The dynamics of rural poverty in Latin America

The development and perpetuation of a functional dualism between the subsistence sector and the commodity‐producing sector is an objective outcome of the laws of capital accumulation in the periphery of the world capitalist system. The necessity for this dualism derives from the drive of capitalists to maximise profits and thus maintain low wages. Its possibility arises from social disarticulation whereby labour's income does not participate in expanding the market for the modern sector. Through dualism, surplus value is increased not only by the orthodox means of central economies—principally increasing the productivity of work to reduce necessary labour embodied in wage goods—but, in addition, and dramatically more effectively, by collapsing the price of agricultural labour by an amount equal to the production of use‐values by the worker's family in the subsistence plot. In this way, subsistence agriculture supplies cheap labour to commercial agriculture which, in turn, supplies cheap food to the urban sector where it sustains low wages. Socially disarticulated accumulation and functional dualism between capitalist and precapitalist modes perpetuate primitive accumulation in the modern sector based on surplus extraction from the peasant sector fundamentally via the labour market. This specific form of overexploitation of rural labour implies a particular dynamic in the use of labour and natural resources in subsistence agriculture. The pattern of rural poverty and the subjective contradictions of peripheral capitalism can thus largely be understood by identifying the antagonistic contradictions to which the subsistence economy is subject in adjusting to domination.     

Physical stature and biological living standards of girls and young women in the Netherlands,born between 1815 and 1865

This is the first study in Dutch anthropometric historiography that describes and analyzes the development of the biological standard of living of girls and young women from the perspective of female adult stature. It is shown that adult stature of women, imprisoned in the second half of the nineteenth century and born between 1815 and 1865, slightly increased, approximately 1 cm. From 1850 onwards stature of women born in the cities notably increased. Development of female adult stature was compared to that of male stature; both were quite similar. No circumstantial evidence was found that girls or young women were on a disadvantage with respect to nutrition and (medical) care.     

One task,a few approaches,many impacts: Private-sector involvement in Canadian building code enforcement

Abstract: In response to issues about municipal-led regulatory enforcement, governments in Canada have been reforming their regimes of building regulation and control since the 1980s. As a result, private-sector inspectors were introduced as an alternative to local government control on the adherence to building regulations. However, this privatization has resulted in variations among jurisdictions. The main difference is the degree of private-sector involvement. Based on a series of interviews with forty-seven insiders, this article addresses the implications of such differences in privatization on the practice and process of building code enforcement. It draws some general lessons for the redesign of control over building regulations but at the same time warns against copy-pasting best practices.     

美欧关系

21世纪初的国际体系从根本意义上讲是单极体系,美国作为唯一的超级大国,凭借其超强的经济、军事实力主导国际事务。在未来的10-20年内,这一单极体系仍将维持下去,多极体系的形成尚待时日。美欧双方虽然在意识形态、文化上具有很大同质性,但随着国际形势的新发展,美欧分歧会越来越多,但直接冲突的可能较小。     

The Making of International Law

Netherlands International Law Review -