Suchergebnisse

Explosive assassination claims made over seven weeks ago by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have thrust India-Canada relations into crisis. Despite the two countries' shared position on the Israel-Hamas war and caution by Canada's key allies, the downward spiral between Ottawa and New Delhi has continued unabated.Trudeau accused the Indian government in September of complicity in the killing of prominent Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil. Nijjar, an outspoken proponent of the Khalistan separatist movement for the establishment of an independent state in India's northern Punjab region, was previously labeled a "terrorist" by Indian authorities. The government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi denounced Trudeau's allegations as "absurd and motivated," reiterating its long-standing grievances over what it describes as Canada's continued sheltering of Khalistani terrorists and extremists.The bombshell allegations have brought the India-Canada relationship to what experts have described as its lowest point ever. A massive trade deal that both sides hoped would be inked by the end of 2023 has been frozen indefinitely. Canada responded by expelling Indian diplomat Pavan Kumar Rai, prompting India's expulsion of a Canadian diplomat in a mirror response. New Delhi took the diplomatic tit-for-tat game to a new level in October, reportedly ordering Canada to recall over half —41 of 62 — of its diplomats in India. Trudeau neither confirmed the expulsions nor suggested that Canada is planning a proportionate response. "Obviously, we are going through an extremely challenging time with India right now, but that's why it is so important for us to have diplomats on the ground working with the Indian government and there to support Canadians and Canadian families," he said, according to AP. Trudeau's recent attempts to contain, if not to dial down, tensions with India come amid growing apprehensions by Canada's key allies. The Biden administration has made it a foreign policy priority to court India as a critical regional counterweight to China. The White House reportedly privately believes Canada's assassination claims, but worries that the dispute may spill over into a more serious confrontation with deleterious consequences for its Indo-Pacific strategy. "When Washington has to decide between New Delhi and Ottawa, given the current global geopolitical situation, it's going to side with New Delhi," Andrew Latham, Professor of International Relations and Political Theory at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy, told RS. The Trudeau government faces substantial domestic pressure as it navigates the Nijjar incident, Latham observed. "I think, in one sense, both sides would like this to go away because the largest diaspora in Canada is Indian. The Trudeau government is no position to alienate the large Sikh community in and around Vancouver and in and around Toronto," he said, highlighting the salience of electoral politics to Trudeau's thinking. "And then you factor into that the fact that right now, it [Trudeau's Liberal Party] is in a coalition government, more or less, with the New Democratic Party which is headed by Jagmeet Singh, who is also a Sikh. You can see that there is some partisan electoral dynamic at work here which is pushing the Trudeau government not to let this issue go away," Latham added.Singh, who was denied a visa by India in 2013 reportedly over his statements on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in India, has taken a more strident stance on the Nijjar killing than Trudeau himself. "I will leave no stone unturned in the pursuit of justice, including holding Narendra Modi accountable," he wrote on social media.The Nijjar scandal was quickly overtaken, at least in international media headlines, by the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war after October 7. A vast swathe of the global south has either criticized Israel or offered equivocal messages lamenting the loss of life and urging an end to hostilities. Modi, by stark contrast, has taken a robust pro-Israel position much closer to the views of Canadian and most Western leaders. "Deeply shocked by the news of terrorist attacks in Israel. Our thoughts and prayers are with the innocent victims and their families. We stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour," the Indian Prime Minister wrote on the X social media platform X following the October 7 Hamas attacks. India also abstained from a Oct. 27 vote in the UN General Assembly which called for a " humanitarian truce" in Gaza. The measure was opposed by the U.S. and Israel and 12 other countries. The Modi government took such a stance partly because it believes it is confronted with similar types of threats on its homeland, experts say. India "faces a number of secessionist threats and the prospect of, broadly framed, Islamic terrorism, which it likens to what Israel is facing. India and Israel have had a good relationship for a while and this is a continuation of it," Latham noted. Yet their shared pro-Israel position has proven not to be a mitigating factor in the cratering relations between Ottawa and New Delhi. "The old adage, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, actually doesn't work here. I don't think their common antipathy towards Hamas is sufficient to bridge the differences," said Latham. "Think about what's at stake for the Canadian government: some foreign government, if this is all true, sent their agents into Canada to assassinate a Canadian citizen expressing views that are protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And on the Modi side, here is the parallel: Israel has a long history of assassinating people beyond [Israel's borders] who are enemies of the state of Israel, Modi is simply doing that," Latham said. "I think that, over time, this will abate, but in the short to medium term, it's just too raw at the moment, and not even this common position around Israel is sufficient to calm tempers."Though there are no signs of reconciliation anywhere on the horizon, both sides — as well as the deeply influential external stakeholder that is the Biden administration — have at least an implicit interest in ensuring that the Canada-India confrontation does not careen down the path of uncontrollable escalation.Time will tell if that will be enough to prevent lasting damage to the bilateral relationship.

