教会经济伦理与资本主义兴起

基督教与资本主义兴起的关系,长期以来是西方学术界激扬字的焦点。韦伯的名《新教伦理与资本主义精神》关于新教伦理产生资本主义的观点尽管遭到种种非议与驳斥,但论战双方对天主教伦理社会功能的评判是一致的,都认为宗教改革以前的基督教教诲基本还是反     

Counterinsurgency Reexamined: Racism,Capitalism, and US Military Doctrine

The US has been engaged in coercive projects of counterinsurgency since the Indian Wars in the 19^th century. Racist constructions of the enemy have been central to this process. Counterinsurgency has called forth new waves of contestation at every juncture, which has in turn shaped the very texture of military doctrine. This article draws on archival research, historical geography, and Marxist theory to trace the dialectics of counterinsurgency and insurgency through a series of turning points in US imperial history from the development of small wars doctrine in the 1930s to renewal of counterinsurgency during hybrid wars in Venezuela and Latin America in the current conjuncture. Through a conjunctural analysis, we argue that racism performs fundamental work in achieving consent to counterinsurgency wars, allowing capitalism to survive challenges to its legitimacy.     

Disaster Capitalism and the Quick,Quick, Slow Unravelling of Animal Life

Sea otters have barely survived centuries of colonial and capitalist development. To understand why, I examine how they have been oriented in capitalist social relations in Alaska, and with what effects. I follow sea otters through three overlapping political economic episodes, each of which shapes the next: colonial expansion and the fur trade; petro‐capitalism and the negligent neoliberal state, culminating in the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill; and finally, spill cleanup and “green” capitalism, when sea otters are produced as data points and spectacle. In each episode, I describe (1) sea otters’ orientation in relation to capitalism and the state, and (2) the nature and temporality of violence and ecological loss that attends their orientation. In conversation with theorisations of extinction as a “slow unravelling”, I suggest animal life can unravel less slowly than haltingly—quick, quick, slow—and that the unravelling and animals’ orientation in capitalism are co‐constituted.     

The Archaeology of Capitalism in Iceland: The View from Vieey

This paper examines the particular nature of Icelandic capitalism as it emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Drawing on a recent project investigating the material processes surrounding the rise and fall of an early capitalist venture in the fishing industry, the role of commodities and their intersection with issues of colonialism and nationalism is explored. The study centers on a village community established in 1907 on an island in the bay of Reykjavík, which saw two periods of boom and bust in its short life before the village was abandoned in 1943.     

Establishing the Public Sphere and Abolishing the Private Domain: The Rise of a Doctrine and Its Social Significance in the Spring and Autumn Period

The dominant views regarding the concepts of “the public” (gong) and “the private” (si) took shape in the Spring and Autumn period and matured in the succeeding years of the Warring States period. This paper is an attempt to trace both the growth of the vocabulary containing “gong” and “si” and the development of philosophical views regarding issues that center on the relation between the individual and the larger social/communal/political body, of which that individual is a member; it also touches on issues related to the proper handling of public affairs and the relation between state, sovereign, and the individual. The era is often characterized as “The Contention of the Hundred Schools of Thought,” notwithstanding it ended with but one view that is universally accepted by thinkers of diverse persuasion, namely, si is the source of all social evil and, therefore, should be condemned. This is the doctrine known as ligong miesi (abolishing si so gong may be established), which contributed to the orthodox for that era and the millennium to come. By extolling gong and condemning si, it painted a portrait of the pair as two irreconcilable norms or forces in social and political life; it provided a justification for the then emerging new social arrangement and ways of distribution of power and resources, and it also led to acute conflicts between the sovereign and the state, the ruled and the ruler, the state and the subject, as well as the public sphere and the private domain. Translated from Nankai Journal, Vols. 4, 5, 2004     

The Shape of Capitalism to Come

Abstract: The starting point for this paper is the observation that a reshaping of global capitalism is underway, centred on the rise of dynamic centres of accumulation in Asia. It is argued that a critical understanding of this process (supported without reservation by such organizations as the IMF, the OECD and the World Bank) requires a questioning of the imagined link between “capitalism” and the “West”, and a recognition that the international organizations are committed to a universal project aimed at empowering capital and promoting competitiveness on a global scale. A case study is provided of the recently adopted plan for the creation of an ASEAN Economic Community as a “single market and productive space” by 2015. The regional context in which it is placed is contrasted with that of the European Union, and the need for further study of varieties of capitalism in emerging economies is noted.     

The Cultures of Capitalism: Glasgow and the Monopoly of Culture

Abstract:  While many have recognized since the 1970s the strong relationship between culture and urban renewal, particularly as cities began to use cultural amenities to change their images and lure potential investors, little has been written about how and why cultural assets may be valued investments in their own right. There is at least one notable exception, in the work of David Harvey, and this approach takes as its starting point the importance of the monopoly aspects of culture, particularly for rents, competition and fixed capital. In part, I bring Harvey's theoretical insights on the political economy of culture to bear on the case of Glasgow, Scotland, in the 1980s, and particularly its nomination as the European City of Culture, with particular attention paid to how the economics of culture is related to local politics.     

The A-Cosmic Doctrine of Marcion and Paul's Apocalypticism: Theo-Political Implications

Whereas Paul's apocalypticism can be regarded as a highly political approach to the tirannical “powers of this world”, Marcion, although a disciple of Paul's, cut the thread by preaching an a-cosmic doctrine, in which no trace of the Biblical god can be found. Still, marcion is not anti-Semitic because his aggression is directed towards the god of the Old Testament, no towards the Biblical people of god, Israel.