This paper discusses Bolivar Echeverria’s concept of «abundance» in the specific sense of “surplus”. The criticism that we formulate is based on the Marxist conceptual affinity between “surplus” and “surplus-product”, understanding the latter as objectification of “surplus-labour”. In Marxist terms “surplus-labour” stands for a workday segment under conditions of exploitation. According to this, we believe that the echeverrian concept of “abundance” fails in its attempt to rise above the productivist and capitalist frame of thought.

The post-Marxist stance against class politics unearths significant political demands often neglected by Marxism. However, in Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s approach, this step forward is followed by two steps back. They deny that class struggle against capitalist exploitation has any political significance for the masses or any essential link with the socialist-democratic project. But they do so at the cost of misrepresenting Marxian theory and underestimating the global phenomenon of labour exploitation. This faux pas is due to two misconceptions (...) at the core of the Laclau-Mouffean critique: an ambiguity in the use they make of the economic concept of surplus, and an incorrect identification of working-class and productive workers. With Laclau and Mouffe, I share the firm conviction in the necessity of a post-Marxian theory. Nevertheless, post-Marxism will be just as robust as our Marxist bedrocks. (shrink)

Purpose. The creation ofan ergonomic methodical approach to the modernization of management processes of metallurgical production, which involves a human factor while developing and exploiting the difficult man-machine system and estimating the degree of implementation of ergonomic requirements at different stages of an operator’s activity planning. -/- Methodology. Ananalytical model of the organization of the research works devoted to the ergonomic modernization of man-machine systems was developed. Searching and purpose-oriented investigations at different stages of man-machine system development and exploitation were (...) modelled from the sketchy projection till the exploitation of the system. Theoretical, system analytical and experimental methods were used. -/- Findings.The results of ergonomic modernization of management processes of metallurgical production in two countries under new economic (market) conditions were discussed. The factors, which define the tension in rolling-mill operators’ activity, were exposed. Certain recommendations on modernization of the existing technology and labor organization were formulated. -/- Originality. The scientific novelty consists in the development and adaptation of the methodical approach that describes adequately the cognitive complexity and psychophysiological tension in an operator’s activity as the modernization factors of modern metallurgical production in two countries. -/- Practical value.The practical value involves the creation of an ergonomic management system of the development, exploitation and modernization of difficult men-machine systems and metallurgical production management processes. (shrink)

Palawan is a land of promise, and of paradox. On maps, it appears on the edge of the Philippines, isolated. Indeed, it is a kind of last frontier. Its population remained tiny for centuries, the government offering homestead land in the 1950s practically for free to attract migrants from outside. The Palawan State University was established by law in 1965, but did not become operational until 1972. A commercial airport did not exist until the 1980s, and for many years, flights (...) were limited. Yet Palawan is one of the oldest sites of human habitation in the Philippines with the famous Tabon Cave human fossils. The oldest bone fragment here has been dated to be about 47,000 years. We know, too, that trade with China goes back several centuries. Today, Palawan seems to be making up for lost time with new commercial investments pouring in at breakneck speed. In particular, outsiders have rediscovered its potentials around logging, mining, fisheries, and tourism. This has caused concern among individuals and civil society organizations who want sustainable development, and see the commercial developments mainly as extractive, not just of natural resources but of the human. There’s very cheap labor available. And when potential investors marvel about cheap land, they’re actually talking about displacing earlier settlers, including indigenous people, from their lands. A subtle but still insidious aspect of the exploitation of human resources is a transformation of the very concept of human development. Using the rhetoric of modernity, residents in Palawan are reorienting the way they view themselves as well as their families and friends. The value of a human being now hinges on how they look, and the desired appearance is defined from the outside, as we see in this anthology of research reports coming from the Chemical Youth project of the University of Amsterdam and the University of the Philippines Diliman. We read about the importance of fair skin as a projection of cleanliness, of high social status (meaning someone not engaged in manual labor and therefore not exposed to the sun). We read of how “femininity” is defined around body contours, and cosmetics, and how hormones are used by male-to-female transgenders. We go beyond the visual, reading about the importance of controlling or enhancing body odors among tour guides, who interestingly are especially concerned about the bad odor management of their foreign customers, using car perfumes to keep their work manageable and we learn how difficult it is for security guards to stay alert during their long shifts. Energy drinks and cigarettes help them perform their duties. All these transformations through what the French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault has called “technologies of the self” are as paradoxical as Palawan. On the surface, the products—which are technologies—seem to be mainly in the realm of the self but are, in reality, pushed, through marketing, from the outside, in contexts of inequality and exploitative labour relations. Personal aspirations are not personal but are for predefined standards of modernity, related to work-related demands and expectations. The self must be made presentable to the tourist, to the customers in malls, and to those who may threaten the properties that young people protect. It is not surprising that these transformations become problematic for the “self.” The skin whiteners, the hormones, the body deodorants, and the energy drinks are expensive and can distort budgetary priorities. The money for tonic drinks, for example, could well go into more nutritious food. The tragedy, too, many of the products used are of doubtful safety and efficacy. Even the energy drinks have much too high levels of caffeine that can cause cardiac palpitations. Cosmetics and the skin whiteners imported from China and unregistered with the Food and Drug Administration may contain toxic chemicals like mercury. But even registered skin whiteners can be problematic, their so-called “skin-whitening effect” coming about because they take away the upper layers of the skin, leaving behind a red glow (seen as “whitening”) which is actually inflammation. The whitened skin fails to protect against the sun, leading to adverse effects such as black spots. Ultimately though, the problems come with the very definition of the self. As the reports show, young people use the chemicals with some ambivalence, knowing how expensive they are and experiencing some of the undesirable side effects. There is, too, doubt about whether what they’re doing is indeed “good,” captured by how IP women will put on cosmetics only when they’re away from home and about to go to work. The cosmetics have to be removed before they return home because they are not socially acceptable. The research reports are not for Palawan alone. It must make us more critical and discerning as we revisit concepts of development and exploitation, modernity and tradition, self and community. The chemicals, in many ways, are like the products used in precolonial barter trade. For the Chinese, the beeswax and the sea cucumbers, for the inhabitants of Palawan the ceramics, represented faraway lands. To have those products gave prestige. Today, the skin whiteners and tonic drinks and other chemicals described in this anthology represent modernity with promises of not just of a more attractive self, but of better jobs, a better life. We are proud to have worked with the Palawan State University, and the people of Palawan, to gather powerful narratives that will now challenge the outside, the purveyors of modernity, to be more critical and discerning, the chemicals now to be seen not just as stuff applied to the biological body, but as powerful shapers of social bodies. (shrink)

The choices we make in our daily lives have consequences that span the oceans: many consumers are not aware that some of the most exotic foods which belong to our breakfast plates every single day, such as coffee or chocolate, have a profound impact on the lives of many people. In Western societies, we are used to eating and consuming fresh ingredients which sprout on a different continent, yet we are unable to see the very hands that carry a simple (...) thing as a banana to our tables, as a consequence of a global supply chain. This alienation from the places and people involved in the supply chain leads consumers to ignore the impact of producing some foods and enabling them to travel all the way to one’s table. What is regarded as a simple commodity, in fact, is a result of the labour and exploitation of many families and crops on the other side of the ocean. Modern slavery comes in many guises and is often obscured by the alienation of modern consumers from their products, an example of which includes the slave system that holds many people tied behind our food chains. As consumers, we unconsciously become commissioners of a system of inequality and exploitation which we ignore. This includes many ‘fair-trade’ certified products, which are employed by multinationals as a psychological marketing tactic. This phenomenon is described by the cultural anthropologist Richard Robbins (2013) as the ‘commodification of morality’, where even commitments to just, fair or sustainable practices have been monopolised by economic agents. Within this framework, our moral choices are put on the market with a price which rarely returns or reflects the true cost of such products. This article begins by defining modern slavery, proceeding with a particular focus on forced labour in the current neoliberal regime. This is then contextualised in the case study of bananas as one of the most consumed, yet furthest grown, items of Western diets. The article then analyses the ethical backdrop of economic practices, using the fair-trade movement as a synecdoche of the moral economy of our day. The main question raised within this analysis is to what extent our moral choices can contribute to exploitation or to social change, and how our way of eating can oppose the great inequalities that still exist in the present context. (shrink)

