Documents social theory 30 results

"This article suggests conceptualising trust as a generalised symbolic medium of communication. It is argued that in business relationships trust appears intertwined with other media, such as power or money. Furthermore, it is shown that typical combinations of trust, power and money are dominant in different business systems (liberal vs coordinated market economies). The overarching aim of this article is to demonstrate that trust is a fundamental concept of social theory and that the theory of generalised symbolic media of communication provides a useful conceptual perspective to integrate trust into social theory."

"Son camp, Jean Ziegler l'a choisi depuis longtemps. Son engagement est même l'oeuvre de toute une vie. A l'université de Genève d'abord, où il a formé des générations de sociologues à la pensée critique. A l'ONU ensuite, où il a travaillé sans relâche à l'éradication de la faim au nom de la dignité des peuples. Dans ses livres enfin, par lesquels il n'a cessé de dénoncer les mécanismes d'assujettissement des peuples du monde. A partir de ses expériences de terrain et de son travail critique, Jean Ziegler a constitué le trésor de guerre que voici, présenté dans une édition entièrement refondue, plus de trente ans après la première. Comment penser le monde et le transformer ? Quels sont les outils analytiques à notre disposition pour y parvenir ? Choisir son camp, oui. Parce qu'il est grand temps de retourner les fusils."

"The article discusses key issues in international business strategy from a workers' perspective and relates these to existing frameworks for understanding decision-making in multinational corporations (MNCs). It begins by identifying key decisions in international business, discussing their interrelationships, and highlighting key empirical trends. Academic research in international business strategy can, it is pointed out, helpfully inform worker representatives and trade unions in the context of their work within MNCs in Europe. The article goes on to review existing frameworks for understanding how MNCs make decisions about the major strategic issues. Its focus is on five types of approaches: the resource-based perspective on the firm; transaction cost economics; institutionalism; the network approach; and the actor-centred perspectives. It is argued that research on MNC strategies, insofar as it is aimed at informing trade unions and worker representatives and at evaluating the impact of their activities, should be based on frameworks that bring together these disparate paradigms."

"Capital has managed to overcome the dualism of body and soul by establishing a workforce in which everything we mean by the Soul—language, creativity, affects—is mobilized for its own benefit. Industrial production put to work bodies, muscles, and arms. Now, in the sphere of digital technology and cyberculture, exploitation involves the mind, language, and emotions in order to generate value—while our bodies disappear in front of our computer screens.

In this, his newest book, Franco "Bifo" Berardi—key member of the Italian Autonomist movement and a close associate of Félix Guattari—addresses these new forms of estrangement. In the philosophical landscape of the 1960s and 1970s, the Hegelian concept of alienation was used to define the harnessing of subjectivity. The estrangement of workers from their labor, the feeling of alienation they experienced, and their refusal to submit to it became the bases for a human community that remained autonomous from capital. But today a new condition of alienation has taken root in which workers commonly and voluntarily work overtime, the population is tethered to cell phones and Blackberries, debt has become a postmodern form of slavery, and antidepressants are commonly used to meet the unending pressure of production. As a result, the conditions for community have run aground and new philosophical categories are needed. The Soul at Work is a clarion call for a new collective effort to reclaim happiness."

"This paper tests the impact of various determinants of the preference for two key elements of the European social models: redistribution and trade unions, using individual data from the first round of the European Social Survey. The basic hypothesis is that the main determinant of an individual's support for these elements of the European models is the social position of the individual in terms of income, status and risks attached to their labour market insertion. The paper also considers the relative importance of less ‘materialist' influences such as religion or other cultural determinants. The estimations show that ‘materialist' determinants are by far the most important influences on individual preferences, contrary to what most social theories of modernisation contend."

"Jamais le monde n'a paru si totalement unifié (par les communications, le commerce, la culture) et aussi sauvagement déchiré (par la guerre, la crise financière, le réchauffement de la planète, la diffusion de pandémies). Quels que soient nos efforts intellectuels face aux défis d'une mondialisation accélérée, nous ne sommes pas à la hauteur : l'espèce humaine semble incapable de concentrer vraiment ses ressources mentales collectives pour « penser globalement et agir localement ». Dans son livre le plus ambitieux à ce jour, le célèbre penseur critique Jeremy Rifkin montre que cette déconnexion entre notre vision pour la planète et notre aptitude à la concrétiser s'explique par l'état actuel de la conscience humaine. Nos cerveaux, nos structures mentales, nous prédisposent à une façon de ressentir, de penser et d'agir dans le monde qui n'est plus entièrement adaptée aux nouveaux contextes que nous nous sommes créés. L'environnement produit par l'homme se mue à vive allure en espace planétaire, mais nos états de conscience sont encore agencés aux ères précédentes de l'histoire, qui s'évanouissent tout aussi rapidement. L'humanité, soutient Rifkin, se trouve à l'aube de sa plus grande expérience de tous les temps: remodeler sa conscience pour que les humains puissent s'aider mutuellement à vivre et à prospérer dans leur nouvelle société mondiale… A l'heure où les forces de la mondialisation s'accélèrent, s'approfondissent et se complexifient, tout indique que les anciennes formes de conscience religieuses ou rationalistes, soumises à trop forte pression, deviennent dépassées et même dangereuses dans leurs efforts pour piloter un monde qui leur échappe de plus en plus. L'émergence de la conscience empathique sera probablement un changement d'avenir aussi gigantesque et profond que lorsque les philosophes des Lumières ont renversé la conscience fondée sur la foi par le canon de la raison. "

"The contract of employment has, for quite some time, been categorised in academic circles as a relational contract. In recent years, some members of the judiciary have also adopted this categorisation. This article seeks to explore whether such a depiction helps our understanding of the contract of employment and in particular how it might evolve. The literature on relational contract theory is very considerable. This article focuses on the writings of Ian Macneil. The view is taken that regarding such theoretical writings as prescriptive is problematic. This is because Macneil is unable to give full weight to imbalances of power in contractual relationships, and this makes his relational theory inadequate to the central feature of the employment contract, which is, precisely, a power imbalance which makes it difficult to accept that the ‘is' should become the ‘ought'."

"Few would dispute that we live in an unequal and unjust world, but what causes this inequality to persist? Leading social commentator and academic Danny Dorling claims in this timely book that, as the five social evils identified by Beveridge are gradually being eradicated, they are being replaced by five new tenets of injustice, viz: elitism is efficient; exclusion is necessary; prejudice is natural; greed is good; and despair is inevitable. In an informal yet authoritative style, Dorling examines who is most harmed by these injustices and why, and what happens to those who most benefit. Hard-hitting and uncompromising in its call to action, this is essential reading for everyone concerned with social justice. "