The development of factor markets has opened Chinese agriculture for the penetration of capitalism. This new round of rural transformation—China’s agrarian transition— raises the agrarian question in the Chinese context. This study investigates how capitalist forms and relations of production transform agricultural production and the peasantry class in rural China. The authors identify six forms of nonpeasant agricultural production, compare the labor regimes and direct producers’ socioeconomic statuses across these forms, and evaluate the role of China’s land-rights (...) institution in shaping these forms. The empirical investigation presents three main findings: Peasant differentiation : capitalist forms of agricultural production differentiate peasants into a variety of new class positions. Market-based stratification: producers in capitalist agriculture are primarily stratified by their positions in labor and land markets; their socioeconomic statuses are linked with their varying degrees of proletarianization. Institutional mediation: rural China’s dual-track land system plays a crucial role in shaping the diverse and unique forms of capitalist production. (shrink)

Recent decades have witnessed widespread agrarian transitions in mainland Southeast Asia. This paper examines how agrarian transitions are shaped by multiple drivers of change, and how these interwoven processes have triggered shifts in agricultural extension practices in three countries in the Lower Mekong Basin: Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Drawing on interviews with experts working on the fields of agrarian studies and rural development, this paper argues that agrarian transitions not only put a strain on agricultural extension (...) systems in responding to evolving needs, but they also stimulate the co-production of innovative agricultural extension models to address gaps left by the limited presence of extensionists. The study gains insight into challenges faced by extensionists, including a lack of resources, skills, and capacities to meet growing needs, which simultaneously urged them to excel in their work performance. The paper highlights the proactive role of ‘champions’ in orchestrating collective efforts towards the co-production of innovative agricultural extension models (e.g. Metkasekor), and the formulation of pluralistic extension platforms in enabling such ‘co-learning-to-act’ practices. By translating these insights into the broader contexts of agricultural and rural development in the Mekong region and beyond, this paper aims to make a two-fold contribution. First, it will assert how the ‘business-as-usual’ extension model has failed to adequately address emerging needs as a result of agrarian transitions. Second, it will provide pathways for the recognition and legitimisation of the pluralistic extension approach that fosters stakeholders’ co-learning and productive engagement in extension practices. (shrink)

Agricultural modernisation is a longstanding goal of China’s Party-state. Since the early 2000s, it has pursued this goal through policies designed to facilitate land consolidation and support the expansion of large agricultural enterprises – ‘New Agricultural Operators’ (NAOs). In this paper we explore the effect of these policies on the livelihoods of a cohort of smallholder orange growers in the mountainous regions of Hubei province and the local political economy. An analysis of data from a 2019 survey of 266 households (...) and interviews with villagers, agribusiness executives, cooperative leaders, and government officials, we find smallholder farmers are earning good incomes as independent commodity producers, withstanding attempts by local officials at land consolidation, and bypassing NAOs to self-determine their own modes of production and exchange. Our results speak to the ongoing debate about the future of smallholder farming in China, identify the strengths and limitations of recent state-centric analyses of agrarian transition, and re-iterate the pitfalls of the central government’s agricultural modernisation agenda. (shrink)

Recent literature describing the process and pathways of the agrarian transition in Southeast Asia suggests that the rise of agricultural intensification and the growth of commodity markets will lead to the demise of swidden agriculture. This paper offers a longitudinal overview of the conditions that drive the agrarian transition amongst indigenous swidden cultivators and migrant paddy farmers in central Palawan Island, the Philippines. In line with regional agrarian change, we describe how a history of conservation (...) policies has criminalized and pressured swidden farmers to adopt more intensive “modern” agricultural practices. We examine how indigenous swidden cultivators adjust their practice in response to recent changes in policies, security of harvests, and socio-cultural values vis-à-vis intensification. Rather than suggest that this transition will lead to the demise of swidden, results reveal that farmers instead negotiate a shifting ground in which they lean on and value swidden as a means of negotiating agrarian change. (shrink)

The study presented is the result of a field survey conducted in Latvia in 1991. The brief of this research was to trace the role of the ‘private’ farm sector that has begun to emerge in the wake of the transition from a central-command to a market-oriented economy. Thus a look at the legislative acts embodying the agrarian reform is ccompanied by an analysis of the recent developments in local production systems. The study of ‘production systems’, or that (...) part of economic analysis that comes under the rubric of ‘farm systems’, was employed here for the first time to analyze a Soviet-type economic system in transition. The first and second sections, which focus on the historical evolution of Latvia's agriculture and the economics underpinning it, range in compass from the ‘first’ agrarian reform to collectivization and on to the present situation. This is followed by a look at the current, or ‘third’, land reform initiative (section 3), particular emphasis being accorded the emergence of new production structures and the problems posed by the transformation of the old ones (sections 4 and 5). The next section includes a discussion of the links between the farms of the socialized sector and of the nascent private one (section 6). The concluding remarks provide a recapitulation of the study's main findings. (shrink)

Originally published by Rand McNally & Company in 1969, this volume provides a discussion of the Gilded Age, the decades between the end of the Civil War and the closing of the Spanish-American War. Many aspects of this period are examined, including the transition from a rural-agrarian federation to an industrial, urban nation-state. An intensive study of ideas, this volume fulfills the need for an informative and highly readable work of the intellectual and cultural developments in an important (...) era of American History. (shrink)

Scholarly attention to sustainability transitions is rapidly increasing. This article explores how cultural politics constrain agricultural change. Cultural politics, or conflicting values about appropriate types of agriculture, are an underexplored variable influencing whether or not farmers adopt agroecological methods. The research focuses on the environmental, cognitive, and relational mechanisms that influence cultural politics. It analyzes the intersection of mechanisms and cultural politics in an Amazonian agrarian reform settlement of the Brazilian Landless Workers’ Movement. Insights into the factors confounding the (...) agroecological transition are derived from an analysis of longitudinal spatial data derived from historic aerial photographs and remotely sensed images, and ethnographic data from participant observation and semi-structured interviews. Drawing on a political ecology of education perspective, the cultural politics surrounding the agroecological transition are traced to the confluence of the region’s historical usage for cattle ranching, farmer’s conceptions of space and the combination of agricultural extension and government credit. The MST’s agroecological education initiatives hold the promise to drive the sustainability transition, but are also constrained by these cultural politics and associated mechanisms. (shrink)

