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The purpose of this second part of this special issue is to contribute to a better understanding of the nature of Soviet society. It is not possible to analyse such a society in all its complexities within the space of one study. There are, however, some economic relations which determine society's major features. We believe that commodity‐production relations in the Soviet Union are of this type.

Reflecting on “The Rehabilitation of Karl Marx” as a theoretical economist 100 years after his death, Robert Paul Wolff, on the way to writing Understanding Marx, noted that Marx had written, “at a conservative estimate, five thousand pages of theoretical material”. Therefore, in order to understand Marx's theoretical achievement, which Wolff compares with Darwin, Freud and Einstein (p. 714), “The simplest sort of common sense demands that we estimate Marx's place in the intellectual history of our civilization on the basis of this mass of economic theory” (p. 713). In addition to the three volumes of Capital, the three volumes of the Theories of Surplus Value, the Grundrisse, and the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, however, “Marx also wrote, as a young man, a handful of exuberant, obscure, derivative, romantic reflections on the human condition…The same sort of common sense dictates that we not construe these youthful speculations as the final utterances of the true Marx” (p. 713). With these assertions, Wolff is reviving an old issue, for the benefit of a “modern mathematical reinterpretation of Marx” (pp. 715–16), that some had thought was laid to rest by the widespread availability of the Grundrisse.

Unions are the potential but secure democratic counterforce to capital. The creation of “objective conditions” for international co‐operation has preceded but must result in “subjective conditions”. This theme survives little challenged as a central tenet of the official labour movement in country after country. The pervasive complacency in other circles concerning the prospects for industrial democracy to be achieved through the internationalisation of the evolutionary, pluralistic collective bargaining model, particularly at a time when that model seems unable to cope with born again free market philosophies even at a national level.

Political economy belongs to that borderland of economics which opens on political science. It provides economic interpretations of political phenomena, and political interpretations of economic phenomena. Political economy studies social phenomena through their relational perspectives. Since all social phenomena and epiphenomena are manifestations of political and economic entities and their interactions, political economy can be conceived of as the study of interactive, discursive and integrative processes.

Marx’s monetary theory is an important part of Marxist economics and an irreplaceable milestone in the intellectual history of the monetary theory. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the main content of Marx’s monetary theory from three aspects: the source and nature of money, the function of money and the historical significance of money.

Moreover, this paper also gives an extended understanding of Marx’s monetary theory from four perspectives: the endogenous credit mechanism of money, the functions of money and demands for money, the financial function of money and the economic and social functions of money.

Lastly, the present paper discusses the practical significance of Marx’s monetary theory from three perspectives, namely, the inspection of “Bitcoin” from the nature and function of money, the definition of demands and the division of supplies at the monetary level, and the prevention of systemic financial risks and the focus of financial supervision.

Marx’s monetary theory is an important part of Marxist economics and an irreplaceable milestone in the intellectual history of the monetary theory. However, for a long time, the contribution of Marx has rarely been mentioned in the intellectual history of monetary theory. Even the book, Political Economy (On Capitalism), has been only summarily concerned with the source and function of money in Marx’s monetary theory, rather than revealing Marx’s outstanding contribution in the monetary theory and the financial connotation of Marx’s monetary theory, and expounding its practical significance.

Following Braudel's conceptualization of capitalism and Arrighi's periodization of systemic cycles of accumulation, the authors focus on the patterns of recurrence of financial expansions enabling capitalism to revitalize itself through crisis; in this, crisis is considered in both aspects — crisis‐as‐restructuring and crisis‐as‐rupture. The ways in which finance aided by the blocks of governmental and business agencies in the present stage affects investment and business cycles result in a progressive increase of inequality between rich and poor countries, as well as inequality within the most developed countries. The authors tackle the crisis phenomenon through a genealogical analysis of the formation, consolidation and disintegration of the successive regimes of accumulation on a world scale through which the capital economy expands. They furthermore examine the crisis of capitalist accumulation through the relation of money and the state, which leads them to the field of debates on the changed relationship between the global economy and the national state. However, the crisis is also marked by a milestone which, despite dangers and pitfalls, opens up endless possibilities. They end the paper with a critique of the politics of money and advocate a socially responsible finance management, which will pave the way for a structure of society in which humanity will exist as an end in itself, rather than as a resource for the accumulation of money.