After Marx, dissenting economics almost always used 'the labour theory' as a theory of value. This paper develops a modern treatment of the alternative labour theory of property that is essentially the property theoretic application of the juridical principle of responsibility: impute legal responsibility in accordance with who was in fact responsible. To understand descriptively how assets and liabilities are appropriated in normal production, a 'fundamental myth' needs to be cleared away, and then the market mechanism of appropriation can be (...) understood. On the normative side, neoclassical theory represents marginal productivity theory as showing that (a metaphorical version of) the imputation principle is satisfied ('people get what they produce') in competitive enterprises. Since that shows the moral commitment of neoclassical economics to the imputation principle, the labour theory of property is presented here as the actual non-metaphorical application of the imputation principle to property appropriation. The property-theoretic analysis at the firm level shows how the neoclassical (and much heterodox) analysis in terms of 'distributive shares' wholly misframed the basic questions. Finally, the paper shows how the imputation principle (modernised labour theory of property) is systematically violated in the present wage labour system of renting persons. The paper can be seen as taking up the recent challenge posed by Donald Katzner for a dialogue between neoclassical and heterodox microeconomics. (shrink)

RESUMO: As novas tecnologias revolucionaram tanto as relações humanas quanto as formas de exploração. Com o uso massivo e a dependência das redes sociais, muitas pessoas descobriram fontes de ganhos fnanceiros a partir da exposição da imagem, seja da sua ou de outrem. Nesse cenário, a intimidade de centenas de crianças é exposta por seus pais ou responsáveis em troca de audiência, fama e recursos fnanceiros. Partindo dessa problemática, o presente artigo investiga os impactos do trabalho infantil mediante a exploração (...) da imagem e da intimidade da criança nas plataformas digitais. Por se tratar de uma nova modalidade de produção abundante de artistas mirins, suas consequências têm impactado a atual geração, sobretudo na saúde biopsicossocial. -/- PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Trabalho Infantil. Exposição Virtual. Exploração da Imagem. Redes Sociais. -/- ABSTRACT: New technologies have revolutionized both human relationships and forms of exploitation. With the massive use and dependence on social networks, many people have discovered sources of fnancial gain from the exposure of the image, whether theirs or someone else’s. In this scenario, the intimacy of hundreds of children is exposed by their parents or guardians in exchange for audience, fame and fnancial gain. Based on this problem, this article investigates the impacts of child labor through the exploitation of the image and intimacy of the child on digital platforms. As it is a new modality of abundant production of child artists, its consequences have impacted the current generation, especially in biopsychosocial health. -/- KEYWORDS: Child Labor. Virtual Exposure. Image Exploitation. Social networks. (shrink)

Marx thinks that capitalism is exploitative, and that is a major basis for his objections to it. But what's wrong with exploitation, as Marx sees it? (The paper is exegetical in character: my object is to understand what Marx believed,) The received view, held by Norman Geras, G.A. Cohen, and others, is that Marx thought that capitalism was unjust, because in the crudest sense, capitalists robbed labor of property that was rightfully the workers' because the workers and not the capitalists (...) produced it. This view depends on a Labor Theory of Property (LTP), that property rights are based ultimately on having produced something. (A view oddly enough shared with the libertarian right, though the LTP is better support for egalitarian or socialist views; see my From Libertarianism to Egalitarianism, 18 Social Theory & Prac. 259-288 (1992).) -/- I show that the idea that Marx's objection to exploitation is based on injustice or LTP-grounded theft is mistaken. Marx's real objection to exploitation is based on unfreedom, that capitalist relations of production, he thinks, unnecessarily limit human freedom. In the first place Marx is quite clear that he vehemently rejects the concepts of justice, fairness, or rights as bourgeois ideology. It is true that he uses the language of "theft" on occasion, but either a literal interpretation of that language must be abandoned, or his consistent, life-long objection to rights- and justice talk must be given up. Second, the structure, indeed the point, of his analysis of the laws of motion of capitalism, is that capitalists make profits through exploitation of labor -- without cheating -- by the normal "legitimate" operation of the system. Other arguments make the same point. -/- The unfreedom or force-based view, though not necessarily my specific arguments advocated so far is shared by a minority of other writers, such as Nancy Holmstrom and Richard Arneson. What my paper offers that is novel, part from arguments for the foregoing that are different and better than those found elsewhere (although Holmstrom and Arneson are excellent), is an account of in detail of what Marx regards as the real problem with exploitation. -/- I analyze Marx's objection that capitalist exploitation causes unnecessary unfreedom by distinguishing and spelling out three different kinds of freedom that he invokes: classic negative freedom, or noninterference; positive freedom, understood as control over or access to the resources enabling one to exercise one's negative freedom; and "real" freedom, as he puts it, the ability to "give the law to oneself," to regulate one's own activities under rules chosen by oneself, to develop one's capacities by autonomous choice. This puts Marx in the tradition going back through Hegel and Kant to Rousseau, the first express advocate of this idea. The opposite of real freedom, the unfreedom due to lack of autonomy, is alienation. -/- I conclude by stating that I think that justice-based objections to exploitation that avoid Marx's objections to the concept are possible. I do not attempt to spell these out here. I take up that task in my subsequently published paper Relativism, Reflective Equilibrium, and Justice, 17 Legal Stud.,128-168 (1997). -/- The present paper is related to and partly overlaps with my paper In Defense of Exploitation, 11 Econ. & Phil. 49-81 (1995), a critique of John Roemer's equality based account of the nature of exploitation and its wrongness. The research and writing of this paper was financially supported by the philosophy department of The Ohio State University. -/- Keywords: Exploitation, Justice, Unjustice, Theft, Labor Theory of Property, Marx, Freedom, Unfreedom, Rights, Fairness, Critique of Justice, Negative Freedom, Positive Freedom, Real Freedom, Alienation, G.A. Cohen, Norman Geras. (shrink)

Vietnam has exhibited rapid economic growth over thirty years of comprehensive economic reforms. However, about half of the country’s active population remains in agriculture. In order to characterize the role of agriculture and livestock in Vietnam’s structural transformation, we assess ongoing dynamics at three complementary scales: national, sectoral (agriculture and livestock) and local (district of Bavi). We show that the transition since Doi Moi (Renovation) has given rise to a political economy that provides incentives to industries and services. However, labor (...) abundance (due to population density) and limited land availability (85% of agricultural land is composed of less than 1 ha farms) have slowed the canonical structural transformation, and widened income inequality between agriculture and non-agricultural workers. In this ‘Lewis trap’ context, intensive livestock (as it is the case for aquaculture and horticulture) has played a significant role in increasing labor and land productivity, offering some perspectives to secure smallholder agricultural systems. But the emergence of those very intensive systems producing a lot of effluents has in the same time jeopardized sustainable development of rural and peri-urban areas. More recently, the political shift towards industrial corporate agriculture and large-scale farming has increased this pressure on the environment, and endangered inclusive agricultural development. Today, smallholder farming and rural communities encounter many challenges to exploit resources efficiently and gain access to input markets to achieve higher productivity and value added. To avoid the risk of poverty trap and to pursue a sustainable and inclusive development over the long run, deeper and wider reforms are needed based on smallholder viability, agroecological principles, and crop-livestock integration. (shrink)

With the desperate usurpation of global spaces under the everexpanding capitalist mode of production, the political struggle still necessitates an emancipatory class politics as aimed by Marx and Engels. This paper will be a synthesis of Marxist geographer David Harvey’s theory of capitalist production of space and MarxEngels’ notion of freedom, and their notion of emancipatory class politics. According to David Harvey, its survival as a system is through its widescale control on the production of spaces. I will first expose (...) the theory of the Marxist geographer David Harvey on how capitalism produces a space through his theory of the capitalist production of space. This necessary strategy of capitalism to own and extend to spaces is essential to its nature to increase capital and profit. According to him, capitalism always needs to expand territories to create new sources of labor, wealth, and new markets. This necessitates obtaining profits to sustain capital accumulation amidst its problem of crises. The spatial ontology of capital will be the springboard showing a possible construction of the type of freedom or emancipation that is necessary in forwarding a class politics of spatiality. In effect, emancipating the place is tied with the classical notion of the liberation of the proletariat. I conceptualize the concept of place as a signifier of the spaces that humanity produces—may it be their home, their work, or geometries of modern life—but have been put under the dictates and design of capital. Thus, I will go back to the classical notion of emancipatory politics of Marx and Engels. This synthesis combines the possibility of emancipatory class politics based on the ontology of the present capitalist production of space. (shrink)

