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268 results

The relationship between race and capitalism is one of the most enduring and controversial historical debates. The concept of racial capitalism offers a way out of this impasse.
2021
Level: beginner
Histories of Racial Capitalism
The book explores the imperialist tendency inherent in global capitalism by using a rigorous political economy framework.
2019
Level: advanced
The Wealth of (some) Nations
The book’s central theme is to develop a new theory of speculative capital related to other forms of capital, the world market, and the state. Unlike most marxist and heterodox theories, the book distinguishes credit and fictitious capital from speculative capital to show its hegemony today in the capital markets.
2022
Level: advanced
Financial Capital in the 21st Century
Whiteness is a process of learning: one is not born white, but becomes one. In this rich and compelling volume, Sriprakash, Rudolph and Gerrard offer a meticulous (and eye-opening) reading of educational experiences and structures that endorse systemic racism.
2022
Level: beginner
Learning Whiteness
The book is a collection of 51 texts by different scholars and activists, who each adds a dimension/perspective to the topics of degrowth and societal transformation. A societal transformation towards a degrowth society is dependent on a lot of ideas coming together and creating change from various starting points within a society. Therefore, the authors are quite diverse and their contributions vary from being philosophical, natural science based, economic, sociological and so forth. Some are specfiically focused on a concept and others are a more broad critique of e.g., capitalism or growth.
2015
Level: advanced
Degrowth
This is a hands on four chapter course to learn how to better understand and act when faced with complex situations By the end of the course students will be able to take a story from the news describe what makes the situation complex and identify opportunities for effective action …
Level: beginner
Thinking Complexity
This article explores the production function, the prevailing view of capital that underpins it, and the main alternative perspective. By exploring these perspectives, the authors aim to provide students with a foundational understanding of the controversies surrounding the treatment of capital in production, a topic expressly excluded from mainstream textbooks.
2024
Level: beginner
Why We Should Think Twice About Production Functions
This is an overview of (possibly transformative) proposals to address the economic consequences of the corona crisis
2020
Level: beginner
Overview of proposals to combat the economic consequences of the Corona crisis
For a long time, price controls were considered taboo, as neoliberal economic theory assumes that prices are supposedly formed freely by supply and demand. But especially in times of crisis, the state must intervene and cap prices to protect wage earners from excessive burdens. However, the how matters.
2025
Level: beginner
Price Controls Against Inflation
What influence do changes in tax policy or state decisions on expenditure have on economic growth? For decades, this question has been controversially debated.
2020
Level: advanced
What is the fiscal multiplier and why is it so controversial?
In the history of the social sciences, few individuals have exerted as much influence as has Jeremy Bentham. His attempt to become “the Newton of morals” has left a marked impression upon the methodology and form of analysis that social sciences like economics and political science have chosen as modus operandi.
2020
Level: advanced
Bentham’s Two Sovereign Masters - Examining Bentham’s Influence on the Social Sciences
This paper is a product of an online workshop held in Nigeria on the topic Unemployment: Policy Review and Recommendations. It explores the various unemployment policies introduced by the Nigerian Government and analysis how effective they are and suggests some practicable solutions to solving unemployment problems in the country. The workshop was organized by Rethinking Economics The Uploaders (RETU) as part of the project Solving the Major Economic Problem in Nigeria (SMEPN), an output of the Global Pluralist Economics Training (GPET). More details here: https://www.retheuploaders.org/programs/SMEPN
2021
Level: beginner
Unemployment in Nigeria: Policy Review and Recommendations
The outbreak of COVID-19 has substantially accelerated the digitalization of the economy. Yet, this unprecedented growth of digital technology brought novel challenges to the labour market. Rise in income inequalities and precarious working conditions or polarization of jobs. In this essay, we try to assess what tools to use to counter these trends.
2021
Level: beginner
Post-pandemic future of work - How does digitization impact labour?
The Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare the deep structural rifts in modern capitalist economies. It has exposed and exacerbated the long-lasting systemic inequalities in income, wealth, healthcare, housing, and other aspects of economic success across a variety of dimensions including class, gender, race, regions, and nations. This workshop explores the causes of economic inequality in contemporary capitalist economies and its consequences for the economy and society in the post-pandemic reality, as well as what steps can be taken to alleviate economic inequality in the future. Drawing from a variety of theoretical and interdisciplinary insights, the workshop encourages you to reflect on your personal experiences of inequality and aims to challenge the way in which the issue is typically approached in economics.
2022
Level: beginner
Inequality in the Post-pandemic Era
Die Welt verändern, ohne die Macht zu übernehmen – dieser Buchtitel aus dem Jahr 2002 steht emblematisch für ein Verhältnis zur Macht, das in Teilen der Linken lange Zeit vorherrschend war. Der Autor des Buches, John Holloway, war selbst Teil der Weltsozialforen-Bewegung und stellte sich entschieden gegen herkömmliche Vorstellungen linker Gegenmacht, etwa im Sinne des Aufbaus einer linken Massenpartei. Aus derselben Zeit stammt auch das Konzept der «Multitude» aus der Feder von Michael Hardt und Antonio Negri. Es richtete sich gegen den identitären Begriff eines «Volkes», und ebenso gegen eine politische Bezugnahme auf die «Arbeiter*innenklasse». Diesen politischen Subjekten wurde eine Vielfalt widerständiger, global verteilter Praktiken und Gruppierungen entgegengestellt, die sich jedoch nicht vereinheitlichen ließen. Das Verhältnis dieser Multitude zur Erringung von Macht wurde offengelassen.
