The Embedded Market and Ideology Critique

Abstract

When the Global Financial Crisis hit, major political economists were able to boast that they had long warned that "crazy times" were coming. By contrast, leading sociologists seem to have been wrong footed. Totalizing narratives of a new "risk society", "second modernity" and the like appeared to have sacrificed the grounds for weighing up the costs and damages of contemporary capitalism. Made famous by Karl Polanyi, the concept of the embedded market suggests a differentiated diagnosis of our times that should allow sociology to re-enter the discussion as a critic of an ideological attempt to block public discussions about losses and dam ages of contemporary capitalism. The following paper will explore several readings of this concept and will evaluate their capacity to revive sociology's critical powers.     

The Political Significance of the Face: Deleuze's Critique of Levinas

While Levinas famously claims that ethics precedes ontology and emanates from the concrete experience of the other's face, it is often forgotten that Deleuze also discusses the face in numerous writings. The purpose of this paper is to briefly outline Levinas's arguments regarding the constitution of the face to chart its ethical importance, before engaging with Deleuze's critique of Levinas's position. I show that, by distinguishing between two systems of signification – the head-body system and the face system – Deleuze agrees with Levinas that the face is an important signifier delineating the other, but destructs the notion of face to show that it: (1) is more complex and multi-dimensional than Levinas realizes; (2) emanates from a specific semiotic relationship; and (3) emanates from specific socio-historical circumstances. Showing the face is a semiotic construct based in and emanating from a specific socio-historical configuration allows Deleuze not only to conclude that the face is related to politics not ethics as Levinas claims, but also to claim that it entails the inhuman in the human. This clarifies the nature of the face in Deleuze, offers a critique of Levinas's influential thinking on ethics, brings us to a discussion of the relationship between ethics and politics and reveals what Deleuze takes the political to entail.     

Hayek's Bizarre Liberalism: A Critique

This paper questions the conventional view of F. A. Hayek as a reviver of 'classical liberalism'. It argues that the foundation of Hayek's doctrine is a naturalist or physicalist conception of man which is at variance with the classic tenets of liberalism. It shows how Hayek's theory of society and of the abstract rules that ought to govern society are partly a continuation and partly a contradiction of his physicalist notion of man. The paper draws particular attention to Hayek's work The Sensory Order and to the sometimes overlooked influence of Ernst Mach on his ideas.     

Human Rights and Modern Liberalism: a Critique

The idea of human rights has become one of the central moral notions of both the theory and practice of international politics. While its foundation and future in the practice of politics looks bright, it is an idea that still causes great trouble at the theoretical level. What are human rights? Why do we have them? To what should we attribute the authority of their moral claims? The theorist Michael Freeman has suggested one theory that by addressing such questions may serve as a foundation for human rights. His theory, however, ends by begging the questions it set out to answer.     

资本主义批判与社会正义——生态马克思主义与有机马克思主义的政治旨趣

生态马克思主义和有机马克思主义在制度批判、现代价值观批判以及政治批判上,有着相同的政治哲学立场,这种旨趣使得两种生态政治理论具有一种先在的同源共约性.然而,从产生的自然伦理价值、地理空间和工业化发展程度上看,两者也都带有一定的后现代主义色彩.对我们的启示在于生态社会正义不能仅限定在资本主义革命的政治解放意义上,更重要的应该是文化价值观念的转型与人类命运共同体的建构.     

Repairing Civil Society and Experimenting with Power: A Genealogy of Social Capital

In this article my principal aims are to explain why the concept of social capital has proven so popular among policy makers and to develop a critical response to it. In order to do so I bring together macro- and micro-level analyses that focus, on the one hand, on broad structural changes associated with globalisation and, on the other, on specific attempts at increasing social capital within the everyday lives of communities. To develop my macro-level analysis I suggest that the conjunction of economic volatility and demographic mobility that has affected the West since the 1970s has made building social capital an attractive option within a more general experiment with new forms of power. My claim here is that building social capital is among a clutch of recent policy initiatives designed to repair the ideological resources of contemporary liberal states, where it is the tearing as well as the weakening of the social fabric that is at stake. I focus on the British case because building social capital has been explicitly highlighted by the UK government as a vehicle for civic renewal. The micro-analysis proceeds by analysing recent surveys and policies undertaken by Camden Council. Micro refers here to local symptoms of global change; to the micro-powers being developed in response and to the local authorities where social capital policies are being operationalised. I associate these with biopolitical and ideological interventions into the very building blocks of the social. Overall, the genealogy of social capital explores how the concept's discursive significance has shifted as it moves from the democratisation literature into the policy arena and becomes entangled in relations of power. In the latter context it examines the impact of concerns about segregation that justify intrusive policies associated with social capital building.     

Does Gender Equality Affect Municipal Transparency: The Case of Spain

The influence of women in organizational transparency is an understudied vein of representative bureaucracy. Literature claims that the increase of women in formal political representation opened the opportunity to bring to public organizations gender diversity, experiences, and values different from those of men. It highlights the beneficial leadership styles and the legitimacy of public bureaucracies. Since gender equality in Spanish local government has increased in recent years, it was the trigger and the aim for this study: to understand the influence of women’s political representation on the level of Spanish municipalities’ transparency. The analysis draws on panel data econometric techniques. The results reinforce the discussion that the representation of women in local political life will increase information transparency and reduce information asymmetry in municipalities.     

恩格斯哲学批判的研究方法和意义分析

在《路德维希·费尔巴哈与德国古典哲学的终结》一文中,马克思的思想和德国古典哲学都经由恩格斯加以发扬光大,而其所采用的方法正是一般的科学方法和唯物主义的辩证方法。在此分别论述了两种方法,并以此析出为学的方法用处,即方法是文章之骨和立意之体。唯有如同恩格斯一般心存正道,才能使得方法如鱼得水,也唯有方法的恰当,才能使得正气化于文笔之间。