Flying bananas: small producer tactics and the (un)making of Philippine banana export chains

Global production network (GPN) analysts argue that workers actively contribute to the shaping of GPNs through different forms of agency. In this contribution I extend this argument to the tactical agency of small producers. By focusing on the phenomenon of side-selling among Filipino banana contract farmers, I show that these tactics have contributed to the emergence of alternative trade networks that undermined traditional lead firm behaviour and inspired new struggles over chain governance. However, as a diverse and ambiguous group of growers engages in this tactical agency, predominantly as small capital, they also contribute to the continuation of broader dynamics of capital accumulation and labour exploitation.     

The ox fall down: path-breaking and technology treadmills in Indian cotton agriculture

ABSTRACT

Although India’s cotton sector has been penetrated by various input- and capital-intensive methods, penetration by herbicide has been largely stymied. In Telangana State, the main obstacle has been the practice of ‘double-lining’, in which cotton plants are spaced widely to allow weeding by ox-plow. Path dependency theory primarily explains the persistence of sub-optimal practices, but double-lining is an example of an advantageous path for cash-poor farmers. However, it is being actively undermined by parties intent on expanding herbicide markets and opening a niche for next-generation genetically modified cotton. We use the case to explicate the role of treadmills in technology ‘lock-in’. We also examine how an adaptive locked-in path may be broken by external interests, drawing on recent analyses of ‘didactic’ learning by farmers.     

Plantation rubber,land grabbing and social-property transformation in southern Laos

This paper critically examines theories of accumulation, dispossession and exclusion for analyzing the agrarian transformations that result from contemporary large-scale land acquisitions across the Global South. Building upon Marx's primitive accumulation, Harvey's accumulation by dispossession and Hall et al.'s Powers of Exclusion, conceptual lenses are developed through which to examine how land grabs transform property and social relationships of resource-based production. I examine the concession of 10,000 hectares by the central government of Laos to a Vietnamese corporation for extracting timber and planting rubber in the southern province of Attapeu. This acquisition has excluded farmers from land and resources that constituted their primary sources of (re)production, reconfigured rural property relations, altered the peasant relationship to land and produced new exploitative forms of wage labor.     

对劳动价值源泉的现代经济分析

世纪之交,劳动价值论面临着社会经济现实的严峻挑战。本文通过对现代价值形成的各类问题的分析,证明了劳动仍是价值的唯一源泉,剔除了劳动价值论中某些不符合实际的传统结论,澄清了人们对这一理论的某些简单化理解,肯定了劳动价值论仍具有巨大科学意义,足以充当现代经济分析的基础理论和基本工具。     

坚持人本管理应着力把握的几个关系

人本管理,是马克思主义以人为本哲学观点在管理实践中的运用和发展;是一种把“人”作为管理活动的核心,以促进人自身完善与发展为根本目的,强调个人价值与集体价值、个人目标与组织目标辨证统一为原则的管理理念,围绕着激发和调动人的主动性、积极性、创造性,以实现组织和人共同发展为目的一系列管理活动。在具体工作中坚持人本管理,必须把握和处理好管理与激励、个人与团队、关心人和塑造人、人员和资源等四个方面的关系,从而使管理工作在提高工作效率、完成目标任务的同时,提高员工能力素质,促进其全面发展。     

规模化生产:我国现代农业发展的重要方向

党的十八届三中全会作出了加快发展规模化生产,推进农业现代化的战略部署。从我国发展规模化生产的必要性、重要性、紧迫性和可行性等四个方面来看,我国发展规模化生产是历史的必然,势在必行。我国发展规模化生产应采取以下对策和措施:1.土地流转;2.发展机械;3.规范程序;4.完善法规;5.培训人才;6.加强管理;7.重视科技;8.政策扶持;9.增大投入;10.增强合作。我国发展规模化生产,可能会带来以下几个问题:一是地力衰退问题;二是病虫草害问题;三是土地非农化问题;四是农民失业问题;五是两极分化问题。针对这些问题,作者提出了相应的防范对策和具体措施。     

深化非公企业厂务公开民主管理的探索与实践

在推进非公企业厂务公开民主管理工作中,目前尚存在企业劳资双方认识不高、劳资双方地位不平等、缺乏有效工作载体、职工代表参与能力亟待提高、工作应进一步深化等问题。对此,天津市河西区总工会在领导力度、覆盖广度、质量深度上下功夫,明确职责,狠抓落实,积极贯彻主动、依法、科学相结合的维权观,在推动区域构建和谐稳定的劳动关系上做出了有益实践。     

美学视角下的社会生产实践与当代劳动者美育

要将美的事物转化为广大劳动者自觉追求的理想理念,就必须把社会生产实践与审美教育很好地统一起来。掌握审美心理建构与劳动者体征特点是开展审美教育的前提条件。通过厘清生产劳动与审美教育的差别联系,才能不断挖掘生产劳动中的美学意蕴和尊重劳动者的审美感受,继而在实践中锻造工人阶级的伟大品格,最终实现二者的良性互动。     

抽象危险犯的扩张限缩与刑法谦抑性——兼评《刑法修正案(八)》的抽象危险犯立法

《刑法修正案(八)》将危险驾驶罪和生产销售假药罪规定为抽象危险犯,反映了风险社会下刑罚早期化的趋势,与刑法谦抑性发生一定的冲突。应当肯定修正案对抽象危险犯的扩张具有一定的合理性,但其扩张并非无边无界,为防止其过分扩张需要从立法论和解释论两方面对其施加一定的限缩。     

当代国际法的若干发展趋势

伴随着国际社会主体结构进一步向多元发展,国际法领域反映出新的发展趋势：国际法的调整范围和领域不断扩大,国际制度性权力博弈向纵深拓展,国际法治逐步趋于加强,与国际政治的相互作用关系凸显,国际法进入加速量变阶段。在挑战与机遇共存中,应妥善应因国际法的新发展。