.
This article critically engages with the question of mobility in the study of international politics by centering the concept of resistance. It starts with the example of the Canadian Government blocking the Roxham Road irregular border crossing in March 2023 and Canadian officials arguing in favour of normalizing movement between the US/Canada. In general, the paper challenges the global state centric project of normalizing movement by arguing that resistance always comes first. As such, this challenge does not only ask who/what gets to move freely and when; it is centers the very resistances to normalizing movement that emerges from within and without movement itself. The paper has three sections: the first acknowledges that celebrating movement is important because it loosens the state centric study of international politics and sets borders, states, and migrants adrift in a sea of irregular movements. It creates a differential analysis of movement which I refer to as "differential encounters". In the context of this article, recasting the state in the context of movement demands an engagement with Indigenous and migrant histories beyond the modern categories of immigrant or settler. It requires going beyond merely placing Indigenous peoples into other non-Indigenous migrations stories since it reproduces the colonial efforts to exceptionalize the immigrant experience in and through its universalization/provincialization. Such practical efforts to normalize movement allow the Canadian state to present itself as the apolitical and fixed arbiter of different movements and thereby displace the unceded mediating role inherent to Indigenous relationships to the land and its peoples. The second section shifts to an epistemological register of movements to recognize that celebrating movement can also depoliticize movements differences. Therefore, movement is not simply given; it is itself treated as diagnostic and productive by attending to the function of friction inside and between movements. Following the work of Anna Tsing, frictions are not only the product of movement but also the shapers and materializers of movement(s). They are the encounters that actualize, materialize, and define movements. They occur when movements interact, and they produce something new within the specific place-based context of differential encounters. Friction is becoming movement because nothing moves or matters without friction. This section "matters" the nine individuals, including two children, who lost their lives while being smuggled through the Akwesasne district of the St. Lawrence River, which straddles the US/Canada border. Their lives are mattered in and through the materialization of movements. Yet, in differential encounters, there can be no sovereign, disciplinary, or biopolitical accounting of bodies and lives: only frictions, movements, and resistances. These frictions both materialize and are material. They are historical and immediate. From macro to micro: the decision to deploy a particular technology is as significant as the reliability of an operation, machine, or equipment in the day to day.
The political frictions between movements, as such, become the focus of studies which centre movement. To find politics one must move with resistance. To move with resistance is to open untoward frictions. Moving with resistance politicizes those very movements and frictions that have become regularized and/or normalized. The final section argues that despite the emancipatory narrative attached to privileging ontological and epistemological approaches, resistance should always be situated as a generative force that comes first. This section uses the four-part documentary series Thunder Bay (2023), by Ryan McMahonm, the award winning Anishinaabe journalist, to investigates forms of resistance in Thunder Bay, Ontario, which sits at the head of Lake Superior. The history of Thunder Bay is defined by Indigenous/settler relations —a complex of trade, employment, governance, policing, and personal frictions —and amass into the colonial frictions of the city. Thunder Bay's purpose has not changed. It continues to exist in order to control, extract and extinguish Indigenous futures. While the documentary challenges the audience to see Thunder Bay as both an exceptional crisis in policing and as an exemplar case of continued Canadian colonialism, McMahon's series also helps the effort in this paper to rethink the concept of resistance in the context of movement and friction. To think about resistance as coming first, the concept of resistance itself must be redefined, not as opposition or reaction, but as an enduring medium of escalation and indifference. Resisting colonialism cannot erase its constitutive frictions; colonialism is a movement responding to already existing resistance, friction and movement. As such, the colonial project remains intact, and escalation adds new opportunities for the state to escalate in turn. Thunder Bay laments that, despite the inspiring efforts of individuals and movements, Indigenous resistance is reduced to new and further instances of friction that keep the wheels of the Canadian state turning. Resistance in movement is a prior interplay of indifferently releasing one movement and politically escalating other emergent movements that resurface in the wake. The article puts special attention to the concept of indifference since "to indiffer" break or turn away from the modern state form, is to actively dismantle those escalatory forces of resistance and friction captured by the state's ambition to appear static. However, just as resistance has come to mean opposition to movement and lost its political value, indifference has also been cast as a static apolitical form of being. Again, just as resistance escalates, it also indiffers. To indiffer evokes differing, but not in ways that contribute to a particular movement's escalation or friction. Instead, indiffering releases, liberates, suspends both escalation and friction. This does not mean that indifference has no relationship with escalation or friction in the abstract. To indiffer is an active unattending to a movement's particular escalation and friction. It is resisting, releasing, and forgetting and generating new frictions and movements. Yet indifference is not innocent —it is not only a weapon of the weak. The state also practices indifference. The indifferent state actively uncares about Indigenous lives because its own future requires unmaking of Indigenous future horizons. This article suggests that if resistance is no longer believed to be a willful action of the liberal subject, and resistance always comes in advance, then the frictions that unfold as movements inevitably unmap geographies of the state and open untoward irregular movements and futures.

