Political Economy Quarterly
Online ISSN : 2189-7719
Print ISSN : 1882-5184
ISSN-L : 1882-5184
Volume 49, Issue 4
Displaying 1-19 of 19 articles from this issue
  • Article type: Cover
    2013 Volume 49 Issue 4 Pages Cover1-
    Published: January 20, 2013
    Released on J-STAGE: April 25, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • ヒロノリ トオヤマ
    Article type: Article
    2013 Volume 49 Issue 4 Pages 3-5
    Published: January 20, 2013
    Released on J-STAGE: April 25, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • Hideo OKAMOTO
    Article type: Article
    2013 Volume 49 Issue 4 Pages 6-21
    Published: January 20, 2013
    Released on J-STAGE: April 25, 2017
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    Immediately after the crisis of 2007-9 resulted from a financial bubble, it appeared as if policymakers had learned the lessons of the great depression in the 1930s. Not only were interest rates cut rapidly, but when they hit zero then expansionary fiscal policy packages were undertaken in a number of countries. However, everything changed quite dramatically in 2010. The near-default of Greece, with contagion gradually spreading in the eurozone, led policymakers around the world to switch from fiscal stimulus to fiscal austerity. To all the world it looks like government debt is the overwhelming problem, dwarfing concerns about a weak recovery. UK is a typical country which changed dramatically economic policy in 2010. Chancellor George Osborne of the new coalition government played the leading role in making plan of fiscal austerity. When George Osborne unveiled his deficit-reduction plan in June 2010, he claimed not only that it would reduce government borrowing, but it would increase growth. An adherent of the theory of "expansionary fiscal contraction", Osborne assumed confidence would rise as borrowing fell and that a bloated public sector was crowding out private spending. But Osborne's policies, rather than stimulating growth, have strangled it. The point is this: if both the government and private sector are trying to increase their saving at the same time, you don't just liquidate the bad investments, you kill the economy as well, by reducing national income until everyone is too poor to save. The truth is that the policy of all-round cutting down increase the problem of indebtedness. Growth, not debt reduction, should be the chief aim of economic policy today. Cuts to social security were also at the heart of the Government's fiscal austerity. While the Coalition was keen to emphasize that "we are all in it together", the reality is that the combination of welfare reform and the spending cut will fall hardest on those that have least. Welfare regime of UK produces a lot of young people without job every day. The archbishop of Canterbury has warned that England risks a repeat of the riots across England during summer of 2011 unless the government and civil society do more to rescue those young people think they have nothing to lose. Welfare state regime of UK is still very fragile.
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  • Takeshi SHINODA
    Article type: Article
    2013 Volume 49 Issue 4 Pages 22-31
    Published: January 20, 2013
    Released on J-STAGE: April 25, 2017
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    Globalization is proceeding under the impact of prevailing neo-liberalism on many countries. Intellectuals of globalization proclaim the victory of the Anglo-Saxon model that is characterized by the purest market-centered economy and society, and insist convergence of capitalism with its model. The theory of varieties of capitalism, however, is now popular against such the convergence theory. For example, Bresser-Pereira identifies five forms of capitalism developing the path-dependency theory and the institutional theory. This theory classifies the type of capitalism by the differentials of institutions among each country like commodity market, capital-labour relations, social protection, education/training, inter-firm relations and financial system. This paper aims to draw down features of Swedish capitalism agreeing with his insistence of varieties of capitalism. And in this paper, I emphasize especially that the institutions that construct Swedish capitalism which is characterized as the universal type of welfare state have been designed by the strong influence of discussion on norm, values and social goals. The institutions have not made up eventually under the pragmatic adjustment to the risk of economy and society, but they are expression of norm and so forth. Norm on how society should be organized has made up the institutions that featured Swedish capitalism. This paper is also based on the normative theory. The Sweden is known as the high rank of welfare state. And it is the social goal of folkhem; which means all the people share freedom and equality like a family, that has created the institutions to provide the well-being situation to the people. Corporative system of capital-labour relations and in policy-making process, the positive intervention of state in social protection, labour market policy and so forth are institutional characteristics in Sweden. Sweden enjoyed the golden age under thus norm and the institutions called the Swedish model. But in late 70s the Swedish model fell into the crisis, and in 80s and 90s neoliberalism that was represented by SAF(employer's association)and Moderates(conservative party) began to give an influence on the debate on a new norm and policies corresponding to the Fordist crisis. Neo-liberalist insists individualism characterized by freedom of choice, self-responsibility and criticism of dependency syndrome on welfare against the social democratic idea and policies as the above that trade unions and SAP (social democratic party) led during the golden age. However, SAP has also been looked for a new way corresponding to a new situation. While its new model seeks an accommodation with a more individual society in the traditional welfare model reform, it emphasizes limits for freedom of the market on which neo-liberalism puts the key of its insistence. Its change depends on a new concept of freedom and equality that means to be able to choose a future of one's own freely and equally under the support of society, that is, possibilities of choice . 2 types of norm, values and social goals have been discussing and fighting in Sweden. Such a debate results in producing the new institutions to realize to new social goals, and creates a type of capitalism different to other countries. This paper puts on a focus on the historical debate on norm and social goals that characterizes the type of Swedish capitalism from the viewpoint of varieties of capitalism theory and normative theory. And our conclusion is that Sweden is now in process of creating a new Swedish model.
