The role of rural indebtedness in the evolution of capitalism

Few studies have attempted to systematize the broader consequences of ordinary indebtedness – the inevitable other side of credit. My purpose here is to suggest four preliminary theses on the role of indebtedness in the evolution of capitalism, with special reference to the rural sphere. I argue that across time and space, credit/debt relations have not only been a key factor behind social differentiation through the control of land, labour and capital (Thesis I). They have also fostered market discipline by forcing the borrower – whether a poor peasant or a company manager – to calculate, pay, trade, work, intensify (Thesis II). Interest-bearing and guarantee-based loans have thus generated pressures for economic growth, short-termism and innovations, but have also undermined traditional community bonds and environmental conditions (Thesis III). Through its remarkable reward-or-punish nature, the credit/debt couple represents a powerful mechanism of social selection that has, in the long run, crucially shaped the evolution of capitalism (Thesis IV).     

关于职工董事监事身份的理论思考

本文旨在通过对职工董事监事身份及其身份的产权基础、利益基础、法律基础的理论研究 ,论证职工董事、监事的双重身份。为职工董事、监事制度的建立寻找理论根据 ,更好地发挥职工董事、监事的作用。     

科学与人文的融合是现代教育发展的必然趋势

在中国的现代教育过程中,教育思想的偏颇导致实践的误区,只重科学而忽略人文,导致我们国家培养的人才出现了一些问题。由此可以看出,现代教育必须重视学生的人文素质,只有科学与人文的融合才是现代教育发展的必然趋势。     

The legacy of social conflicts over property rights in rural Brazil and Mexico: Current land struggles in historical perspective

This article proposes an approach to the agrarian question that focuses on the establishment of absolute private property rights over land in Brazil and Mexico. The author argues that current land struggles are conditioned by the property regimes inherited from past struggles. The author examines the liberal reforms of the nineteenth century and argues that the balance of class forces led to the slow establishment of absolute private property in Brazil, while in Mexico they triggered the Revolution of 1910–1917, which limited agrarian capitalism. The author then turns to the consequences of these different property regimes in the twentieth century and argues that capitalist social relations have been more dominant in the Brazilian than in the Mexican countryside. The conservative modernization of the 1960s and 1970s is identified as a turning point in the fully capitalist development of agriculture in Brazil. The shift toward food imports, the elimination of subsidies, and the reform of Article 27 of the Constitution signal the re-establishment of the conditions for capitalist development of agriculture in Mexico. The article ends with an assessment of the MST and EZLN's strategies to protect peasants’ access to land and to influence the institutional setting determining access to land.     

Green appropriations through shifting contours of authority and property on a pastoralist commons

The dynamics of customary land rights and displacement among east African pastoralists have been the subject of extensive scholarly inquiry. Displacement to make way for other land uses, government-led privatization schemes, endogenous subdivision to defend land against outsiders, and progressive enclosure of private land in the context of the recent ‘land rush’ are some of the documented trajectories of land tenure change. Less explored is how exogenous authority systems gain traction within common property regimes to re-shape the contours of property. Laikipia, Kenya presents an ideal context for this research given the uniquely ambitious effort to conserve globally significant wildlife on private land. We focus on a group ranch owned collectively by Maa-speaking pastoralists for whom formal title was secured with the support of outside actors vested in conservation, and coupled with efforts to provide financial incentives for conservation. Findings suggest the new governance structure established in the context of land titling has become a pathway through which outside authority gains traction – with consequences for property, sovereignty and the traction of green agendas. Findings deepen understanding of how shifting authority shapes processes of alienation and legitimation, and contribute to ongoing debates about land grabs, tenure formalization and neoliberal approaches to conservation.     

