Can society be commodities all the way down? Post-Polanyian reflections on capitalist crisis

Abstract

In his classic 1944 book, The great transformation, Karl Polanyi traced the roots of capitalist crisis to efforts to create ‘self-regulating markets’ in land, labour and money. The effect was to turn those three fundamental bases of social life into ‘fictitious commodities’. The inevitable result, Polanyi claimed, was to despoil nature, rupture communities and destroy livelihoods. This diagnosis has strong echoes in the twenty-first century: witness the burgeoning markets in carbon emissions and biotechnology; in child-care, schooling and the care of the old; and in financial derivatives. In this situation, Polanyi's idea of fictitious commodification affords a promising basis for an integrated structural analysis that connects three dimensions of the present crisis: the ecological, the social and the financial. This paper explores the strengths and weaknesses of Polanyi's idea.     

A Checkpoint Effect? Evidence from a Natural Experiment on Travel Restrictions in the West Bank

Does nonviolent repression prompt subject groups to obey or rebel? By what mechanism does it do so? To address these questions, we exploit a natural experiment based on a 2009 policy toward the “easement” of checkpoints—nonviolent impediments to movement—in the West Bank. We sample populations across 17 villages (n = 599), beside one checkpoint slated for easement (treatment) and one that will undergo no change (control), before and after the intervention. We then pursue difference‐in‐difference estimation. This design is experimental, as easement was orthogonal to Palestinian attitudes; for robustness, we test our findings against an independent panel (n = 1,200). We find that easement makes subject populations less likely to support violence; we suggest humiliation as the mechanism bridging nonviolent repression with militancy. This warrants rethinking Israeli security policy, as short‐term concerns over Palestinian mobility may be compromising Israel's long‐term interests. By extension, checkpoint easement may positively affect peace negotiations.     

Patterns of workplace supervisor support desired by abused women

The purpose of this study was to understand differences in patterns of supervisor support desired by female victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) and to examine whether the pattern of support desired at work is reflective of a woman's stage of change in the abusive relationship, IPV-related work interference, and IPV-related job reprimands or job loss. We conducted interviews in Spanish or English with adult women working in low-income jobs who had been physically or sexually abused by an intimate partner/ ex-partner in the past year ( N = 133). Cluster analysis revealed three distinct clusters that form a hierarchy of type of support wanted: those who desired limited support; those who desired confidential, time-off, and emotional support; and those who desired support in wide variety of ways from their supervisor. The clusters appeared to reflect stages of behavior change in an abusive relationship. Specifically, the limited-support cluster may represent an early precontemplation stage, with women reporting the least interference with work. The support-in-every-way cluster may represent later stages of change, in which women are breaking away from the abusive partner and report the greatest interference with work. Women in the confidential-, time-off-, and emotional-support cluster are in a transition stage in which they are considering change and are exploring options in their abusive relationship. Understanding the hierarchy of the type of support desired, and its relationship to stages of change in the abusive relationship and work interference, may provide a strong foundation for developing appropriate and effective workplace interventions to guide supervisors in providing support to women experiencing IPV.     

The temporal fate of drugs in decomposing porcine tissue

Drug levels in decomposed individuals are difficult to interpret. Concentrations of 16 drugs were monitored in tissues (blood, brain, liver, kidney, muscle, and soil) from decomposing pigs for 1 week. Pigs were divided into groups (n = 5) with each group receiving four drugs. Drug cocktails were prepared from pharmaceutical formulations. Intracardiac pentobarbital sacrifice was 4 h after dosing, with tissue collection at 4, 24, 48, 96, and 168 h postdosing. Samples were frozen until assay. Detection and quantitation of drugs were through solid phase extraction followed by gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer analysis. Brain and kidneys were not available after 48 h; liver and muscle persisted for 1 week. Concentration of drugs increased during decomposition. During 1 week of decomposition, muscle showed average levels increasing but concentrations in liver were increased many fold, compared to muscle. Attempting to interpret drug levels in decomposed bodies may lead to incorrect conclusions about cause and manner of death.