Tomorrow brings the first
significant televised debate among 2023 Louisiana gubernatorial candidates,
yet the most significant candidate by the polls won't be there. That reflects
an escalating trend towards ushering this kind of campaign event into
irrelevancy, because candidates increasingly control the presentation of campaign
information.

Front runner Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry won't attend this put
on by a consortium of television stations, the Baton Rouge Advocate, and
the Urban League. He
said he would take a pass because of the Urban League's presence, which holds
itself out as nonpartisan but has a
history of fronting left-wing causes. For example, Landry has been critical
of overbroad assertions of affirmative action, most recently filing
suit to prevent the federal government from applying outcome-oriented usage
of it for environmental regulation without regard for intent, while the Urban
League has
given full-throated support of expansive use of the concept.

Landry also may have had queasiness about the Advocate,
which has a thinly-disguised antipathy towards him that shapes its coverage of
the campaign. When it's not publicizing
molehills in an attempt to make mountains out of Landry oversights, it reprints
pieces from the far-left Louisiana Illuminator website that makes no bones about
its disdain for Landry, and its subsidiary shopper Gambit's leftist editor unleashes
editorial broadsides against him.

No matter. Landry can sit out widely-televised debates
– although he has pledged to participate in one next week by another consortium
of television stations – without any harm to his chances of winning because of
how technology has revolutionized how politicians can communicate with candidates.

He's not the first gubernatorial candidate to pass
on widely-broadcast deabtes. Republican former Gov. Bobby Jindal didn't bother
at all in 2011, while in 2015 Republican former Sen. David Vitter skipped some.
These past choices reveal, and amplify, why Landry's choice not only won't hurt
his campaign but also avoids potential harm to it.

To start, front runners derive the least benefit
from a candidate forum. The last thing they want to do is to appear to grant
equal stature to those trying to catch him from well behind by sharing a stage
with them. Additionally, the least controllable environment for a candidate is
these kinds of events, where they are at most risk to commit
gaffes, and by definition front runners have the most to lose when they
make such errors.

But the thing is, for this to work you have to be
a genuine front runner. It worked for Jindal because he faced nonentities as
opponents. It didn't
work for Vitter because although he figured himself as having support akin
to what Landry has today, at least a third of the intended electorate, in
reality what little polling had occurred up to that point pointed to a trend
that came through on election day: Vitter only marginally outpaced other GOP
big names in the field, with their infighting allowing Democrat then-state Rep.
John Bel Edwards
to slip away.

Landry has that advantage and, better for him,
increased technological benefits compared to a dozen years ago. Then, social
media still was gaining traction and smart phones weren't widely in use. Now,
social media occupies an important informational tool for many, particularly among
those without a lot of interest in politics to receive information about
politics, while smart phones are nearing ubiquity.

Every day that passes gives politicians more enhanced
ability to communicate directly with voters and capacity to bypass
intermediaries such as the media. And when you have $8
million in the bank like Landry, that magnifies this.

The goal of candidates is to place in front of a
voter information they want him to have. Decades ago, that was difficult.
Direct mail or phone contact was intermittent and expensive, and other contact
such as media ads over airwaves and on eye-level signage were inefficient and
hit and miss. Often, they needed unreliable intermediaries such as media coverage by way
of news or news events like debates to supplement their efforts to have any serious
chance of winning.

That's all changed. Through social media, e-mail, texting,
and web advertisements candidates now have a far greater ability to establish
direct contact in much more targeted ways more likely for the casual observer
of politics to consume, rather than hope the occasional view of a flier or
billboard or seeing/hearing a media ad dropped in a predictable time slot
subsumed by other programming gets the job done. Or, to put in context of the
debate, why make the effort to tune in and give up an hour of your time when
the information will come before you organically in your social media feed, the
websites you visit, e-mail notes you receive, and text messages (all of which you're
free to ignore if you like)? Or why take the effort to look up what the
chattering classes have to say about a contest when candidate information, as
well as information from others but likely curated according to your partisan
and issue preferences, comes right at you?

Little has changed about the small subset of the
population interested in politics and how they become persuaded. And the
two-step flow of information, where the casual voter who wants to think
minimally about a vote decision may rely upon a transmitter, like another politician,
media, or a person they consider informed, for an opinion on how to vote still
applies. But relying upon the informed has decreased in importance because the
information now is so readily available, because the costs for candidates
communicating that has dropped so dramatically.