Much of the recent discussion in progressive circles [e.g., Stiglitz; Galbraith; Piketty] has focused the obscene mal-distribution of wealth and income as if that was "the" problem in our economic system. And the proposed redistributive reforms have all stuck to that framing of the question. To put the question in historical perspective, one might note that there was a similar, if not more extreme, mal-distribution of wealth, income, and political power in the Antebellum system of slavery. Yet, it should be (...) obvious to modern eyes that redistributions in favor of the slaves, while leaving the institution of owning workers intact, would not address the root of the problem. The system of slavery was eventually abolished in favor of the system we have today which differs in two important respects: the workers are only rented, hired, or employed ; and the rental relationship between employer and employee is voluntary. Today, the root of the problem is the whole institution for the voluntary renting of human beings, the employment system itself, not the terms of the contract or the accumulated consequences in the form of the mal-distribution of income and wealth. (shrink)

Search in an environment with an uncertain distribution of resources involves a trade-off between exploitation of past discoveries and further exploration. This extends to information foraging, where a knowledge-seeker shifts between reading in depth and studying new domains. To study this decision-making process, we examine the reading choices made by one of the most celebrated scientists of the modern era: Charles Darwin. From the full-text of books listed in his chronologically-organized reading journals, we generate topic models to quantify his local (...) (text-to-text) and global (text-to-past) reading decisions using Kullback-Liebler Divergence, a cognitively-validated, information-theoretic measure of relative surprise. Rather than a pattern of surprise-minimization, corresponding to a pure exploitation strategy, Darwin’s behavior shifts from early exploitation to later exploration, seeking unusually high levels of cognitive surprise relative to previous eras. These shifts, detected by an unsupervised Bayesian model, correlate with major intellectual epochs of his career as identified both by qualitative scholarship and Darwin’s own self-commentary. Our methods allow us to compare his consumption of texts with their publication order. We find Darwin’s consumption more exploratory than the culture’s production, suggesting that underneath gradual societal changes are the explorations of individual synthesis and discovery. Our quantitative methods advance the study of cognitive search through a framework for testing interactions between individual and collective behavior and between short- and long-term consumption choices. This novel application of topic modeling to characterize individual reading complements widespread studies of collective scientific behavior. (shrink)

It is expected that industrial heritage actually tells the story of the emerging capitalism highlighting the dynamic social relationship between the “workers” and the owners of the “production means”. In current times of economic crisis, it may even involve a painful past with lost social, civil, gender and/or class struggles, a depressing present with abandoned, fragmented, degraded landscapes and ravaged factories, and a hopeless future for the former workers of the local (not only) society; or just a conquerable ground for (...) controversial investments. This is certainly an emotionally charged subject matter, with multiple readings and interpretations. However, this view is only partial when facing landscape during its historical evolution process. A diachronic study, thus, embraces all resources that probably gave rise to a variety of human activities; all of them embody heritage values -“subjectively” or “objectively” perceived- their evaluation, though, is a matter of an on-going process of the civil society. Greece's landscape accommodates a diversity of diachronic productive practices that may overlap historical periods, technological evolutions and social transformations. Pre-, early and industrial exploitation of resources does not remain firm but vary according to time and the needs of each society. The comparative scale of certain resource exploitation is highlighted as the key for the assessment methodology in close relation to the specific frame of a local landscape and a historical period. Even though archaeological evidence may possibly reveal and document continuity in a range of sustainable productive processes without conflicts, great controversies emerge when new investments are “offered” as an antidote to economic crisis -not harmonized to the local scale, traumatizing thus the “spirit” of the landscape. Suggestions for incompatible productive use and investment planning imply irreversible and irreparable effects on the environment, society and economy of a region and are only faced through social awareness. Case studies of passive and/or active involvement of local communities, in synthesizing and enhance landscape’s “spirit”, its diachronic industrial heritage and the embedded tangible and intangible values, will support a pragmatic -not a suspended- step towards a sustainable future. Quoting Neil Cossons (TICCIH Congress 2012) “Industrial imperialism ensures its position and protects its future not by the conquest of distant lands as by the securing of its sources of raw materials ... The modern world is as much under the control of the major industrial powers as it ever was during the colonial era”; if such a case can the industrial heritage sector remain apolitical? (shrink)

Modern promising theoretical and methodological studies have reasonably shown that the issue of bonuses significance in the production and economic mechanism is not controversial. Currently, an order has been established where economic incentive funds are formed according to fixed standards, approved in differentiated amounts by year of economic development cycle; the main fund-forming indicators are performance to the supply plan of finished products under the concluded contracts, increase in labour productivity, improvement of finished product quality and volume growth net profit. (...) The introduction of long-term wage standards for the hryvnia finished product strengthens the economic interest of labour collectives in increasing labour productivity and reducing staff turnover, improving the procedure of material incentives for combining professions, high rates and criteria for evaluating quality in labour, introducing technologically founded standards. This paper focuses on the issue of assessing and determining leading methods for promoting finished product quality. We employ both theoretical and empirical tools for achieving this goal and for deriving relevant outcomes and policy implications. (shrink)

The article talks about the emergence of the theory of imperialism and neocolonialism, the reasons that gave rise to it, and its effects on the development of humanity in the current period. Imperialism is a multifaceted, multidimensional problem. It is a political issue, it has philosophical, scientific and technological foundations, it has economic, sociological, geographical, ethnic, religious and educational dimensions. But the fact that it is primarily a human problem makes it a multifaceted problem. Surely we can increase these reasons. (...) But no matter how much we multiply, colonization of one society by another society, confiscation of its wealth, enslavement and cultural separation is the most visible form of this. But this experience is not unprecedented in human history. Because human history has been a kind of exploitation, enslavement and attempts to create superiority. As Camus said, "Man emerges as the most dangerous being for his species". Attitudes to imperialism may vary between tribal and celestial cultures. After all, the culture of heaven is a culture cultivated by divine teaching. Exploitation and slavery are the dominant attitudes of tribal cultures. In these cultures, the relationship between man and man is based on power, wealth and nobility. In celestial cultures, the relationship between man and man was determined by nomos, divine laws. Heavenly culture is the product of a will that emerges for "good will" to prevail. It should be known that colonialism is a tribal behavior wherever and whenever it occurs. Because they do not see other societies as equal to themselves, it is a desire to dominate, exploit and enslave those who are not like themselves. From this perspective, colonialism can be seen as one of the oldest forms of behavior in history. This situation appears as the victory of the strong over the weak. Since transcendental attachment does not occur, they are in a position to absolutize their self. As a result, they see themselves as masters to be served, they see in themselves the right to such an inclination. It can be misleading to associate the colonial movement with human nature. It is more about the degradation and degeneration of human nature, it is about self-cultivation. It is a matter of outlook. The heavenly cultures, where the powerless were protected and spared, showed themselves not in a colonial style, but in a protective and compassionate way. We can see this patronizing relationship in the states established within the celestial cultures. (shrink)

The services sector strategic development unites a multitude of economic and managerial aspects and is one of the most important problems of economic management. Many researches devoted to this industry study are available. Most of them are performed in the traditional aspect of the voluminous calendar approach to strategic management, characteristic of the national scientific school. Such an approach seems archaic, forming false strategic benchmarks. The services sector is of special scientific interest in this context due to the fact that (...) the social production structure to the services development model attraction in many countries suggests transition to postindustrial economy type where the services sector is a system-supporting sector of the economy. Actively influencing the economy, the services sector in the developed countries dominates in the GDP formation, primary capital accumulation, labor, households final consumption and, finally, citizens comfort of living. However, a clear understanding of the services sector as a hyper-sector permeating all spheres of human activity has not yet been fully developed, although interest in this issue continues to grow among many authors. Target of strategic management of the industry development setting requires substantive content and the services sector target value assessment. (shrink)

Life is the center of our existence. One would be tempted to say that first of all we live. However, our existence does not seem to pass in that modality. The exacerbated materialism in which our existence takes place, displaces life from the center of the scene. Our society is organized around production, consumerism, exploitation, efficiency, trade and propaganda. That is to say, our existence seems to have economy as the center of organization of our activities. The struggle of this (...) century that is beginning is to put life at the center of our existence, and to put economy in its proper place, that is, in the service of life. (shrink)

In the first stage of his thinking Karl Marx founded his revolutionary politics on philosophical speculation, while in the second (mature) stage he relied on economics and the theory of exploitation based on his theory of surplus value. Marxism, however, developed in the opposite direction. After Marx's economic doctrine became vulnerable to powerful objections, Marxists tried to find a refuge in his early philosophical writings and in this way avoid refutation. Ultimately this attempt proved unsuccessful too.

