清入关前商业贸易

在中国历史上,游牧民族擅长贸易.努尔哈赤极其重视发展商业贸易,积累财富,为建立满族政权奠定了物质基础.满族政权建立之后,努尔哈赤发展国内商业贸易,满族经济初步形成.并得到发展.但努尔哈赤用极端的手段干预商业贸易,对广大汉族来说,这一时期的商业贸易是历史的倒退.皇太极继承皇位后,重视国内贸易同时,积极发展与周边朝鲜、野人女真、汉族、蒙古贸易往来.通过与朝鲜贸易,转嫁了国内经济危机;与明张家口贸易.不仅换回大量的物资,而且打开进入中原的通道;与蒙古贸易,间接换回中原的物质;与皮岛和野人女真贸易,增强了后金有生力量,并为后金进攻明朝剪除后患.皇太极从贸易中换回大量物资,拉拢了满、蒙、汉上层贵族,通过贸易达到他的政治、军事、经济的目的,为满族政权的巩固、进军中原奠定基础.     

The historiography of hunger: changing views on the world food problem, 1945-1980

The author discusses changing views on the world food problem since 1945. "The extent of the problem has been a matter of debate as hunger cannot be directly measured; estimated minimum requirements for energy have been reduced since 1945 and the causes of malnutrition reappraised. World food production has kept up with population growth since 1945, as it has in all major regions except Africa. But when individual countries are considered, food output per head has been declining since 1961-5 in many countries in Africa and Asia. Food output has been increased in the developing countries by expanding the area under cultivation and by increasing yields." In addition the author concludes that "the Green Revolution has however not achieved early expectations and has had some adverse economic and social consequences. Because world food output per caput has risen considerably since 1945, some have argued that the world food problem is one of distribution, not production. Data on food output per caput suggest this is not always so."     

Salmon and fruit salad: Australia's response to world trade organisation quarantine disputes

The introduction of new quarantine disciplines under World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreements has given rise to tensions within the Australian federation over quarantine measures. This paper examines WTO disciplines and rules as they affect trade in agriculture and food products. It highlights the significance of risk assessment in the policy process relating to quarantine, identifies key issues arising from the WTO Australia—Salmon case and outlines the cases currently tabled at the WTO for settlement with Australia named as respondent. The paper concludes by identifying the lessons from the salmon case in terms of intergovernmental interaction and policy learning within the Australian federation.     

The business case for a free trade agreement between the European Union and Australia

ABSTRACT

The free trade agreement (FTA) between Australia and the European Union holds the promise of strengthened political collaboration and increasing economic integration. Both Australia and the European Union note increasing bilateral trade and investment. Oftentimes, data does not take current trends in global-value-chain participation for intermediary goods and services movements into account. Behind this sit the cross-border strategies and activities of business entities, whether multinationals or large, small or medium-sized enterprises. This article provides an in-depth investigation of the premise stemming from an FTA for Australian business. What advantages can politics hope to support through a business perspective? What is the global-value-chain part of the story, and what are the business challenges ahead? How can economic policy help shape this FTA to foster a productive bilateral business environment in a geopolitical and geoeconomic context in which regionalisation has taken on new momentum? Specific focus is given to the analysis of the higher education sector and to agriculture. These are two of the leading sectors in this FTA debate. Generating business value means setting negotiation agendas to target tariff and non-tariff barriers to counterbalance ambiguity in the conditions that shape the global business environment.     

Global commodity networks, ethical trade and governmentality: organizing business responsibility in the Kenyan cut flower industry

This paper engages critically with current ethical trading practice in the global cut flower trade, focusing on the specific case of Kenyan export production for European markets. Notions of governmentality are adopted in the analysis, in order to understand the rationalities and materialities that underpin the organizational geographies of business responsibility in this context, and serve to re-regulate the trading network. Mentalities of stakeholding and practices of auditing are shown to play prominent roles in this process. However, it is argued that regulatory contradictions associated with the audit economy place organizational limits on the effective practice of ethical trade.     

Li Hanjun's views on socialism

This article examines Li Hanjun's views on socialism. Li Hanjun was one of the main founders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and expressed his vision and ideas of socialism during the 1920s. Like many other Communists in the early CCP, he was convinced that China should take a socialist road. Yet, in respect to how to realise socialism and what kind of socialist society should be built, Li held a view different from most of them. In his opinion, the governing institutions in a socialist society should be democratic and autonomous rather than centralist and bureaucratic; production and distribution should be administered and managed by an association of free and equal producers in the form of cooperatives instead of by the state and its officials. These views were quite distinct from the Soviet centralised state socialism and the dictatorship by a ruling elite. However, his ideas and designs of the economic and political institutions in socialist society were consonant with Marx on many points. Besides examining Li Hanjun's socialist views, this research also attempts to explore his philosophical inclinations and political orientation, in order to explain why he could conceive such special ideas of a socialist fabric.     

Lessons in the rubble: The world trade center and the history of disaster investigations in the United States

The World Trade Center collapse stands as a singular event in American history. As such, it might also stand to reason that the technical investigation into the circumstances of the collapse also stands alone. Clashes over authority among powerful institutions both public and private, competition among rival experts for influence, inquiry into a disaster elevated to the status of a memorial for the dead: these are the base elements of the World Trade Center investigation. These elements, however, are not unique. This article illustrates--drawing on case studies including the burning of the United States Capitol Building (1814), the Hague Street boiler explosion and building collapse in New York (1850), and the Iroquois Theater Fire in Chicago (1903)--that conflicts over authority, expertise, memory, and ultimately the attribution of responsibility suffuse the history of disaster in the United States. The "disaster investigation," far from proving itself the dispassionate, scientific verdict on causality and blame, actually emerges as a hard-fought contest to define the moment in politics and society, in technology and culture.     

王夫之进步教育观论略

作为明清之季杰出的思想家,王夫之的主要贡献并不在教育方面,但他却有着丰富而进步的教育思想。尤其是他的重视对儿童进行早期教育、重视“情商”教育的思想,以及行先知后的知行观等,都极大地丰富了中国传统教育理论,并在今天仍然散发着它的理论光芒。     

Small but powerful: networking strategies and the trade business of Habsburg-Italian merchants in Cadiz in the second half of the eighteenth century

Abstract

Lombardian merchants played an important role in long-distance trade between the Italian and the Iberian Peninsulas since the Middle Ages, in contrast to widely held beliefs and historiographical neglect. The eighteenth century witnessed the intensification of this role. Instead of being worse off after Lombardy passed from Spanish sovereignty to being ruled from Vienna, the Lombardian mercantile community in Cadiz made use of the institutional framework offered by the imperial maritime policy of the Habsburgs, which compensated for a lack of their own commercial institutional framework. Making use of different social strategies, which combined kinship, cultural and transnational co-operation, Lombardian merchants skilfully connected Spanish America with Habsburg Central Europe through the Mediterranean, despite the fact that their degree of formal integration into the Spanish trading system was limited. This occurred in the episode of growth that followed the Bourbon reforms in Spain after the 1760s. Although their business networks reached a wide geographical area, Lombardian merchants also acted as intermediaries for the incorporation of the Triestinian traders into long-distance maritime trade networks, and therefore contributed to linking both ends of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.