Review of Radical Political Economics

This article addresses the internal contradictions of American imperialism. By emphasizing imperial adventures and the buildup of the military without paying serious attention to the underlying economic conditions, the United States may have difficulty maintaining its military domination.

Service and activist learning (SAL) and teaching about globalization can be mutually reinforcing pedagogies. SAL combines community activity with social analysis, attracting many students who want to make the world better. Integrating globalization helps them place local problems in the context of world trade and investment policies and dynamics. Rather than feeling overwhelmed by the complexity of global processes, students explore ways of responding in their daily lives and become more effective social change advocates.

This article examines the pedagogical benefits associated with teaching globalization from a feminist perspective. In addition to its focus on the often neglected gender dimensions of globalization, the feminist approach provides a less abstract and disempowering understanding of global processes than that found in many political economy accounts. The article uses a variety of examples to show how this perspective helps students make the connection between their daily lives and these complex processes.

This article reports on my experience teaching Sweatshops and the Global Economy. It describes exercises in political economy for engaging students in the study of sweatshops. Also taken up are my efforts to involve students in the debate among economists about sweatshops and the antisweatshop movement, an analysis of the place of sweatshops in the process of globalization, and efforts to end sweatshop abuse.

This article examines whether a new transnational corporate social structure of accumulation (SSA) has emerged in the global economy to promote long-wave upswing. It explores the main tendencies of the transnational corporate system; three main engines of potential growth; and the evidence of profitability, accumulation, productivity, and growth. Then the dominant contradictions are surveyed. Overall, a new transnational corporate SSA does not seem to be operating, and long-wave upswing is not evident for the global corporate economy.

American capitalism has changed dramatically in the last fifty years. During the 1950s, one of its principal characteristics was a capital-labor accord with workers in major industries receiving many benefits in exchange for ceding management broad rights. From 1970 to 2000, by contrast, struggles between labor and capital intensified, with capital gaining overwhelming strength. This article examines some of the principal factors involved in this process, which played a major role in the transformation of American capitalism.

To explain the social dynamics of accumulation regime changes, I suggest the concept of capital control complex (CCC) by combining a Gramscian perspective and Veblenean view of capital/ money. A tripod of historical bloc, ownership structure, and financial system, this concept offers a new framework for studying nationally specific corporate structures and financial systems. The rise and recent transformation of Japanese cross shareholding and J-type financial system are discussed as a case.

The URPE tour to Tijuana unveiled the social underpinnings of regional integration. Alongside the dance halls, cheap eateries, and “schlock” stores are the sexoservidoras and itinerant merchants hawking their wares. The city is privatizing public services while many of its industrial plants have moved to China. Most workers’ housing lacks basic public services, and authorities on both sides of the border refuse to implement a growth management strategy to reverse the environmental disaster that benefits powerful elites, North and South.

The relationship between workers’ participation in management and firm performance is open todebate in economic theory. There has not yet been any empirical study on this subject regarding China. Theauthor uses panel data of large and medium-sized industrial enterprises in China’s Henan province, froma survey conducted in field research (1995-1998), to study how participatory management affects firmperformance. The author found that participatory management has large positive effects on state-ownedenterprises’ productivity.