In the beginning of the 1970s, Michel Foucault dismisses the terminology of ‘exclusion’ for his projected analytics of modern power. This rejection has had major repercussions on the theory of neoliberal subject-formation. Many researchers disproportionately stress how neoliberal dispositifs produce entrepreneurial subjects, albeit in different ways, while minimizing how these dispositifs sometimes emphatically refuse to produce neoliberal subjects. Relying on Saskia Sassen’s work on financialization, I argue that neoliberal dispositifs not only apply entrepreneurial norms, but also suspend their application for (...) groups that threaten to harm the population’s profitability. Neoliberal dispositifs not only produce entrepreneurial subjects, but also surplus populations that are expelled from the overall population to maintain its productivity. Here, the concept of ‘exclusion’ is appropriate if understood in Agamben’s sense of an inclusive exclusion. The surplus population is part of neoliberal dispositifs, but only as the element to be abandoned. (shrink)

Throughout the 20th century, market capitalism was defended on parallel grounds. First, it promotes freedom by enabling individuals to exploit their own property and labor-power; second, it facilitates an efficient allocation and use of resources. Recently, however, both defenses have begun to unravel—as capitalism has moved into its “platform” phase. Today, the pursuit of allocative efficiency, bolstered by pervasive data surveillance, often undermines individual freedom rather than promoting it. And more fundamentally, the very idea that markets are necessary to achieve (...) allocative efficiency has come under strain. Even supposing, for argument’s sake, that the claim was true in the early 20th century when von Mises and Hayek pioneered it, advances in computing have rekindled the old “socialist calculation” debate. And this time around, markets—as information technology—are unlikely to have the upper hand. -/- All of this, we argue, raises an important set of governance questions regarding the political economy of the future. We focus on two: How much should our economic system prioritize freedom, and to what extent should it rely on markets? The arc of platform capitalism bends, increasingly, toward a system that neither prioritizes freedom nor relies on markets. And the dominant critical response, exemplified by Shoshana Zuboff’s work, has been to call for a restoration of market capitalism. Longer term, however, we believe it would be more productive to think about how “postmarket” economic arrangements might promote freedom—or better yet, autonomy—even more effectively than markets, and to determine the practical steps necessary to realize that possibility. (shrink)

Kate Crawford presents AI as “both reflecting and producing social relations and understandings of the world”; or again, as “a form of exercising power, and a way of seeing… as a manifestation of highly organized capital backed by vast systems of extraction and logistics, with supply chains that wrap around the entire planet”. I interpret these material insights through a Marxist understanding of ideology, with reference to Marx/Engels, Guy Debord and Louis Althusser. In the German Ideology, Marx and Engels present (...) ideology as the alienated and alienating discourse of exchange, dissimulating the material forces of production and its science. Guy Debord presents the spectacle as the further representation of capital. The spectacle is a total Weltanschauung, pure appearance, where “whatever appears is good and where what is good, appears.” Above all, the spectacle is ideology, representing “the impoverishment, enslavement and negation of real life”. Louis Althusser presents ideology as essential for the reproduction of labor-power and capital. His notion of “interpellation” explains the subjective uptake of ideology, how we respond, “yes!” to its call. The algorithms of AI are enactments of surplus value generating capital as data. The AI data-world is the spectacle, “the autonomous movement of non-life” (Debord) where the proletariat/consumer is the producer of their own ideological subjection. Is resistance possible? What form might it take? And if AI is understood as ideology, i.e. as a language that obscures the true conditions of real life, then what are those true conditions? What is “real life”? (shrink)

The UK has been slack in fulfilling its international obligations regarding human trafficking. The UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 has apparently nothing to say about the demand for women trafficked into prostitution, although it addresses the demand for other forms of trfficking though the supply chain provisins in the Act. The UK has disappointed many in condoning prostitution, as Lady Butler-Sloss describes as 'one of the longest standing industries'. However it is one of the longest-standing forms of exploitation. The Act (...) instead, has given much importance to modern -day slavery. An effective way of tackling demand for prostitution and the attendant exploitation would be to make it an offence to purchase someone for sex. Yet perhaps the point is that to curb modern-day slavery is to curb prostitution and pornography, through curbing the supply side. However the UK hasragged its feet over many years, especially when one considers that Internet pornography brings in over £4 billion annually to the UK Gross Domestic Product. (shrink)

The author starts from the thesis that there is no such thing as a "natural" or "apolitical" economy. The economy is always already political, as it is the economy’s material core of power, control, and its main mechanisms, i.e. exploitation and oppression. It is no less so in the era of neoliberalism, a time in which we witness the divorce between capitalism and democracy. In order to lay the foundations of a different economy, one that is not based on wage (...) labor and the exploitation of human life and nature based on their auto-alienation, but rather on action in accordance with their resources, we need – according the author – to rethink the concept of the state in a non-philosophical and post-capitalist fashion, structurally different from the modern bourgeois state. If the structure originating in the bourgeois state, as conceived by modern humanism, is preserved, it will mean that the determination in the last instance is still the same. In order to arrive at a determination in the last instance of a non-exploitative, non-wage-labor-based social order where the determination is affected by the real, we must first arrive at the generic core of the notion of the modern state. As soon as we determine the generic term of "the state," we can radicalize it by letting it be determined by the effects of the real. The generic notion, isolated from the chôra of the transcendental material that is offered by modern philosophies originating in the Enlightenment, should be used as the minimal transcendental description for the determining effect of the real. (shrink)

Defenders of intellectual property rights argue that these rights are justified because creators and inventors deserve compensation for their labour, because their ideas and expressions are their personal property and because the total amount of creative work and innovation increases when inventors and creators have a prospect of generating high income through the exploitation of their monopoly rights. This view is not only widely accepted by the general public, but also enforced through a very effective international legal framework. And it (...) is endorsed by most academic researchers and commentators in this field. In this essay, I will show that the classical arguments for the justification of private intellectual property rights can be contested, and that there are many good reasons to abolish intellectual property rights completely in favour of an intellectual commons where every person is allowed to use every cultural expression and invention in whatever way he wishes. I will first give a short overview of the classical arguments for the justification of intellectual property as they are usually stated. We will then discuss the question of whether the creator or inventor deserves his de jure monopoly, by using John Christman’s categories of income and control rights to analyse property rights. The aim here is to show that it does not make sense to create control rights for abstract objects, as they are not scarce, and that there is no logical connection between the surplus which may be generated through income rights and the labour which has been put into a cultural artefact or an invention, and therefore it is not justified to grant monopoly rights on the basis of Lockean natural rights arguments for self-ownership and the just appropriation of worldly resources. As it is possible to reject Christman’s property rights categories, I will then go on to show on the basis of Richard Dawkins’ postulation of the ‘meme’ and Ludwik Fleck’s theory of the ‘thought collective’ that creative processes should be interpreted as interpersonal or collective processes, and therefore it is not justified to grant intellectual property rights to individuals on the basis of the idea that the individual who has put labour into the creative work or the invention should be the one to whom the contents of the work belong exclusively. As it is still possible to postulate the utilitarian argument that intellectual property rights are just because they increase the amount of creative works and inventions, I will argue in the last chapter that, from a libertarian as well as from an egalitarian point of view, the justification of intellectual monopoly rights on utilitarian grounds cannot be maintained. Therefore it is time to abolish the current global intellectual property law regime in favour of an intellectual commons for the good of all human beings and societies. (shrink)

