The study of futures, and the analysis of power

Hamm, Bernd

doi:10.1016/j.futures.2010.08.017

Cited by 19 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…The central argument presented here is that big international business and geopolitics go hand in hand [42,44,122]. In weaker institutions, MNCs have powerful influences on regulations [123], and they profoundly shape the nature of institutions mostly to their advantage [41], and at the expense of the larger society [34,47,86].…”

Section: Novelty and Purposementioning

confidence: 92%

“…This enormously reduces the competitiveness of African products. Such systems as they are perpetuated go to the point that people of the African continent are treated as inferior people in international trade negotiations [122]. They are always shortchanged, and their interests matter less most of the time [162,163].…”

Section: Interrogating the Sustainability Of Philanthropized Corporatmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Institutional Voids and the Philanthropization of CSR Practices: Insights from Developing Economies

Ahen

Amankwah‐Amoah

2018

Sustainability

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Corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and conceptions vary across sectors and nations. However, there is a general tendency among academics and practitioners to present CSR in Africa as activities characterized by philanthropy due to the existence of institutional voids. This review of the current literature demonstrates that weak institutions lead to weaker bargaining powers designed through the historical and geopolitical institutional frameworks of international business and global governance systems. Accordingly, multinational corporations (MNCs) take advantage of such weaknesses to define CSR on their own terms by replacing the ideal responsible and sustainable innovations with ad hoc philanthropy that diverts the attention from the negative consequences of neoliberal 'structures of accumulation'. This is akin to aid that hardly contributes to structural changes, but rather leads to complacency, corruption, dependency, boutique projects, disguised exploitation, and the misuse of corporate political power to achieve corporate bottom lines. The implications of the results are vast, and they are generalizable to all weaker institutional settings. Thus, weaker institutions create the necessary regulatory, political, economic, and governance climate that perpetuates a pattern of abuses and ethical violations that are then masked with philanthropy. It is argued that the fundamental institutional and geopolitical contexts within which MNCs interact with nation states cannot be ignored in any comprehensive analysis that seeks to meaningfully shed light on the comparative differences of CSR practices. The neglect of the web of contextual, historical, and geopolitical issues in which CSR is entrenched and framed diverts attention from the origins of the socio-economic and environmental questions to philanthropy as a final solution, which has hitherto been perpetuated with undesirable outcomes.

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Section: Novelty and Purposementioning

confidence: 92%

Section: Interrogating the Sustainability Of Philanthropized Corporatmentioning

confidence: 99%

Institutional Voids and the Philanthropization of CSR Practices: Insights from Developing Economies

Ahen

Amankwah‐Amoah

2018

Sustainability

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“…All these are needed for citizens to actively participate in economic processes and not be excluded as producers and investors. 9 We want to stress that simply to redistribute the product of an economy, the income, is insufficient to create economic democracy, even though it constitutes an important aspect. But if control over capital is kept in the hands of a few, these few will have the means to influence the actual redistribution of income.…”

Section: Redistribution Of the Economic Pie In Terms Of Both Income Amentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It also leads to extinction of non-human species and the degradation of ecosystems [3,61]. In the sense that economic growth involves a shift from subsistence provisioning and localised craft production to across-the-board industrialisation, an approach verbalising a right to non-industrial lifestyles 9 An interesting and controversial issue in this context is ''(unconditional) basic income''. One argument is that such a general transfer could alleviate the need for people to seek growth-promoting positions in the labour market, hence reducing the growth pressure of the economic on the aggregate.…”

Section: The Last Aspect Of Economic Democracy Which Perhaps Merits Amentioning

confidence: 99%

Economic democracy: A path for the future?

Johanisová

Wolf

2012

Futures

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“…The we in 'we rule the world' are the 0.1 per cent of the wealth holding 'corporate bigwigs and wheeler dealers' (Krugman 2011); they are the top 1%, income earners and they are the top transnational capitalist class [or TCC]. The TCC are the winners of the capitalist jackpot and maybe the only winners of the 2008-2013 global financial crisis (GFC) (see Chester 2014, Hamm 2010a, Hamm 2010b:1008, Leopold 2009a. They increased their market share by an estimated $30 billion in 2009 ( Leopold 2009b) and now five years later they are worth collectively more (Kroll 2013, Lopez 2013 with the 400 wealthiest Americans are worth just over $2 trillion, roughly equivalent to the GDP of Russia (Kroll 2013) which is $300 billion more than the year before.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

We rule the world: an emerging global class fraction?

Murray

2015

Foresight

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Who rules the world? This paper suggests that the top 0.1 per cent do. They are a heterogeneous class fraction that own and/or control the circuit of capital at different times, in different global locations, for different rewards, with different workforces and regulations. Their power base is this ownership and control of capital and not power from their individual charisma, authority or influence (though these may follow). This class power is hegemonic and at capitalism's core. The methods used are triangulated between statistical data on the top 0.1 and .01 per cent, secondary sources -newspapers and books -and original collated data from the Bureau Van Dyk database. From this the article looks at (1) Who the emerging global ruling class are? (2) What their means are in the class struggle? and (3) What are the likely consequences for this unequal power distribution for the future of global society? Title: We rule the world: an emerging global class fraction? Purpose: To investigate who rules the world? The hypothesis is that it is the .1% of owners and controllers of capital. Methodology/approach: Dyk and The World Top Incomes database -to look at distributions of income and wealth (stock ownership). This is supplemented with secondary source analysis and with some interviews. Findings: The top point one per centers, the wealthy, those on the top incomes and transnational capitalist class are all distinct but overlapping categories that describe the (white) men and (few) women who hold power through their ownership and/or control of capital, and who are thereby directly or indirectly able to act hegemonic-ally, on an emerging global basis.

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The study of futures, and the analysis of power

Cited by 19 publications

References 9 publications

Institutional Voids and the Philanthropization of CSR Practices: Insights from Developing Economies

Institutional Voids and the Philanthropization of CSR Practices: Insights from Developing Economies

Economic democracy: A path for the future?

We rule the world: an emerging global class fraction?

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