The Asset Economy

The Asset Economy
Author: Lisa Adkins
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 129
Release: 2020-10-07
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1509544224

Rising inequality is the defining feature of our age. With the lion’s share of wealth growth going to the top, for a growing percentage of society a middle-class existence is out of reach. What exactly are the economic shifts that have driven the social transformations taking place in Anglo-capitalist societies? In this timely book, Lisa Adkins, Melinda Cooper and Martijn Konings argue that the rise of the asset economy has produced a new logic of inequality. Several decades of property inflation have seen asset ownership overshadow employment as a determinant of class position. Exploring the impact of generational dynamics in this new class landscape, the book advances an original perspective on a range of phenomena that are widely debated but poorly understood – including the growth of wealth inequalities and precarity, the dynamics of urban property inflation, changes in fiscal and monetary policy and the predicament of the “millennial” generation. Despite widespread awareness of the harmful effects of Quantitative Easing and similar asset-supporting measures, we appear to have entered an era of policy “lock-in” that is responsible for a growing disconnect between popular expectations and institutional priorities. The resulting polarization underlies many of the volatile dynamics and rapidly shifting alliances that dominate today’s headlines.

Cognitive Capitalism

Cognitive Capitalism
Author: Yann Moulier-Boutang
Publisher: Polity
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2011
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0745647324

This book argues that we are undergoing a transition from industrial capitalism to a new form of capitalism - what the author calls & lsquo; cognitive capitalism & rsquo;

Neoliberalism

Neoliberalism
Author: Damien Cahill
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2017-08-31
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0745695566

For over three decades neoliberalism has been the dominant economic ideology. While it may have emerged relatively unscathed from the global financial crisis of 2007-8, neoliberalism is now - more than ever - under scrutiny from critics who argue that it has failed to live up to its promises, creating instead an increasingly unequal and insecure world. This book offers a nuanced and probing analysis of the meaning and practical application of neoliberalism today, separating myth from reality. Drawing on examples such as the growth of finance, the role of corporate power and the rise of workfare, the book advances a balanced but distinctive perspective on neoliberalism as involving the interaction of ideas, material economic change and political transformations. It interrogates claims about the impending death of neoliberalism and considers the sources of its resilience in the current climate of political disenchantment and economic austerity. Clearly and accessibly written, this book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars across the social sciences.

Karl Polanyi

Karl Polanyi
Author: Gareth Dale
Publisher: Polity
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2010-06-21
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0745640710

Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation is generally acclaimed as being among the most influential works of economic history in the twentieth century, and remains as vital in the current historical conjuncture as it was in his own. In its critique of nineteenth-century ‘market fundamentalism’ it reads as a warning to our own neoliberal age, and is widely touted as a prophetic guidebook for those who aspire to understand the causes and dynamics of global economic turbulence at the end of the 2000s. Karl Polanyi: The Limits of the Market is the first comprehensive introduction to Polanyi’s ideas and legacy. It assesses not only the texts for which he is famous – prepared during his spells in American academia – but also his journalistic articles written in his first exile in Vienna, and lectures and pamphlets from his second exile, in Britain. It provides a detailed critical analysis of The Great Transformation, but also surveys Polanyi’s seminal writings in economic anthropology, the economic history of ancient and archaic societies, and political and economic theory. Its primary source base includes interviews with Polanyi’s daughter, Kari Polanyi-Levitt, as well as the entire compass of his own published and unpublished writings in English and German. This engaging and accessible introduction to Polanyi’s thinking will appeal to students and scholars across the social sciences, providing a refreshing perspective on the roots of our current economic crisis.

Asset Accumulation and Economic Activity

Asset Accumulation and Economic Activity
Author: James Tobin
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 116
Release: 1982-08-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0226805026

In this work James Tobin discusses two major issues of macroeconomics: the strength of automatic market forces in maintaining full employment equilibrium and the efficacy of government fiscal and monetary policies in stabilizing the economy.