School gardens and garden-based learning continue to gain great popularity in the United States, and their pedagogical potential, and ability to impact students’ fruit and vegetable consumption and activity levels have been well-documented. Less examined is their potential to be agents of food system reskilling and transformation. Though producer and consumer are inextricably linked in the food system, and deskilling of one directly influences the other, theorists often focus on production-centered and consumption-centered deskilling separately. However, in a school garden, the (...) production/consumption disconnect is erased, by virtue of the design of the site itself and how it is utilized by the actors within it. School gardens provide the critical component of education in alternative food networks, and contribute to the producer/consumer reskilling that is a necessary part of food system transformation. We conducted a case study of an established school garden program during its transition from autonomous non-profit to official, district-funded program of a rural school district in the Midwest. By participating in the full “seed to plate” life cycle of a garden crop, students in the garden were actively involved in the reconnection of producer and consumer, while educators were fostering in students an appreciation for fresh, healthy foods and actively challenging the “McDonaldization” of both students’ diets and education. Based upon these findings, we argue that school gardens in rural areas could leverage the dominant role of rural America in developing and shifting food system paradigms. (shrink)

There are very significant conceptual links between theories of social macroevolution and theories of the World System development. It is shown that the growth of the World System complexity and integrity can be traced through a system of phase transitions of macroevolution. The first set of phase transition is connected with the agrarian, industrial, and information-scientific revolutions (that are interpreted as changes of “production principles”). The second set consists of phase transitions within one production principle. These phase transitions (...) are analyzed on the basis of the World System urbanization dynamics, but they can be traced with respect to the other (cultural, economic, technological, demographic, political, etc.) dimensions of the World System development. (shrink)

In this paper we develop a typology of ‘non-commercial’ approaches to farming, based on a survey of a representative sample of farmers in Scotland, United Kingdom. In total, 395 farmers indicated that they do not seek to make a profit on their farms. We estimate that these non-commercial approaches to farming are utilised on at least 13% of agricultural land in Scotland. As such, non-commercial farming is not a marginal practice, nor are NCF limited to small-scale ‘hobby’ farms: NCF exist (...) across the scale of agricultural holding sizes and are operated by a wide range of socio-demographic cohorts. We identify 6 types of NCF: agricultural residences, specialist smallholdings, horsiculture holdings, mixed smallholdings, amenity mixed farms, and large farms or estates. These types were differentiated primarily by the scale of farm size, presence of diversification activities and types of animal present. The analysis demonstrates a number of emergent patterns of land management: de facto land abandonment, transition towards ‘horsiculture’, and management differences between retiring and new entrant NCF. We argue that the types identified reflect a number of intersecting issues in contemporary agrarian transitions, particularly the aging farmer population; generational renewal; and gendered implications of agricultural restructuring. (shrink)

The challenge of pursuing sustainability in agriculture is often viewed as mainly or wholly technical in nature, requiring the reform of farming methods and the development and adoption of alternative technologies. Likewise, the purpose of sustainability is frequently cast in utilitarian terms, as a means of protecting a valuable resource (i.e., soil) and of satisfying market demands for healthy, tasty food. Paul B. Thompson has argued that the embrace of these views by many in the consumer/environmental movement enables easy co-optation (...) by agribusiness. It also reflects a critical weakness in this movement: a lack of commitment to philosophical principles that depart from the utilitarian premises of the industrial model of agriculture. This paper draws on the writings of Thomas Berry and Liberty Hyde Bailey to identify the philosophical principles of what we call planetary agrarianism. From the perspective of planetary agrarianism, the pursuit of sustainability is a broad and challenging moral, educational, and political task. Berry helps us see that it is fundamentally a project of worldview transition, which requires a new cultural narrative that must rival, in form and appeal, the mythic power of the utilitarian industrial vision. Liberty Hyde Bailey, author of The Holy Earth (1915) and a leader in the land-grant education and nature-study movements, took up the project of worldview transition in his life work. While in some ways dated and flawed, Bailey’s writings are a valuable source of guidance for developing and pursuing a viable philosophy of agriculture for the 21st century. (shrink)

What determines the transition of a society from one level of development to another? One of the most fundamental causes is the global technological transformations. Among all major technological breakthroughs in history the most important are the three production revolutions: 1) the Agrarian Revolution; 2) the Industrial Revolution and 3) the Scientific-Information Revolution which will transform into the Cybernetic one. The article introduces the Theory of Production Revolutions. This is a new explanatory paradigm which is of value when (...) analyzing causes and trends of global shifts in historical process. The article describes the course of techno-logical transformations in history and demonstrates a possible application of the theory to explain the present and forthcoming technological changes. The authors argue that the third production revolution that started in the 1950s and which they call the Cybernetic one, in the coming decades, that is in the 2030s and 2040s, will get a new impetus and enter its final stage – the epoch of (self)controllable systems. There are given certain forecasts concerning the development in such spheres as medicine, biotechnologies and nanotechnolo-gies in the coming decades (the 2010s – 2060s). (shrink)

In this article we investigate how Latino immigrant farmers in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States navigate United States Department of Agriculture programs, which necessitate standardizing farming practices and an acceptance of bureaucracy for participation. We show how Latino immigrant farmers’ agrarian norms and practices are at odds with the state’s requirement for agrarian standardization. This interview-based study builds on existing historical analyses of farmers of color in the United States, and the ways in which their farming (...) practices and racialized identities are often unseen by and illegible to the state. This disjuncture leads to the increased racial exclusion of immigrant farmers from USDA opportunities. Such exclusions impede the transition to a “new era of civil rights,” as has been proclaimed by USDA leadership. Although efforts to address institutionalized racism on a national level may be genuine, they have failed to acknowledge this schism between rural Latino immigrants and the state, thereby inhibiting a meaningful transition in the fields, and continuing a legacy of unequal access to agrarian opportunities for non-white immigrant farmers. (shrink)