Perhaps no institution has seen such a steep
decline in its influence over elections as the legacy media, as new media and candidates
muscle them out of the way. Legacy media and a special interest are precisely the
entities conducting this forum. The small numbers that consumed these events
even two decades ago have fallen dramatically, and the much larger portion representing
the generally-inattentive population who used to depend upon them to transmit information
crucial to their vote choices likewise has plunged in size. Candidates with
sufficient resources to conduct one-on-one communications with voters don't
need this tool to succeed, and given how participation can degrade a campaign
depending upon circumstances, the rational choice for such blessed candidates is
to minimize participation in these.

President Biden requested more than $24 billion for Ukraine and associated assistance, making use of the debt deal loophole that excluded the Pentagon from spending caps imposed on other agencies. Within a week of Biden's request, a new Pentagon reform panel published a report on its work to improve the department's adaptability.


It's an interim report, and lawmakers can't miss the opportunity to weigh in on the recommendations the commission has yet to finalize. Congress will soon have to consider the president's Ukraine aid request while heeding calls for greater oversight of that aid — a task complicated by the fact that the House and Senate disagree on the need for a special watchdog for Ukraine.


But the Pentagon reform panel's reporting directly impacts the U.S. ability to arm Ukraine going forward and should be a priority for lawmakers upon their imminent return to Capitol Hill.


Congress established the panel — formally named the Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) Reform — to review and improve the Pentagon's acquisition and budgeting processes, which are notoriously cumbersome. In pursuit of that effort, the commission is requesting feedback on several proposals intended to promote innovation and adaptability at the Pentagon.


One proposal gives the department more time to obligate funds while another grants the department the redistribution power "to ingest new technology and innovation or pivot effectively to an unplanned requirement without disrupting already spoken for resources."


Some budget flexibility could help the department better adapt to potential national security threats, but lawmakers should be wary of proposals that further solidify military contractors' influence on defense policy. Too often, efforts to "advance innovation" turn into reforms primarily focused on hastening the defense acquisition process and scapegoating oversight measures as the root of all ills.


Time and again stakeholders assert that red tape and budget inflexibility inhibit the department from delivering new capabilities to warfighters. But, as RAND expert Jonathan Wong has pointed out, overly focusing on acquisition speed can also introduce unintended consequences, like costly sustainment issues (or profitable ones, depending on who you ask). Ensuring warfighters have the resources they need — when they need them — to do their jobs effectively requires contractor accountability, in addition to a streamlined PPBE process.


In fact, contractor accountability should be top of mind for lawmakers reviewing the commission's recommendations for PPBE reform. That means challenging assumptions about what hampers innovation in the first place. The defense industry — well represented in the PPBE commission — claims that it can't invest in innovative technologies for the warfighters of tomorrow.


The commission appears to agree with this, writing that one of the root causes of the department's issues with innovation and adaptability is a "bias toward existing and traditional programs and approaches." Commissioners explain that existing programs have a "leg up" in the PPBE process because they're "not properly incentivized to spend money on new, innovative solutions that are riskier and need more time to develop." They go even further by saying that "faced with a choice between buying down risk and improving performance on existing program content or taking on additional risk by spending money on new, untested program content, most Services seem likely to choose the conservative option."


Tell that to taxpayers, who are footing the bill on at least a $1.7 trillion aircraft program with far greater issues than benefits, despite being marketed as the "the most advanced fighter aircraft in the world."


The Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) is another great example of juice not worth the squeeze, with the Navy attempting to retire several before they reach maturity for at least 2 years running. And with good reason — the LCS doesn't do much for the Navy. But what's so egregious about the LCS is that it failed for the same reason the F-35 program did — the Pentagon started development before the design and thorough testing were completed.


In other words, the Pentagon's need for speed created lagging performance and unforeseen sustainment costs. In the F-35's case, sustainment costs are the main reason the program is now the most expensive in U.S. history. The Pentagon's alleged aversion to risk didn't stop it from prematurely fielding these weapons, which now deliver little capability to warfighters on the hard-working taxpayer's dime.


Lawmakers should question how risk-averse the department really is (especially when authorizing funding) and consider the external factors that hamper innovation and adaptability — namely, military contractors' unwillingness to invest internally. Bureaucracy is no doubt a problem, but so are military contractors that consistently enrich their shareholders at the expense of internal investments needed to innovate.


Case in point: The defense industry increased cash paid to shareholders by 73% in the 2010s as compared to the 2000s. By contrast, contractor spending on internal capital investments and independent research decreased — despite improved profit margins and cash generation industry-wide over the same period. So the issue isn't just bureaucracy — it's also corporate greed.


Indeed, the defense industry has claimed that profits are "insufficient to finance" investments, requiring private financing to advance the development of innovative technologies. Even assuming that's generally true (which it isn't, according to the Pentagon), the government ultimately reimburses most research and development costs, generating free revenue, profits, and cash flow for companies.