Assetization

Assetization
Author: Kean Birch
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 339
Release: 2020-07-14
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0262539179

How the asset—anything that can be controlled, traded, and capitalized as a revenue stream—has become the primary basis of technoscientific capitalism. In this book, scholars from a range of disciplines argue that the asset—meaning anything that can be controlled, traded, and capitalized as a revenue stream—has become the primary basis of technoscientific capitalism. An asset can be an object or an experience, a sum of money or a life form, a patent or a bodily function. A process of assetization prevails, imposing investment and return as the key rationale, and overtaking commodification and its speculative logic. Although assets can be bought and sold, the point is to get a durable economic rent from them rather than make a killing on the market. Assetization examines how assets are constructed and how a variety of things can be turned into assets, analyzing the interests, activities, skills, organizations, and relations entangled in this process. The contributors consider the assetization of knowledge, including patents, personal data, and biomedical innovation; of infrastructure, including railways and energy; of nature, including mineral deposits, agricultural seeds, and “natural capital”; and of publics, including such public goods as higher education and “monetizable social ills.” Taken together, the chapters show the usefulness of assetization as an analytical tool and as an element in the critique of capitalism. Contributors Thomas Beauvisage, Kean Birch, Veit Braun, Natalia Buier, Béatrice Cointe, Paul Robert Gilbert, Hyo Yoon Kang, Les Levidow, Kevin Mellet, Sveta Milyaeva, Fabian Muniesa, Alain Nadaï, Daniel Neyland, Victor Roy, James W. Williams

Waste

Waste
Author: Kate O'Neill
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2019-09-04
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0745687431

Waste is one of the planet’s last great resource frontiers. From furniture made from up-cycled wood to gold extracted from computer circuit boards, artisans and multinational corporations alike are finding ways to profit from waste while diverting materials from overcrowded landfills. Yet beyond these benefits, this “new” resource still poses serious risks to human health and the environment. In this unique book, Kate O’Neill traces the emergence of the global political economy of wastes over the past two decades. She explains how the emergence of waste governance initiatives and mechanisms can help us deal with both the risks and the opportunities associated with the hundreds of millions – possibly billions – of tons of waste we generate each year. Drawing on a range of fascinating case studies to develop her arguments, including China’s role as the primary recipient of recyclable plastics and scrap paper from the Western world, “Zero-Waste” initiatives, the emergence of transnational waste-pickers’ alliances, and alternatives for managing growing volumes of electronic and food wastes, O’Neill shows how waste can be a risk, a resource, and even a livelihood, with implications for governance at local, national, and global levels.

The Informal Media Economy

The Informal Media Economy
Author: Ramon Lobato
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2018-06-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0745694853

How are “grey market” imports changing media industries? What is the role of piracy in developing new markets for movies and TV shows? How do jailbroken iPhones drive innovation? The Informal Media Economy provides a vivid, original, and genuinely transnational account of contemporary media, by showing how the interactions between formal and informal media systems are a feature of all nations – rich and poor, large and small. Shifting the focus away from the formal businesses and public enterprises that have long occupied media researchers, this book charts a parallel world of cultural intermediaries driving global media production and circulation. It shows how unlicensed, untaxed, or unregulated networks, which operate across the boundaries of established media markets, have been a driving force of media industry transformation. The book opens up new insights on a range of topical issues in media studies, from the creative disruptions of digitisation to amateur production, piracy and cybercrime.

Why Can't You Afford a Home?

Why Can't You Afford a Home?
Author: Josh Ryan-Collins
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 140
Release: 2018-11-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1509523294

Throughout the Western world, a whole generation is being priced out of the housing market. For millions of people, particularly millennials, the basic goal of acquiring decent, affordable accommodation is a distant dream. Leading economist Josh Ryan-Collins argues that to understand this crisis, we must examine a crucial paradox at the heart of modern capitalism. The interaction of private home ownership and a lightly regulated commercial banking system leads to a feedback cycle. Unlimited credit and money flows into an inherently finite supply of property, which causes rising house prices, declining home ownership, rising inequality and debt, stagnant growth and financial instability. Radical reforms are needed to break the cycle. This engaging and topical book will be essential reading for anyone who wants to understand why they can’t find an affordable home, and what we can do about it.

Crisis

Crisis
Author: Sylvia Walby
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 174
Release: 2015-10-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 150950320X

We are living in a time of crisis which has cascaded through society. Financial crisis has led to an economic crisis of recession and unemployment; an ensuing fiscal crisis over government deficits and austerity has led to a political crisis which threatens to become a democratic crisis. Borne unevenly, the effects of the crisis are exacerbating class and gender inequalities. Rival interpretations – a focus on ‘austerity’ and reduction in welfare spending versus a focus on ‘financial crisis’ and democratic regulation of finance – are used to justify radically diverse policies for the distribution of resources and strategies for economic growth, and contested gender relations lie at the heart of these debates. The future consequences of the crisis depend upon whether there is a deepening of democratic institutions, including in the European Union. Sylvia Walby offers an alternative framework within which to theorize crisis, drawing on complexity science and situating this within the wider field of study of risk, disaster and catastrophe. In doing so, she offers a critique and revision of the social science needed to understand the crisis.