Trading in the secretive commodity

Over the past century and a half, a handful of transnational corporations have built fortunes trading commodity crops such as corn, soy and wheat. Graded and standardized, these commodities are considered uniform and therefore fungible; information about their origins need not accompany them to market. But in recent years major food brands, as part of broader ‘sustainable sourcing’ commitments, have begun to ask about the places and practices that produce these crops. Their inquiries have exposed the limits of the commodity traders’ supposedly unrivalled market intelligence. They also raise questions about how the advent of agricultural grades and standards made knowledge of crop origins seem unnecessary in certain commodity supply chains, and about how those supply chains might henceforth change, now that lack of such knowledge has become a liability.     

提升社会治理效能:社会企业生产要素社会性变革及其制度优势

社会企业通过市场机制参与社会治理的行动根植于经济嵌入社会的关系之中。生产要素本身具备多种属性和功能,长期以来商品经济理论对生产要素的单向商品化使用,造成了经济与社会、文化等非商品化属性的隔离。正如波兰尼所言,土地作为自然存在,劳动力和企业管理者作为社会人,本身并不是生产出来供销售的商品,资金使用的信用、信任和合法认可也不能作为商品去生产。因此,重新审视经济行为的目的,可以发现社会企业的发展动因。社会企业以社会企业家精神为内生动力,以企业家管理才能为社会目标通向经济行动的镶嵌通道,通过制度创新改变社会问题,并运用社会管理技术系统提升社会治理效能,将组织的制度优势转化为社会治理效能,对推动良性社会运行具有积极的作用。     

The Commons: A Social Form that Allows for Degrowth and Sustainability

This theoretical article opens with the reconstruction of a value-critical argument which claims that capitalism is a form of society that is structurally unsustainable. The reason for this is the need for ever-increasing value production which stems from the core of capitalism (the commodity form, competition, profit maximization, private production) and its internal and external limits. Based on this, the article calls for a fundamental social transformation and positions the commons as a social form that has the potential to replace the commodity form as societal foundation. Constituted by social practices (commoning) that are based on voluntariness, autonomy and needs-satisfaction, commons do not have an inbuilt growth compulsion. Therefore, the article concludes, the commons may enable humanity to deal with the question of sustainability on the basis of social structures that include the possibility of a solution.     

Hardening corporate accountability in commodity supply chains under the European Union Deforestation Regulation

The European Union (EU) has recently introduced the Deforestation Regulation to close regulatory gaps in the sustainability and legality of global forest and agricultural commodity supply chains. We analyze this regulatory policy change by drawing on accountability scholarship and institutionalist theories of regulation. Our results show that the Regulation aims to enhance corporate accountability mechanisms through mostly state-based hard regulation of commodity supply chains, reducing the role of market incentives and private regulation. This policy change is found to be the result of strategic policy-oriented learning from perceived accountability failures of existing soft market-based instruments, voluntary trade agreements, and experience with market-correcting EU timber legality trade rules in a politically favorable context. The institutionalization of new forest-risk commodity supply chain accountability norms in new EU trade rules would, by design, harden foreign corporate accountability for negative socio-environmental externalities. However, the de-facto hardening will depend on the final regulatory design, acceptance, compliance, implementation, enforcement improvements, and avoidance of leakage effects.     

A comparative cost analysis of commodity foods from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the National School Lunch Program

Schools that participate in the National School Lunch Program receive a portion of their federal funding as commodity foods rather than cash payments. This research compared the product costs and estimated total procurement costs of commodity and commercial foods from the school district perspective using data from 579 Minnesota ordering sites in school year (SY) 2008–2009. Though comparison of product prices indicates that commercial foods were an average of 17 percent more expensive than equivalent commodity foods, once full estimated procurement costs were included, the commercial products became 9 percent less expensive per food case than commodity products. Base case results were sensitive to the cost of risk to hold inventory. When this input was tested at zero, the estimated cost to procure commercial foods was 2 percent higher per case than commodity foods, though total commercial procurement costs remained less than commodity costs by 3 percent. It is estimated that Minnesota schools collectively spent an additional $1.7 to $3.7 million to procure USDA commodity foods in SY 2008–2009. © 2009 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

In the shadow of the pharaohs: the militarization of labour debate and classical Marxist theory

This article considers the Bolsheviks’ proposals to militarize labour. While concerned ostensibly to secure a steady supply of disciplined labour during the civil war, this was clearly seen as a means to effect a transition to communism. Labour militarization was understood as an instrument to suppress commodity production, which would help usher in a new form of socialized labour. The theoretical roots of this policy can be found in Marx's writings on commodity production and ideology. Although Marx believed that the commodity form would be overcome through endogenous structural developments, there is no reason to suppose the forceful suppression of commodity production cannot produce the same outcome.     