Shadow pictures radically changed the modern understanding of pictorial concepts. Tim Otto Roth’s broadly based cultural history traces the consequences of this revolution of methods of vision and image production in the sciences and the arts. By means of abundant image and text sources he develops a picture theory based on physics and projective geometry. This definitive book comprising 500 pages provides a generally understandable and vivid insight in the history of shadowgraphs from the 19th century until the present age. (...) A crucial role play scientific processes as the X-ray technique, but also the artistic examination of space and body. (shrink)

In 1947, the U.S. Secretary of State, George C. Marshall announced that the USA would provide development aid to help the recovery and reconstruction of the economies of Europe, which was widely known as the ‘Marshall Plan’. In Italy, this plan generated a resurgence of modern industrialization and remodeled Italian Industry based on American models of production. As the result of these transnational transfers, the systemic approach known as Fordism largely succeeded and allowed some Italian firms such as Fiat to (...) flourish. During this period, Detroit and Turin, homes to the most powerful automobile corporations of the twentieth century, became intertwined in a web of common features such as industrial concentration, mass flows of immigrations, uneven urban sprawl, radical iconography and inner-city decay, which characterized Fordism in both cities. In the crucial decades of the postwar expansion of the automobile industries, both cities were hubs of labor battles and social movements. However, after the radical decline in their industries as previous auto cities, they experienced the radical shift toward post-Fordist urbanization and production of political urbanism. This research responds to the recent interest for a comparative (re)turn in urban studies by suggesting the conceptual theoretical baseline for the proposed comparative framework in post-Fordist cities. In better words, it develops a “theory” on the challenges of comparative urbanism in post-Fordist cities. (shrink)

Scholars of race in antiquity commonly claim that Aristotle holds proto-racist views about βάρβαροι or non-Greeks. But a careful examination of Aristotle’s remarks in his Politics about slavery, non-Greek political institutions, and Greek and non-Greek natural qualities calls into question such claims. No doubt, Aristotle held views at odds with modern liberalism, such as defenses of gender subordination and the exploitation of slave and non-slave labor. But claims that Aristotle holds proto-racist views are regularly but erroneously asserted without careful consideration (...) of relevant textual evidence. My article argues that Aristotle neither categorically distinguishes Greeks and non-Greeks nor does he endorse the claim that Greeks are categorically superior to non-Greeks. Indeed, Aristotle regularly draws upon non-Greek political institutions in his own formulation of the best constitution and he praises the non-Greek constitution of Carthage as superior to that of Greek constitutions such as Sparta and Crete. (shrink)

Scholars of race in antiquity commonly claim that Aristotle holds proto-racist views about βάρβαροι or non-Greeks. But a careful examination of Aristotle’s remarks in his Politics about slavery, non-Greek political institutions, and Greek and non-Greek natural qualities calls into question such claims. No doubt, Aristotle held views at odds with modern liberalism, such as defenses of gender subordination and the exploitation of slave and non-slave labor. But claims that Aristotle holds proto-racist views are regularly but erroneously asserted without careful consideration (...) of relevant textual evidence. My article argues that Aristotle neither categorically distinguishes Greeks and non-Greeks nor does he endorse the claim that Greeks are categorically superior to non-Greeks. Indeed, Aristotle regularly draws upon non-Greek political institutions in his own formulation of the best constitution and he praises the non-Greek constitution of Carthage as superior to that of Greek constitutions such as Sparta and Crete. (shrink)

All the biotic and abiotic factors that act on an organism, population, or ecological community and influence its survival and development constitute its environment. Biotic factors include the organisms themselves, their food, and their interactions. Abiotic factors include such items as sunlight, soil, air, water, climate, and pollution. Organisms respond to changes in their environment by evolutionary adaptations in form and behaviour. At present humanity is facing great challenges for its survival as both these factors have come under great stress (...) due to its unbridled demands of national economic growth and individual needs and desires. Grave Crisis: On the abiotic front, a grave ecological crisis is caused by man’s exploitation of Nature, which is leading to a large scale depletion of natural resources, destruction of forests, and overuse of land for agriculture and habitation. Pollution is contaminating air, land, and water. Smoke from industries, homes and vehicles, is in the air. A smoky haze envelopes the major cities of the world. Industrial waste and consumer trash are choking streams and rivers, ponds and lakes, killing the marine life. Much of the waste is a product of modern technology. It is neither biodegradable nor reusable, and its longterm consequences are unknown. The viability of many animal and plant species, and possibly that of the humankind itself, is at stake. At the biotic level, humanity is facing a social justice crisis, which is caused by humanity’s confrontation with itself. The social justice crisis is that poverty, hunger, disease, exploitation and injustice are widespread. There are economic wars over resources and markets. The rights of the poor and the marginal are violated. Women, constituting half the world’s population, have their rights abused. Obviously, the contemporary human society is in the midst of a grave environmental crisis. There is a serious concern that the earth may no longer be a sustainable biosystem. Although human beings are seen as the most intelligent life form on earth, yet they are responsible for almost all the ecological damage done to the planet. The Sikh scripture, Sri Guru Granth Sahib (SGGS), declares that the purpose of human beings is to achieve a blissful state and to be in harmony with the earth and all of God’s creation. It seems, however, that humans have drifted away from that ideal. According to the Sikh scriptures, humans create their surroundings as a reflection of their inner state. Thus, the increasing barrenness of the earth reflects a spiritual emptiness within humans. (shrink)

