This article explores the decisive role of pension funds in the neoliberal restructuring of the Icelandic economy, arguing that, through their involvement in the pensionfund industry, the labour unions contributed to laying the foundations for Iceland's economic financialisation. The socioeconomic stability provided by the labour organisations was the crucial element upon which the new financial regime of accumulation relied, enhancing the national economic 'credibility' that helped the internal market to attract foreign speculators as well as gaining access to loans from international market. I begin by examining how the structural crisis of the Icelandic economy produced an explosion of inflation and industrial conflict in the late-1980s. I then retrace the way the implementation of a neo-corporatist pattern enabled lower inflation and stabilisation of the currency. Finally, I analyse the way in which the involvement of the Icelandic trade unions in the financial mechanisms through the pension industry generated a degree of identification with pro-market governmental policy on the part of union leaders, encouraging them to tailor their own strategies accordingly. My conclusion is that Icelandic unions' consensus concerning the 'stabilisation programme' implemented by the neoliberal coalitions relies on their embeddedness into the financial structures of the national economy through occupational pension funds.

This article explores the strategy of active interventions through which Chinese policymakers have created the conditions for pulling their country out of its peripheral status within the world economy. We find that the strategic use of exchange rate policy and the maintenance of extensive ownership in industrial assets by the national government have played a key role in cumulatively promoting the upgrading of technological capabilities of the national workforce since the mid-1990 onward. Economic data show support for the hypotheses of an increasing capacity of Chinese producers to gain access to oligopolistic technology markets. To the extent that this offers the opportunity to capture a slice of the technological rent hitherto reserved to the capitalist center, our study suggests that the growth of real wages in China will be consistent with the maintenance of the country’s external balance in the long run. JEL classification: L16, O47, J21, F13, B51

China's effectiveness in quickly solving the health crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic and in softening its economic impact is rooted in the structural characteristics of its development model, in which state-owned enterprises remain crucial. This article holds that a strong public presence within the industrial and banking sectors has provided Chinese government with the opportunity to rapidly reactivate domestic production and, potentially, to maximise the effectiveness of the recently launched monetary and fiscal policy measures.

According to the neoliberal narratives, opening up to the world system has deformed the structure of the Chinese economy, thereby passively serving the needs of the centre. In his works, Samir Amin offers the theoretical basis to demystify such narratives. However, he only cursorily analysed the specific policies through which China has achieved the goal of subordinating the domestic market to the logic of internal development. This article attempts to fill this gap by investigating the strategy adopted by the Chinese authorities, which allowed the country to integrate itself into global relations without abandoning its strategy of delinking from imperialism.

Nowadays, class consciousness among members of the Western working class seems to be obfuscated by their nationalist and chauvinist beliefs, as they tend to assume that they have more in common with other members of a nation, people, and/or ethnic group, rather than with other people in similar class positions and with similar economic interests. In this article, we argue that nationalist and racist ideologies can reproduce themselves in the consciousness of the working and capitalist classes because they are present in existing class relations, specifically because of the economic rewards that the members of the business community and white employees can reap as a result of their willingness to discriminate. From an historical materialist perspective, the failure of the labor movement to consistently fight racism can be viewed as the expected outcome of a racial segmentation of the labor market that rewards class compromise by both autochthonous workers and their employers.