A primary contribution of this essay is to provide a survey of the human and environmental impacts of livestock production. We will find that the mass consumption of animals is a primary reason why humans are hungry, fat, or sick and is a leading cause behind the depletion and pollution of waterways, the degradation and deforestation of the land, the extinction of species, and the warming of the planet. Recognizing these harms, this essay will consider various solutions being proposed to (...) “shrink” livestock’s long shadow, including proposed “technical” or “market” solutions, a transition to “new agrarian” methods, and a vegetarian or vegan diet. Though important and morally relevant qualitative differences exist between industrial and non-industrial methods, this essay will conclude that, given the present and projected size of the human population, the morality and sustainability of one’s diet are inversely related to the proportion of animals and animal products one consumes. (shrink)

: The work of Boris Hessen and Henryk Grossman on the emergence of early modern science is an attempt at a historical sociology of science and a historical epistemology of scientific knowledge. One of their theses is elaborated here, namely that early modern mechanics developed in the study of contemporary technology. In particular I discuss the thesis that the replacement of the Aristotelian concept of motion by the modern general and mathematical concept developed in the study of transmission machines. In (...) addition to a discussion of the thesis and its implications, I also present a case study to substantiate the thesis. I show that Benedetti's famous refutation of Aristotle and his introduction of a new concept of motion depended on empirical knowledge of the newly invented treadle mechanism. I argue that although the historiography of science since the 1930s has explored many of the individual issues first raised by the Marxist historians of science, this perspective remains unique in that it establishes direct and informative connections between the grand narrative of the transition from agrarian-feudal society to industrial production in early capitalism and the development of science and technology down to specific cognitive issues such as shared assumptions concerning the natural order. (shrink)

The monograph presents the ideas about the main changes that occurred in the development of technologies from the emergence of Homo sapiens till present time and outlines the prospects of their development in the next 30–60 years and in some respect until the end of the twenty-first century. What determines the transition of a society from one level of development to another? One of the most fundamental causes is the global technological transformations. Among all major technological breakthroughs in history (...) the most important are three production revolutions: 1) the Agrarian Revolution; 2) the Industrial Revolution; and 3) the Cybernetic one. The book introduces the theory of production revolutions which is a new valuable explanatory paradigm that analyzes causes and trends of dramatic shifts in historical process. The authors describe the course of technological transformations in history and demonstrate a possible application of the theory to explain the present and forthcoming technological changes. They analyze the technological shifts which took place in the second half of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries and forecast the main shifts in the next half a century. On this basis the authors present a detailed analysis of the latest production revolution which is denoted as ‘Сybernetic’. They make some predictions about its development in the nearest five decades and up to the end of the twenty-first century and show that the development of various self-regulating systems will be the main trend of this revolution. The authors argue that the transition to the starting final phase of the Cybernetic Revolution (in the 2030–2040s) will first occur in the field of medicine (in some its innovative branches). In future we will deal with the started convergence of innovative technologies which will form the system of MANBRIC-technologies (i.e. the technological paradigm based on medicine, additive, nano- and bio- technologies, robotics, IT and cognitive technologies). The monograph gives an outline of the future breakthroughs in medicine and some other technologies (between the 2010s and 2070s). (shrink)

Ethiopian Jewish immigrants in Israel are one of the most ancient communities in the world, one that has been detached from the known Jewish world for about 2,500 years. Throughout this very long period of isolation, the Ethiopian Jewish community maintained Jewish tradition and dreamed over the centuries to unite with the rest of the Jewish world and immigrate to the Jewish state—Israel. But this transition occurred within a short time from an agrarian society in Ethiopia (traditional culture) (...) with an oral culture to a knowledge society in Israel (modern culture) with a written culture. Most studies that examine cultural transition focus on anthropological, sociological, and cultural aspects; but there are nearly no studies that examine the technological knowledge of non-literate populations. The purpose of this study is to examine and characterize technological knowledge among this population—the case of Ethiopian non-literate immigrants in Israel. The study involved in-depth interviews to examine technological knowledge through using technological appliances in their everyday life, assembly of two simple technological systems, and a home technology profile compared to the general population in Israel. Participants included 50 non-literate Ethiopian immigrants between the ages of 40–60. The results of our study are surprising in that we have shown that non-literate immigrants adapt to a technology-rich environment at an average degree with respect to the general population in Israel. Also, comparing technological knowledge between traditional and modern cultures shows participants’ wide range of knowledge without ability to read and write. Illiteracy does not preclude the development of knowledge in general, technological knowledge particularly, and does not prevent non-literate populations from acquiring knowledge in a new environment. (shrink)

The year 1996 was regarded by a considerable part of contemporary literature on global political economy as a definite turning point in modern history. The majority of experts tended to see the starting point of take‐off that year, but others—not a negligible minority—saw omens of disastrous recession and lasting depression. It appears the time has not yet come. The question is now that of the incalculable resultant of runaway (deregulated) forces of the international financial “whirlpool”, of a random process of (...) global, regional and local accumulation of capital. The year 1997 will set in with a foreseeable and calculable agrarian and related cycle and it may find an outlet for accumulated tensions of capital accumulation at the high tide of unemployment (demographic or migratory) wave with unforeseeable and incalculable effects and side‐effects. This will be just the beginning of the end and a Black Weekday still lies ahead of us. There can be no doubt that we live in a transition period but we do not know where this transition leads to. Loose talk about “post‐industrial society”, “post‐modern age” and “postsomething anything” has limited interpretative power. Very few students of social sciences venture to see and verify secular trends in world history. (shrink)

