“Flexible” capital accumulation in Islamic State social media

This article explores online social media produced by the neo-jihadist group “Islamic State” (IS) from a political-economic perspective. Using a framework developed by anthropologist David Harvey, it examines how IS social media operates within depoliticised neoliberal environments characterised by “flexible” regimes of capital accumulation. It explicates how IS acquires political-economic capital by evoking “spectacle”, “fashion” and a “commodification of cultural forms”. Drawing from Christian Fuchs’ informational theory, the article also considers the roles of agency and competition in accumulation processes where “knowledge and technology reinforce each other”. By revealing how IS both constitutes and is constituted by its flexible approach to social media, the article seeks to illuminate avenues for better understanding neo-jihadist ideations.     

Agroecology as a territory in dispute: between institutionality and social movements

Agroecology is in fashion, and now constitutes a territory in dispute between social movements and institutionality. This new conjuncture offers a constellation of opportunities that social movements can avail themselves of to promote changes in the food system. Yet there is an enormous risk that agroecology will be co-opted, institutionalized, colonized and stripped of its political content. In this paper, we analyze this quandary in terms of political ecology: will agroecology end up as merely offering a few more tools for the toolbox of industrial agriculture, to fine tune an agribusiness system that is being restructured in the midst of a civilizational crisis or, alternatively, will it be strengthened as a politically mobilizing option for building alternatives to development? We interpret the contemporary dispute over agroecology through the lenses of contested material and immaterial territories, political ecology, and the first and second contradictions of capital.     

Decolonising drug studies in an era of predatory accumulation

Abstract

The cultural and political-economic valences of psychoactive drugs in the Global South offer critical insights on local and international fault lines of social inequality and profiteering. Historically, in a classic primitive accumulation process the trafficking of industrially produced euphoric substances across the globe have wreaked havoc among vulnerable populations while extracting profit for the powerful. The complex flows of capital generated both by illegal addiction markets and also by the mobilisation of licit public funds to manage their mayhem, however, suggest the contemporary utility of the concept of ‘predatory accumulation’. The Enlightenment-era concept of ‘primitive accumulation’ usefully highlighted state violence and forcible dispossession in the consolidation of European capitalism. A contemporary reframing of these processes as predatory accumulation, however, highlights contradictory, nonlinear relationships between the artificially high profits of illegal drug sales, repressive governmentality and corporate greed. It sets these patterns of destructive profiteering in the context of our moment in history.     

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.     

Land grabs and primitive accumulation in deltaic Bangladesh: interactions between neoliberal globalization,state interventions,power relations and peasant resistance

This essay provides theoretical and empirical analysis of the interrelationships between land grabs, primitive accumulation and accumulation by dispossession (ABD) in the context of capitalist development. Evidence from a multi-class peasant formation in deltaic Bangladesh indicates that land grabs have been propelled by interactions between neoliberal globalization, state interventions, power relations and peasant resistance. Key roles have been played by illegal violence and de-linking of poor peasants from production organization and clientelist relations providing access to land. Establishment of a shrimp zone for export production has led to systematic eviction of the poor, backed by state power. Poor peasant resistance has shifted towards overt forms involving coalition-building and collective action. It is argued that the concept of primitive accumulation can subsume both market and non-market mechanisms as well as voluntary and involuntary transactions involving different degrees of intentionality, inclusive of deliberate dispossession, unintended consequences and negative externalities. Primitive accumulation and ABD correspond to distinct historical phases of capitalism and are subsumable under a generic concept of ongoing capitalism-facilitating accumulation. The dynamics of ‘actually existing capitalism’ display a two-way and recursive causal relationship in which continuing primitive accumulation is as much a consequence of expanding capitalist production as its precondition.     

Less is more or the more the merrier? Analysing attitudes towards multiple-mandate holding among local officeholders

The practice of multiple-mandate holding is widespread across Europe. Critics argue that this practice contributes to a concentration of political power, a higher risk for conflicts of interest and damage to the public image of political actors. Advocates meanwhile claim that it provides clear benefits, such as local embeddedness of the national or regional political decision-making and a greater degree of professionalisation in politics. However, little is known about how political actors themselves look upon this practice. This especially in a context like Finland, where this practice is said to be embedded in the political culture and where another institutional level has recently been implemented, making it possible for political actors to simultaneously hold political mandates at the local-, regional- and national levels. This paper examines attitudes towards multiple-mandate holding among local political decision-makers using unique survey data gathered through a new online panel. The results suggest that councillors from a populist radical right party and those who perceive corruption and partial treatment as more common were the most negatively disposed towards this practice, while councillors from the traditionally strongest rural party were the most in favour.     

主物意识的起源与它的存在发展形态——再论物质与意识

以生存为本的主物,其原始智意作用于客物产生最初的极为朴素的原始属物;此属物反映在后世的主物从而形成一次智意,一次智意形成后,主物智意由于主物自身的本质属性与意识的社会化开始带有明显的有意识的目的性。这种目的性是主物的自然生存本能体现为最初的原始智意后产生并不断上升发展。     

生命的寄托 理想的形式——人体艺术审美要素论

具有生物性功能的人体成为艺术题材、审美对象 ,需要某些要素的参与 ,形式化、意味的积淀是基本要素 ,而性觉的参与也是不容忽视的。只有当各要素高度协调、统一时 ,审美才成为可能     

我国民族地区原始计量记录行为探析

我国民族地区原始计量记录有实物记事、绘画记事、结绳记事等方式.民族地区原始计量记录行为可以分为产生、发展、完善三个过程,其发展的必然趋势是会计的产生.     

大学生创业过程若干问题评析——以扎根基层创业为例

创业是带动大学生就业的主要形式。大学生在创业过程的不同阶段所面临的中心任务不相同,在创业机会的识别阶段,主要是挖掘和选择商机;在创业机会的开发阶段,主要是快速获取和整合开发创业的机会所需要的相关资源,使资源与商机相协调;在创业成果的积累阶段,创业者主要是建立运作高效的创业团队,合理配置相关资源,以实现商机、资源与团队三个创业内核的动态平衡。