Global commodity chain analysis and the French filière approach: comparison and critique

This article reviews two approaches to the study of economic restructuring which focus on commodity-specific dynamics of change. The first is the global commodity chain (GCC) approach, which has been developed primarily for the analysis of industrial commodities.The second is the francophone filière tradition, which has been applied mostly to agricultural commodities originating from former French colonies. The article finds that the GCC approach has a more coherent framework than the filière approach, although it is still far from constituting a fully fledged 'theory'. The authors provide a number of suggestions for improving some of its key concepts. They also suggest that the GCC approach can be enriched by some of the insights gained in filière work, especially in terms of improving historical coverage and depth, enlarging the analysis to agricultural commodities, better handling of regulation issues, and including quality convention issues in analysing commodity chain structure and restructuring.     

Goods and services tax,cascading, and revenue performance: Analyzing Indian commodity taxation market

Indian economy has finally introduced an improvised value‐added tax commonly known as goods and services tax (GST) with an explicit focus to target cascading. Cascading is by far the most serious issue of a tax structure as it leads to many other challenges like opaqueness, complexity, evasion besides deadweight losses. GST is a fiscal policy reform aimed at integrating and harmonizing the Indian tax structure and hence reduce the incidence of cascading. This study is an attempt to empirically analyze the possible impacts of GST on the cascading and hence revenue collection in the Indian economy. The study has employed a simple but representative simultaneous equation model representing the commodity taxation using time series data from 1990 to 2017. This study finds that reduced cascading under GST will enhance the revenue efficiency of the Indian commodity tax structure. The findings are corroborated by the post‐GST revenue performance of Indian states and the central government.     

On the design of optimal mechanisms for the Arrow-Hahn-McKenzie economy

This essay presents necessary and sufficient first-order conditions for the general design of allocation mechanisms that decentralize Pareto optimal decisions in Arrow-Hahn-McKenzie (AHM) economies. An AHM economy is distinguished from the usual Arrow-Debreu private ownership economy since the consumption or production of any commodity may induce externalities, including initially endowed commodities. Because competitive markets will not generally internalize all externalities efficiently, the mechanism design must be generalized to include a rule that computes prices for commodities appearing as initial endowments so as to define consumers' individual budget sets. A natural design criterion for the generalized allocation mechanism is to have agents communicate both price and allocation messages to the center, enlarging the message space relative to that necessary for implementing mechanisms in Arrow-Debreu economies. The larger message spaces give agents increased flexibility, which has two significant consequences: (1) the dominant-strategy property of the Demand-Revealing Mechanism in economies with only public goods, a single pure private good, and quasilinear preferences, is lost unless the center adopts an enforcement structure that suitably restricts the allocation messages that agents may transmit; (2) if an endowed commodity is not a pure private good, then the Demand-Revealing Mechanism loses the dominant-strategy property, regardless of the enforcement structure adopted or of the nature of consumers' preferences, so that the problem is exacerbated in general AHM economies.     

Financial derivatives and the theory of money

Abstract

Financial derivatives are used and counted as money, but it is unclear exactly what sort of money they are. This article explores the monetary role of financial derivatives in securing the global financial system. It finds that derivatives commensurate the values of different forms of financial assets, and, in the process, they facilitate continuity across different forms of money. In this role they are a form of commodity money, but very different from conventional understandings of commodity money. In developing this idea, the paper engages recent debates in Economy and Society about the nature of money. In particular, it takes issue with Ingham's state theory of money, which cannot adequately engage exchange rate volatility and extra-national roles of money, and Lapavitsas’ approach to a Marxist theory of money, which relegates commodity money to a historical abstraction.     

How can we better align private security with the public interest? Towards a civilizing model of regulation

How can we better align private security with the public interest? This question has met with two answers in the literature on private security regulation, one seeking to cleanse the market of deviant sellers, the other to communalize the market through the empowerment of buyers. Both models of regulation are premised upon a limited neoclassical economic conception of how market transactions map onto the public interest. This article makes the case for a new model of regulation, one that seeks to civilize the market. Drawing upon the insights of economic sociology, our model regards the market for security as a moral economy in which commodity and non‐commodity values jostle and collide. On this basis, we propose a regulatory architecture where buyers and sellers are cast not only as economic actors but also as moral actors, revealing new avenues through which to encompass private security within the democratic promise of security.     

卢卡奇的物化理论与马克思的异化理论的差异

卢卡奇的物化理论与马克思的异化理论在概念内涵、产生根源、表现形式和扬弃途径上都有差异。马克思将异化的产生归结为社会分工和私有制的出现;而卢卡奇则认为是由于资本主义商品经济的发展导致的。卢卡奇的物化理论在表现形式上涉及了许多马克思没有论述的方面。马克思认为通过暴力革命来克服异化,卢卡奇则依赖于无产阶级的阶级意识。     

知识经济三题

本认为,知识是商品,但知识又具有不同于一般商品的特殊商品属性;在发展知识经济过程中,教育居于基础性的地位;知识经济的发展改变了那种将现代化等同于工业化的传统认识。在知识经济时代,现代化不仅意味着要实现工业化,更要实现信息化和知识化。     

