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Analyzing how the post-Soviet transition interacts with the crisis of market finance exhibits a new “greed-based economic system” in the making. Asset grabbing is at its core and hinders capital accumulation. All the various privatization schemes have triggered off asset grabbing, asset stripping, and asset tunneling. A global contagion of such behavior has spread the power and cohesion of managers/shareholders (oligarchs) worldwide. Financial asset grabbing is less straightforward, though much widespread, and operates in financial markets through new financial products, securitization, firms buying their own shares, hedge funds, stock price manipulation, short selling, and the distribution of stock options.Shadow banking, and more generally a global informal economy, results from grabbing strategies in financial markets that breach the formal rules of capitalism. In alleviating and circumventing the rules, the oligarchy paves the way for economic malpractices and crime, calling capitalist laws into question.In such context, systemic greed underlies unconstrained maximization of relative wealth, for which asset grabbing is a rational means, in a winner-take-all economy. At the present stage of our research, a greed-based economy cannot yet be theoretically defined as a transition either to a new phase of capitalism or to another different system.

This paper aims to propose a new model of economic behaviour in which activities are led by greed rather than by the traditional formal rules of capitalism.

This paper relies on the empirical observation of bad practices that developed in synchrony during the collapse of the former communist economic system and the rise of global financial capitalism. Both were fuelled by greedy behaviour of asset grabbing, and paved the way to an emerging greed-led economic system.

First, microeconomic individual greedy behaviours that drive asset grabbing are identified, such as rigged or corrupt privatisation drives, subprime mortgage loans, Ponzi schemes, lending to insolvent clients, bad loan securitisation, stock options, fraudulent accounting and online betting on fixed matches. Then systematic changes in the traditional formal rules of capitalism that favour those having adopted a greedy strategy are pointed at; greedy behaviour is institutionalised when these capture the state and successfully lobby for rules change. Contrary to capitalism, systemic greed uses asset grabbing, instead of capital accumulation, as its major means for wealth maximisation without constraint, in a winner-take-all economy beneficial to oligarchs.

The implications of this new systemic behaviour have implications for further economic modelling.

The emergence of systemic greed will have implications for the design of regulatory systems.

This paper proposes that a greed-controlled economy is replacing the traditional capitalist economy.

The aim of this article is to develop an architectural pedagogy for the Anthropocene. The author reflect on a project within a postgraduate architectural theory module to address the following questions: How can architectural pedagogy articulate critical modes of production that contribute to quality education in the time of the Anthropocene? What are the ideas, values and practices needed?

The method employed is close reading of texts focussed on three areas: critical theory and pedagogy, political theory and the Anthropocene, and architectural theory and typological urbanism. These theoretical narratives are placed in dialogue with a reflection on a design research pedagogical project. The theoretical narratives and design research project seek to articulate the multidimensionality of critical education. The methodology enacted in the paper performs the pedagogy of the classroom.

The study yields compelling conclusions regarding the potential for rethinking the idea of typology under the pressure of the Anthropocene and of critical pedagogy combined with design research to take positions on urgent political and social matters. The author concludes with a toolkit of concepts, values and knowledge practices.

At a time when disciplines tend towards discrete specialisation, while the need for knowledge production is ever more transdisciplinary, this paper develops inventive techniques and conceptual frameworks for supporting approaches where different fields and ideas make contact as a collective task in the era of the Anthropocene. It updates theories of typology to address contemporary pressures.

This paper aims to focus on the rise and decline of the Qing dynasty in Chinese history, and tries to explain the evolutionary phenomenon that when a dynasty became strong, it replaced the former established but deteriorating one, and then at the end of its development, it disappeared eventually by using interest models developed herein.

Systemic interest models are introduced to the study of Chinese history quantitatively. First, by briefly going over the history of Qing, the reasons for its rise and fall are analyzed qualitatively. Second, the concept of interest is generalized under some proper assumptions so that several interest models are established. At the end, intriguing conclusions are drawn by analyzing the numerical solutions of these interest models.

Comparing this paper's results of numerical solutions with the Qing's history, we can see that the stability of a country was essentially an external appearance of the conflict of interests between the ruling and ruled classes. Usually, the eventual social turbulence happened when the balance of interests deteriorated and was tilted excessively to one social class, and ended when the imbalance reached another state of equilibrium. Moreover, the stability of a country always appeared to be a cycle of “turbulence→peace→turbulence→ċ” which is similar to the evolutionary characteristics of general systems indicated by the systemic yoyo model. Furthermore, the cycle can be found in all the feudal dynasties throughout Chinese history.

The interest models presented in this article can be applied to the study of other social problems, such as corporation governance, the analysis of the national economic relationships, and others.

The concept of interest is generalized in this paper, and the relevant interest models provide good conclusions in our analysis of social and historical phenomena.

This paper aims to explore the linkages between greed and governance failures in both financial institutions and financial markets.

The paper described how innovation changed the US financial system through an analysis of recent events, and employs the philosophic concepts of hubris and greed to explain certain developments.

The development of the shadow banking system and opaque products was motivated in part by greed. These developments made governance at both the institutional and market levels extremely difficult, if not impossible. In part the findings are limited by the current opacity of the markets and the dynamics of events.