Level: beginner
Die Macht übernehmen und die Welt verändern?
In this text, Fred Heussner takes up the debate on anti-fascist economics, places it in the context of existing developments and identifies potential for further development.
2024
Level: beginner
Anti-fascist economics? For sure! But what does that mean?
Rethinking Business is a volume of thought-provoking researches that sets out to challenge the paradigm of business along the areas of governance, finance, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability.
2014
Level: advanced
Rethinking Business
In this article, Rob Hoveman breaks down concepts like historical materialism and materialist analysis that are pivotal to understand Marx. He argues that abstractions are necessary for a concrete analysis of society that in turn should inform political practice.
2018
Level: advanced
Marx and historical materialism
First historical instances of colonialism such as the crusades are revisited. Then a lengthy account of the colonial experience of the Spanish Kingdom in South America and of the British Empire in India is given. The Indian case is illustrated with large amounts of archival materials from a colonial administrator. There the workings of the colonial bureaucracy and law and its (positive) achievements as well as the ignorance and arrogance of the external rulers are demonstrated. After narrating the Indian independence to some depth some recent colonial wars (Algeria, Vietnam, Congo, Angola) are briefly examined. In the end, the impact of colonialism on current, i.e. 1970s, (economic) international relations is discussed. The general tenor is that colonialism is a dysfunctional system. Still, agency is mostly placed with the empire rather than with the ruled.
1977
Level: beginner
The Age of Uncertainty Episode 4 The Colonial Idea
With this calculator you can assess the ecological backpack of your lifestyle. The ecological backpack visualizes the weight of all natural raw materials that are needed for our private consumption behavior. This includes all products and their production, use, and disposal.
Level: beginner
My Ecological Backpack
In this short Video Silke Helfrich discusses the basics of commons. It’s an introduction into the essence of commons from a perspective stemming from outside the economic discipline that focuses on social practice. Her perception challenges the economic mainstream’s perception of common goods and goes beyond a purely materialistic conceptualisation of commons.
2014
Level: beginner
The Basics of Commons
How should we discuss welfare when understanding the role of growth and the viability of Growth-led development? One option is to look at subjective happiness. This provides an anti-materialistic view which may superficially appear more compatible with significant reductions in consumption in order to remain within safe ecological limits.
2021
Level: beginner
Degrowth, Happiness and and wellbeing
This collection of essays, a supplement to History of Political Economy, brings together prominent scholars from economics, sociology, literature, and history to examine the role of biography and autobiography in the history of economics. The first of its kind, this volume looks at the relevance of first-person accounts to narrative histories of economics.
2007
Level: advanced
Economists' Lives
Economist and 2020 Balzan Prize winner for Environmental Challenges: Responses from the Social Sciences and Humanities, Joan Martínez Alier, speaks on the importance of ecological economics and its timeliness around the 2007/2008 global financial crisis. He speaks on the importance of building the field of ecological economics “from the ground up” through praxis.
2012
Level: beginner
Ecological Economics
Economics has long been the domain of the ivory tower, where specialized language and opaque theorems make it inaccessible to most people. That’s a problem.
2019
Level: beginner
Economics for People
Inequality is an issue we all face every day, from income disparities to gender discrimination. In this first lecture in the Institute for New Economic Think...
2020
Level: beginner
Inequality 101 with Branko Milanovic & Arjun Jayadev
How long the COVID-19 crisis will last, and what its immediate economic costs will be, is anyone's guess. But even if the pandemic's economic impact is contained, it may have already set the stage for a debt meltdown long in the making, starting in many of the Asian emerging and developing economies on the front lines of the outbreak.
2020
Level: beginner
The COVID-19 Debt Deluge
Dr. Katherine Trebeck explains some reasons why we should believe the future of the economy should be a wellbeing economy.
2020
Level: beginner
Why the Future Economy has to be a Wellbeing Economy
Ecologcial economics conceptualizes our society as embedded within the environment and our economic system as embedded within society and the environment.
2021
Level: beginner
Is ecological economics for rebels? Accounting for natural resources
From the theoretical literature, the authors provide seven reasons to be sceptical about the occurrence of sufficient decoupling in the future. In addition to the extensive summary of the recent literature, 'decoupling debunked' provides a great introduction into the decoupling hypothesis.
2019
Level: beginner
Decoupling debunked: Evidence and arguments against green growth as a sole strategy for sustainability
This film looks at the role economic growth has had in bringing about this crisis, and explores alternatives to it, offering a vision of hope for the future and a better life for all within planetary boundaries.
2020
Level: beginner
Fairytales of Growth
Yao Graham, coordinator of Third World Network- Africa, reflects on lessons learned from past Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), specifically as they relate to the Post-Cotonou Agreement.
2020
Level: beginner
Lessons From Economic Partnership Agreements to the Post- Cotonou Framework

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