The Politics of Wider Share Ownership

The question of whether ordinary people should own stocks and shares has a long political trajectory in Britain. When the idea of creating a property-owning democracy of small shareholders took shape in the interwar period, there was still a consensus among Britain’s political elites that ordinary people should stay away from the stock market. By the end of the century, however, politicians welcomed the fact that there were more private shareholders in Britain than trade union members. In the post-war decades, wider share ownership had some supporters in all major parties, but no government took legislative action because schemes were difficult to reconcile with the mixed economy. Eventually, the economic hardship of the 1970s brought a noticeable shift in attitudes towards mass participation in the stock market. Conservative politicians, journalists, and businessmen of the increasingly influential New Right advocated a return to economic individualism that was motivated by a perceived decline of allegedly middle-class, bourgeois, or ‘Victorian’ values. This ‘declinism’ shaped Thatcherite plans in opposition for a new tax code that would encourage direct involvement with capitalist enterprise. Throughout the decades, however, policymakers and advocates of wider share ownership realized that stock market investment not only lent itself to an exercise in bourgeois values of thrift and deferred gratification, but could also foster speculation and gambling. The line between prudent saving, beneficial investment, and speculative risk-taking always proved difficult to draw and crossing it demanded careful communication.

A Collaborative Ethnography of Transnational Capitalism

This chapter explains how China has become the most promising market for Italian fashion brands, which led to the development of a variety of forms of collaboration between Italian and Chinese firms and entrepreneurs. It discusses the collaborative ethnography of the transnational capitalism that was forged by the Italians and Chinese engaged in textile and garment production and distribution in China. It also talks about the co-authored monograph, Fabricating Transnational Capitalism: A Collaborative Ethnography of Italian–Chinese Global Fashion. The chapter explains how the Chinese and Italians engaged in transnational relations of production that reformulate their ideas and practices of capitalist enterprise, including investment and management strategies, labor, value, and inequality.

Modernity, the Commons and Capitalism

The modern way of life and reflected in modern political philosophy is directed by capitalist activity of both commodities and persons. Entities that do not have commodity value are worthless to the capitalist enterprise, regardless of any intrinsic value in themselves. Modernity is capitalist modernity. Modernity has given preference for objects/commodities over persons. This paper will argue for opening-up the landscape for alternative experiences to capitalism, as an attempt to move away from the capitalist enterprise. That is, be able to provide open space for people to use other than the buying and selling of commodities---where the commodification process breaks down and opens-up spaces for alternative experiences besides the capitalist experience. In other words, this work will attempt to serve as critique of Enlightenment philosophical discourse---that is, serve as a critique of the Age of Enlightenment serving as the foundational head of modernism---a plea for the rebellion against the quantification and mathematization of reality under modernist and industrial societies. It will use the modern landscape as the first effort to break free from the capitalist enterprise.

The separation of property and control and its costs a century old problem that seems modern

The Agency Costs resulting from the conflict between principals and agents, due to the separation of ownership and control in the capitalist enterprise, was analyzed in many works of the last century. Could we assume that the current globalization of companies has increased the differences between principals and agents? Does this scenario lead to an increase in Agency Costs in those companies with the greatest presence in the global economy? The objective of this article is to compile studies that will allow us to answer these questions affirmatively and conclude that large transnational, multinational or global companies involve higher Agency Costs than those that remain within national borders.

Surplus of consumer goods and how it can be turned into a profit

The capitalist economy is divided into social classes of workers and capitalists earning wages and profits. Production is undertaken in this economy in order to obtain profits. But the surplus of goods produced over and above the value of wages paid has to be sold in order for money profits to accrue to the owner of a capitalist enterprise. From this is derived the fundamental theory of profits showing how profits are determined by the expenditure of capitalists on investment and consumption. The problem of saving is that it prevents the realization of profits. This underlines the importance of securing an equality between intended saving and planned investment.

The emergence of peer-to-peer accommodations

Due to the development of information and communication technologies (ICTs), the so-called sharing economy spread rapidly to new sectors. The principle of sharing economy is that users can share their idle resources with each other. One of the most well-known manifestation of sharing economy is Airbnb, which is an online platform for short-term rentals. Nowadays, Airbnb offers more accommodation than some of the largest “traditional” hotel chains, and its estimated market value is 38 billion dollars. Airbnb gained a significant share within tourism accommodation services and has influence on urban property and rental markets, thus its diffusion led to conflicts between various actors. Our aim to present the characteristics of Airbnb; how does it work and what kinds of dilemmas and conflicts emerge in relation to the proliferation of short-term rentals? Furthermore, we aim to understand, to what extent could Airbnb interpreted as a part of sharing economy; is it genuinely sharing of idle resources, or is it a new form of capitalist enterprise? In addition, we also briefly present the spatiality of Airbnb in Hungary

The Coloured Lens Effect: Disentangling the Contradictory Discourses within Watershed Policies

This proposed article seeks to analyse the Hariyali guidelines in order to show how a capitalistic, managerial and scientific rationale is used which presumes that nature in order to be valued must have a productive value. As a capitalist enterprise, nature is only useful if it serves the livelihood needs of the populace. All other values are elided in favour of one overarching idea of productivity for the market. This productivity is sought to be harnessed through the twin ideas of proper managerial and scientific principles. The ‘Watershed Users Association’ is premised on the principle of people being rational maximisers who will put aside their caste, gender, religious and class differences in order to transform the topographical watershed into a productive entrepreneurial community enterprise. On the ground, people of course manage to subvert and resist these processes even as they acquiesce in the larger development plan.

The NFL’s Role in American History (Somebody’s Gotta Be Kidding)

This chapter explores crucial contradictions that went unremarked in the NFL’s crusade to make itself a bulwark of Americanism. From its image as a ruggedly capitalist enterprise (even as its commissioner and owners reiterated the need for collectivization) to its sending players to Vietnam to support the war effort (while simultaneously flexing political muscle to prevent those players from serving) to its feverishly jingoistic public spectacles —extending to its bid for official sanction as part of the Bicentennial—the NFL’s patriotic efforts were at once its most contested and its most emblematic. By 1976, that position had been accepted at multiple levels of government and officially sanctioned by the Bicentennial Administration, which allowed the NFL to promote the Super Bowl as a sanctioned event.