Technology development and political and economic power: evolution of global inequality

Abstract Global inequality, in combination with various global problems, has been one of the most pressing concerns of today's world. There are numerous models that explain the development of technology, political and economic power concentration, and resulting social inequality within a single society or region. The models that apply global and long-run perspectives having world-systems as a unit of analysis, however, are rare. This study conducts simulation modeling to examine the formation of hierarchies among polities through the expansion of political economic networks and concentration of power having evolving technologies. Two types of technology-subsistence technologies and technologies of power-have evolved for successful economic and political interactions as well as dominations among polities, resulting in the formation of global hierarchy. The dynamics are modeled and simulated by numerically solving partial differential equations and integro-differential equations that describe polity interactions through trade and warfare networks and selection of advantageous technologies. The validity of the model is examined using city population and state/empire size data since 2000BCE to the present. Models with such a broader perspective allow explanation of the fundamental relationship between technological development

In search of unity : a new politics of solidarity and action for confronting the crisis of global capitalism

This essay is an introduction to a Special Forum by critical scholar-activists responding to the late Samir Amin's call for the establishment of a new political vehicle that would be capable of uniting diverse progressive and revolutionary movements consisting of the workers and peoples of the whole world. The purpose of this vehicle would be to confront and radically transform a global capitalist order in deep crisis. The authors of these essays tend to agree that Amin was a profound contributor to the global justice movement, and to the reformulation of Marxism to address the evolution of global capitalism and imperialism that took place in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. However, some are critical of Amin's stance. The essayists differ about whether they see Samir Amin's proposal for the establishment of a global party as a good or bad idea. Among those who think it is a good idea there are differences regarding the organizational nature and issue focus of the proposed organization. There are also different attitudes toward the institution of the nation-state and regarding the sources of progressive revolutionary political forces in the contemporary world. We briefly review the main issues under contention.Peer reviewe

BRICS and the New American Imperialism

"BRICS is a grouping of the five major emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Volume five in the Democratic Marxism series, BRICS and the New American Imperialism challenges the mainstream understanding of BRICS and US dominance to situate the new global rivalries engulfing capitalism. It offers novel analyses of BRICS in the context of increasing US induced imperial chaos, deepening environmental crisis tendencies (such as climate change and water scarcity), contradictory dynamics inside BRICS countries and growing subaltern resistance. The authors revisit contemporary thinking on imperialism and anti-imperialism, drawing on the work of Rosa Luxemburg, one of the leading theorists after Marx, who attempted to understand the expansionary nature of capitalism from the heartlands to the peripheries. The richness of Luxemburg’s pioneering work inspires most of the volume’s contributors in their analyses of the dangerous contradictions of the contemporary world as well as forms of democratic agency advancing resistance. While various forms of resistance are highlighted, among them water protests, mass worker strikes, anti-corporate campaigning and forms of cultural critique, this volume grapples with the challenge of renewing anti-imperialism beyond the NGO-driven World Social Forum and considers the prospects of a new horizontal political vessel to build global convergence. It also explores the prospects of a Fifth International of Peoples and Workers.

Advancing the human right to housing in post-Katrina New Orleans: discursive opportunity structures in housing and community development

In post-Katrina New Orleans, housing and community development (HCD) advocates clashed over the future of public housing. This case study examines the evolution of and limits to a human right to housing frame introduced by one nongovernmental organization (NGO). Ferree’s concept of the discursive opportunity structure and Bourdieu’s social field ground this NGO’s failure to advance a radical economic human rights frame, given its choice of a political inside strategy that opened up for HCD NGOs after Hurricane Katrina. Strategic and ideological differences within the field limited the efficacy of this rights-based frame, which was seen as politically radical and risky compared with more resonant frames for seeking affordable housing resources and development opportunities. These divides flowed from the position of the movement-born HCD field within a neoliberal political economy, especially its current institutionalization in the finance and real estate sector, and its dependence on the state for funding and political legitimacy

BioTIME: A database of biodiversity time series for the Anthropocene.

MotivationThe BioTIME database contains raw data on species identities and abundances in ecological assemblages through time. These data enable users to calculate temporal trends in biodiversity within and amongst assemblages using a broad range of metrics. BioTIME is being developed as a community-led open-source database of biodiversity time series. Our goal is to accelerate and facilitate quantitative analysis of temporal patterns of biodiversity in the Anthropocene.Main types of variables includedThe database contains 8,777,413 species abundance records, from assemblages consistently sampled for a minimum of 2 years, which need not necessarily be consecutive. In addition, the database contains metadata relating to sampling methodology and contextual information about each record.Spatial location and grainBioTIME is a global database of 547,161 unique sampling locations spanning the marine, freshwater and terrestrial realms. Grain size varies across datasets from 0.0000000158 km2 (158 cm2) to 100 km2 (1,000,000,000,000 cm2).Time period and grainBioTIME records span from 1874 to 2016. The minimal temporal grain across all datasets in BioTIME is a year.Major taxa and level of measurementBioTIME includes data from 44,440 species across the plant and animal kingdoms, ranging from plants, plankton and terrestrial invertebrates to small and large vertebrates.Software format.csv and .SQL