The Uniform Civil Code: The Politics of the Universal in Postcolonial India

This article speaks of a debate in contemporary India: that surrounding the validity of enacting a civil code that applies uniformly to all communities and religions in the state. In certain feminist arguments, such a code is seen as possibly providing a sphere of rights to Indian women that is alternative to the rights – or wrongs – given to them by the plural religious laws, which form the basis of the civil law in India. India, however, is a heterogeneous polity, encompassing a diversity of cultures and religions, some dominant and others forming minorities. Given these differences, some critics see the feminist call for a Uniform Civil Code as an essentialist move that prioritises gender over other agendas and politics. They argue that the site of the ‚universal’ in this feminist move is a liberal site that inherently excludes marginalised Others and benefits the dominant subjects in India. In my article, I contest this critique and question whether the site of the universal and its authorial subject in postcolonial India is, in fact, an exclusionary liberal ruse of power. I draw insights from the history of the formation of the postcolonial nation-state in India to posit an experience of the state and the universal within it, which is alternative to the Western liberal model. The aim of this article is, therefore, not so much to debate the in/validity of a Uniform Civil Code, as to address certain contemporary post-structuralist critiques of the site of the universal in postcolonial India and posit a departure from them, based on perspectives drawn from history.     

The global farms race: land grabs,agricultural investment,and the scramble for food security

In a widely read paper, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, World Bank and others propose systematic property rights formalization as a key step in addressing the problems of irresponsible agricultural investment. This paper examines the case of Cambodia, one of a number of countries where systematic land titling and large-scale land concessions have proceeded in parallel in recent years. Cambodia's experience exemplifies the challenges of the ‘formalization fix’ – the proposition that property formalization constitutes a preferable front-line defense against land grabbing – and highlights formalization's uneven geography as an issue that has yet to generate adequate discussion internationally. Three dimensions of Cambodia's less-than-successful formalization fix efforts stand out: (1) the spatial separation of systematic land titling and agribusiness concessions that emerged during the 2000s and has only recently begun to be addressed; (2) the deployment of property formalization as a means of land grabbing, especially when applied selectively and unevenly; and (3) the political arena of efforts to legitimize ‘state land’. The paper questions the formalization fix as a policy solution, and argues for both greater spatial transparency in property formalization efforts throughout the global South, and greater attention to the problem of unmapped state land in general.     

芬兰二战后经济发展与社会保障的特点与启示

作为一个北欧小国,从自然禀赋上看,芬兰不具备优势,除林业资源和渔业资源外,现代经济发展中关键的煤和石油奇缺。但进入21世纪以来,在世界经济论坛每年所做的全球经济竞争力的排名中,芬兰一直名列前茅,甚至有4次名列榜首,成为最具有经济竞争力国家,这则更加体现出较好的研究和参考价值。芬兰在二战后独特的混合经济体制以及社会保障福利国家体系,构成了芬兰在二战以来经济和社会诸多方面的发展特点。这些特点对中国和其他发展中国家未来的发展道路有着较强的启示和借鉴作用。     

入世后企业开展劳动竞赛的新思路

加入WTO后 ,对国内企业来说既是机遇 ,又是考验。在这样情况下 ,企业开展劳动竞赛 ,已成为现代企业管理的重要手段和有效途径 ,充分体现了现代企业人本管理的方向 ,符合我党全心全意依靠工人阶级的方针 ,同时 ,又贯彻和运用了市场经济的利益原则、竞争机制和价值规律。     

产权改革后国有企业劳动关系基本状况

国有企业进行产权改革导致企业生产经营模式发生变化,企业劳动关系逐步走向规范化,但主体双方的地位存在着明显差异;职工群众作为劳动关系主体,他们对企业的依赖性不断增强,对经济收入也更加关注;职工之间收入差距的不断扩大,对企业劳动关系的稳定与和谐,会产生消极影响。     

产权制度改革与职工董事、监事制度

国有经济布局结构的调整和国有企业的战略性改组 ,必须依托已建立了现代企业制度的企业去完成。这不可避免地要涉及企业微观基础的再造。其核心内容是产权制度改革和劳动关系变化。工会作为劳动关系的产物 ,必将面临新的机遇和挑战 ,而推进和完善职工董事和监事制度 ,是新形势下工会工作必须加强的一项重要任务。作者重点分析了企业产权制度改革的内容和实质 ,提出 :工会 ,以及主要代表职工合法权益的职工董事、监事 ,要更好地发挥作用 ,必须转变观念 ,摆正位置 ,抓住重点 ,提高素质。     

