DT Cochrane A recent episode of Planet Money describes a long running feud between two makers of hand bells. The story itself was interesting. However, two parts jumped out at me as relevant to CasP. The first was a comment by the host about how most people, when they hear of two companies fighting in […]
Continue ReadingThe Politics of Employment and the Limits of the Recovery
Jeremy Green The contested nature of the economic ‘recovery’ has become the central theme of British political debate. The next election, in 2015, will be fought on these terms, with the Coalition government trumpeting its claims of an economic recovery born through austerity, while Labour outlines the limits of the Coalition strategy. It is crucial […]
Continue ReadingThe Weekly Sabotage: Week 3
Tim Di Muzio Sabotage and Ownership Last week we considered how the capital as power framework seeks to conceptualize two different forms of sabotage: a general sabotage that limits the potential of humanity in which all business participates and; 2) a particular or differential form of sabotage that is relatively unique to each individual firm. […]
Continue ReadingFirst Speaker Series on the Capitalist Mode of Power
The First Speaker Series on the Capitalist Mode of Power was sponsored by the York Department of Political Science and the Graduate Programme in Social and Political Thought. Talks were held at York University, Toronto, Canada and the series ran from October to November 2013. Tuesday, Oct 29, 2013 Can Capitalists Afford Recovery? Economic Policy […]
Continue ReadingThe Colour of the Sun: A Metaphor for Methodology?
James McMahon Found this video when browsing Boing Boing. Originally posted by NASA, this video is fascinating. It may also stand as a metaphor for the methodological problems in political economic theory. Consider part of the explanation behind the video: “As the colors sweep around the sun in the movie, viewers should note how different […]
Continue ReadingThe Weekly Sabotage: Week 2
Tim Di Muzio Last week we looked briefly at the origin of the term ‘sabotage’ and found that it was more associated with the working class than it was with elite power – those who largely shape and reshape the terrain of social reproduction. In this formulation, workers sabotage while businessmen build useful industry for […]
Continue Reading‘Rigging’ the market for fun and profit
DT Cochrane The EU has fined a selection of European and U.S. American banks €1.7 billion for rigging major interest-rate benchmarks. The article notes that the benchmarks – Libor, and the Tokyo and euro area interbank – are used in the pricing of hundreds of trillions of assets. The problem, according to the prosecutors, is […]
Continue ReadingTargeting buying habits
DT Cochrane This is an interesting NYT article about buying habits, market research and advertising. It describes how Target has been able to compile and analyze customer data in order to identify women who are likely pregnant as early as possible. One of the reasons pregnant women are such an attractive market segment, the article […]
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