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David M. Gordon advanced labour economics with his theory of labour market segmentation, in which jobs rather than the marginal productivity of individual workers were the unit of analysis. He advanced economic historiography and macroeconomics by conceptualising social structures of accumulation – a framework built on the foundation of his institutionalist training and enriched by his study of Marxist economics. By appropriating methods from other social science disciplines into econometrics, he augmented empirical analysis in economics. He was a founding member of the Union of Radical Political Economics and its journal, the Review of Radical Political Economics – that advanced and promoted heterodox, radical, and Marxist economists in the United States. His contributions to economics, to organised labour, and to the New School for Social Research, where I studied with him, were stunning.

Part 1 lays out some context about the New School Graduate Faculty where Gordon taught. Part 2 explores what historical forces, including his family, led to his expansive creativity. Part 3 summarises how he expanded labour economics to include the relations as well as the technology of production, linked his understanding of the production process to a historical materialist view of labour in the United States, then extended that to econometric analyses of the US macroeconomy. Part 4 presents a bibliometric analysis to provide some idea of the impact of his work. I end with some concluding remarks.

The authors analyse the development and implementation of the standard for the Legal Entity Identifier as a case of creating information-based assets through the establishment of an infrastructure that certifies the accuracy and validity of identity data. The authors term this process capitalization by certification. The findings describe a process whereby an identification infrastructure – including a non-replicable methodology for assessing data quality – is established that contributes to making the developer and controller of that methodology, an irreplaceable intermediary for users of the infrastructure; this in spite of the need for an associated reference data infrastructure to be open and widely accessible to all participants for the infrastructure to be successful. The findings indicate that in the process, assets are created on the basis of openly accessible data through certifying of a desired set of qualities to be achieved by adopters and the infrastructure. This, in turn, provides a starting point toward better understanding and theorizing of wider processes of data capitalization, encountered throughout the digital economy but which are also crucial to establishing information infrastructures that support cognitive action.

Current practice, reified through typical IRB guidelines, has its roots in traditional positivist frameworks about research. The positivist research paradigm is traceable back to Enlightenment epistemologies, which emphasized the fact-based, value-free nature of knowledge (Christians, 2000; Cunningham & Fitzgerald, 1996; Howe & Moses, 1999; Muchmore, 2000). Christians (2000) suggests that researchers who were grounded in positivist approaches used utilitarian perspectives on research ethics. The utilitarian approach suggested that a single set of moral considerations could guide all inquiry; these considerations were outlined in a generally accepted code of ethics that emphasized informed consent, privacy/confidentiality, and accuracy, and that opposed deception in research. Many of these conventions were codified in national legislation in the USA beginning in 1974, in response to several experiments that had mistreated research participants (Hecht, 1995; UCRIHS, 2004). According to Christians (2000), ‘Three principles, published in what became known as the Belmont Report, were said to constitute the moral standards for research involving human subjects: respect for persons, beneficence, and justice’ (p. 140). These principles were intended to ensure that people participated in research voluntarily and anonymously; that researchers protected the well-being of their participants; and that both the benefits and the burdens of research be distributed equitably (Christians, 2000). This legislation established requirements for IRBs that would review and monitor federally funded research conducted by universities and other institutions. Most universities and other research-conducting institutions have since expanded the purview of their IRBs to monitor all institutional research – not just that which is federally funded (Hecht, 1995).

This paper focuses on the role of myth in group identity maintenance. It begins by looking at the occupational group, but broadens to show how subsociety and the larger society affected the group's identity and actions. Mississippi Delta blues performers’ use of myth serves as the historical example, and this analysis shows how the group reacted to living in a segregated and racist society. Analysis of songs demonstrates how myth can play a role in tying together this subordinated group in society and perpetuate myth. How the blues subculture still employs these myths today is also addressed.