“Correcting Capitalism”: Changing Metrics and Meanings of Work among Japanese Employees

What have been the processes of economic restructuring occurring inside many Japanese corporations, and what neo-liberal techniques have been used on the ground since the 2000s? By placing Japanese neo-liberalism within the broader historical and socio-cultural dynamics of the ideology of “companyism” since the end of World War II, this article analyses the specific deployment of neo-liberal techniques in the Japanese workplace, and the evolving responses by both employees and management. It argues that while profit margins and efficiency were clear targets for neo-liberal reformers, the human cost of neo-liberal economising was more difficult to calculate and triggered unforeseen frictions and tensions in the workplace. As a result, corporate reforms have been mediated by the challenges emerging from various structural reforms. This article shows how both employees and management became more self-reflexive and new permutations of neo-liberal governance have emerged, highlighting both the continuities and changes in the meaning of work under the global permeation of neo-liberalism.     

政治隐喻和文本矛盾：重读《芭巴拉少校》

萧伯纳的代表作《芭巴拉少校》具有高度政治隐喻性质,它暗中回答了19世纪以来马修?阿诺德等文人和学者热衷于探讨的一个重大社会问题：未来的英国由谁来统治？安德谢夫家族企业的继承人问题,本质上是未来英国统治阶级的人选问题。作为工业资产阶级的典型代表,安德谢夫无往而不胜,各个方面取得了成功。然而,令他（萧伯纳）始料未及的是,他所选中的库森斯不可能是一个合格的接班人,因为,历代安德谢夫所秉持的传统足以表明,像库森斯这种中产阶级出身、缺少“狼性”的人文知识分子是无法承担起英国工业资本主义的历史使命的,19世纪末以来的英国工业资本主义发展史已经证明了这一点。就此而言,可以说,萧伯纳在无意中写出了英国资本主义当时暗含的重大危机：工业精神的衰落。     

The political economy of ‘flex trees’: a preliminary analysis

With the rise of ‘bioeconomy’, trees are receiving increasing attention. This contribution conducts a preliminary analysis of the trajectories and the main drivers of change in the rise of new, flexible and multiple uses of trees. It assesses the political dimensions involved in this transformation, which is simultaneously ongoing, anticipated and imagined. Notes are offered on the issues to be considered when the flex-crop framework is operationalized to include the study of trees, and additional conceptualizations that help in analyzing the political economy of tree uses are provided. Areas needing further empirical study are identified and a preliminary research agenda is suggested. The flexible and multiple use of trees and tree-derived commodities is having a large impact on power relations in the global political economy of forestry and the forest industry, the asymmetry of which is based on who is best able to flex or de-multiply, thereby controlling commodity webs and processing technology. It is argued that while flexing seems to increase diversity, in practice it typically increases this only for the processing industry; the converse occurs in terms of the unification of the productive base into monocultures. However, these two processes go hand in hand, and illustrate how flexing is a deeply capitalist process.     

析资本主义拜物教的意识形态根源

马克思关于资本主义社会普遍存在的拜物教现象所作的精辟分析是建立在对资本主义社会的历史唯物主义阐释之上的,理解这一意识现象除了从经济、社会的维度把握其产生的根源,还要了解其意识形态根源,拜物教思想既有古老的宗教意识残留同时也是启蒙运动的产物,人的解放及人的需要的发展和放大对拜物教思想的盛行起了机杼性的作用。