The capitalist state

Ralph Miliband, The State in Capitalist Society, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1969, pp. 292 + x, $6.65.     

El Roto: A political cartoonist in late capitalist Spain

ABSTRACT

Under the pseudonym of El Roto, Andrés Rábago draws editorial cartoons for El País newspaper on an almost daily basis. Unlike other cartoonists, his political satire rarely depicts real politicians or celebrities but instead focuses on social types. This technique helps him to distance himself from current events as presented by the media and signal the more general causes of political conflicts. This article explores cartoons from recent years in which El Roto represents and interprets manifestations of the economy in everyday life. I show that his editorial cartoons aim to unmask the ideological narratives that attempt to naturalize capitalism as the only possible economic system. His “ideology critique” can thus be described as a political intervention to interrupt the creation and shaping of systems of representation that legitimize this economic and cultural hegemony. This article offers a content analysis of some of El Roto's most relevant cartoons, identifying the most recurrent themes and techniques used in order to consider his position as a cartoonist in Spanish politics.     

合作与冲突：劳资纠纷中的资本家阶级

20世纪上半叶劳资纠纷日趋激烈.在认知层面,资本家阶级高倡劳资合作主义,鲜有例外.无论是以发展中国实业为抱负,抑或以追求利润最大化为目的,劳资合作,共谋发展,对资方都有利而无害;但作为不同的阶级、阶层或利益群体,劳资两方自有天然的矛盾和冲突,在实践层面,资方往往能本合作主义之精神,做出某种程度的妥协,求得冲突的缓和或解决,但亦不乏坚持顽抗者.资方是否做出妥协,主要取决于对其利益得失的权衡.     

Ghostly real estate: Haunting,debt and capitalist realism in Milan

Ghosts and analogous supernatural entities are pervasive cultural objects. Anthropologists have delved into the religious, social and cultural value of these presences in depth. However, the discipline does not seem to have dedicated enough energy to interpreting this phenomenon in late capitalist societies. Nevertheless, the relationship between ghosts and capitalism constitutes an object of great interest. The real estate sector seems to be particularly suited to investigating the logic of haunting in contemporary societies. Haunting, which gives rise to ghosts, is a compelling category for understanding power relations and economic brutality. Following Derrida, ghosts are relations that mediate different temporalities in the present. In the cases of the foreclosure I ethnographically observed in Milan, those peculiar relations are debt relationships. Judges and justice system actors who oversee the procedures, aware of the presence of ghosts, act in the awareness that this haunting can in no way be resolved, following a logic that Fisher has defined as ‘capitalist realism’.     

Theories of the transcendent

Guthrie, Stewart. Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. xi + 290 pp. including end notes, references, figure credits, and index. $30.00 cloth.

Saler, Benson. Conceptualizing Religion: Immanent Anthropologists, Transcendent Natives, and Unbounded Categories. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1993. x + 292 pp. including bibliography and index. $80.00 cloth.

Torrance, Robert. The Spiritual Quest: Transcendence in Myth, Religion, and Science. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. xvii + 367 pp. including bibliography and index. $35.00 cloth.     

Pillar of Fire Theories

The pillar of fire was a unique phenomenon that led the Israelites at night through the wilderness for forty years. Many theories have been offered to explain this phenomenon such as it was mythical or metaphorical and never occurred. Other explanations include burning jets of natural gas, a brazier elevated on a pole, volcanic activity, brush fires, lightning, and a comet. The large and controlled shape of the pillar of fire, its appearance only at night for forty years, and its carefully directed path have been explained as miraculous. This article includes a scientific discussion of how the pillar might have been produced, reviews the many theories offered to explain the pillar of fire, and offers several new theories.     

A Consideration of Public Archaeology Theories

It is possible to identify four approaches to public archaeology: educational, public relations, pluralist, and critical. The most significant divide in the discourse of public archaeology over the last few decades has existed between the educational and public relations approaches on one side, and the pluralist and critical approaches on the other. Today, however, the dividing line in these four approaches is gradually shifting, as the pluralist and critical approaches, which have so far tended to be grouped together as a more theoretical and post-processual category, are progressively splitting apart. What is emerging, as a result, is a new divide between the educational, public relations, and pluralist approaches on the one side, and the critical approach on the other. This shift seems to be caused by economic neo-liberalism which demands that archaeology be more viable in economic terms. The more archaeology seeks economic viability, however, the more it alienates itself from critical reflection. The critical approach is, thus, faced with the danger of being regarded as a detriment to the sustainability of archaeology. What seems to be crucially needed today, then, is to reconfigure public archaeology, so that it can cope with the presently dominant economic paradigm, while at the same time continuing to keep critiquing it.     

颜色词与颜色词理论

颜色词现今是学界研究的热点,也是当代语言学研究的前沿课题之一.本文通过梳理一个多世纪以来国内外的学术主张与相关认识,力图勾勒出一个完整而清晰的轮廓,在进行适时的理论整合的同时,洞察研究现状的不足之处,以期促进这一理论的成熟与完善.     

Political economy of central banks

Current developments in the field of comparative political economy have emphasised the role and influence of corporatist institutions in the determination of levels of economic and social performance. Without denying the importance of corporatism, the paper argues for the need to acknowledge and examine the impact of other institutions, such as central banks, on economic performance. Given the increasing role of monetary policy in fashioning economic development, central banks have assumed a key economic and political role in policy formation. Against this background, the paper explores the theoretical and empirical implications of central bank independence, and suggests that a greater emphasis should be placed on the nature and type of central bank independence and on the institutional linkages between central banks and other state institutions.     

西方理论与中国研究--从《白银资本》谈几点看待西方理论架构的意见

《白银资本》目前在国内理论界享有盛誉．但也有人质疑其经济史内容的有效与可靠。此书一些结构性欠缺影响了其以“全球视野”为核心的论证体系的落实,从而削弱了此书的理论号召力。对此书理论价值的过誉或脱离其理论框架抨击所述内容有失片面．但却颇能代表国内史学界认识西方史学理论的总体状况。看待西方理论时应注意几个问题：1、中国史学界的内部隔膜是导致对西方理论态度失衡的重要原因。2、推荐者应重视对所引介理论的实际研究效果作出可靠分析。3、引进批判西方中心论的理论时,不能轻视“现代化”对中国学术谱系的深刻影响。4、注意中西学术思维的差异．西方学者好以自我创新为主旨,中国学者惯以整体之力建构普适性理论。5、应认识到西方学术界得以活跃的观念性和制度性原因,并择善用之。     

Theories of and in the Policy Process

Like public administration before it, public policy has an uneasy place in the discipline of political science. The stress is most obvious in the distinction between theories that attempt to explain the policy process and theories that are useful to those who seek to operate within the policy process. Accommodating this stress within the disciplinary boundaries of political science poses a difficult challenge.