Search results

It is commonly held that Adam Smith is a prophet of capitalism. There is a good deal of evidence pointing towards his optimism about commercial society. This article claims to show the pessimistic side of Smith’s view of commercialism. While some of Smith’s pessimism is obvious, some emerges only after considering his six ends of human nature. We show that according to Smith’s own criteria, commercial society is not good. We also show that Smith considers commercial society to be neither inevitable nor permanent. In other words, Smith says that commercial society fails on three counts. Rather than a prophet of capitalism as the end of history, Smith emerges from this analysis as a major critic.

This article aims to explore the character of an emerging model of corporate social responsibility (CSR)‐oriented societal governance in an exchange theoretical perspective and to examine the distinctive characteristics of the relations between civil society, business and government in the new model and the drivers behind it.

By analyzing typical roles and role‐sets in political, commercial and regulatory exchange, the article pin‐points characteristics of the embedded relational governance/CSR model contrasted against liberal governance and the Keynesian welfare state. The analysis is stylized and conceptually based, in line with the Weberian ideal type concept and brings out stylized juxtapositions of the three governance models based on previous studies.

An emerging model of corporate social responsibility (CSR) or embedded relational governance seems to share the basic market orientation of the liberal model, yet, at the same time, sharing many of the social and collective goals of the welfare state. This combination is apparently achieved by embedding the social dimension into civil society and self‐regulatory market processes. Finally, the paper reflects on the drivers behind the new governance approach, in the context of a globalizing economy. The paper argues that NGO‐driven communicative intermediation interfacing with an increasing CSR and corporate governance focus in financial evaluation may serve to retain some of the social agenda from the welfare state, under the CSR‐ or embedded‐relational model, an agenda that seemed to be gradually losing out with the global competitive exposure of the welfare state.

The article presents a stylized analytical framework of CSR/embedded relational governance that lays a basis for further exploration and systematic testing through comparative empirical studies.

The paper brings out the interplay between political, regulatory and commercial processes and gives a broader understanding of the societal implications of CSR.

Original contributions of this paper: first, the analytical formulation of the societal governance implications of CSR; second, the exchange theoretical conceptualization of this mode of societal governance.

In previous efforts the author has examined the various “men” of economics or human‐nature assumptions of “economic thinkers” as a way of treating the history and philosophy of the discipline. Here, under the thematic penumbra of “Man as the Centre of the Social Economy”, and hoping to incorporate the fruits of further inquiry into the matter, those “creatures” and their fashioners are critically reconsidered with a view towards arriving at a more adequate conception of a truly human “economiser” and – accordingly – science of human economy. In Part II, having presented homo oeconomicus in both his/her “impudent” and “honourable” versions, we shall attempt to transcend homo socioeconomicus and even our own (former) homo oeconomicus humanus as well.

This paper aims to examine the effect of circular economy’s ending of waste on marginal property practices.

This paper utilises doctrinal and theoretical legal analysis, along with theoretical perspectives and qualitative empirical evidence drawn from non-legal academic disciplines.

The current legalistic conception of waste depends on control and value. The indeterminate status of waste as goods at the margins of consumption attracts attention from legal regimes. This process is evidenced by a commercialised treatment of goods at the margins of consumption, limiting the scope of radical marginal property practices such as freeganism (taking goods abandoned by others, to use such goods).

The circular economy aims to end waste. Restriction, and ultimately elimination, of marginal property practices is necessary for circular economy. Freegans will be limited to acting in a “challenge” role, identifying breaches of commercial commodification processes. Control over the use (including disposal) of goods reduces the spaces available for marginal property practices, which in turn raises problematic normative implications for “normal” consumption practices involving waste.

This is the first examination of the impact of circular economy on freeganism. It is also the first sustained application of marginal property theory (van der Walt, 2009) in a legal analysis of circular economy and waste.

This paper aims to determine the outcome of the different measures taken towards open access (OA) to peer-reviewed research by measuring aggregate availability of a sample of journal articles. This sample was then used to examine the factors contributing to the availability or non-availability of types of article.

A sample of articles was taken from the Scopus database based on a search by surname. This minimised any skew that would result from a dataset based on subject or source. The results were analysed to determine availability by subject and differences in availability based on source.

Less than 30 per cent of articles are available in their year of publication, rising to nearly 40 per cent in following years. Repositories are responsible for slightly less than 50 per cent of available articles. Substantial differences exist between the practices of scholarly societies and commercial publishers.

