Books

Fintan O’Toole on John le Carré’s final twist: dying as an Irishman

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/oct/09/fintan-otoole-on-john-le-carres-f…
Created
Sat, 09/10/2021 - 19:45

He was the greatest English novelist of his generation, yet just before his death he became an Irish citizen of the EU. The reasons were both political and deeply personal, but at their heart lay one thing: betrayal

• An exclusive extract from his new novel

• Writers reveal their favourite le Carré

I’m looking at one of the last photographs of John le Carré. It was taken by his son Nick in October 2020. There is a mostly empty bottle of good beaujolais in front of him and a glimpse through the window behind of the Cornish landscape that he inhabited with such delight. His beloved wife and most important collaborator, Jane, is seated next to him, laughing heartily.

Max Weber on Socialism

https://economicsociology.org/2022/07/30/max-weber-on-socialism/
Created
Sat, 30/07/2022 - 14:30
It is not socialism that explains capitalism, argues Max Weber, it is rather capitalism that explains socialism. And as long as capitalism exists, socialist aspirations will persist: “What characterises our current situation is firstly the fact that the private sector of the economy in conjunction with private bureaucratic organisation and hence with the separation of the worker […]

Karl Polanyi and the Paradoxes of the Double Movement

https://economicsociology.org/2022/08/13/karl-polanyi-and-the-paradoxes-of-the-…
Created
Sat, 13/08/2022 - 10:10
by Fred Block* John Vail has written a remarkable book about Karl Polanyi’s concept of the double movement.  It is a careful exegesis of Polanyi’s argument that also puts that analysis into dialogue with subsequent scholarship in history, politics, and sociology. Vail is appreciative of Polanyi’s insights, but he is certainly not uncritical. He points […]

B&B: Samir Amin’s last essay | On Debt | Women and socialism | Precarity is a policy | Chocolate as money | Labor after pandemics | Pilgrimage and consumerism

https://economicsociology.org/2022/08/29/bb-samir-amins-last-essay-on-debt-wome…
Created
Mon, 29/08/2022 - 13:07
This time especially worth reading and sharing pieces: — Samir Amin, a towering intellectual and eminent political economist, who greatly contributed to the study on imperialism an monopoly capital, and coined the term ‘Eurocentrism’ passed away four year ago. Read here his last essay “Revolution or Decadence? Thoughts on the Transition between Modes of Production […]

The Political Economy of a Stateless Nation: Polanyi Meets Gramsci

https://economicsociology.org/2022/10/02/the-political-economy-of-a-stateless-n…
Created
Sun, 02/10/2022 - 09:00
by Omer Tekdemir* These days we are witnessing a growing interest in Karl Polanyi’s framework to explain the organic crisis of neoliberalism, including the populist reaction; while Antonio Gramsci has always been popular within a wide range of movement studies from different disciplines.My recently published monograph Constituting the Political Economy of the Kurds: Social Embeddedness, Hegemony, […]

Latour’s Theses on Capitalism and Economics

https://economicsociology.org/2022/10/10/latours-theses-on-capitalism-and-econo…
Created
Tue, 11/10/2022 - 01:11
Bruno Latour, the preeminent sociologist, original anthropologist, and highly influential thinker, dies aged 75. This is devastating news and an enormous loss.If there is a scholar whose tremendous contribution would be simply impossible to describe in a short blog post — this would be Latour’s. Even the Holberg Prize‘s – the most important award in […]

Academic Economics: Irrelevant Theories and Misunderstanding of a Real Economic System

https://economicsociology.org/2022/10/25/academic-economics-irrelevant-theories…
Created
Wed, 26/10/2022 - 07:46
Wassily Leontief,  a Russian-born U.S. economist,  was and still is one of the most recognized names in economics, linked to the development of input-output analysis for which he won the “Nobel Prize” in Economic Sciences in 1973. Leontief earned his Ph.D. degree under the direction of a German economist and sociologist Werner Sombart in Berlin […]

Where Do Unicorns Come From? Reflexive Expectations in Innovation Financing

https://economicsociology.org/2022/11/17/where-do-unicorns-come-from-reflexive-…
Created
Fri, 18/11/2022 - 03:28
by Kean Birch* Unicorns are private companies valued at over US$1 billion. The term was first used by venture capitalist Aileen Lee in 2013 and has since become a cultural trope of its own. According to the business analytics firm CB Insights, there were close to 1,000 unicorns in the world at the end of […]

The Construction of the Magical World of Santa — Performing a Myth to Make a Market

https://economicsociology.org/2022/12/21/the-construction-of-the-magical-world-…
Created
Wed, 21/12/2022 - 15:17
If you believe in Santa, do not read the following paper — sympathetically warn us Teea Palo, Katy Mason and Philip Roscoe at the beginning of “Performing a Myth to Make a Market: The Construction of the ‘Magical World’ of Santa”. In this interesting research, the authors follow the Santa myth to a remote northern […]
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