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This paper pursues the thesis which the author has previously developed under the title ‘The Legitimation of Deviance in the Financial Markets’. This thesis suggests alternative forms of analysing the rela‐tionship between government and capital markets with reference to deviant activity. It is suggested that the processes of political and economic deregulation have involved an enhancement in the complexity in the structure of power relations and in a moral and ethical indetermination in the propagation and promulgation of norms and behaviour. This paper develops the original thesis regarding the appropriateness of the application of the sociological concept of anomie in understanding the configuration between internal and external deviant motivation.

The purpose of this paper is to utilize the theory of global city, as advanced by Saskia Sassen and other scholars, to explore the relationships between global capital and social polarization in the newly‐established Macao Special Administrative Region (MSAR).

This paper will give a picture of economic growth and its impacts to budgetary surplus, as well as the labour market in MSAR, by extracting statistical data from the Macao’s Yearbook of Statistics 2010 published by the government.

This paper demonstrates the powerful explanation of the global city theory in examining: the causes and consequences of the global casino capital in remodelling the MSAR’s economy and society; and the positive response of the MSAR government in dealing with the emerging problems under the patronage of the Central Government in Beijing.

To extend the application of the Global City Theory to the MSAR, that was created upon retrocession of sovereignty to The People’s Republic of China in 1999, the MSAR government has adopted the liberalization policy of gaming and thus allowed global casino capital to channel into the city‐state since 2002.

The paper will help readers to understand the social conflicts and governance problems in the MSAR, as caused by the global casino capital.

This purpose of this paper is to explain Macau’s successful pandemic response through an analysis of its social, political and economic landscapes. In particular, it focusses on the economic relief brought by casino capitalism in this era of COVID-19.

As mobility is highly restricted during the coronavirus pandemic, digital technologies have become central to ongoing social science research. Thanks to videoconferencing programmes such as Zoom, Facetime and WhatsApp, the author was able to carry out virtual interviews with 13 local people from different sectors of Macau in July 2020. In addition to in-depth interviews, the author also undertook an extensive review of the Macau government’s pandemic policies.

This paper argues that the Macau government’s swift and effective coronavirus policies are deeply intertwined with the urban fabric and political economy of the city’s casino capitalism, which endowed the government with surplus funds and an infrastructure that enabled the implementation of an array of strict measures that few other countries could afford to subsidise. Factors that have led to Macau’s extraordinarily low rates of COVID-19 infections and deaths include: competent leadership and the public’s high compliance with mandatory health measures; the generous benefits and financial support for citizens and businesses; and the compulsory quarantine required of all incoming travellers, who are lodged in hotel rooms left empty when casino tourists stopped coming. All of these measures have been made possible by a political economy backed by the peculiarities of casino capitalism and its resultant tax revenues.

Future research could compare the case of Macau with other small but affluent economies (ideally economies that do not depend on the gambling industry) to ascertain the role of casino capitalism in building up economic resilience.

Although previous studies tend to emphasise the negative impacts of casino capitalism, this paper shows how tax revenues and infrastructure from the gambling industry can make a contribution to the host society in times of crisis.

The purpose of this paper is to postulate the possibility of a cooperative economic system within the current global crisis, because it is only determined government action, which is orchestrated by a strong sense of true nationalism that can limit the worst effects of the current global economic meltdown.

The paper is a meta‐analysis, which relied on secondary sources of information. It is a qualitative study that is based on conceptual analysis and theory building. It considers a global action from an “emic” perspective (author's viewpoint).

Triumphant capitalism, which heralded the dawn of globalisation, made neo‐liberalists proclaim the death of socialism, along with its positive variants namely, free education, minimum wage, employment creation, health care and so on. However, the perceived triumph of a single orthodoxy seems to have demoted growth of global prosperity. For example, more than 1.1 billion people across the globe are poor, while more than three billion of the global populace have drifted deeper into poverty and more than a billion people across the globe are starve regularly. The current state of affairs has increased the rate of global crimes, which is reflected by the scale of congested jails. A casino economy of speculation has currently failed humankind. Indeed, current failure of capitalism to address wider problems of humankind such as unemployment, inequality, oppression, poverty, food shortages and economic crises, will resurrect the question as to whether socialism is indeed dead as proclaimed by neo‐liberals. Thus, since a single (triumphant capitalism) orthodoxy has failed to address those mounting problems that have excluded a majority of humanity from participating in sharing global prosperity, the assertion that socialism is dead, has become redundant and, the possibility of a vibrant cooperative economy is imminent.

