明清江南早期工业化社会的形成与发展

明代中期以后,江南纺织业等传统支柱产业从业人数空前增加,清中期以后江南工业更为发达,从业人员也更加众多。根据传统工业从业人口增长这一早期工业化社会形成与发展的关键标准,分期估算明中后期到清末民初江南传统工业从业人数,说明江南早期工业化社会形成于明代中后期的嘉、万年间,此后到清末民初是江南早期工业化社会的发展时期。     

Policies to promote employment and preserve cultural heritage in the handicraft sector

For many countries around the world, the handicraft sector has served as a means of maintaining and promoting cultural and artistic traditions. It has also been an important source of employment and income. However, the contributions of this sector to total employment and income are not well understood. In this paper, we present data on employment in the handicraft sector in a number of countries in the developing world. We find evidence that this sector employs over 10% of the labor force in many countries, and that further documentation of this employment is needed in order to design policies to maximize opportunities in this sector. We also identify policies that governments can undertake to preserve the cultural heritage embodied in handicrafts and to promote the export of these products. The importance of these policy recommendations is highlighted with the case of Peru, which has faced considerable import competition in the handicraft sector in recent years.     

Beyond Jobs vs Environment: On the Potential of Universal Basic Income to Reconfigure Environmental Politics

The tension between creating jobs and protecting the environment remains central to contemporary environmental politics. Critical scholars have reworked the “jobs vs the environment” problematique, but how people will secure livelihoods in various imagined futures remains unclear. We demonstrate how a Universal Basic Income (UBI) that enacts a revitalised politics of redistribution, in conjunction with an active state, has the potential to rupture the link between employment and income. We suggest that such a UBI is complementary to various postcapitalist politics that fundamentally reorganise relationships between people, ecology, and labour. Further, such a UBI can enable the cultivation of new economic subjectivities, as well as the time needed for greater democratic engagement. Where radical environmental politics often configure a fearful agent of change, motivated by a dystopian imaginaries, we propose new radical visions for socioecological futures in which people have time for leisure, community, and democratic participation.