Economic Cycles and Social Movements: Past, Present and Future offers diverse perspectives on the complex interrelationship between social challenges and economic crises in the Modern World System. Written with a balance of quantitative, qualitative and theoretical contributions and insights, this volume provides a great opportunity to reflect upon the ongoing conceptual and empirical challenges when confronting the complex interrelations of various economic cycles and social movements. By engaging wide-ranging ideas and theoretical points of view from different disciplines, different countries and different perspectives, this study breaks new ground and offers novel insights into the way the capitalist world economy functions as well as the way social and political movements react to these constraints. Different chapters in this volume bring about novel interdisciplinary approaches to study business cycles, economic changes and social as well as political movements, offer new interpretations and, while examining the complexity of socioeconomic cycles in the long run, present epistemological challenges and a wide variety of empirical data that will increase our understanding of these complex interactions.
Author(s): Eric Mielants
Series: Political Economy of the World-System Annuals
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 216
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Cycles Within Structures vs. Structural Crises
Note
Chapter 3: The Crisis of the Neoliberal Order? On the Structural Crisis of the Modern World-System
Theories of Cycle and Crisis
The Nature of the Current Crisis
The Neoliberal Order and Secular Stagnation
Concluding Remarks
Notes
Chapter 4: Business Cycles and Militarism in Historical Capitalism
Schumpeter’s Theory of Long Waves
Military History and the Rise of Capitalism before 1786
The First Long Wave 1786–1842
The Second Long Wave 1843–1897
The Third Long Wave 1898–1932
External Factors in the Third LEW and Beyond
Conclusions
Notes
Chapter 5: The Dialectics of Political Economy
The Dialectics of Political Economy World Systems (PEWS)
International Macroeconomic Regimes: Past, Present, and Future
National Regime Formation: The Dynamics of American Politics
Conclusion
Chapter 6: Brazil: From the Vicissitudes of Systemic Rebalancing to the Crossroads of Conservatism
6.1 Introduction: Objectives and Methodological Option
6.2 A First Theoretical Frame: Peripheral Condition between Mimicry and Creativity
6.3 The Timeline of Brazilian Ongoing Political Crisis until Bolsonaro’s Election
6.4 Theoretical Conclusions: Peripheral Conservatism in a Changing International Order
Notes
Chapter 7: Space, Transport, and the World-Market: Maritime Transportation, Freight Rates, and the Global Control of Foreign Trade Flows in the Capitalist World-System
The Transportation Process and the World-market as “Missing Links” in World-systems Analysis
“What the Transport Industry Sells is the Actual Change of Place Itself”: Exchange, Transport, and Freight Rates in Historical C
On the Labor and Valorization Processes within Transportation: the “Object of Labor–Raw Material–Commodity” Transition
From the Geographical Substratum of the Capitalist World-System to the “Frankian Triangles” of Foreign Trade
Concluding Remarks: From the “Annihilation of Space by Time” to the “Geographical Transfer of Value”
Notes
Chapter 8: Polanyi’s Minskyian Monetary System
The Faith of the Age
Payment as Pathology
Polanyi’s Picture in a Minskyian Frame
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 9: An Embedded-Systems Approach to the Socio-Economic Cycles of the World System
Introduction – An Embedded-Systems Approach to Socio-Economic Systems
A Case Study: Late Capitalism and the Interaction of its Economic and Ideological Cycles
The Study of Metanarratives and its Relevance to the Present Day Societal Transformations
Conclusions: Ideological Vacuum and the Need for a Transformative Metanarrative
Chapter 10: A Source for Greater Peripheral Sovereignty or a New Axis of Dependency Relations? China and Latin America in the Context of the Readjustment of Forces in the World System: The Case of China–Ecuador Relations
Introduction
China’s Emergency in the World Economy and its Presence in Latin America
Citizens’ Revolution
China–Ecuador Relations in the Context of the Citizens’ Revolution
Trade
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)
Debt
Emblematic Projects and Strategic Sectors
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 11: Rethinking Core and Periphery in Historical Capitalism: ‘World-Magnates’ and the ShiftingCenters of Wealth Accumulation
What Has World-Systems Analysis Meant by “Core” and “Periphery”?
How Can World-Magnates Help Us Better Identify “Core” and “Peripheral” Activities?
The Limits of the Nation-State as Datum
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 12: Alternatives to Western Economic Models? Latin-American “Buen Vivir/Good Living” and the Opening of the Social Sciences
Epistemology within the World System
‘Good Living’ to Open the Social Sciences
Western Dualism and its Critics
Bolivian and Ecuadorian Buen Vivir Experiences
Conclusion
Note
Notes on Contributors
Bibliography
Index