This article applies Karl Polanyi’s concept of a double movement to the trajectory of rural state policies in China since 1949. It argues that Chinese socialism created a contradictory social contract that has fueled an ongoing struggle between state and peasantry over the surplus generated from rural land. This struggle has shaped a historical oscillation between state policies that facilitate extraction of agricultural surpluses and policies that introduce social protections in the form of household farming and revitalized collective ownership. Based (...) on secondary sources, this article compares the arc of rural policies during the Mao era and in the transition to and during the current state capitalist period. Then, based on original interview-based and ethnographic fieldwork undertaken in rural Sichuan Province, it analyzes the current introduction of urban and agrarian capital into the rural economy, revealing dynamics of a current countermovement from state-led extraction to compromise. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Two Cheers for Blueprints, or, Negative Reasons for Positive UtopianismAntonis Balasopoulos (bio)It is well known that the decline of programmatic or so-called blueprint utopias and utopianism came on the heels of a widespread and concerted attack against them during the first two decades of the Cold War. In the writings of thinkers like Hayek, Popper, Talmon, Kolakowski, and many others, program became synonymous with hubris.1 It was construed as (...) a dangerous effort to regulate the diversity of human subjectivity and the complexity of the social organism, a repressive will-to-order and predictability that tainted utopias by associating them with Totalitarianism. In Popper’s exemplary exposition:The Utopian attempt to realize an ideal state, using a blueprint for society as a whole, is one which demands a strong centralized rule of a few, and which therefore is likely to lead to a dictatorship. [...] [Utopia] claims to plan rationally for the whole of society, although we do not possess anything like the factual knowledge which would be necessary to make good such an ambitious claim.2 [End Page 489]Yet, though this view of how Utopia, to recall Robert C. Elliott, became “a bad word,” is accurate in itself, it also reflects only the negative or destructive side of Cold War anti-utopianism, a trend whose logical inconsistencies and ideological biases have already been ably dissected in the work of Russell Jacoby, Marc Olssen, and Darren Webb, to name but a few.3What one could term the “positive” or “productive” side of anti-utopian denunciations of the dogmatically programmatic character allegedly inherent in utopias went well beyond the exigencies of generating a geopolitical and ideological enemy image. It involved an effort to reconcile western subjects to seismic and highly consequential shifts within postwar, late-capitalist societies themselves. If, as I have argued elsewhere, utopian fictions (and, indeed, nonfictions) before the Cold War period can be read as fictions of organization—of everything from architecture and urban planning, to production, sexuality and biological reproduction, clothing, or diet—it is also the case that in them, “organization” is a response, a reaction to traumatic historical experiences of disorganization, from the decline of the ancient city-state in the case of Platonic utopianism; to the impoverishment and dislocation of rural communities in the era of Thomas More; to the experience of the fracturing of religious community during the religious, civil, and international wars that marked the seventeenth century; to the dramatic impact of early nineteenth-century industrialization on artisanal and agrarian communities, on family cohesion and on the rhythms of the premodern working day.4My argument is, then, that the anti-utopian denunciation of blueprint and program was not simply motivated by the liberal capitalist attack against the planned and highly regulated character of economy and society in the countries of so-called actually existing socialism. It was also motivated by the ideological need to normalize and legitimize the transition, within western capitalist societies themselves, to what Scott Lash and John Urry called “disorganized capitalism.” Lash and Urry’s book, originally published during the decade of the triumphant rise of neoliberalism, in 1987, launches its investigation by tellingly quoting the passage of Marx and Engels’s Communist Manifesto that focuses on the creatively destructive aspects of capitalist social transformation: the bourgeoisie, Lash and Urry observe, is a class “with vested interest in change, crisis and chaos”; the social world over which it presides is one “which swings wildly out of control, menacing and destructive.”5 In their introduction, the authors outline the basic features of the postwar shift from the organized capitalism of the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to its disarticulated successor formation during the rise of [End Page 490] neoliberal governance. Under the rubric of “disorganization” (which is to say, of a mutation within the western capitalist economic and social order), they include de-industrialization and the decline in the absolute and relative size of the working class in the core capitalist economies; the rise of flexible forms of labor organization in the place of defunct Taylorist principles; the weakening of trade unionist organization; the increasing decoupling of large monopolies from the control and regulation... (shrink)

"Previously unpublished images from glass-plate negatives taken by Walter Schneider capture the years of transition from agrarian to industrial society in America and beyond.

Comprendre les mécanismes sous-jacents de la «nouvelle économie» permet d'augmenter ses chances de gagner au jeu. Un rapide survol des conditions de naissance et de développement de la nouvelle économie montre que le passage de l'économie industrielle à l'économie du savoir a été accompagné par des malentendus similaires à ceux qu'a soulevés l'avènement de l'industrie dans les sociétés agraires. Dans cet article, nous montrons qu'il faut bien distinguer la nouvelle économie, l'économie des services et l'économie du don. Nous évaluons la (...) pertinence des grandes théories économiques pour rendre compte de la nouvelle économie. En examinant les sources des revenus qu'elle peut fournir, nous montrons les dangers qu'une gestion imprudente et non orthodoxe risque d'engendrer. Le temps romantique des pionniers est révolu; la crise de croissance est dépassée. Il reste que la nouvelle économie offre à l'homme du nouveau millénaire l'occasion de se réinventer.Understand the underlying mechanisms of the "new economy" to increase his chances of winning the game A quick overview of the conditions of birth and development of the new economy shows the transition from the industrial economy to the knowledge economy has been accompanied by misunderstandings similar to those that were raised the advent of industry in agrarian societies. In this paper, we show that it is necessary to distinguish the new economy, the service economy and the gift economy. We evaluate the relevance of major economic theories to account for the new economy. In examining the sources of income it can provide, we show that the dangers reckless and unorthodox management may cause. Romantic time of the pioneers are gone, the growth crisis is exceeded. It remains that the new economy offers to man the new millennium opportunity to reinvent itself. (shrink)