Socialism has failed and capitalism has failed woefully. Hence, the only hope that is left, is a renaissance of positive socialist variants, in order to resuscitate capitalism. Therefore, a cooperative economic ideological order is urgently required within the current global crisis. It is only determined government action, which is orchestrated by a strong sense of true nationalism that can put a limit to the worst effects of the current global economic meltdown. Therefore, the state cannot continue to be a passive onlooker of economic mismanagement and industrial cacophony, because humans, in search of peace and progress, have surrendered their sovereign identity to the state. The state is, indeed, a fine product of human civilisation, and should be an authoritative supreme power – the actual sovereign, which has to formulate and execute the will of the people, while stimulating private initiatives toward the realisation of a dynamic cooperative economy.

The paper is original and will be valuable not only to policy makers but also to humankind in general within a turbulent global economy.

This paper is a continuation and development of the author's thesis regarding deviant activity in the financial markets of the City of London. The basis of the thesis is that deviant activity in financial institutions has become legitimated in that external regulatory controls have failed to enforce order against the internally generated sub‐cultural codes of practice which have developed consequent upon the forces of economic imperative (the ideology of excellence in the enterprise culture) and globalisation (the technological revolution). The thesis originally dealt with the period between 1984 and 1989 which was characterised as ‘Casino Capitalism’. This paper examines whether this is still relevant and proposes a number of additional elements and examples in its articulation.

The events of the summer of 2011 have affected the international financial sector immeasurably, with concerns about defaults in Spain and Italy, and the United States. The United States was further rocked by a downgrading of its triple A status by the rating agency Standards and Poor. In the preceding weeks, news that a deal had been reached which would provide the second bailout for Greece was greeted with relief across the financial world. However, the fiscal crisis which had threatened the very future of the Eurozone was not addressed by this intervention. In Ireland, the news that interest rates for their bailout would be reduced with a longer time for payback was also seen as welcome, allowing for a domestic budget that would not be so austere as to prohibit growth. However, both Greece and Ireland remain peripheral nations in the ongoing fiscal crisis which has destabilised the global financial sector. A political solution to this fiscal crisis appears beyond the capabilities of elected officials who are caught between populist electoral concerns about austerity measures and a neo-liberal fixation with credit related growth, the basis of which underpins ‘the casino capitalism’ of the global investment markets.

Western societies have been shaken by the economic crisis brought on by ‘casino capitalism’ and the recklessness of the financial institutions. Once esteemed financial institutions, like Lehman Brothers, are now shown to have used dubious accounting methods to cover losses; and accountants, regulators and governments have come under scrutiny. In public life, the scandal of MPs' expenses at Westminster and the blockages in legislative assemblies in the US are compounded in England by reports of deficient and degrading care in acute hospitals, where organisational considerations appear to have taken over from the prime mission of patient care. At this time, a new, or perhaps rediscovered, form of leadership is required. One that taps into the spirit, the animating and motivating force within individuals and groups, and uses values to create a better public service for all.

To resurrect and renew the tradition of the early Frankfurt School, whose of Marxist–Hegelian dialectical approach to understanding the societal conditions of its emergence – post World War I Germany, the rise of fascism, New Deal politics, the defeat of fascism, and the subsequent rise of consumer society – remains relevant to studying present circumstances, stressing the cultural dimension of capitalism, the proliferation of alienation, ideology, and mass media, and, finally, the nature of the society-character/subjectivity nexus.

Employing a comparative historical approach to the study of alienation, ideology, and character, to articulate social-theoretical standards for critical social research today.

Global civilization faces an array of crises, beginning with economies whose lack of growth or stability the ability of a large segment of the world’s population to obtain jobs conducive to a decent standard of life. With governments’ inability to implement public policies to buffer instabilities, cultural values are in crisis as well.

Reviving the framework of early Frankfurt School Critical Theory is necessary to promote a better world.

Reconstructing key concerns of the Frankfurt School is conducive to critiquing this tradition’s recent preoccupation with communication and recognition, and demonstrates how the first generation’s legacy helps us understand contemporary social movements of the Right and the Left, in ways that are similar to the Weimar Republic in Germany. Both the Right and the Left being products of legitimation crises that trigger a desire for regressive or progressive social change – the Right would restore a mythical past, the Left would foster a new social order based on humanistic concerns.