1. The most original discovery in Beauvoir’s book is one more Columbus’s egg, namely that it is far from evident that a woman is a woman. That is, she discovers that a woman is the result of a process that made so that she is like she is. The paper discusses two aspects of the so-to-say ‘ideology’ inspiring the work. The first is its ideology in the proper, Marxian sense. My claim is that the work still pays a heavy price (...) to the dominating ideology. It leaves still too much unquestionedof what was assumed at the time to be obvious, necessary, and unchanging. This ballast depends firstly on the inherited prevailing climate of opinion, corresponding to a situation of alienation, producing two distorted views of the male and female gender. On the other hand, it depends on an unquestioned legacy from the modern episteme (in Foucault’s sense of the word) carrying presupposed Cartesian dualism. The other side of the work’s ideology, that is, the positive program presented or better the utopia it formulates is less innovative than it could be, In a few passages, where she seems to make use of suggestions from Merleau-Ponty, she points at a view where the bodily and emotional dimension is rescued from its negation in the male-dominated Capitalist society. Still, these suggestions are forgotten in the bulk of the work. -/- 2. The making of a philosophical work does not depend just on the kind of philosophical influences behind it. A book is also the product of an author with a story living in one society at a given time of social history. In this case, the book was written in the afterwar time when women were pushed back home again from the wartime labor market and when several of the goals reached by the first phase of feminist movements had gone lost in several European countries under Fascist or semi-fascist regimes and were being eroded in America by the reactionary climate of McCarthyism. It was a book written by an intellectual young woman in almost total isolation. These circumstances account for some more naïve suggestions from work: for ex., the idea that the alternative to the strategy once adopted by nineteenth-century emancipationist movements should be an individual inner process of transformation confined within the boundaries of one woman’s consciousness, or also, the idea that the goal of women’s liberation should be to bring all women to a condition similar of Simone de Beauvoir herself who, as an educated woman, earning her life by her work, and living in an allegedly equal state with an enlightened man (Jean-Paul Sartre!) in a relationship free from constraints (an unmarried couple!), was already exemplifying what a liberated woman’s life would be. -/- 3. The reconstruction of the idea of femininity is still the most fruitful part of the work. It rejects the notion of femininity as an essence depending on biology or other factors and explores the making of this image as a result of a condition made of the social and economic state of affairs but as revived and actively mirrored through and by the consciousness of the very subjects suffering an oppressive situation. And the main novelty is the ‘discovery’ of asymmetry between the self-image of the male and the (self)-image of the woman, an asymmetry depending on the fact that the woman sees herself through the other’s eyes. -/- 4. Later feminist writers such as Shulamit Firestone remarked that 'The Second Sex' heavily depended on several key-ideas from Sartre existential ontology. One crucial aspect is accepting the mind-body dualistic framework without any suspicion that such dualism could have been itself a projection of the basic experience of the male-female duality. I suggest that the philosophical legacy inherited from Sartre is on occasion an asset for Beauvoir’s innovative existential analysis of the feminine ‘condition,’ but on several occasions, it creates unnecessary obstacles for her project of a new comprehension of the feminine ‘situation,’ aimed at rescuing women from an 'inauthentic' self-definition. -/- 5. The first among these poisoned gifts is Sartre’s idea of the individual as pure freedom and project. Merleau-Ponty’s criticism is well-known: Sartre draws a picture of the world as containing no more than ‘human beings and things,’ thus denying any substance to social relations, institutions, and culture. -/- 6. The second is Sartre’s reconstruction of dialectics, understood as dialectics without synthesis. This is an enlightening tool when used to describe conflicts, in so far as it accounts for the emergence of the ‘other’ as what is excluded. But it becomes a boomerang when used to interpret any kind of relationship, leading to equate inter-subjectivity with conflict. -/- 7. Suggestions coming from Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological approach of positive value of the bodily dimension as such, and hence of the feminine body, are evoked here and there but never fully spelled out. The most shocking consequence of acceptance of the Cartesian or Sartrean dualist view is an almost total de-evaluation of sexuality, understood as an activity involving just one tiny part of the human body, going with the idea that overcoming the oppression of women implies de-empathizing biological differences that are after all tiny and devoid of value. Besides, Beauvoir falls back into the trap of grounding claims of equality between men and women on the assumption that biological differences are of limited relevance. The eventual reason for such a step back is the distorting Cartesian mirror into which Beauvoir still looks in the vain hope of discovering a disembodied self as the (Cartesian) subject of an impossible kind of liberation.The first among these poisoned gifts is Sartre’s idea of the individual as pure freedom and project. Merleau-Ponty’s criticism is well-known: Sartre draws a picture of the world as containing no more than ‘human beings and things’, thus denying any substance to social relations, institutions and culture. The second is Sartre’s reconstruction of dialectics, understood as a dialectic without a synthesis. This view of dialectics is an enlightening tool when used to describe conflicts. It may account for the emergence of the ‘other’ as what is excluded. However, it becomes a boomerang when used to interpret any relationship, leading to equate inter-subjectivity with conflict. Suggestions coming from Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological approach would tend to admit that the bodily dimension as such has a positive value, and hence the feminine bodily dimension is not just indifferent, but instead gives women a point of view on the world different from the male point of view. These suggestions, yet, are evoked here and there but never fully spelt out. The most shocking consequence of acceptance of the Cartesian or Sartrean dualist view is an almost total de-evaluation of sexuality, understood as an activity involving just one tiny part of the human body, going with the idea that overcoming the oppression of women implies understressing biological differences that are after all tiny and devoid of value. Furthermore, Beauvoir falls back into the trap of grounding claims of equality between men and women on the assumption that physical differences are of limited relevance. The eventual reason for such step back is the distorting Cartesian mirror into which Beauvoir still looks in the vain hope of discovering a disembodied self as the (Cartesian) subject of an impossible kind of liberation. -/- . (shrink)

This article focuses on five flaws of Christian Fuchs’ approach of Web 2.0 economy. Here, Fuchs’ views on immaterial production, productivity of labor, commodification of users’ data, underestimation of financial aspects of digital economy, and the violation of Marx’s laws of value production, rate of exploitation, fall tendency of profit rate, and overproduction crisis are put into question. This article defends the thesis Fuchs fails to apply Marxian political economy to the contemporary phenomena of Web 2.0 economy. It is possible (...) to avoid Fuchs’ errors, and another approach is possible to remake Marxism relevant for an analysis of the new media economy. (shrink)

The delusory quest for disembodiment, against which the quest for re-embodiment is reacting, is characteristic of macroparasites who live off the work, products and lives of others. The quest for disembodiment that characterizes modernism and postmodernism, it is argued, echoes in a more extreme form the delusions on which medieval civilization was based where the military aristocracy and the clergy, defining themselves through the ideal forms of Neo-Platonic Christianity, despised nature, the peasantry and in the case of the clergy, women. (...) This argument is used to expose and reveal the oppressive and ecologically destructive drive underlying the aspirations of the dominant classes in the modern/postmodern world to disembodiment, whether this be seen as the quest to be unbounded by time and place, to be free of dependence on labour and natural resources, to be free of the humdrum of everyday life by entering ‘virtual’ worlds, or, as with post-humanists, to overcome the limits of the body by fusing with technology. These modern and postmodern forms of the quest for disembodiment, it is suggested, now threaten civilization, the future of humanity and most terrestrial life. This analysis is used to clarify the liberating mission of the grand narrative for re-embodiment, exemplified by the quest for Inclusive Democracy, Earth Democracy, Ecological Civilization, or for an Ecozoic Age. The grand narrative of the Age of Re-embodiments is shown to be inseparable from the struggle for truth, justice and liberty as central to real democracy empowering people to augment rather than undermine the conditions for life. (shrink)

The studies of ethics had long been under-dealt although it is the kind of primary in sustaining a civility. It is hardly deniable that the concept of efficiency and productivity has hailed on the mindedness and interest of academic community. The narrative of ethics or social justice would be ridiculed as the kind of Greek juggle on philosophy or put to be on neglect for its lacking or default on the modern disciplinary frame in the academics. A cure, however, seems (...) not to be from a juggernaut of modern capitalistic civilization and its supportive paradigm of understanding so that alternative way for any more realistic solution can be made exploitative from the ethics or similar tools of motivation. Now we talk about noblesse oblige or benevolent capitalism as one important dose for the new paradigm of social promise or reformed capitalism. The ethics studies have increasingly made its way as focused in the discipline of business and public administration. Typically, it is profiled in combination of leadership studies, and the civility tends to accept this narrative, beyond the liberal competition and fairness school, as one of important element when we consider the concept of social justice. The modern professionals, for example, bar members, medical doctors, and many of licensees for their business operation, also clone to carry their responsibility under a specific ethical code. This would be the kind of safety code from the abusive or madly profit-driven capitalism. More importantly, I believe that a sheer understanding of ethics and social justice would be assets and equipment for the ruling class in the contemporary society. In this context, the paper would survey an ethical theory or decision making model, history of Korea as well as a recent episode involving the chief prosecutor of South Korea. Korean leadership, typically for the powerful cores or inner circle princelings, can be revisited in purview of ethics studies, such as Cooper‟s design and ethical decision making model. (shrink)

Abstract: The study observes the core of both trafficking in persons and security offering a preliminary understanding the interconnection between the two concepts which is indeed a precondition of the more thorough contemplation of this security problem. Noteworthy is also the further elaboration of the risk that link between violence and modern-day slavery represents having in mind society and the individual. This informal economy violates the principle of morality and is understood to be one of the most offensive crimes. Its (...) elementary features are psychological and/ or physical torture, coercing into engaging in the violation of the law and established social norms as well as transporting and harboring. The consequence of all of this is the material gain, whereas the victim appears as Machiavellian means the gain will justify. Trafficking emerges in different forms, the most discernible of which are forced labor and sexual exploitation that is among the hardest forms of desecrating human soul. Unfortunately, it is a common phenomenon that many people (some independent estimates mention a figure of several million) around the world, women and children, in particular, every year become victims of this violence. Tough living conditions, as well as uncertain economic future, are among fundamental causes infecting healthy society. If a well-organised criminal network or a ‘hidden economy’ succeeds to impose the rule of conduct, then human trafficking finds fertile soil in which to grow. Having been lured the victims later realize where they are, but many never return to their families, and that terrible fate should make society do what can be done and help them. -/- Key words: Human, state, trafficking, security, smuggling. (shrink)

Since the launch of applications such as DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion, generative artificial intelligence has been controversial as a tool for creating artwork. While some have presented longtermist worries about these technologies as harbingers of fully automated futures to come, more pressing is the impact of generative AI on creative labour in the present. Already, business leaders have begun replacing human artistic labour with AI-generated images. In response, the artistic community has launched a protest movement, which argues that AI (...) image generation is a kind of theft. This paper analyzes, substantiates, and critiques these arguments, concluding that AI image generators involve an unethical kind of labour theft. If correct, many other AI applications also rely upon theft. (shrink)