In this article the author offers, on the one hand, a general view of the forms of collective action that have taken place in Spanish agriculture during the democratic transition and that have facilitated the development of the farmers' unions and workers' unions. On the other hand, he analyses the problems that these organizations have had in trying to consolidate themselves in a context characterized by the presence of institutional remains of the old Franco-ist agrarian corporatism. Finally he (...) analyses the role played by these organizations in the creation and implementation of Spanish agricultural policy as well as the changes that are taking place after the admission of Spain to the EEC. (shrink)

In 2016, summarily outlawing all chemical inputs, the Indian state of Sikkim transitioned to completely organic agriculture. Despite “organic discontents” of farmers and citizens about autocratic implementation, lowered yields, and unsatisfactory prices, “Sikkim Organic” enjoys global accolades and local compliance. The paradox of alternative agriculture in the Global South is that it is often promoted by the same state-science-capital hegemonic formation that pushed the conventional paradigm. How has the Sikkimese state negotiated this paradox and continued to claim success, when other (...) radical state-led organic transformations have failed? Recent scholarship advocates for contextual definitions of organic success, beyond the parameters of yield and profit. They examine the socio-political concerns of farmers, middlemen and consumers that shape their engagement with the phenomenon. This lens is seldom applied to the state. Drawing on ethnographic conversations with farmers, local consumers, state officials and discourse analysis of governmental literature and speeches, this article analyzes the Sikkimese state’s efforts at consolidating its hegemony as a process of political brand-building. Highlighting the cultural aspects of policy implementation, it analyzes the affective resonances about traditional agrarian practices and about the morality of organic markets that the state discursively creates to support its organic regime. This extends the critique of the state beyond the focus on governmentality and neoliberalization through state-led certification/standardization. The article neither absolves the state of its failures nor dismisses the potential of progressive organic policies. It shows the significance of contextual cultural-political framings in determining outcomes of large-scale experiments towards sustainable agrarian futures. (shrink)

The problematics of civilization development and the place of human being in it is a significant area of research, which is additionally actualized nowadays in the conditions of the outlined transition to a new stage - the civilization of cognitive technologies. According to the assessment proposed in the article, three stages of civilization development should be distinguished: agrarian, machine, and the civilization of cognitive technologies, which is currently being formed. It is characterized by the main need in the (...) form of artificial cognitive systems for intellectual control of machines for the production of material goods, and the result of satisfying this need is the replacement of human beings by artificial cognitive systems in the intellectual control of machines. The following several questions are key in the context of the mentioned problems: "What are the functions of human beings in the existence and development of civilization?", "Do these functions change?", "Are there inalienable ones among them?", "What can become the basis for the further development of civilization?". The functions of human beings within civilization are the generation of needs and work to satisfy them. Generation of needs is an inalienable function of human being in civilization, which determines the determining role of the evolution of needs in the development of civilization. The main role in the evolution of needs belongs to social mechanisms of compulsion (motivation) to consumption, which influence not only the satisfaction of social needs, but also stimulate excessive consumption of material goods and intellectual activity. Further development of civilization will preserve the position of human being as an initiator of this development only in case of successful implementation of social coercion mechanisms. The condition for this is social integration: preservation and expansion of ties between human beings, counteraction to the fragmentation of society. (shrink)

Animals in Brazil: Economic, Legal and Ethical Perspectives presents a broad overview of the complicated role of animals in Brazilian society. Its four substantive chapters survey the landscape of animal agriculture, animal protection laws, recent animal jurisprudence, and the underlying cultural factors that have shaped the Brazilian people's relationship with and treatment of animals. Despite the book's title, there is no chapter addressing economics. However, it represents the first book in English addressing the plight of animals in Brazil and makes (...) a marked contribution to animal ethics in Latin America. At its best, it is very good, and overall, the volume is a worthwhile addition to the bookshelf of anyone interested in Brazilian animal law.The introduction by the book's editor, Carlos Naconecy, does exactly what an introduction should do: it succinctly describes the content of the chapters to follow. My quibble is that while Naconecy has excellent English and expresses himself well, the essay badly needed the editorial scrutiny of a native English speaker. The succeeding chapters each begin with an abstract, a simple but useful aid to any scholar who might not be interested in all of the issues the book covers.Chapter 1, “Food Animals in Brazil: Five Decades of Transformation,” ably describes Brazil's progression from a primarily subsistence-based agrarian culture to its full-scale embrace of industrial agriculture with all of its incumbent horrors. In just 50 years, Brazil has gone from a net importer to the world's second-largest exporter.The story of the country's transition to confinement, meat-based agriculture is all too familiar. It wrought havoc on community and family ties and overwrote traditional dietary practices, leading to widespread obesity, disease, and nutrient deficiencies. It also made indifference toward agricultural animals a new national norm. The level of cruelty that is both legal and common in Brazilian industrial agriculture would strain credulity if it weren't so similar to those of so many other countries. Indeed, the authors’ discussion of the systemic animal mistreatment, devastating environmental consequences, and accompanying cultural erosion in Brazil could easily have been cut and pasted into a chapter surveying the last 50 years in the United States.The second chapter is the strongest in the collection. “The Legal Protection of Animals in Brazil: An Overview” summarizes the country's animal-legal framework and situates it within the context of Brazil's constitutional prohibition against animal cruelty. The authors explain why the constitution offers little practical protection. Under the prevailing view, only those acts undertaken for the purpose of causing needless suffering constitute cruelty. Since much animal cruelty is ostensibly done for other reasons (food, science, etc.), the cruelty prohibition does not reach the majority of offenses.The authors next construct a syllogistic argument that the current legal classification of animals as “things” rather than beings who are the subjects of rights is logically and ethically flawed. Since cruelty involves suffering, and objects cannot suffer, and since animals suffer (otherwise animal cruelty laws would be pointless), then animals must be subjects of the law. Phrased differently, animals must be rights-holders. This leads into a compelling argument that the constitution not only supports but requires such an interpretation.“Cases and Debates in the Brazilian Animal Rights Arena” does exactly what its title suggests. It looks at recent animal-related judicial developments and situates them within a broader cultural and legal context. For example, the Supreme Court recently held that the Vaquejada, a rodeo-like event involving chasing and tackling terrified cows, was unconstitutional.Immediately following the decision, the legislature amended the constitution to classify the Vaquejada as an important cultural activity and thus protected under a different constitutional provision. The courts are currently considering whether that constitutional amendment is itself unconstitutional. We are further told about movements against foie gras and vivisection and about recent developments regarding custody disputes over domestic animal companions.The final chapter, “Factors That Influence the Brazilian Ethos Regarding Animals” is a broad discussion of the ways Brazilian history and culture have impacted attitudes toward animals. It is argued that because Brazil was the last Western country to eliminate slavery, Brazilians are more prone to treat animals like property and that the Brazilian temperament makes them more likely to be passionate than pragmatic. We also learn that a cultural reluctance to protest against social wrongs enables Brazilians to remain silent in the face of animal injustice and that the country's Catholic tradition instilled the idea that only people were made in the image of God and that animals therefore matter less. These observations strike me as overbroad and problematic. For example, millions of Brazilians have spent much of the past decade protesting government corruption, and the country has an impassioned animal advocacy movement. Furthermore, it is not clear that Brazilians necessarily treat animals differently than people from other countries with very different histories.Overall, Animals in Brazil begins the work of new scholarship in English on animals in the Brazilian context. The fact that some chapters are more informative and useful than others is an inevitable by-product of an edited volume and should not deter those interested in Brazilian animal law from reading it. The excellence of the first two chapters alone makes the book worthwhile. (shrink)