Following Braudel’s conceptualization of capitalism and Arrighi’s periodization of systemic cycles of accumulation, the authors focus on the patterns of recurrence of financial expansions enabling capitalism to revitalize itself through crisis; in this, crisis is considered in both aspects ‐ crisis‐as‐restructuring and crisis‐as‐rupture. The ways in whichfinance aided by the blocks of governmental and business agencies in the present stage affects investment and business cycles result in a progressive increase of inequality between rich and poor countries, as well as inequality within the most developed countries. The authors tackle the crisis phenomenon through a genealogical analysis of the formation, consolidation and disintegration of the successive regimes of accumulation on a world scale through which the capital economy expands. They furthermore examine the crisis of capitalist accumulation through the relation of money and the state, which leads them to the field of debates on the changed relationship between the global economy and the national state. However, the crisis is also marked by a milestone which, despite dangers and pitfalls, opens up endless possibilities. They end the paper with a critique of the politics of money and advocate a socially responsible finance management, which will pave the way for a structure of society in which humanity will exist as an end in itself, rather than as a resource for the accumulation of money.

Capitalism, religion and science (including calculative sciences such as accounting) have a long and turbulent relationship that, today, is manifest in the “War on Terror”. As social ideologies, religion and science have played a sometimes decisive influence in the history of capitalism. What can one learn from these past encounters to better understand their relationship today? This paper explores the historical origins of this relationship as a struggle over the ideals of the Enlightenment: – as decline of the modern and the rise of the postmodern. The paper begins by tracing the evolution of Christianities and their different potentials in both resisting and accommodating the extant social order. Islam, in contrast, has,until recently, enjoyed a relatively sheltered existence from capitalism, and today, some factions present a militant stance against the market and the liberal democratic state. Overall, the Enlightenment and modernist projects are judged to be jeopardy – a condition fostered by orthodox economics and accounting ideology, where it is now de rigueur to divide the secular from the non‐secular, the normative from the positive, and the ethical from the pragmatic or realist. Finally, the mechanisms behind this Enlightenment regression are examined here using literary analysis, as a modest prelude to developing a new politics for a progressive accounting; one that seeks to restore the integrity and probity of the Enlightenment Ideal.

Computer based accounting information systems (AIS) have been a major force behind the current wave of corporate downsizing and reengineering (Deloitte & Touche LLP, 1996). While greater economy and competitiveness is typically associated with these changes, conventional AIS literature usually eschews a counter‐hypothesis: that this new technology may also degrade both the quality and quantity of work, and therefore people’s working lives. The advent of Accounting, Management, and Information Technologies in 1991, with an espoused aim of “critically analyzing the relationships among our information systems designs, the qualities of our social and economic life, and our practices of management and control” (Boland and O’Leary, 1991, p. 2) presents a major opportunity to redress this deficiency. This paper reviews the journal’s inaugural issue and ancillary literature to assess its likely contribution. This literature is found to lack a sufficient appreciation of the social and historical context of AIS developments and thus compromises the new journal’s ability to achieve its espoused aims. The paper calls for a better understanding of the upheavals currently under way in the accounting workplace and ways in which AIS technology (and ethnographers) may compound these instabilities. A different kind of ethnographic research is called for: one capable of recognizing the dysfunctionalities of AIS‐induced downsizing and restructuring, and more politically and socially self‐aware of AIS agency in social and technological change.

The monograph argues that American racism has two colours (white and black), not one; and that each racism dresses itself not in one clothing, but in four: (1) “Minimal” negative, when one race considers another race inferior to itself in degree, but not in nature; (2) “Maximal” negative, when one race regards another as inherently inferior; (3) “Minimal” positive, when one race elevates another race to a superior status in degree, but not in nature; and (4) “Maximal” positive, when one race believes that the other race is genetically superior. The monograph maintains that the needs of capitalism created black slavery; that black slavery produced white racism as a justification for black slavery; and that black racism is a backlash of white racism. The monograph concludes that the abolition of black slavery and the civil rights movement destroyed the social and political ground for white and black racism, while the modern development of capitalism is demolishing their economic and intellectual ground.