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  • Fumitaka WAKAMORI
    Article type: Article
    2013 Volume 49 Issue 4 Pages 32-42
    Published: January 20, 2013
    Released on J-STAGE: April 25, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Flexicurity can be defined as an employment strategy to enhance flexibility and security in labour market. The current European economic crisis, triggered by American financial crisis, has been putting on a stress test to flexicurity-policy itself. There seems to be five types of flexicurityclusters: Nordic cluster (Sweden, Finland, Denmark), Continental cluster (Germany, France), Southern cluster (Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece), Anglo-Saxon cluster (UK, Ireland), and Eastern cluster (Poland, Hungary, Rumania). Among different clusters, the Southern cluster, Anglo-Saxon cluster and Eastern cluster have been damaged so much. And it is remarkable that the Continental cluster has been less damaged than the Nordic cluster in the crisis. Nordic cluster is still keeping the lowest unemployment rate. However, the gap between the Continental and the Nordic countries becomes narrower during the crisis. The European Commission has valuated the Danish flexicurity and promoted it as a proto-type of flexicurity model in Europe. However it becomes clear that Danish flexicurity has not been working well and can not re-organize labour market and adjust it to the current crisis. Being in contrast, German flexicurity is re-evaluated because of the slightest increase of its unemployment rate. While the Danish flexicurity has been focusing on free hiring and firing, generous social protection and active labour market policies, German flexicurity combines employment protections with subsidized internal adjustments. The Danish model as the prototype of flexicurity, promoted by the European Commission, does not pass the test imposed by the crisis and loose its momentum. This implies that the flexicuritypolicy requires more-profound revision. A central question is whether flexicurity remains a useful strategy or not. One of the alternatives to flexicurity is the concept of "transitional labour market". The transitional labour market approach affirms "protected transition" in labour market.
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  • Naoki FUKUZAWA
    Article type: Article
    2013 Volume 49 Issue 4 Pages 43-53
    Published: January 20, 2013
    Released on J-STAGE: April 25, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The Federal Republic of Germany is regarded as a welfare stat (e in the local phrase "Sozialstaat",[so to say "social state"]) with high rate of social benefits to the GDP after the World War II. With the concept "social market economy" they have accepted the public intervention to the economy in order to enforce the market mechanism, which has led to unexpectedly high level of the social benefi ts as a result. Recently, however, in the worldwide recession and the competitive pressure from an expanding global economy the additional labor costs beside the wage in a welfare state are regarded as so heavy burden that the policy orientating the cut off of the welfare costs like the "Agenda 2010" was pursued even under the administration of the left government. Thus it is to question whether the welfare and the rational handling of the economy is really incompatible, wherefore the nature of the "Sozialstaat" should be discussed in the historical perspective. In the FRG the people from the conservative to the reformists have agreed with the socially conceived state in bringing together to a vague concept "social" under the hidden immanent variety of its understanding, but in keeping the principle of the free market economy at the same time. However, the country had to remain in an unexpected provisioning state till the mid-50s because of urgent problems as a consequence of the War, even under the administration of the conservative coalition which wanted actually to carry out market-compliant policy. The confusion of the benefit systems, however, had to be gotten together, what was partly realized in the reconstruction of the economic performance. The Pension Reform in 1957 was one of the most significant cases with which the pension was now adapted to the actual wage level dynamically. It means a social benefit has been realized which kept the standard of life of the recipient in substituting the former wage. Thus the scale of social benefits has expanded, during the system maintained the social disparities substantially. This successful transition brought and confirmed the trend of German social policy in the 1960s to meet the social demand favorably in spite of the slow down of the high economic growth till that time. In order to fulfill the growing social demand the systematic redistribution was ineluctably organized, what has continued also in the 70s and 80s even after the oil shock and in the persisting depression. The economic crisis caused financial embarrassments of the fund for