Monthly Archives: June 2015

Debt to Society: Accounting for Life under Capitalism

Posted on June 30, 2015 by Oleg Komlik

Miranda Joseph‘s important and interesting book Debt to Society: Accounting for Life under Capitalism is a timely scholarly endeavour to understand, what I once termed Neoliberal Pauperism. Joseph’s research focuses on one of the key practices related to debt’ control – accounting and quantification. It studies modes … Continue reading →

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Economic Consequences of Neoliberalism: Coping with Financial Crises

Posted on June 27, 2015 by Oleg Komlik

John Maynard Keynes: “The power to become habituated to his surroundings is a marked characteristic of mankind. Very few of us realize with conviction the intensely unusual, unstable, complicated, unreliable, temporary nature of the economic organization by which Western Europe … Continue reading →

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Goldman Sachs banker: “We have to accept that inequality is a way of achieving greater opportunity and prosperity for all”

Posted on June 22, 2015 by Oleg Komlik

Defending huge bonuses in banking industry on a panel on ethics, Lord Brian Griffiths (Vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs bank and a adviser to Margaret Thatcher) proudly said: “We have to accept that inequality is a way of achieving greater opportunity and … Continue reading →

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Fiscal Embeddedness: Tax Policy as an Institutional Tool of State-building

Posted on June 20, 2015 by Oleg Komlik

Bearing in mind Joseph Schumpeter’s assertion that “the public finance is one of the best starting points for an investigation of society, especially, though not exclusively, of its political life” (1991: 101), a multidisciplinary study of sources, practices and consequences … Continue reading →

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Political Economy of Grandmothers’ deaths rate — Why the week prior to exams is dangerous for the relatives of students?

Posted on June 17, 2015 by Oleg Komlik

In this remarkable paper, Mike Adams (Eastern Connecticut State University) thoroughly (to say 🙂 wittily and jestingly) scrutinizes a fundamental problem: a student’s grandmother is far more likely to die suddenly just before s/he takes an exam, than at any … Continue reading →

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Thomas Piketty: “Take a serious interest in money… Those who have a lot of it never fail to defend their interests.”

Posted on June 12, 2015 by Oleg Komlik

These are Thomas Piketty’s  last words in his ground-shaking Capital in the Twenty-First Century. The Economic Sociology and Political Economy global community proudly realizes their prescriptive meaning: “All social scientists, all journalists and commentators, all activists in the unions and in politics of … Continue reading →

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How to defeat Neoliberalism? Name and shame its carriers. Together we did it — and we succeeded!

Posted on June 10, 2015 by Oleg Komlik

Neoliberalism is a political project which sophisticatedly exploits the fictitious “free markets” ideas professed by mainstream economists and aims at reshaping the functions of the state and its institutions, in order to change the distribution of capital and wealth in a society. In … Continue reading →

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The Art of Writing

Posted on June 1, 2015 by Oleg Komlik

In Peter De Vries’ epic Reuben, Reuben, the main character – a creatively blocked Scottish poet Gowan McGland (based on a famous Welsh poet Dylan Thomas), reveals his working habits, which perhaps might be somehow useful for you: “Sometimes I write drunk … Continue reading →

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