The evolution of industrial relations in Nepal: a biological evolutionary perspective

ABSTRACT

A great deal of literature focuses on exogenous forces transforming industrial relations in liberal and neoliberal contexts. Further, most scholars claim that the transformation occupies a similar trajectory of convergence across the globe. However, very little is known about the evolution of industrial relations in Nepal. Therefore, this paper considers the labor movement of 1947, the royal coup d’état of 1960, the ban on the trade unions, and the alliance of the trade unions with the political parties and political economy as endogenous drivers in explaining the evolution of industrial relations in Nepal. Thus the objective of the paper is to investigate the evolution of industrial relations in Nepal through an evolutionary perspective. This analysis shows that the evolution of industrial relations in Nepal is a ‘punctuated’ (discontinuous or revolutionary) one compared with a traditional, incremental model, which employs the construct of the institutionalization of industrial relations, using a standard, union-based paradigm of employment relations against the growing nonstandard employment model of more flexibility and irregular work that is growing in the West and Asia. Further, the theoretical contributions are put into perspective in the context of the broader industrial relations backdrop.     

关于推进企业改革改制工作的几点思考

主辅分离、辅业改制,积极稳妥地安置富余人员是国有企业改革改制绕不开的结,也是改革改制工作必须突破的屏障。一要突破思想障碍;二要加强正确引导;三要坚持源头参与;四要把握政策依据。只有这样,企业改革改制工作才能顺利实施。     

职工持股--产权制度变革的有效选择--对金陵船厂实行职工持股制情况的调查与思考

在社会主义市场经济条件下,必须按照现代企业制度的要求进行国有企业深化产权制度的改革,既要重视调动经营管理者的积极性,也要重视调动广大职工群众的积极性.而职工持股,则是产权制度变革的有效选择.     

试论"工人参与管理"制度的评估体系

建立"工人参与管理"制度的理论基础是劳动力产权理论、劳动者是劳动力所有者理论、现代企业理论;"工人参与管理"制度的评估体系应包括参与程度、参与等级、参与内容层次、参与性质等几个方面.真正的工人参与是劳动者权利的实现,而不是一种调动劳动者积极性的手段.     

国企公司化改制的关键:有效的公司治理

多数国有大中型企业实行公司化改制后 ,经营状况依然不佳 ,其直接原因在于公司的治理存在严重的问题和缺陷。现代公司虽然不可避免地出现代理问题 ,但规范的公司治理结构能有效缓解代理问题 ,使得现代公司制企业表现出强大的生命力。而国有企业的产权残缺性使公司治理结构中的直接监督和间接监督等有效的缓解代理问题的手段不能得到充分发挥。因此只有通过股权结构的分散化调整 ,使国有股不占控股地位 ,从而弱化国有产权代表在公司治理活动中的作用。与此同时 ,这也能充分发挥非国有股权所有者的积极作用。只有这样 ,国有企业公司化改制才能建立有效的公司治理结构 ,提高国有企业的运行效率     

The role of the TUC in significant industrial disputes: an historical critical overview

ABSTRACT

Historically the British Trades Union Congress’s (TUC) role in a significant number of major industrial disputes has been subject to both accusations of ‘betrayals’ and ‘sell-outs’ as well as more sympathetic accounts which emphasise the constraints faced by the TUC both in terms of their institutional role and their relationship with constituent unions. Drawing on evidence concerning the role of the TUC in significant disputes including the 1926 General Strike, the strike wave of 1972, 1975–8 Grunwick dispute, the 1978/9 ‘winter of discontent’, the 1984/5 miners’ strike, the 1986–7 News International strike and more recent examples, the paper highlights four constraints on the role of the TUC in relation to major disputes: their political loyalty to the Labour Party; an aversion to defying the law; the avoidance of appearing to challenge state power; and structural constraints to an extent inherent within trade union officialdom.     

北京市保安员队伍状况调查报告--以北京市保安服务总公司为例

北京市保安服务总公司的保安员已超过5万人,他们是担负着特殊社会使命的新兴就业群体,大部分来自外地,保安员的工作、生活、心理状态从一定层面反映了外来务工群体在京所遇到的困惑和问题.