welfare systems (with reduced tax revenue and reduced contribution of the Social Insurance), for which reason various propositions for the cutback in expenditure were taken into consideration. In fact some measures were taken which reduced the level and coverage of the benefits in existing welfare systems. But the consensus to be "social" hindered the essential dismantlement of the system. The critical economic environment since the late 1990s has enhanced, indeed, the awareness of the need of reforms. Thus the bundle of countermeasures like the "Agenda 2010" was carried out under the administration of social democrats, which provoked a sensation and seemingly disposed the social discordance. It has become a moot point whether the consensus for the "Sozialstaat" still exists. But the socially conceived management of the market economy itself has not disappeared, which was not inevitably coherent with the equality. The social intervention has been working for the smooth function of the free market and made social capitalism possible, which has allowed eventually the high level of social benefits. Therefore it seems to be still disputable that the consensus to be "social" has already dissolved.
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  • Kei EHARA
    Article type: Article
    2013 Volume 49 Issue 4 Pages 54-66
    Published: January 20, 2013
    Released on J-STAGE: April 25, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Karl Marx once emphasised continuous fluctuation and dispersion observed in market as the characteristic of the capitalist mode of production, stating "[t] he possibility, therefore, of a quantitative incongruity between price and magnitude of value, i.e. the possibility that the price may diverge from the magnitude of value, is inherent in the price-form itself. This is not a defect, but, on the contrary, it makes this form the adequate one for a mode of production whose laws can only assert themselves as blindly operating averages between constant irregularities" (Capital, Vol.1, Penguin Classics, p.196). While this recognition was to reassert itself in the description of the social division of labour and be put as "the anarchy of commodity producing society" in Rudolf Hilferding's Finance Capital, their causes and functions within market itself, distinguished from relations of production, were investigated further by some Japanese Marxian economists such as Kozo Uno and his followers. Their theoretical analyses of the irregularities of market were, however, generally restricted to the level of Capital Vol.1 and all they have achieved beyond it is the application of them to the situation where we have plural conditions to produce one kind of commodity, which is discussed as the theory of market value in chapter 10 of Capital Vol.3. In this paper, we attempt to examine the feature of market taking into consideration how capitalists estimate the profitability of condition of production so that we are able to understand the irregularities of capitalist market with plural conditions of production more fundamentally. In order to analyse the profitability of conditions of production, we avail ourselves of price equations, shown as simultaneous equations representing production of two kinds of commodities. The solution can be regarded as formulated profitability. Then, firstly, the case that has two conditions of production in a certain industry is discussed. Here, there are two production prices that can be obtained as solutions owing to plurality of technology, hence two ways to evaluate profitability. However, we conclude that it does not matter which one of the production prices is used for evaluation. This proposition does not hold if we consider the second case where there are two conditions of production in each industry so that four production prices can exist. In other words, when we need to evaluate conditions of production using these four production prices, the order of profitability may depend on the standard of evaluation. Simple transformations of equations are employed to identify the precondition of this reversal in the order. This formulated evaluation of profitability examined above should be reconsidered as an estimating process conducted by individual capitalists. The investment process carried out by capitalists has been often taken to be "the incessant equilibration of the continual differences". This fluctuation occurs because of the uncertainty of market, but provided we are to persist in this point, it is careless of individual industrial capitalists to advance fixed capital merely on account of temporary market circumstances. They should contrive to select a condition of production, which is embodied in fixed capital. Thus fixed capital allocation is affected by the profitability of conditions of production as well as by the inherent irregularities of market. Because of this effect, two types of irregularities can be distinguished in capitalistic market according as the estimation of conditions of production varies.
