual assaults via the residential school system. In more recent times, the corporate quest for extractive resources has created further harms for Indigenous communities. The lives of too many Indigenous people in Canada are now contoured by complex poverty, Indigenous children are over-represented in the child welfare system, and Indigenous adults are over-incarcerated in prisons and jails. Using a “crime” lens, this paper brings an awareness of Canada as a capitalist and colonial society—conceptualized here as “corporate colonialism”—to the foreground. In the process, the various manifestations of the “crimes of the powerful” against the Indigenous peoples of Canada are exposed.     

确实发生了误读——与李昌庚先生商榷

从经济法、民商法、行政法与市场经济的关系入手,探讨在市场经济建立过程中经济法、民商法和行政法所扮演的角色,并论证“转轨经济法”提出的客观现实社会经济基础,对反驳“转轨经济法”的观点进行了较为详尽的正本清源,明确“转轨经济法”之所以在中国现阶段取代“市场经济法”来构建中国市场经济的原因。