ANNOTATION Sardak S.E. Global Regulatory System of Human Resources Development. – Manuscript. Thesis for the Doctor of Economic Science academic degree with major in 08.00.02 – World Economy and international economic relations. – SHEE «Kyiv National Economic University named after Vadym Hetman», Kyiv, 2014. The preconditions and factors of the global economic system with the identified relevant subjects areas and mechanisms of regulation instruments have been investigated. The crucial role of humans in the global economic system as a key factor (...) of production, the main resource, the producer and the consumer of economic and social benefits that are exposed to global threats, problems, challenges, trends and subjects has been confirmed. There have been revealed the causes and consequences of the public institutions transformation under the influence of globalization, which formed a qualitatively new conditions for social and economic development that determine the need for further changes in the areas of conceptual guideline for the management of human resources development, optimization of tasks, state and international institutions activity forms, integration of efforts as for monitoring, planning and forecasting. The modern major instruments and spheres of international cooperation to ensure human development have been determined. The integrated characteristic of human resources and their role in social development both from the standpoint of their use in labour processes and as a medium of civilization and social utility with the help of the categorical classification system organizing and expanding which enables to design and apply the appropriate approaches at all managerial levels have been defined. The necessity and the concept of human resources development in the context of the content of managerial influence identifying (self-development, self-management and external control of development) at different administrative levels that ensures the growth of human capital to the limits of its potential have been analysed. The survey of human activity system aspects in the global world, taking into account the parametrization of the global environment, its structure, management and development have been realized. The formed methodology principles of managerial influence on the development of human resources with scientific schools, hardness degrees, available models, research and providing theoretical and practical implementation peculiarities for groups of countries and territories of the world taken into consideration have been examined. There have been noted civilization and national differences in the forms of managerial influence on the development of human resources, which lead to the formation of human resources development national control systems conditioned by different value public strategic guidelines, especially in relation to social security, education, national management and state migration policy. The current and future requirements for global human resources development which are proposed to be achieved by the development and formalization of global civilizational paradigm of social development due to social coordination interaction have been given. The influence of the institute of state on the human resources development has been evaluated and it has been proved that in the beginning of the XXI century in the global environment the institute of state is the ultimate guarantor of its citizens’ labour ability and vital activity renewal, that makes it the main instrument of managerial influence on human development. The methodology of countries and territories matrix positioning by human development qualitative criteria and population size quantitative parameters which allows to design unified managerial measures as for human resources for similar national economies in the context of global regulatory trends has been proposed. The strategic trends of improvement of human resources development in the national economy, taking into account the differences in the development of human resources in different countries and areas which vary and differ in their focus, content and ways of implementation for such groups. The varying criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of the global impact on human resources development, taking into account the natural, biological, technological, economic, social and management dimensions and the results of human resources development management in social and economic systems at various levels have been revealed. The periodization and the forecast of the global dynamics of human resources development by analyzing and modeling the values of the absolute and relative terms correlation character have been carried out, which enables to make their retrospective and prospective comparison and to find chronological boundaries of qualitatively different periods. The configuration of the human resource development global coordinate system as a set of interrelated principles, components, fields, tools, frameworks, management levels and forms of managerial influence that allows with the help of institutional means to adapt the state of human resources development to a globally varying environment. (shrink)

This article reconstructs and defends Theodor Adorno’s social theory by motivating the central role of abstract domination within it. Whereas critics such as Axel Honneth have charged Adorno with adhering to a reductive model of personal domination, I argue that the latter rather understands domination as a structural and de-individualized feature of capitalist society. If Adorno’s social theory is to be explanatory, however, it must account for the source of the abstractions that dominate modern individuals and, in particular, that of (...) value. While such an account remains undeveloped in Adorno, Marx provides resources for its development, in positing the constitution of value neither in production nor exchange alone, but in the social totality. This article argues that Marx’s account is compatible with Adorno’s, and that it may be used to render Adorno’s theory of domination more credible on explanatory grounds. (shrink)

This paper is about the modern-day problem of human alienation and fulfillment in work from the perspective of the Catholic social thought. It analyses the symptoms and causes of work alienation, the meaning of work and its significance in the individual’s quest for fulfillment, and how the Catholic social teachings can shed light on the problems involved in transforming the world of work. Alienation in work affects one’s subjective and psychological fulfillment, but it is not ultimately dependent on material culture (...) or economic models. The problem of alienation in work cannot be dealt with by simply modifying the production process or the wage system, although these are factors that alienate people even more. Social problems cannot be solved without light of faith and the recognition of the moral order that is rooted in God. In the final analysis, alienation is not simply the loss of meaning in human activities. It is the loss of life’s meaning and man’s estrangement from his own authentic nature, including his reason for being and final end, that results from the rejection of God and His teachings. What Catholicism provides is a combination of economic, psychological, moral, social, and spiritual motives for work that will make it personally fulfilling. (shrink)

Contemporary societies are regulated by a complex system, which tends to be exhaustive, supported by growing social and technical interdependence. This system is composed of subsystems: global economic production, liberal political institutions and a social organization based on labour. As a whole, these three dimensions – political, economical, social – tend to compress contemporary life forms into a single way of life, primarily structured by systemic functionality. Although it admits variations of degree (or even, to some extent, qualitative differences), the (...) functional codes (of systems) guide actions daily and impose severe limitations on lifestyles, which are particularly noticeable when the struggle for survival, both economically and socially, mobilizes all of one’s time and energy. The means obliterate the ends, functioning obliterates meaning, survival obliterates the proper human “life”. At the political level, liberal thought masks the “malaise of modern civilization” resulting from these limitations by evacuating the question on forms of life to the private sphere, concurrently with the insistence on an abstract political ethic of the “just”, ultimately determining the form and functioning of the institutions, which overrides any and all ethics of “good”. (shrink)

This thesis focuses on Carl Schmitt’s political theory of the strong state and the way his own concept of the political justifies strong coercive methods to de-politicise the economy. According to Schmitt, the strong state should have the legitimate capacity to counter democratisation of the economy and limit the possibility of social movements from “confounding” (Verwirrung) or “confusing” (Vermischung) the state and economy. Unlike many, who argue that Schmitt was in this extent (an economic) liberal, as he sought to uphold (...) a distinction between politics and economy, I argue that behind Schmitt’s institutional distinction between state and economy lies an explicitly anti-liberal conceptual distinction between the political and social. It is the task of this conceptual distinction to justify strong coercive means to counter socialist demands for economic justice. The distinction is anti-socialist or anti-democratic as it tries limit the “uncontrollable” expansion of the state into the economy by establishing the autonomy of the political from the economy. This enables him to accuse democratic forces of illegitimately “politicising” the economy in a way that contradicts this necessary autonomy. On the other hand, the distinction is anti-liberal as it does not argue for the autonomy of the economy, but its relative dependence on the strong state to uphold social order necessary for capitalist system of production. I have decided to use the term “authoritarian distinction” to define Schmitt’s conceptual distinction and its normative implications. The authoritarian distinction between the political and social is not simply a conceptual distinction but it establishes a normative basis for re-organising the relationship between the state and economy. In order to flesh out the specific nature of Schmitt’s authoritarian distinction, I have connected his thought with other theories of sovereignty and how they support the state’s authoritarian relationship with the economy. The thesis has three objectives. First, I want to develop a form of analysis of Schmitt’s work that connects his theoretical work with political struggle. To engage in political theory and conceptual work means to take part in politics. The concept of the political is no different, and it cannot be detached from political and normative entailments as it seeks to transform the way we perceive politics. In contrast to those who argue that Schmitt’s work on the concept of the political can be abstracted from his own political objectives, I analyse his conceptual work in tandem with his texts that explicitly engage in the politics of his time. On the basis of this analysis, I show that Schmitt’s abstract work takes part in the class struggle that was prevalent in the Weimar Republic. The conceptual distinction between the political and social is at the heart of his attempt to authorise exceptional measures to counter the labour movement of his time. Second, it is far too often that all distinction of the state and economy are reduced to analyses of liberalism. This has meant that Schmitt, too, has been claimed to adhere to a version of liberalism simply because his theory justifies limiting the politicisation of the economy. To me it seems that the focus on the liberal side of de-politicisation has produced a very one-sided narrative. In order to argue this, I discuss to an extent other theorists of sovereignty, namely Hobbes and Rousseau, and point out that even they sought to establish a distinction between the state and economy in a way that contradicts liberalism but still leaves capitalist means of production intact. To reduce Hobbes or Schmitt to a role of a precursor to liberalism means to look aside the specific nature of their theory – and, for that matter, the specificity of liberalism. Furthermore, I discuss to an extent how both liberals and these various theories of sovereignty are similar in so far as they accept the modern development of the economy as its separate sphere from politics. Third, I want to criticise the recent attempts to appropriate Schmitt’s concept of the political on the left. Many have argued that Schmitt’s concept of the political as autonomous to the social is useful in overcoming traditional Marxism and use for radicalising democracy. However, my thesis suggests that this strategy needs to be problematised, as Schmitt’s conceptual distinction cannot be separated from his anti-democratic and -socialist economic policies. In the future, I hope to further explore this need to re-think the relationship between the political and social, and whether or not we should return to a more standard Marxist understanding of this relationship. (shrink)