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  • Hitoshi YASUDA
    Article type: Article
    2013 Volume 49 Issue 4 Pages 67-77
    Published: January 20, 2013
    Released on J-STAGE: April 25, 2017
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    This paper examines labour in consumption, focusing on domestic labour activities that are not replaced by private or public services. The validity of the following three points will be demonstrated. First, domestic labour can be characterized as non-quantitative non-productive labour as opposed to quantitative productive labour by distinguishing the two oft-confused notions of labour, namely productive labour and value formation labour. Second, relativization of the notion of productive labour enables us to define domestic labour as work closely linked to consumption, without reformulating the intrinsic definition of labour or distinguishing domestic labour from labour in general as 'non-work'. Third, labour in consumption, namely, nonproductive labour, should be characterized through its non-quantitativeness, self-purposiveness, and complementarity.
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  • Yoshifumi OZAWA
    Article type: Article
    2013 Volume 49 Issue 4 Pages 78-87
    Published: January 20, 2013
    Released on J-STAGE: April 25, 2017
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    The aim of this paper is to show John Stuart Mill's first prospect for the stationary state. The stationary state is one of the famous terms in political economy, which means a state of human society where the wealth of a nation does not increase nor decrease. It is well known that Mill celebrates it in his treatise Principles of Political Economy. Our conclusion is that Mill's first prospect for the stationary state is one which does not suppose a realization of this state. Previous studies offer an interpretation that Mill regards a practice of associations as a process of realizing the ideal stationary state. For the 3rd and subsequent editions of Mill's Principles, we maintain that this interpretation is appropriate. However, this is only true with regard to these editions. The construction of this paper is as follows: First, it is shown that whereas he considers a progressive state of national wealth the best option for the time being, Mill thinks that an ideal of human society is the kind of stationary state in which people have no intention of increasing wealth. From this, a question arises as to how this ideal stationary state can be realized. Then we compare the theory of associations in the 1st and 2nd editions of Mill's Principles with that in the 3rd and subsequent editions. We conclude that in former editions, a prospect that the ideal stationary state can be realized through a practice of associations is not proposed; Mill judges a practice of associations not to be realistic at present and scarcely refers to changes in society to which it will give occasion. As described above, a realization of the ideal is not proposed in the 1st and 2nd editions of Mill's Principles. However, we can seek, even in these editions, the meaning of the theory of the stationary state: to change attitudes of legislators. Based on this theory, Mill proposes to legislators that they ought to put the greatest importance not on the mere increase of production but on the improvement of distribution, "as the true desideratum."
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  • Hironori TOHYAMA
    Article type: Article
    2013 Volume 49 Issue 4 Pages 88-90
    Published: January 20, 2013
    Released on J-STAGE: April 25, 2017
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  • Tadasu MATSUO
    Article type: Article
    2013 Volume 49 Issue 4 Pages 91-93
    Published: January 20, 2013
    Released on J-STAGE: April 25, 2017
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  • Kunio HARADA
    Article type: Article
    2013 Volume 49 Issue 4 Pages 94-96
    Published: January 20, 2013
    Released on J-STAGE: April 25, 2017
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  • Shigeru KAKIZAKI
    Article type: Article
    2013 Volume 49 Issue 4 Pages 97-99
    Published: January 20, 2013
    Released on J-STAGE: April 25, 2017
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  • Nobuharu YOKOKAWA
    Article type: Article
    2013 Volume 49 Issue 4 Pages 100-102
    Published: January 20, 2013
    Released on J-STAGE: April 25, 2017
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  • Teruomi MIYAZAKI
    Article type: Article
    2013 Volume 49 Issue 4 Pages 103-105
    Published: January 20, 2013
    Released on J-STAGE: April 25, 2017
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  • Masato KOBAYASHI
    Article type: Article
    2013 Volume 49 Issue 4 Pages 106-108
    Published: January 20, 2013
    Released on J-STAGE: April 25, 2017
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  • Yoshiharu KAMIYAMA
    Article type: Article
    2013 Volume 49 Issue 4 Pages 109-111
    Published: January 20, 2013
    Released on J-STAGE: April 25, 2017
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  • Yushi IWASHITA
    Article type: Article
    2013 Volume 49 Issue 4 Pages 112-114
    Published: January 20, 2013
    Released on J-STAGE: April 25, 2017
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  • Tadasu MATSUO
    Article type: Article
    2013 Volume 49 Issue 4 Pages 115-117
    Published: January 20, 2013
    Released on J-STAGE: April 25, 2017
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