Nevertheless, the interim report partially validates industry's claim that it can't afford investments toward innovation. Commissioners wrote that the PPBE process isn't responsive enough to attract private capital to develop "emerging technologies or manufacturing capacity."


The commission neglects to mention the size and scale of this so-called capital deficit. Surely commissioners aren't exclusively referring to small businesses, which certainly lack the financial wherewithal to pursue innovation independently but are also generally limited in their ability to fundraise. So how do the commission's findings fit with data indicating that the industry is quite financially capable of innovation?


The commission's scope is limited to understanding and evaluating the challenges within the PPBE process to improve it, but lawmakers are tasked with putting the commission's input in context. Contentious debates on Ukraine aid and its oversight surely await them, but the PPBE reform process deserves their time and attention, as it will have lasting effects on U.S. ability to both provide aid and ensure it's spent effectively.

Not just on philosophical grounds, but more relevantly
on practical grounds Louisiana State University was correct in terminating a
graduate student's assistantship for levying
a direct threat of harm against a state lawmaker – and dramatically increasing
his employment chances down the road.

Last week, LSU sociology graduate student Marcus
Venable, who must have an excitable nature, lost it upon learning Republican
state Sen. "Big" Mike Fesi had voted to overturn Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards'
veto of HB 648,
which prohibits (from the start of next year) surgical or chemical sex
alterations of minors, legislation that correctly understands research shows a significant
proportion of children who do this express regrets and that a significant
proportion have underlying psychiatric issues that don't improve even after
these interventions or non-medical interventions. The outright ban equips
parents to safeguard their children better from attempts outside the family to play
to children's transitory thinking, which because their typically underdeveloped
emotional and intellectual capacity is suspect, if not goad them to embark upon
irreversible interventions.

The successful override so unhinged Venable that
he left, from his campus office phone, a profane message to Fesi full of emotion
and absent of any facts. While incredibly boorish, most of it, even a part
about celebrating Fesi's death, legally was harmless – until his last sentence,
where he declared the celebration would be resulting from "when we put you in
the ground."

For much of my life, I received threats of harm because
of what I wrote, beginning on my dorm room phone when I was 19. This led to a practice
of paying to keep my home phone numbers unlisted until now, although threats to
me to my office phones dropped off years ago I suspect because caller
identification became common and technology made any call traceable by law enforcement
(occasionally, I still get one by surface mail, predictably anonymously, to my
Louisiana State University Shreveport office, usually along the lines of, "we're
watching you," "we know where you work," etc.). Over 40 years ago, it was only
slightly unsettling, as I knew only cowards and bullies that would recoil and
hide at the first show of defiance issued such things.

That was then. Today, such messaging takes on much
more gravity, especially on the political left with its eliminationist
expression. It's not that the left since historically and ideologically has
shown over the year an increasing disregard for human life and suffering, as it
always has countenanced violations against individuals who it puts on an
enemies list in the name of its presumed greater cause. It's that with such rhetoric
happening despite the costs of detection going up as well as proliferating
instances of such threats being carried out and a general rise in sociopathic
violence in society, you simply can't be sure any more that these aren't empty.

None of this was in haste in Venable's case. He
took the time and effort to procure Fesi's number and then to make the call,
using university resources to do so. If LSU is anything like other universities
and like it was almost 40 years ago when I signed a system graduate assistant contract,
it contains language relating to a general morals clause that states if you act
criminally in a way that discredits the university, you can be fired (as well
as getting canned for not attesting to the loyalty oath). Additionally,
the system has policy
that considers his use of the phone as misuse of university property,
subjecting him to discipline.

Venable's booting amusingly has led to the usual campus
suspects who routinely
condemn speech, and non-threatening at that, which triggers them to defend
this example of genuine hate speech as not hateful enough to give him his walking papers. Mistakenly, so does the usually on-target Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression,
which has a long and illustrious history in defense of free speech (note: I have
worked with the group in the past). It
terms the message as hyperbole and therefore not unprotected speech, but
that is, as noted above, a serious misjudgment.

But don't mistake the valid grounds for termination
that LSU had as the reason for that occurring. In reality, no doubt Venable's
threat in the aggregate minds of campus decision-makers concerning his
employment was greeted as regrettable overenthusiasm and bad judgment in its
deployment, but basically sound in theory and motivation. It would not be surprising,
given how academia so often these days supplants wisdom with nuttiness, if a
few secretly wished they had done the same.

No, the reason why he was terminated was revelation
of his action made LSU look bad, with the school's allowing some kook with LSU imprimatur
to berate dangerously the majority of the state's population – and families who
send their progeny and donations to LSU – for their views they shared with Fesi
concerning the new law, as well as this carried the implication that the
typical instructor there was an entirely unhinged nutjob, which doesn't serve as
the best advertisement for enrollment. Venable may have engaged in unprotected
speech, but that would have been tolerated except for the ruin to LSU's
reputation he represented by his continued employment there.