The implication of the research is to reinforce the need for transparency if the risk of innovation in the financial system is to be both identified and managed. The creation of central clearing houses and/or exchanges for new products is clearly indicated.

Understanding the linkages between greed, hubris and governance in the development of opaque products provides insights of value to those trying to understand the current crisis – from academics to practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse regulatory reform in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007‐2008.

The paper proposes a framework for regulatory reform that begins with the observation that financial manias and panics cannot be legislated away, and may be an unavoidable aspect of modern capitalism.

Financial crises are unavoidable when hardwired human behavior – fear and greed, or “animal spirits” – is combined with free enterprise, and cannot be legislated or regulated away. Like hurricanes and other forces of nature, market bubbles, and crashes cannot be entirely eliminated, but their most destructive consequences can be greatly mitigated with proper preparation. In fact, the most damaging effects of financial crisis come not from loss of wealth, but rather from those who are unprepared for such losses and panic in response. This perspective has several implications for the types of regulatory reform needed in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007‐2008, all centered around the need for greater transparency, improved measures of systemic risk, more adaptive regulations, including counter‐cyclical leverage constraints, and more emphasis on financial literacy starting in high school, including certifications for expertise in financial engineering for the senior management and directors of all financial institutions.

The paper stresses how we must resist the temptation to react too hastily to market events, and deliberate thoughtfully and broadly, instead, craft new regulations for the financial system of the twenty‐first century. Financial markets do not need more regulation; they need smarter and more effective regulation.

In the last decades, many of the most talented and promising young graduates in the developed economies have joined the financial industry. Simultaneously, ill-designed incentives’ schemes have favored the development of a culture in which excessive greed, free-riders’ behavior, unreasonable appetite for risk, and short-term decision making have endangered the economy and, potentially, have laid the foundations for financial, economic, social, and environmental crises.

In this chapter, we review current challenges in the financial industry from the lens of human and social capital. We examine some of the factors that allowed unethical behavior and a short-term financial focus in the financial sector, examining how compensation and an extremely competitive culture became key elements that favored greedy and manipulative behavior and ultimately generated socially harmful human and social capital in the financial sector. Finally, we discuss the emergence of a number of game-changers (namely, Brexit, FinTech, the growing relevance of ethical standards, and the increasing participation of women and millennials in the industry) that might represent potential promotors of change and help restructure and reshape the financial industry.

In this critical decade and century of climate chaos, ecocide and interconnected crises, a public policy approach is needed based on the primacy of compassionate action and ecological regeneration. Ecological regeneration focuses on the health of the Earth's planetary systems of water, soil, air, minerals, microbes, plants, insects and animals. Compassionate action is concerned with relieving the suffering and enhancing the happiness of the entire human population, present and future. An integral process is needed that brings these two priority concerns into the creation of new individual mindsets and behaviours and collective cultures and policies. The innovative leadership methods needed to realize these changes include mindfulness taught by Thich Nhat Hanh, group facilitation as formulated by the Institute of Cultural Affairs in its Technology of Participation (ToP), social artistry as developed by Jean Houston and four-quadrant thinking, planning and acting as expounded by Ken Wilber in his Integral Quadrants.

In this chapter, we will first identify some of the dimensions of humanity's systemic suffering. Next, we will review how the principles and practices of engaged Buddhism and compassionate action might help relieve that suffering. Then, we will explore some of the visions, obstacles, strategies and actions of compassionate policies that can help relieve systemic suffering.

This is the story of an ageing fitness fanatic and the financial sharks who circled his empire before destroying it. Peter Gosnell, The Daily Telegraph 17/4/2003:29. In 2001, Australian company HIH Insurance was placed into liquidation, with severe financial losses and devastating consequences for its employees and policyholders. Dubbed as ‘Australia’s biggest corporate collapse’ (Westfield 2003:241), the HIH case attracted a great deal of attention, not only because of its adverse economic and social impacts but also because it reads like a moral tale in which senior executives of a major business corporation infringe ethical principles and are chastised in the end for their greed, hubris and lack of social responsibility. An examination of media texts published as the case unfolded reveals a strong sense of moral indignation with the social consequences of the HIH collapse, reflected in particular in representations of the shamed executives as greedy, dishonest, arrogant and ruthless. This paper examines the discursive processes that generate representations of HIH senior executives in such dysfunctional terms. Its main contention is that these negative representations can be linked to the growing influence of discourses such as corporate social responsibility (CSR), conceptualised here as a counter‐hegemonic discourse that emerges in an era of increased reflexivity to challenge the legitimacy of dominant discourses of global capitalism. The structuring effects of these discourses are explored in this paper through a methodological framework that borrows from discourse analysis and narrative analysis. This framework reveals links between texts, discourses and macro‐systemic context ‐ or ‐ to borrow from Schegloff (1992) ‐ between proximate and distal contexts The first section of the paper discusses the methodological framework used in the study; the second section provides a brief overview of the broad social context within which the HIH narrative unfolds, and the third part examines the textual construction of the HIH narrative as a moral tale of advanced capitalism, paying particular attention to the portrayal of its key protagonists.