Managerial power in the German model: the case of Bertelsmann and the antecedents of neoliberalism

Our article extends the research on authoritarian neoliberalism to Germany, through a history of the Bertelsmann media corporation – sponsor and namesake of Germany’s most influential neoliberal think-tank. Our article makes three conceptual moves. Firstly, we argue that conceptualizing German neoliberalism in terms of an ‘ordoliberal paradigm’ is of limited use in explaining the rise and fall of Germany’s distinctive socio-economic model (Modell Deutschland). Instead, we locate the origins of authoritarian tendencies in the corporate power exercised by managers rather than in the power of state-backed markets imagined by ordoliberals. Secondly, we focus on the managerial innovations of Bertelsmann as a key actor enmeshed with Modell Deutschland. We show that the adaptation of business management practices of an endogenous ‘Cologne School’ empowered Bertelsmann’s postwar managers to overcome existential crises and financial constraints despite being excluded from Germany’s corporate support network. Thirdly, we argue that their further development in the 1970s also enabled Bertelsmann to curtail and circumvent the forms of labour representation associated with Modell Deutschland. Inspired by cybernetic management theories that it used to limit and control rather than revive market competition among its workforce, Bertelsmann began to act and think outside the postwar settlement between capital and labour before the settlement’s hotly-debated demise since the 1990s

A Novel Liquid Multi-Phytonutrient Supplement Demonstrates DNA-Protective Effects

This study explored the DNA protective (anti-mutagenic) effects of an oral, liquid, multi-phytonutrient dietary supplement containing a proprietary blend of fruits, vegetables and aloe vera concentrated components in addition to a proprietary catechin complex from green tea (VIBE Cardiac & Life, Eniva Nutraceuticals, Anoka, MN; herein described as “VIBE”). This study tested the hypothesis that VIBE would reduce DNA damage in skin cells exposed to UVR. Human epidermal cells, from the cell line A431NS, were treated with 0% (control), 0.125%, 0.5%, 1% and 2% VIBE, and then exposed to 240 J/m2 UVR. The amount of DNA damage was assessed using the COMET assay. At each concentration tested, a significantly smaller amount of DNA damage was measured by the COMET assay for the VIBE treated cells compared to the control cells exposed to UVR without VIBE. The dose response curves showed a maximal response at 0.5% VIBE with a threefold reduction in COMET tail density compared to the control samples without VIBE (p < 0.001). Additional research is warranted in human clinical trials to further explore the results of this study which demonstrated the DNA protective and anti-mutagenic effects of VIBE for human skin cells exposed to UVR-induced DNA damage

‘Civic’ field: Negotiating the ideals of community, citizenship and community work

© 2019, Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. This chapter examines returnees’ experience in the ‘civic’ field and focuses on voluntary community work. The chapter first presents a brief overview of the civic culture and functions of civil society organisations in Vietnam. Findings from the survey and interviews reveal returnees’ nuanced conceptions of community and civic actions that arbitrate between overseas-acquired ideals of community and civic ‘self’ and the Vietnamese tradition of communities as enclaves of extended families. Despite some returnees’ critique of the latter as limited in reach and impact, their choices and practices of community work were firmly situated in the Vietnamese habitus of personal networks of families and friends. For these returnees, citizenship and ability to use their overseas-acquired skills to help others were their achieved functionings. The chapter concludes with theoretical abstractions of the findings that reaffirm the workings of normative agency and situated freedom in the ‘professional’ and ‘intellectual’ fields. The notion of power embedded in social networks highlights the inextricable link between individual agency and collective agency in the ‘civic’ field. The chapter identifies some implications for international education broadly, and for Vietnam’s civil society organisations in receiving returning international graduates or migrants

The Consumption of Counterfeit Goods: `Here Be Pirates?'

Social science, policy and popular discourse around counterfeiting regularly position consumers of counterfeit goods as part of a technological elite or as motivated by anti-capitalist or anti-corporate positions. In order to explore this construction and highlight its associated limitations, this article presents quantitative data collected through postal and web-based questionnaires looking at the frequency, location and motivations for the purchase of counterfeit leisure items for consumers in the United Kingdom.The article suggests that the purchase and consumption of counterfeit goods is commonplace across a broader variety of age, gender and socio-economic status categories than often assumed.The study also highlights the value of viewing the consumption of counterfeit goods as social and situated, occurring within existing social networks and familiar locations, and as closely related to other consumption practices