Yet he may have the last laugh. Undoubtedly, this
incident has sent his stock through the ceiling in faculty lounges,
disconnected as they may be from the real world and reality, across the country
from admiration of his zeal. When he hits the market eventually, Internet
searches will turn up this and he'll zoom to the top of hiring lists, with the
caution during his interviews that he tone it down a bit when he can't be
guaranteed his communications would be confidential. They'll lionize him
between trying to punish
other instructors who for reasons of conscience use pronouns aligning with
students' actual sex (FIRE has successfully defended attacked faculty
members in such instances).

Authorities will decide whether to charge Venable
by the end of the week. Regardless, cheer for this assertion of equal
protection under the law (unlike, for example, in Washington, D.C. where the highest
official in the land rates preferential treatment for partisan and
ideological reasons) even as we must recognize the underlying incident reflects
a disease spreading in academia. 

Bossier City's long history of trying to count coup
on Shreveport for once might serve it well, with an opportunity presenting
itself through a blunder by the latter.

For decades, Bossier City leaders have burdened themselves
with a psychological inferiority complex relating to their larger and
better-known (and, to many outsiders, with a more easily-pronounceable name) neighbor
across the Red River. Feeling overshadowed, they have pursued policies
attempting to make their city stand out from, if not look better than,
Shreveport.

Usually,
it has led to undesirable consequences. Leaders chafed when no
comprehensive hospital located in Bossier City, so they decided to build the
government-run Bossier Medical Center. That worked out until it became apparent
that Willis-Knighton Systems would come to town with an initial offer allegedly
for $42 million to buy BMC, whereupon egos kicked in and city leaders refused
it. WKS then built its own, drove BMC numbers steeply into the red, and in a
short time the city had a fire sale of the facility, which no longer operates,
for $18 million. (Two city councilors from that era, no party Jeff Darby
and Democrat Bubba
Williams, still serve on the Council.)

That was just an opportunity missed, as opposed to
the current money pit that is the Brookshire Grocery Arena. Built just after
the BMC debacle for tens of millions more dollars than at first contemplated,
it has consistently lost money year after year. But city leaders wanted a
modern indoor arena to contrast with what Shreveport had available (the Hirsch Memorial
Coliseum, which technically isn't even the city's but is part of a nonprofit
organization), so rather than wait on a nongovernment entity to build one it
took the plunge, to taxpayers' everlasting regret.

Typically, it has been the heavy hand of
government intervention, spending more to bulk up, that Bossier City has turned
to in order to draw its intended contrast which then backfired, stubbornly
resisting the idea that a government that spent less with lower taxation and
fees would create more incentive for people to live and work there. To
paraphrase Edmund Burke, to make people love their city, the city ought to
be lovely.

Now there presents a way to do that with a much more
valid dose of government intervention, courtesy of Shreveport's
impending jettison of a total smoking ban at its casinos. Earlier this week
it changed its ordinance
regarding smoking to require just a quarter of the area of a casino, boat or
land, to be nonsmoking. It's uncertain whether Republican Mayor Tom
Arceneaux will veto it or, if so, that veto would be overridden as it
passed on a 4-2 vote.

Practically speaking, that means there is no ban
at all. No technology can prevent smoke from wafting around nonsmoking areas.
In essence, this puts the facilities off-limits to anybody who suffers
physiologically from having to breathe smoke.

Shreveport thusly becomes the first jurisdiction in
the country to reverse itself on a smoking ban. The rationale for the declining
city, facing sharp population loss and revenue retrenchment as a result, to do
this was the restriction hurt the bottom line of the city's casinos and therefore
related city tax collections. Theoretically, one could make an argument that enforcement
of nonsmoking could do this, for gambling is an addictive behavior like smoking
with a relatively high association between the two, Thus, a smoking ban disproportionately
could chase away chumps.

Yet the data
don't indicate as such. Smoking bans have gone into place in all of the state's
largest cities for casinos, but changes in revenue in places that did largely
have tracked those located in jurisdictions that continue to allow smoking.
Indeed, a review
of Shreveport and Bossier City markets, with the latter continuing to allow
people to smoke up in casinos, shows no significant difference in revenue changes.

Changes trending down, of course, that have little
to do with smoking and everything
to do with increased competition from Texas but particularly tribal casinos
in Oklahoma. It seems that smoking bans are basically unrelated with revenues because
of a substitution effect. Smokers
tend to be older, less educated, and lower-income compared to nonsmokers,
so it may be that potentially fewer admittances by smokers could be partially
offset by some nonsmokers who then lose more lucre.