Many historians and philosophers emphasize the great importance of periodization for the study of history. There is no doubt that periodization is a rather effective method of data ordering and analysis, though it deals with exceptionally complex types of processual and temporal phenomena. For any periodization its basis is a very important point. One can choose different bases for periodization if he constantly uses the same criteria. According to the theory that we propose, the historical process can be subdivided more (...) effectively into four major stages. The transition from any of these stages into another one is the change of all basic characteristics of the respective stage. As the starting point of such a change we propose the production principle that describes the major qualitative stages of the development of the world productive forces. We single out four principles of production: Hunter-Gatherer; Craft-Agrarian; Industrial; and Information-Scientific. As an additional basis of our periodization, by means of which the chronology of the beginning of each respective stage may be worked out, we propose the threeproduction revolutions: the Agrarian or Neolithic Revolution; the Industrial Revolution; and the Information-Scientific Revolution. There are many traditional discussions in philosophy of history that have dealt with issues having to do with the relevance and suitability of the use of broadly psychoanalytic concepts in history (Certeau, 1995; Mudrovcic, 2003). In these discussions some have noted a number of very abstract connections between the concepts and techniques of historiography and those of psychoanalysis. In this text, however, I want to focus on a potential, more concrete point of contact considered only relatively recently: the analysis and treatment of historical testimonies by witnesses of “traumatic events”. (shrink)

The article analyzes the technological shifts which took place in the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries and forecasts the main shifts in the next half a century. On the basis of the analysis of the latest achievements in inno-vative technological directions and also on the basis of the opportunities pro-vided by the theory of production revolutions the authors present a detailed analysis of the latest production revolution which is denoted as ‘Сybernetic’. The authors give some forecasts (...) about its development in the nearest five decades and up to the end of the 21st century. It is shown that the development of various self-regulating systems will be the main trend of this revolution. The authors argue that at first the transition to the beginning of the final phase of the Cybernetic Revolution will start in the field of medicine (in its some innovative directions). In future we will deal with the start of convergence of innovative technologies which will form the system of MBNRIC-technologies (i.e. the technological paradigm based on medicine, bio- and nanotechnologies, robotics, IT and cognitive technologies). The article gives a detailed analysis of the future breakthroughs in medicine, bio- and nanotechnologies as well as some other technologies in terms of the development of self-regulating systems with their growing ability to select optimum modes of functioning as well as of other characteristics of the Cybernetic Revolution (resources and energy saving, miniaturization, individualization, etc.). (shrink)

The transition economy of Vietnam enjoyed remarkable achievements in the first 20 years of economic renovation (Doi Moi) from 1986 to 2006. Notably, the economy grew at an average annual rate of 7.5% in 1991-2000 period. Vietnam’s Amended Constitution 1992 recognized the role of private sector in the economy. U.S.-Vietnam Trade Bilateral Agreement (US-BTA) was signed in 2001. The country's stock market made debut trading in 2000. Vietnam became a member of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1995, (...) then proceeded to full membership of the World Trade Organization in 2007, following which registered foreign direct investment (FDI) reached an all-time high of US$71.7 billion in 2008. Together with the impressive economic achievements, Vietnam also saw its diplomatic and political status constantly improved in the international arena. The country has established diplomatic relations with more than 170 countries in the world, strategic partnerships with 12 important economies, both developed and emerging, namely China, Japan, Russia, India, England, France, North Korea, Italy, Germany, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. The country also successfully hosted important events including the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in 2006. (shrink)

The ideas of continental philosopher Martin Heidegger have been influential in cognitive science and artificial intelligence, despite the fact that there has been no effort to analyze these ideas empirically. The experiments reported here are designed to lend empirical support to Heidegger’s phenomenology and more specifically his description of the transition between ready-to-hand and unready-to-hand modes in interactions with tools. In experiment 1, we found that a smoothly coping cognitive system exhibits 1/fβ type positively correlated noise and that its (...) correlated character is reduced when the system is perturbed. This indicates that the participant and tool constitute a self-assembled, extended device during smooth coping and this device is disrupted by the perturbation. In experiment 2, we examine the re-organization of awareness that occurs when a smoothly coping, self-assembled, extended cognitive system is perturbed. We found that the disruption is accompanied by a change in attention which interferes with participants’ performance on a simultaneous cognitive task. Together these experiments show that a smoothly coping participant-tool system can be temporarily disrupted and that this disruption causes a change in the participant’s awareness. Since these two events follow as predictions from Heidegger’s work, our study offers evidence for the hypothesized transition from readiness-to-hand to unreadiness-to-hand. (shrink)

