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Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.

Investigates the differences in protocols between arbitral tribunals and courts, with particular emphasis on US, Greek and English law. Gives examples of each country and its way of using the law in specific circumstances, and shows the variations therein. Sums up that arbitration is much the better way to gok as it avoids delays and expenses, plus the vexation/frustration of normal litigation. Concludes that the US and Greek constitutions and common law tradition in England appear to allow involved parties to choose their own judge, who can thus be an arbitrator. Discusses e‐commerce and speculates on this for the future.

George Spencer Brown is best known for his book Laws of Form, which elaborates a primary algebra of distinctions and forms capable of dealing with self-referential equations reflective of paradoxes in logic. The book has received little attention in mathematics, but it has greatly influenced cybernetics, communications, and ecological theories. But Spencer Brown also published poetry and stories, often under different names, and he practiced as a psychotherapist. Our chapter elaborates the utility of Laws of Form relating to organizational paradox before considering Spencer Brown’s other works in relation to his mathematics. Invoking philosophy, psychoanalysis and art, we suggest that these indicate a further distinction that sets all forms against the “nothing”: a wholeness or unity from out of which all distinctions, all words, meaning and life – but also all silence, nonsense and death – emerge in paradoxical opposition. Reading Spencer Brown not through the prism of mathematics, but as an evocative invitation to engage with the fissures that animate art and human life, highlights the paradoxical interplay of organization and violence; and how tragedy, suffering, sympathy and love should be more prominent in organizational research.

A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

This chapter restores the concepts of freedom, consciousness, and choice to our understanding of “economic laws,” so we may discuss how to respond to economic crisis. These are absent from orthodox economics that presents “globalization” or “the markets” as the outcome of unstoppable forces outside human control.

They were integral to the emancipatory political economy of Karl Marx but have been lost to Marxism, which appears as the inspiration for mechanical, fatalistic determinism. This confusion arises from Marxism's absorption of the idea, originating in French positivism, that social laws are automatic and inevitable.

The chapter contests the organizing principle of this view: that economic laws are predictive, telling us what must happen. Marx's laws are relational, not predictive, laying bare the connection between two apparently distinct forms of appearance of the same thing, such as labor and price. Such laws open the door to democracy and choice, but do not unambiguously predict the future because what happens depends on our actions.

The commodity form conceals these laws, disguising the true social and class relations of society. Accumulation, however, undermines the circumstances that permit the commodity to play this role. The result is crisis, defined in this chapter as the point when the blind laws of the commodity form are suspended and open political forces come into play.

In past crises, capitalism has restored the rate of profit through such destructive interventions as imperialism, war, and fascism. Economic laws, properly defined, offer society the real choice of alternative outcomes from crisis.

This chapter offers the first full translation from Russian to English of the Balance of the National Economy of the USSR, 1924–26’s first chapter. Involving 12 authors and composed of 21 chapters, the Balance is a collective work published in June 1926 in Moscow by the Soviet Central Statistical Administration under the scientific supervision of its former director, Pavel Illich Popov (1872–1950). In this first chapter, titled ‘Studying the Balance of the National Economy: An Introduction’, Popov set the theoretical foundations of what might be considered as the first modern national accounting system and paved the way to multisector macroeconometric modelling.

International humanitarian law (IHL) is struggling to catch up with military technological development. The international community is increasingly alarmed at the prospect of lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS) operating without a human interface. The international community’s concern with autonomous enabling technology in weapon systems is whether weapon systems with the ability to identify, select, and attack military targets with little to no human control can comply with existing IHL rules and be morally and ethically acceptable.

This chapter explores an expanded concept of social licence to operate (SLO) to regulate the development of LAWS. The authors believe that it is more efficacious to take a preventative and precautious approach by holding the developers accountable to IHL during the gestation period instead of following a post facto approach. The authors argue that the process involved in issuing or revoking an SLO for the developers of LAWS is already beginning to emerge in IHL. The SLO is only effective during the developmental cycle and would continue as soft law form in regulating the use of LAWS until a more concrete, treaty-based response emerges. In this sense, the SLO can be seen as a catalyst towards a concerted international response to regulate the development, deployment, and use of LAWS.