Frieder Otto Wolf: Reflection on the Case Studies

1. What do I want (and not necessarily expect) from case studies?

They should help us to become aware of complexity and even excess – where reality goes beyond the effects of over-determined structures, showing us, how a specified, singular society evolves under the impact of strategic interventions (of neo-liberal policies which follow a general pattern, while varying it). In these cases, the case studies should exhibit, how the singular societies of Eastern Europe have evolved under More

Frieder Otto Wolf: Reflections on the 1. Day

We have tried to address the problems posed by conceiving a modern left wing policy in Europe and in the EU, specifically reflecting its dynamic global context, and trying to reflect recent experiences adequately, while establishing a theoretical basis for a critical approach to them.
The task formulated by Judith Dellheim in the “Opening” had been to clarify the global context and the theoretical basis of the discussion. She had asked the workshop More

Özge Yaka: Limits of the Core-­‐Periphery Model in the Analysis of the Contemporary Political Environment

The core periphery model, which belongs to the language of the pre 1980 era, has recently returned to the academic and political language in the context of the Euro‐zone-crisis. The model, which was originally developed against the modernisation school and Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantages, was aiming to reveal the structural processes and mechanisms which consistently disfavour primary producer countries of the periphery against the industrial western core. More

Judith Dellheim: “Peripherisation”?

Rosa Luxemburg clearly demonstrates how political economy can readily be turned into a tool to strengthen people’s struggles for emancipation and how solidarity can reveal opportunities for action. Luxemburg saw herself as a global, socialist citizen in the sense that she expressed solidarity with people who were exploited and oppressed by those in power, regardless of their nationality or citizenship. Her goal was to understand and explain how exploitation takes place, how it is constantly renewed, and the consequences exploitation has at the individual, family and community level. Weiterlesen

Daniela Gabor: The Romanian Financial System: From Central Bank-Led to Dependent Financialisation

This study argues that financialisation is not a phenomenon exclusively associated with complex innovation in highly developed financial markets. Financialisation also affects countries with „shallow“ financial markets but with a significant presence of transnational financial actors that become a powerpul economic and political force able to navigate and shape uneven regulatory and institutional terrains in order to sustain new modes of profit generation. The study distinguishes two stages in the financialisation of the Romanian economy. The first, central bank dominated. Weiterlesen

Etienne Balibar: The Rise and Fall of the European Union: Temporalities and Teleologies

Historians and philosophers have been discussing the extent to which specific ideologies regarding the understanding of time and space are involved in the writing of history, as a consequence of the “central” place that Europe had attributed itself in Modern history. The idea of “Europe” itself, whether perceived from inside or outside, is by definition ideological or it is a teleological “discourse”, which performs epistemological and political functions at the same time. Whether we consider ourselves More

Jan Toporowski: Debt, Class and Asset Inflation

The mainstream view of household consumption and saving is based on the idea of a ‘representative’ household endowed with more or less perfect foresight, according to whether the theory is New Classical or New Keynesian. The traditional Keynesian view had household saving and consumption determined by income, with Post-Keynesian innovations in the form of differentiated propensities to consume on the part of workers or capitalists and, following Minsky, increasing indebtedness of firms. More

Jan Toporowski: Sweezy and the Monthly Review on Capitalism and Finance

The New York Monthly Review established by Paul Sweezy and Leo Huberman in 1949 represents a unique venture in disseminating Marxist ideas in a way that has been informed by serious economic analysis. In particular it has benefited from the close relationship that Paul Sweezy had with his PhD supervisor at Harvard, Joseph Schumpeter; Sweezy’s own personal knowledge of finance through his father, who was one of five vice-presidents of the New York-based First National Bank (which eventually became Citibank); More