Historically, there has been little agreement between advocates of radical financial reform and socialist theoreticians. However, in the new circumstances of the twenty-first century, a productive synthesis of these two traditions might be possible. Drawing on the franchise model of credit creation elaborated by Robert C. Hockett and the dysfunctions created by the extreme concentration of private financial institutions, this article outlines a reform agenda that would both democratize finance and facilitate the flow of funds into valuable forms of investment (...) that are currently starved for resources. If the new institutions envisioned in this proposal were able to take root and expand, they could ultimately facilitate a transition to socialism, defined as the subordination of the market to democratic politics. (shrink)

Offers a detailed exposition of Wittgenstein's philosophy as a continuous engagement with a single set of problems. The author argues that the key to understanding the transition in Wittgenstein's thought is his 1929 essay ""Some Remarks on Logical Form"" which is reprinted in this book.

Global climate change threatens the health, economic prospects, and basic food and water sources of people. A wide range of changes in household energy behaviour is needed to realise a sustainable energy transition. We propose a general framework to understand and encourage sustainable energy behaviours, comprising four key issues. First, we need to identify which behaviours need to be changed. A sustainable energy transition involves changes in a wide range of energy behaviours, including the adoption of sustainable energy (...) sources and energy-efficient technology, investments in energy efficiency measures in buildings, and changes in direct and indirect energy use behaviour. Second, we need to understand which factors underlie these different types of sustainable energy behaviours. We discuss three main factors that influence sustainable energy behaviours: knowledge, motivations, and contextual factors. Third, we need to test the effects of interventions aimed to promote sustainable energy behaviours. Interventions can be aimed at changing the actual costs and benefits of behaviour, or at changing people’s perceptions and evaluations of different costs and benefits of behavioural options. Fourth, it is important to understand which factors affect the acceptability of energy policies and energy systems changes. We discuss important findings from psychological studies on these four topics, and propose a research agenda to further explore these topics. We emphasise the need of an integrated approach in studying the human dimensions of a sustainable energy transition that increases our understanding of which general factors affect a wide range of energy behaviours as well as the acceptability of different energy policies and energy system changes. (shrink)

: Two major philosophers of the twentieth century, the German existential phenomenologist Martin Heidegger and the seminal Japanese Kyoto School philosopher Nishida Kitarō are examined here in an attempt to discern to what extent their ideas may converge. Both are viewed as expressing, each through the lens of his own tradition, a world in transition with the rise of modernity in the West and its subsequent globalization. The popularity of Heidegger's thought among Japanese philosophers, despite its own admitted limitation (...) to the Western "history of being," is connected to Nishida's opening of a uniquely Japanese path in its confrontation with Western philosophy. The focus is primarily on their later works (the post-Kehre Heidegger and the works of Nishida that have been designated "Nishida philosophy"), in which each in his own way attempts to overcome the subject-object dichotomy inherited from the tradition of Western metaphysics by looking to a deeper structure from out of which both subjectivity and objectivity are derived and which embraces both. For Heidegger, the answer lies in being as the opening of unconcealment, from out of which beings emerge, and for Nishida, it is the place of nothingness within which beings are co-determined in their oppositions and relations. Concepts such as Nishida's "discontinuous continuity," "absolutely self-contradictory identity" (between one and many, whole and part, world and things), the mutual interdependence of individuals, and the self-determination of the world through the co-relative self-determination of individuals, and Heidegger's "simultaneity" (zugleich) and "within one another" (ineinander) (of unconcealment and concealment, presencing and absencing), and their "between" (Zwischen) and "jointure" (Fuge) are examined. Through a discussion of these ideas, the suggestion is made of a possible "transition" (Übergang) of both Western and Eastern thinking, in their mutual encounter, both in relation to each other and each in relation to its own past history, leading to both a self-discovery in the other and to a simultaneous self-reconstitution. (shrink)

This paper examines Kant’s treatment of the design argument for the existence of God, or physicotheology. It criticizes the interpretation that, for Kant, the assumption of intelligent design satisfies an internal demand of inquiry. It argues that Kant’s positive appraisal of physicotheology is instead better understood on account of its polemical utility for rebutting objections to practical belief in God upon which Kant’s ethicotheological argument rests, and thus as an instrument in the transition from theoretical to practical philosophy. Kantian (...) physicotheology plays this role a) by criticizing alternative speculative accounts of the ground of nature, and b) by analogizing from the structure of finite rational agency in order to represent more clearly the action of an ideal agent. (shrink)

This study investigated students’ perceptions of ethical organizational climates, attitudes towards ethical issues, and the perceived relationship between ethical behavior and success in business organizations. Comparisons were made between the attitudes of these future managers with previously published studies of Russian managers’ attitudes. A survey of 100 business students in three Moscow universities showed that their attitudes toward ethical behavior were more negative than those of Russian managers. No significant differences were found in the perceptions or attitudes of students who (...) had attended an ethics course and those that did not. The implications for both managers and researchers were reported. (shrink)