Epistemic exploitation occurs when privileged persons compel marginalized persons to educate them about the nature of their oppression. I argue that epistemic exploitation is marked by unrecognized, uncompensated, emotionally taxing, coerced epistemic labor. The coercive and exploitative aspects of the phenomenon are exemplified by the unpaid nature of the educational labor and its associated opportunity costs, the double bind that marginalized persons must navigate when faced with the demand to educate, and the need for additional labor created by the default (...) skepticism of the privileged. I explore the connections between epistemic exploitation and the two varieties of epistemic injustice that Fricker (2007) identifies, testimonial and hermeneutical injustice. I situate epistemic exploitation within Dotson’s (2012; 2014) framework of epistemic oppression, and I address the role that epistemic exploitation plays in maintaining active ignorance and upholding dominant epistemic frameworks. (shrink)

This paper deals with the following question: What features of modern natural science are responsible for the fact that, of all forms of science, this form is technologically exploitable? The three notions: concept of nature, epistemic ideal, and experiment, suggest the most important components of my answer. I will argue, first, that only the peculiar interplay of the modern concept of nature with an epistemic ideal attuned to it can cast experiment in the specific, highly central role it plays in (...) the pursuit of knowledge about nature. It will then become clear that the form of science in which experiment plays such a role will, necessarily, prove technologically exploitable. (shrink)

In recent years, feminist scholarship on emotional labor has proliferated. I identify a related but distinct form of care labor, hermeneutic labor. Hermeneutic labor is the burdensome activity of: understanding and coherently expressing one’s own feelings, desires, intentions, and movitations; discerning those of others; and inventing solutions for relational issues arising from interpersonal tensions. I argue that hermeneutic labor disproportionately falls on women’s shoulders in heteropatriachal societies, especially in intimate relationships between women and men. I also suggest that some of (...) the gendered burdens of emotional labor that feminist scholars point out would better be described as hermeneutic labor. Drawing on feminist philosophy as well as findings from social psychology and sociology, I argue that the exploitation of women’s hermeneutic labor is a pervasive element of what Sandra Bartky calls the ‘micropolitics’ of intimate relationships. The widespread expectation that women are relationship maintenance experts, as well as the prevalence of a gendered demand-withdraw pattern of communication, leads an exploitative situation to appear natural or even desirable, even as it leads to women’s dissatisfaction. This situation may be considered misogynistic in Kate Manne’s sense, where misogyny is a property of social environments rather than a worldview. (shrink)

This essay analyzes the rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) such as GPT-4 or Gemini, which are now incorporated in a wide range of products and services in everyday life. Importantly, it considers some of their hidden human costs. First, is the question of who is left behind by the further infusion of LLMs in society. Second, is the issue of social inequalities between lingua franca and those which are not. Third, LLMs will help disseminate scientific concepts, but their meanings' (...) dissemination is at risk. Fourth, is the issue of information security and how nations and individuals might adapt. Fifth, is the issue of the environmental cost of LLMs for future generations. At the dawn of the conversational AI era, it would be wise to ponder what inequalities and empowerments will be co-created with LLMs. (shrink)

There are two opposing views concerning intuitive cases of wage exploitation. The first denies that they are cases of exploitation at all. It is based on the nonworseness claim: there is nothing wrong with a discretionary mutually beneficial employment relationship. The second is the reasonable view: some employment relationships can be exploitative even if employers have no duty towards their employees. This article argues that the reasonable view does not completely defeat defences of wage exploitation, because these do not rely (...) solely on the nonworseness claim. They also rely on the idea, popularised by Alan Wertheimer, that exploitation is a form of disequilibrium price occurring in defective markets. The article then proceeds to criticise Wertheimer’s account through neoclassical, new institutional, and Austrian economics. It concludes that considerations for economic efficiency are irrelevant to assessing intuitions regarding exploitation. (shrink)

Why does scholarship on transnational labor regulation (TLR) consistently fails to search for improvements in working conditions, and instead devotes itself to relentless efforts for identifying administrative processes, semantics, and amalgamations of stakeholders? This article critiques TLR from a pro-worker perspective, through the philosophical work of Georg Lukács, and the concepts of reification and commodification. A set of theoretically grounded criteria is developed and these are applied against selected contemporary cases of TLR. In the totality that is capitalism, reification of (...) social relations of production conceals completely the experiences of workers. In TLR, managerialist and process-oriented scholarship is dominant, verifiable outcomes and positive improvements in conditions of employment are not sought, and worse, meaningless procedures are celebrated as positive achievements. (shrink)

There is broad agreement that child labor is wrong and should be eliminated. This chapter examines the three main moral objections to child labor and considers their limitations: harm-based objections, objections from failing to benefit children, and objections from exploitation. Harm-based objections struggle with baselines for comparison and difficulties with Non-Identity problems. Even if child labor is not harmful, it may be wrong because it prevents children from enjoying other benefits, such as schooling. However, is schooling necessarily more beneficial for (...) children than work? Some kinds of child labor may not be harmful, and may benefit children, but they may still be wrong because they are exploitative. I consider some ways to address exploitative child labor, inspired by campaigns led by child workers. The chapter ends with a surprising conclusion that challenges the broad consensus with which we began: we may have duties to promote child labor. (shrink)

The dual labor market theory is one of the primary explanations for the gender differences in earnings. It shows that gender inequality and stereotypes lead to employment of men and women in different segments of the labor market characterized by various incomes. This theory is based on the hypothesis that such markets are divided into segments, which are divided by different rules of conduct for workers and employers. Differences also include production conditions, terms of employment, productivity of employees, and the (...) characteristics of the workers’ jobs. This labor division is related to employee characteristics such as gender, age, and race that define their work environment and lifestyle. (shrink)

India is the leading producer of fruits worldwide. The major problem after citrus fruits consumption is their peel that are hazardous to our environment and mainly regarded as a solid waste however, they are rich sources of fibres, large amount of Vitamin C, phenolics and flavonoids which are best agents of antioxidant. In this paper, we have discussed about the orange peel waste which has many beneficial roles in our daily life. Citrus peel has the highest number of Phytochemicals such (...) as flavonoids, terpenoids, quinolines and having highest antioxidant activity as compared to the pulp and seed as well as identified from the extraction. The different Phytochemicals test analysis have been discussed in this paper (steroids testing, saponins testing) and different antioxidant test used to check the antioxidant activity of the citrus fruit peel extract are Hydrogen peroxide scavenging test, Nitric oxide scavenging test, DPPH test etc. The main objective of this paper is that the higher antioxidant activity of different mixture of Citrus fruit peel can help to reduce the generation of free radicals and can act as an anti-proliferative agent. The search for novel drugs and alternative medicine especially against cancer has led to increased research in medicinal plants. This review also indicated that Citrus peels contains antioxidant compounds which could be exploited as value added products in the food and cosmetic industry. (shrink)