Regardless, a deeper civil rights issue remains. A
growing portion of the population suffers from pulmonological conditions where
even a hint of smoke can send them into distress, something they can't control –
as opposed to smoking, which is an entirely voluntary action where consequences
are exported to other people who can avoid these only by curtailing their own
autonomy. In fact, with smoking in the population at nearly half its rate of
two decades ago, the proportions of smokers and people with pulmonological
diseases are about equal.

While argumentation about exportation of smoke
onto others, such as casino employees, that can impact negatively their health
merit investigation as there appears to be some association between someone's
health and breathing in smoke, there is no doubt that a causal mechanism exists
where smoke negatively affects directly some people's pulmonological health. In
essence permitting smoking in any part of a casino denies a portion of the
population the ability to work there, eat there, gamble there, and be
entertained in whatever other way there – meaning smokers are privileged in their
conduct of a voluntary behavior over those who suffer from a disability they
must bear involuntarily.

Decades ago, when mainly in the South and
profusely in Shreveport and Bossier City citizens shamefully were discriminated
against merely for the color of their skin in the conduct of commerce, the U.S.
Congress stepped in and legislated to guarantee that people couldn't be denied commercial
access solely on the basis of that. In our constitutional system, health
matters are governed by states, and local governments if delegated that way by
the states. A statewide ban by Louisiana on smoking in casinos would be best,
but absent that local governments should take up that in order to protect equal
access for vulnerable citizens.

Bossier City instituting a smoking ban in its
casinos would produce a rare instance where the city in trying to distinguish
itself from Shreveport acted on the whole actually to increase its citizens'
autonomy and quality of life. That it hasn't done this to date is to its
discredit, but that's magnified if it fails to act when served this reminder of
the west bank's stupidity.

To wear a mask in a store, bus, classroom, or other public space is now to be in a small, and dwindling minority, as much as this might vary from place to place. Aside from a few holdouts, doctors offices, the place where I get my haircut, and so on, there are no mandates requiring masks anymore. That it is a minority, and a choice, is not the way that it often appears, at least to those who do not wear masks.One thing that I have heard, and others who still wear masks hear from time to time, is the assertion, "You do not have to wear those anymore" by some bystander. Sometimes this is truly meant to be helpful, as if someone thinks we have not received the news. Underlying this correction is the unstated claim that the only reason anyone would ever wear a mask is if they were made to do so. It can only be compliance and not cooperation. What is more interesting, as the tweet above indicates, is that there is a strange tendency to interpret mask wearing as not just compliance but conformity. People wearing masks are see as sheepishly obeying rules that do not exist, and conforming to a community that is non-existent. There may, in some contexts, and situations, be some social pressure to wear a mask, but given the overall numbers that pressure would seem so small as to be meaningless. What else explains the couples where one person, usually a woman, wears a mask while the other, usually a man, does not? Many people have interpreted this reaction, and the hostility to mask wearing as the acting out of a guilty conscience. People do not want to be reminded of the pandemic in the first place, and on top of this, to be reminded that they could be doing more, or something, to stop its spread. Almost inadvertently "mask wearers" have become a kind of "Guilty Remnant" from The Leftovers. The Leftovers is show more people should be talking about, especially now. It takes place after 2% of the worlds global population disappears suddenly one day. The show deals with the ramifications of this traumatic event. The Guilty Remnant as they call themselves are a cult of sorts, dedicated to not letting society return to business as usual. They wear white, stalk survivors of the disappeared, and smoke copious amounts of cigarettes as if to underscore the transient and random nature of death. If we could all go at any moment why not light up? Masking could be interpreted as a refusal to let the world move on. However, there are two important differences between our world and the show. In the world of The Leftovers, no one has really moved on, everyone is struggling to make sense of an inexplicable event. In our world we have been trying to move on since before the pandemic even started. Second, in the world of The Leftovers the event was traumatic, instant, but it is over. The US still records four hundred deaths a day.. A scene from The Leftovers Masking could also be understood as an uncomfortable reminder of not just the ongoing pandemic but our overall dependency on others. One of the traumatic effects of the pandemic, at least on life in the USA, was the sudden recognition that none of us are "kingdoms within a kingdom," that our lives are dependent upon countless others, truckers, warehouse workers, cooks, dishwashers, etc. that for the most part remain out of sight and out of mind. The mask is a symbol of our species being, that we share the same world and live together even as we try to tell ourselves we live in isolation and separation. Which is not to say that the virus affects us all equally, the entire history of our response to the virus, from the uneven access to vaccines, to the spotty protections offered by such things as working from home, which protected a small number at the expense of many more. I would like to offer a third interpretation. In order to do so we must historicize the pandemic, and our response to it a little bit, at the very beginning, in year one before the vaccines were even developed, there were many calls to return to normal at any cost, that the cure should not become worse than the disease. There was an almost ghoulish demand to sacrifice lives at the alter of the economy. That is not what we are dealing with now. What is striking about the contemporary restoration of normal is that it is less ideological, less a political project, than the insistence of persistent force of necessity. No one says that we are sacrificing lives to restore the economy anymore, ghouls are at least honest, but with a shrug we just proclaim that nothing else can be done. Mandates are dropped because of the resistance it elicits from customers, the same with vaccination requirements, everything is left to a choice. We become kingdoms within a kingdom even in the face of pandemic that would remind us otherwise.Previously, on this blog (and elsewhere) I argue that capitalism can be understood as an institutionalization of Spinoza's formula of "seeing the better and doing the worse."  We often know what the right thing to do is, but we are confronted by the necessity of doing otherwise because it will help us keep our job, make it possible to buy what we need. The pandemic is particular instantiation of this, as academic administrators drop vaccine mandates out of the fear that enrollments will decline, stores drop mask mandates because it will threaten business, and so on. Some of the people in these situations know that they are doing the worse. Of course seeing the better and doing the worse is difficult, it creates a constant schism. It is better to just do the worse and claim nothing better is possible. You see the better and do the worse long enough, you lose sight of the better. 

