UPDATE: June 28-29 Conference Venue, Travel, and Accommodation Details

CALL FOR PAPERS: Global Capitalism in Asia and Oceania

Griffith University | The Ship Inn Conference Centre Corner Stanley & Sidon Streets Southbank Parklands, Brisbane, Australia June 28-29, 2013

Print the Network for Critical Study of Global Capitalism Conference Flyer

Outside of Asia, much is made of ‘the Asian Century’, the ‘rise of Asia’, the economic potential of Asian markets, regional trade agreements with Asia, and building ‘Asia-relevant’ capabilities to support all these. Such instrumental views are shaping the ideological landscape of many parts of the ‘West’. For those from within and outside Asia who are interested in critical studies of global capitalism other topics are much more pressing. These include the different models and manifestations of global capitalism that are being adopted across Asia, as well as the links between such models and ongoing political developments in the region. Questions arise about the implications of newly energized “Asian capitalism” for current economic and social relationships—about current forms of economic division and exploitation, increasing social polarization and state based authoritarianism. Related questions also come up about oppositional activist practices that are arising and contemporary modes of policing such dissent. The purpose of this conference is to focus critical studies of global capitalism on Asia, Australia, and the Oceania region, to provide opportunities for interested scholars and activists to explore related issues. READ MORE >>

SEE OUR CONFERENCE PAGE FOR MORE DETAILS >>

CFP for Turkey’s ATILIM Social Sciences Journal

CALL FOR PAPERS

For a Special Issue on

“GLOBAL CAPITALISM AD CRISIS: CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES”

The beginning of the 1990s seemed to have ushered in an era of newfound optimism. History had witnessed, in the space of a few short years, momentous developments that were changing the face of the world. The Berlin Wall was down, and the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc had made the “Communist threat” a thing of the past. This was the end of the bureaucratic state. “Victory” was the Free World’s. The winds of change were blowing; a new wave of hope and exuberance seemed to be washing over the globe, bringing the ahistorical optimism of liberalism’s free market to every corner. Such powerful global governance institutions as the IMF, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization were enjoying a resurgence in prestige, and the world certainly did seem as if it were being cut down to size with the reform and structural adjustment programs these institutions were overseeing throughout the vast and undeveloped South. That the world had become a smaller, more accessible place was attested to by the opening of national borders to the “free” movement of capital and goods, with the hype surrounding the so-called “miracle” states being lanced as models of successful integration into globalizing markets, and with technical innovations in the media, communications, and information technologies industries that were said to be, more than at any other time, transforming the world into a “global village”. Understanding globalization had become the order of the day, and referring to the benefits of a globalizing world a requisite in interpreting current events. To question the globalization process was nothing less than foolhardy. The victory of this free market understanding and of international capitalism was celebrated as the end of history.

UPDATE: June 28-29 Conference Venue, Travel, and Accommodation Details

CALL FOR PAPERS: Global Capitalism in Asia and Oceania

Griffith University | The Ship Inn Conference Centre
Corner Stanley & Sidon Streets
Southbank Parklands, Brisbane, Australia
June 28-29, 2013

Print the Network for Critical Study of Global Capitalism Conference Flyer

Outside of Asia, much is made of ‘the Asian Century’, the ‘rise of Asia’, the economic potential of Asian markets, regional trade agreements with Asia, and building ‘Asia-relevant’ capabilities to support all these. Such instrumental views are shaping the ideological landscape of many parts of the ‘West’. For those from within and outside Asia who are interested in critical studies of global capitalism other topics are much more pressing. These include the different models and manifestations of global capitalism that are being adopted across Asia, as well as the links between such models and ongoing political developments in the region. Questions arise about the implications of newly energized “Asian capitalism” for current economic and social relationships—about current forms of economic division and exploitation, increasing social polarization and state based authoritarianism. Related questions also come up about oppositional activist practices that are arising and contemporary modes of policing such dissent. The purpose of this conference is to focus critical studies of global capitalism on Asia, Australia, and the Oceania region, to provide opportunities for interested scholars and activists to explore related issues. READ MORE >>

SEE OUR CONFERENCE PAGE FOR MORE DETAILS >>

Global markets are the new battlefields

By Kanishka Jayasuriya

The rise of China and its ramifications for our relationship with the US has created angst within Australia’s foreign and defence policy community.

Much of this tortured reflection is really a zombie debate where outmoded geo-political terms such as ‘power transition’ are deployed to understand new patterns of international politics in a globally integrated economy. Read more >>

New Content from Our Contributors

By William I. Robinson

Global capitalism and 21st century fascism
The global economic crisis and the attack on immigrant rights are bound together in a web of 21st century fascism. Read more >>

Global rebellion: The coming chaos?
Global elites are confused, reactive, and sinking into a quagmire of their own making, says author. Read more >>

Latin America’s left at the crossroads
Leftist governments in Latin America are facing resistance not only from the right, but from their own bases, as well. Read more >>

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By Jeb Sprague and Cesar Rodriguez

Dual Crises of Globalization: Arizona and the Gulf of Mexico
From the plumes of corporate crude in the Gulf of Mexico, to the assault on migrants in Arizona, the U.S. appears locked in a continual state of emergency. Read more >>

The New Stage of Capitalist Development and the Prospects of Globalization

By George Liodakis

A historical assessment of the Leninist conception of imperialism is the necessary foundation for a theoretical periodization of capitalism, in which the current developments and rising globalization have led to a dialectical supersession of imperialism. The emerging new stage of capitalism is characterized as transnational or totalitarian capitalism. The structural characteristics and basic trends of this new stage of capitalism stand in interesting contrast to the theoretical conception of Empire, proposed by Hardt and Negri. The former approach offers a more adequate framework for understanding the current restructuring of capitalism and a safer political guide for the emancipating working-class struggle towards a socialist supersession of capitalism. READ THE ARTICLE >>

Towards A Global Ruling Class? Globalization and the Transnational Capitalist Class

by William I. Robinson and Jerry Harris

A transnational capitalist class (TCC) has emerged as that segment of the world bourgeoisie that represents transnational capital, the owners of the leading worldwide means of production as embodied in the transnational corporations and private financial institutions. The spread of TNCs, the sharp increase in foreign direct investment, the proliferation of mergers and acquisitions across national borders, the rise of a global financial system, and the increased interlocking of positions within the global corporate structure, are some empirical indicators of the transnational integration of capitalists. The TCC manages global rather than national circuits of accumulation. This gives it an objective class existence and identity spatially and politically in the global system above any local territories and polities. The TCC became politicized from the 1970s into the 1990s and has pursued a class project of capitalist globalization institutionalized in an emergent trans- national state apparatus and in a “Third Way” political program. The emergent global capitalist historic bloc is divided over strategic issues of class rule and how to achieve regulatory order in the global economy. Contradictions within the ruling bloc open up new opportunities for emancipatory projects from global labor. READ THE ARTICLE >>