Problem Statement. The process of global evolution has entered the Anthropocene. This fact has almost simultaneously generated two cardinal, inseparable imperatives in the rapidly changing ideological and outlook basis of modern civilization. Firstly, the feeling that the new geological epoch also requires fundamentally new algorithms guiding practical activity and its theoretical comprehension, justification in all spheres of political reality, with inevitable exit to the level of international relations and geopolitics. Secondly, the content of the categories of ANTHROPOCEN and (GLOBAL) CRISIS (...) overlap so diversely and widely that they form an almost inseparable logically and mentally amalgam. The purpose of this publication is to reveal the political aspects of the integration of new biopolitical issues into the life of modern society. The content of the term biopolitics is currently not formalized in a definitive form. In our concept, biopolitics is defined as the processes of implementing biopower, that is, the ability (direct or indirect) of the power structures of society to control and manipulate the performance of the biological functions of certain individuals. Based on a combination of methods of conceptual, discursive and evolutionary-anthropological analysis (the concepts of evolutionary strategy and cultural-ecological niche), possible scenarios for the future development of the political process at the domestic and international levels are identified. The mechanism of transbipolitical transition – the inclusion of civilizational and biological evolution in the political process – is investigated. The conclusion formulates the content of the category “transbiolitics” as the main element of rationalization of the global-evolutionary process in the globalizing world. Transbiolitics in our understanding is an international political problematic related to the rationalization of the global evolutionary process. Technologization of the global evolutionary process, the choice of implemented technological projects and forms of their institutional support is determined primarily by geo- and biopolitical motivation of local elites and humanitarian and other convergent technologies available to them. (shrink)

The majority of studies of post-communism – habitually grouped under the heading of 'transitology' – understand the transition ultimately as a political and cultural convergence of the ex-communist societies with Western Europe. Even those critical approaches that regard the post-communist transition as a relatively unique phenomenon (as in the approaches of path dependency and neo-classical sociology) tend to conflate normative prescriptions with empirical descriptions and to move within an overall framework of what Michael Kennedy has aptly called ' (...) class='Hi'>transition culture'. This article argues instead that the transition's nature can only be fully grasped if a case-specific and historical-contextual approach is taken. In theoretical terms, a three-step movement to grasp diversity in Central and Eastern Europe is proposed: (1) the acknowledgement of the plurality of modernizing agency and its creativity; (2) the acknowledgement of multi-interpretability and difference as primary elements of modernity; and (3) a sensitivity to the resulting institutional variety in societal constellations. In substantive terms, it is argued that diversity is a distinctive mark of Europe that is bound to persist in an enlarged Europe, despite the spirit of assimilation in the accession process. (shrink)

Individuals who show anger are rated as higher in dominance and lower in affiliation, whereas those who express sadness are rated lower in dominance and higher in affiliation. Little is known about situations where people show both expressions in sequence as happens when a first emotional reaction is followed by a second, different one. This question was examined in two studies. Overall, we found that the last emotion shown had a strong impact on perceived behavioural intentions. However, the information about (...) the previously shown emotion was also integrated. The specific mode of integration was dependent on the salience of the change and naive theories about the type of person who changes their emotion in the face of changing events. (shrink)

Highlights: -/- • Breastfeeding and breastfeeding support can contribute to mitigating climate change. • Achieving global nutrition targets will save more emissions than fuel-switching. • Breastfeeding support programmes support a just transition. • This work can support the expansion of mitigation options in energy system models. -/- Abstract: -/- Renewable gas has been proposed as a solution to decarbonise industrial processes, specifically heat demand. As part of this effort, the breast-milk substitutes industry is proposing to use renewable gas as (...) a substitute for fossil natural gas. However, decarbonising the industrial processing of breast-milk substitutes can increase social license for these products, potentially undermining breastfeeding. World Health Organisation nutrition targets aim to increase exclusive breastfeeding to at least 50% globally by 2025 to improve maternal, infant, and young child health and nutrition. This target will have implications for the energy transition. A weakness of existing energy models is that demands for end-use products such as breast-milk substitutes are typically not considered explicitly. This paper develops an analytical framework for explicitly representing infant feeding methods in energy systems models. We compare the emissions saved in Ireland from decarbonising the industrial processing of breast-milk substitutes with renewable gas with the emissions saved by an increase in exclusive breastfeeding to 50% in both Ireland and a key export market, China. We demonstrate that the emissions saved from achieving the minimum global breastfeeding target are greater than when renewable gas is used to displace natural gas in the production of breast-milk substitutes in Ireland. We discuss the decarbonisation of breast-milk substitutes in relation to the principle of justice as non-maleficence, a principle based on the commitment to avoid harm, a novel application of a principle of justice. We conclude that breastfeeding support can be considered a demand-side measure for mitigating climate change by reducing the demand for energy services to produce breast-milk substitutes. A key recommendation is to position breastfeeding support as both a public health and a climate justice issue that is relevant for a just transition. The framework developed for this paper could be applied to support the inclusion of a wider range of mitigation options with social justice outcomes in energy system models. [Open access]. (shrink)

In a 1798 letter to Christian Garve, Kant claims that without a transition [Übergang] from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics there will be a ‘gap’ in the Critical philosophy. He does not make clear, however, exactly what this gap is or how the transition is supposed to fill the gap. The Übergang section of Kant's Opus postumum has received considerable attention of late due to the many drafts it contains of Kant's Ether Deduction. Commentators have (...) also hoped to find a solution there to the gap problem. Little attention has been paid, however, to Kant's project in Convolut 10 of the OP which he began in August 1799 immediately after completing the Übergang section. Assuming that the Ether Deduction is sound and proves a priori the existence of a transcendental material condition for experience, Convolut 10 discusses what changes would have to be made to the transcendental formal conditions of experience in their empirical function given the addition of this transcendental material condition. Kant claims in Convolut 10 that these changes are necessary to finally effect a transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics and, as I will argue, such a transition will be tantamount to bridging the gap in the Critical philosophy mentioned in the letter to Garve. (shrink)

Une réflexion sur les modalités d’accompagnement des femmes primipares est abordée ici à partir de la perception qu’elles ont du soutien social fourni par leur environnement privé et professionnel. L’étude a porté sur 62 femmes primipares rencontrées au 8e mois de grossesse, un mois et trois mois après l’accouchement. Il s’avère qu’elles comptent essentiellement sur la sphère privée, notamment leur conjoint, et que les professionnels occupent une place importante lors du prénatal pour un soutien essentiellement de type informatif. La conclusion (...) porte sur la question de la réhabilitation de la place des intimes lors de cette transition vers la maternité. (shrink)