Against Value: Accumulation in the Oil Industry and the Biopolitics of Labour Under Finance

Current theses on the financialization of capitalism postulate a shift from investment in material growth to financial channels, with the implication that the extraction of value from the labour process is no longer the central locus of corporate profitability and that the antagonism between labour and capital in the accumulation process has been displaced by the tension between corporate managers and financial markets. This article challenges both claims of financialization and its political implications. Using an analysis of the oil industry in the US, focusing particularly on layoffs, I argue that, instead of inhibiting material accumulation, financialization signals a change in the form of investment that has led to the intensification of labour and its deepening subsumption under capital, transcending labour exploitation and extending the sovereignty of capital over the life of living labour.     

The Voting Behavior of Kuwaiti Citizens in the 2006 Parliamentary Elections: an Analytical Field Study

This study was designed to investigate the voting behavior of the Kuwaiti citizens during the Parliamentary elections that took place in 2006. In a more specific way, the study tried to answer some questions related to the theoretical framework of voting behavior. These questions were concerned with who voted, and for whom? And why did they select that candidate? The study proceeded to scrutinize the factors that influenced the voter to choose candidates from certain tendencies. A questionnaire was designed as a tool to collect the data necessary to answer the study questions. The questionnaire included many sections, each of which was tailored to investigate a group of related variables. For the purpose of this study, different statistical analysis techniques were manipulated to process the data. The analysis of the study data was instrumental in drawing some conclusions that can help understand the voting behavior of the Kuwaiti citizens in that election.