Monthly Archives: October 2014

Why after three decades of economic reforms in Latin America labor laws remained rigidly protective and remarkably diverse?

Posted on October 29, 2014 by Oleg Komlik

Continuity Despite Change: The Politics of Labor Regulation in Latin America shows that after three decades of economic reforms labor laws have changed far less than many expected and remained both rigidly protective and remarkably diverse. Why? In this very … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Tagged Argentina, Chile, globalization, institutional change, institutional continuity, labor, Latin America, law, neoliberalism, Peru, Political economy, politics, regulation, Unions | Leave a comment

Global South – Global North intersection in one striking photo

Posted on October 27, 2014 by Oleg Komlik

African migrants and refugees, caught for several hours on the border fence between Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla and Morocco, look down on white-clad golfers. (See details here). This striking and surreal photo reminded me Ulrich Beck’s observation: “No … Continue reading →

Posted in Theory in Pictures | Tagged Europe, Global south, migration, Morocco, Spain | 1 Comment

Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education: the modes of material and symbolic violence undermine public pedagogy and democracy

Posted on October 25, 2014 by Oleg Komlik

This important and accessible book is about how policies and modes of material and symbolic violence radically reshape the mission and practice of higher education and its institutions, short-changing a young generation suffering from – and coping with – precarity. … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Tagged academia, democracy, higher education, institutions, marketization, neoliberalism, precariat, public sociology | 1 Comment

Noam Chomsky on neoliberal semantics: “working class” vs. “middle class”

Posted on October 24, 2014 by Oleg Komlik

“The business classes are very class-conscious—they’re constantly fighting a bitter class war to improve their power and diminish opposition. Occasionally this is recognized. We don’t use the term “working class” here [ in the U.S] because it’s a taboo term. … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Tagged capital, class, inequality, interest groups, Middle class, neoliberalism, Unions | Leave a comment

Jerry ‪Seinfeld‬ on ‪consumerism‬, ‪advertising‬ and ‪culture‬ of ‪consumption‬ :-)

Posted on October 19, 2014 by Oleg Komlik

Jerry Seinfeld: “I love advertising because I love lying… I think spending your life trying to dupe innocent people out of hard-won earnings to buy useless, low-quality, misrepresented items and services is an excellent use of your energy.” (4 min … Continue reading →

Posted in Video | Tagged advertising, ‪culture, consumerism, consumption | Leave a comment

Political economy of Ebola — one picture and two articles

Posted on October 18, 2014 by Oleg Komlik

— “Drug companies’ refusal to invest in research [of Ebola] and the conditions on the ground created by neoliberal policies that exacerbate and even encourage outbreaks goes unmentioned. […] Ebola is a problem that is not being solved because there is almost … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Tagged Africa, commercialization, health, marketization, neoliberalism, Political economy, race | Leave a comment

Gendering the Recession: Media, Culture and the Reemergence of Gender Tropes

Posted on October 17, 2014 by Oleg Komlik

Gendering the Recession: Media and Culture in an Age of Austerity is an interesting book which provides analyses of a recession-era media culture characterized by the reemergence and refashioning of familiar gender tropes, including crisis masculinity, coping women, and postfeminist self-renewal. … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Tagged crisis, Culture, gender, media | 1 Comment

Mark Granovetter didn’t win (yet) the ‪‎Nobel Prize. Here is his rejection letter, from 1969

Posted on October 13, 2014 by Oleg Komlik

A prominent economic sociologist Mark Granovetter didn’t win (yet) the ‪Nobel Prize in economic sciences‬. Let’s take a look at his rejection letter. You may think I’m talking about the Nobel… I’m not. And that makes this even more interesting! This is … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Oleg Komlik | Tagged academia, Economic Sociology, Mark Granovetter, networks, Nobel Prize, social networks, social sciences | 5 Comments

Mark Twain’s observation on stock market and Randy Martin’s on finance

Posted on October 12, 2014 by Oleg Komlik

We are in mid-October, stock market indexes are falling and economic journalists are crying out and wondering: is the next “October crash” (1907, 1929, 1987) approaching? So this is a proper occasion to recall a good old Mark Twain’s observation … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Tagged finance, financialization, stock markets | Leave a comment

Thomas Piketty: “There is no such thing as economic science. There are social sciences, economic processes involved social control.”

Posted on October 10, 2014 by Oleg Komlik

Pofessor Thomas Piketty: “[In order to promote economic justice] the first important thing to do is democratization of economic knowledge. Too often bad economic policy and economic policies in the interests of the wealthy come from the fact that we, … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Tagged academia, economic history, Economic Sociology, economics, income, inequality, knowledge, policy, social sciences | Leave a comment

Why have historians ceded authority to economists as reliable and competent policy advisors?

Posted on October 9, 2014 by Oleg Komlik

Since the 18th century historians have advised policy-makers. Then, about fifty years ago, economists have taken their place. Why did it happen and what can be learned from this occurrence? During the last 15 years, economic sociologists, historians and sociologists … Continue reading →

Posted in Oleg Komlik, Papers | Tagged Economic Sociology, economics, history, knowledge, policy, politics, Sociology of economics | Leave a comment

Futures and ethnographies of ‪neoliberalism‬

Posted on October 8, 2014 by Oleg Komlik

The special issue of Cultural Anthropology “Futures of ‪Neoliberalism‬” (open access) offers theoretically-astute and fine-grained ethnographic analyses of the effects of profound changes across the Globe in various fields: workers’ wageless and disrupted life in ‪‎Brazil‬, governance of young right-extremists in … Continue reading →

Posted in Papers | Tagged academia, anthropology, Argentina, ‪Egypt, Brazil, class, debt, ethnography, Germany, homeownership, Israel, labor, neoliberalism, Nicaragua, poverty, precarity, Romania, South Africa | Leave a comment

Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders!

Posted on October 7, 2014 by Oleg Komlik

Read more on this destructive and erroneous idea of “Shareholder Value”: — The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality, by Katharina Pistor (Princeton University Press, 2019) — The Shareholder Value Myth: How Putting Shareholders First Harms … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Tagged economics, neoliberalism, shareholder‬ value | 2 Comments

Between slavery and capitalism: former slaves and slaveholders construct a new model of racial labor market after the Civil War

Posted on October 2, 2014 by Oleg Komlik

At the center of the upheavals brought by emancipation in the American South was the economic and social transition from slavery to modern capitalism. In this new book Between Slavery and Capitalism: The Legacy of Emancipation in the American South, Martin … Continue reading →