Aggregate availability is dependent on a range of activities and current efforts need to be maintained to ensure its continuance. Moves towards OA by commercial publishers are not a major factor.

Non-affiliated researchers are able to access less than half of the peer-reviewed literature.

This study differs from similar work by looking at access from the users’ viewpoint. Rather than looking at the total amount of material to which access is provided, it looks at the proportion of high-value information which is available.

This paper explores the relevance of Adam Smith’s invisible hand and the remainder of his legacy for public management. The paper’s central claim is that, by approaching Adam Smith and his legacy, public managers can assist themselves to do what they should do - examine their latent assumptions. The first of three challenges in approaching Adam Smith’s ideas is to get Smith right, because he has been widely misunderstood. The second is to question Smith’s account of conceptual space; it is desirable to go beyond him. The third challenge is to explore in specific terms the potential for public management of an understanding of Smith and his legacy

In the title essay of the volume, Heyne wonders why ethicists get so bothered by economists who make claims like, “polluting activities ought to be shifted from developed to less developed countries.”¹ And in a keen rhetorical move – one that Heyne employs throughout the volume – he shows how all of the usual answers to this question merely hide a deeper problem. Heyne suggests the real issue is that most ethicists assume “a social system that's completely known and completely controllable” (p. 5). Consequently, the problem most ethicists have with economics is that “economic analysis is rooted,” according to Heyne, “in the fact that economists specialize in the analysis of social systems that no one controls and that produce results that no one intended” (p. 5). Heyne sees that ethicists dogmatically hold to an ideal of the good in which people act so as to intend the good of others. Such a view demands that people act only in social systems where they personally know other people's needs or else that people are assumed to have a God-like omniscience that will allow them to know everyone's needs.

The struggle against corruption is not an area where any state has had a sufficiently high success rate to become complacent, particularly when bearing in mind the evidence of the scale on which such crimes are being committed. This lack of success applies in terms of both the number of prosecutions brought and, at least in those states where the burden of proof rests on the state, the success rate in attaining successful prosecutions. Particular problems arise for developing countries. This paper considers reasons for the increase in the scale of the problem, and the steps a developing country will need to consider in terms of staff and institutional development, in addition to changes in its criminal and civil law. By comparison, it also looks at successful developments in developed countries that highlight approaches to the problem which may have an impact if used elsewhere.

The paper argues that the classical Marxist theory of capitalist accumulation is inadequate to understand new forms of capitalism and their accumulation processes determined by “platforms” and “big data”. Big data platforms are shaping the processes of production, labour, the price of products and market conditions. “Digital platforms” and “big data” have become an integral part of the processes of production, distribution and exchange relations. These twin pillars are central to the capitalist accumulation processes. The article argues that the classical Marxist theory of capitalist accumulation is inadequate to understand new forms of capitalism and their accumulation processes determined by “platforms” and “big data”.

As a conceptual paper, this paper follows critical methodological lineages and traditions based on non-linear historical narratives around the conceptualisation, construction and transition of the “Marxist theory of capital accumulation” in the age of platform economy. This paper follows a discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2003) to locate the way in which an artificial intelligence (AI)-led platform economy helps identify and conceptualise new forms of capitalist accumulation. It engages with Jørgensen and Phillips' (2002) contextual and empirical discursive traditions to undertake a qualitative comparative analysis by exploring a broad range of complex factors with case studies and examples from leading firms within the platform economy. Finally, it adopts two steps of “Theory Synthesis and Theory Adaptation” as outlined by Jaakkola (2020) to synthesise, adopt and expand the Marxist theory of capital accumulation under platform capitalism.

This article identifies new trends and forms of data driven capitalist accumulation processes within the platform capitalism. The findings suggest that an AI led platform economy creates new forms of capitalist accumulation. The article helps to develop theoretical understanding and conceptual frameworks to understand and explain these new forms of capital accumulation.

This study builds upon the limited theorisation on the AI and new capitalist accumulation processes. This article identifies new trends and forms of data driven capitalist accumulation processes within platform capitalism. The article helps to understand digital and platform capitalisms in the lens of digital labour and expands the theory of capitalist accumulation and its new forms in the age of datafication. While critiquing the Marxist theory of capitalist accumulation, the article offers alternative approaches for the future.