产销一体化经营模式成因探究

人类社会的发展过程中,竞争是一直伴随其左右并不断使其向前发展的源泉与动力。在现代社会中,尤其是从20世纪90年代以来,我国国内很多企业、集团纷纷采取了产销一体化的经营模式。这种模式的采用,究其原因,就是行业内的竞争所致。在现代工业化社会分工越来越细致,商业资本从产业资本中分离出来,在商品经济不发达的社会,由于生产规模有限,单个商品生产者生产的商品不多,那时,产销统一由生产者自己完成。商品经济发展到一定阶段后,随着生产规模的扩大,单个产业资本家生产的商品越来越多,他便不能同时兼顾生产与销售。因此,产销一体化的经营模式应运而生。     

Extractive industries and regional development: Lessons from Peru on the limitations of revenue devolution to producing regions

ABSTRACT

The transfer of oil and mining revenues to the subnational governments of resource-rich jurisdictions is a common policy aimed at promoting development and reducing local opposition to extraction. In the early 2000s, Peru implemented a radical version of that policy. Peruvian mining regions received fiscal transfers many times greater than the national average during the last commodity boom. The strategy had mixed effects on well-being indicators. These transfers had statistically significant positive effects on economic growth and the rate of school attendance at different ages. In contrast, they did not have a significant impact on poverty reduction or the coverage of other basic services, while being positively correlated with an increase in the income gap between women and men. Overall, the results are not as positive as the promoters had expected. The transfers generated political incentives for local authorities to pursue short-term, clientelistic spending that has reduced their potential benefits.     

Resource Extraction,Economic Growth,and the Climate Dilemma in Canada and Australia

Canada and Australia are two of the economic success stories of the last thirty years, enjoying rapid growth during the 1990s and 2000s and (unlike the UK and US) escaping the worst effects of the 2008 financial crisis. In both countries, however, economic growth has become highly dependent on commodities extraction, leaving them vulnerable to fluctuations in commodity prices, and imposing political constraints on tackling climate change. This article explores the economic and political challenges which the role of the natural resource sector has posed in Australia and Canada in recent years, and examines the contrasting ways in which Scott Morrison and Justin Trudeau’s governments deployed the climate issue in the two countries’ 2019 federal elections.     

Motivated Reasoning,Public Opinion,and Presidential Approval

Political Behavior - Presidential approval is a desirable commodity for US presidents, one that bolsters re-election chances and the prospects of legislative success. An important question, then,...     

On The Class Location Of Contract Farmers In The Kenyan Economy

The purpose of this paper is to address some contemporary issues in the debate about rural social transformation: the so called ‘peasantry debate’. In order to clarifty these issues, we discuss material collected in Kenya on tobacco contract farming. Our intention is to integrate theoretical and substantive analyses of the current Kenyan situation. Tobacco farming is, we argue, a particularly clear instance of a form of subsumption of petty commodity production to capital. Although British-American Tobacco concentrates all the moments of capital–productive, circulating, and merchant –within a unified organisational framework, it enters the local growersapos; economy in the form of merchant capital. Combined with the active support of the Kenyan state, this has the effect of shoring up the household productive form. However, it does not (as some would argue) create a class of rural accumulators. Household production is sustained only at subsistence level. Contract farming is not, in our view, an ‘agent of transformation’ although pressures from the world economy might in time, have the effect of eroding the present form of exchange between Bat (K) and tobacco growers.     

The social relations of money as universal equivalent: a response to Ingham

In a recent debate in Economy and Society, Ingham criticized Marxist theory of money on the grounds that it relates money to commodities through the labour theory of value, while ignoring credit money. Ingham suggested instead that money is constituted by social relations characteristic of credit, namely relations of ‘promise to pay’. Drawing on Marx, this article shows that, pace Ingham, it is necessary theoretically to relate money to commodities. Money is indeed constituted by social relations, but these are commercial relations among ‘foreign’ commodity owners, not credit relations. The social relations of money are successfully captured by Marx's concept of the universal equivalent, when that is interpreted as monopoly over the ability to buy. In this light, both commodity and credit money are forms of the universal equivalent, but qualitatively different from each other.     

Feeding finance: a critical account of the shifting relationships between finance,food and farming

Abstract

Whether in the form of commodity index funds, farmland investment funds or commodities trading by agri-food companies, there is evidence of an increasingly close relationship between finance, food and agriculture. While these developments have received some critical attention of late, existing accounts of the ‘financialization of food’ are limited to the extent that they view finance as an external force with emphasis placed on the unnaturalness of its relationship with agriculture and its distortive effects on agricultural markets. Recognizing that finance and agriculture have a long history, this paper offers a more nuanced account of the place of financialization in the agricultural sector. Specifically, it examines how agriculture's emergence as an investment opportunity has reconfigured the terrain of agricultural interests and logics while creating new knowledge demands and agricultural visibilities. These dynamics are explored through a case study of the role of finance and processes of financialization in the recent demise of the Canadian Wheat Board as a state marketing agency. Through this discussion, the paper offers valuable insights into not only the reworking of agriculture as a particular type of financial space, but also the nature and limits of financialization itself as a way of engaging with the world beyond urban financial centres.