En la actualidad, la mayor parte de la producción de vino elaborado en la Denominación de Origen Protegida Montilla-Moriles, es realizada por las cooperativas vitivinícolas frente a las bodegas particulares. No obstante, estas instalaciones destinadas a la elaboración de vino no han despertado el interés de estudio, hasta el momento, en torno a su arquitectura y construcción, como sí lo han sido las bodegas y lagares tradicionales de la zona con numerosos trabajos sobre su origen y evolución. En esta Tesis Doctoral se aborda el estudio de la evolución de la industria vitivinícola en la Denominación de Origen Protegida Montilla-Moriles a través del análisis histórico, técnico y formal de sus instalaciones. Atendiendo particularmente a las instalaciones destinadas para la elaboración de vino construidas en las décadas de 1960 y 1970 durante el régimen franquista: las cooperativas vitivinícolas. Para ello se analizarán las primeras asociaciones de productores de la zona, así como los movimientos políticos y sus principales actores, conociendo el contexto histórico y social en el que se desarrollaron estas construcciones. Además, por su importancia, se abordará el marco legislativo y el sistema de organización en el que se crearon estas sociedades cooperativas. A lo largo de esta investigación, se analizarán en profundidad los proyectos industriales de las cooperativas vitivinícolas de la zona de Montilla-Moriles realizados por los ingenieros agrónomos durante este periodo. Asimismo, se observarán y estudiarán las corrientes estéticas y constructivas de la época, entre las que se establecerán unos paralelismos, además de analizar las diferentes arquitecturas del vino en el territorio español. Los resultados obtenidos han permitido distinguir un tipo de arquitectura característica para este periodo, diferenciando dos estilos: historicista y racionalista. El primero influenciado por la arquitectura tradicional de la zona y, el segundo, por las nuevas normas estéticas de las nuevas construcciones en el periodo estudiado. De esta forma, el análisis de la creación, desarrollo y evolución de las cooperativas vitivinícolas, ha facilitado establecer una secuencia del proceso de industrialización en la elaboración del vino a través de la maquinaria empleada y comprender el uso del espacio destinado en cada actividad. Como objeto final de esta Tesis Doctoral se ha planteado la necesidad de transferencia del conocimiento generado a través de la propuesta de un Sistema de Información Geográfico. Para ello, se ha expuesto la metodología para su desarrollo, agrupando los resultados de dicha investigación a través de un visor gratuito para el público no especializado. Este programa permitirá la comprensión e interpretación de los datos desde una perspectiva multidisciplinar que aúnen historia, arquitectura e ingeniería. En el estudio de las instalaciones dedicadas a la elaboración de vino, se abordarán los atributos y valores patrimoniales que impliquen la sostenibilidad y singularidad del territorio y el paisaje de la Denominación de Origen Montilla-Moriles. De esta forma, se pretende poner en valor estas construcciones que tuvieron su punto culminante en las décadas de 1960 y 1970, las cuales constituyen el testimonio vivo del contexto social, productivo y económico en las que fueron creadas. Se pretende, por tanto, contribuir a la conservación y preservación de estas construcciones por su vinculación histórica y el proceso de modernización de la industria del vino, sin el que no se puede entender la situación actual de la producción vitivinícola en la Denominación de Origen Protegida Montilla-Moriles. ; Currently, most of the wine production in the Protected Designation of Origin Montilla-Moriles is carried out by wine cooperatives as opposed to private wineries. However, these facilities for winemaking have not aroused the interest of study, so far, about its architecture and construction, as have been the traditional wineries and wineries in the area with numerous works on its origin and evolution. This Doctoral Thesis studies the evolution of the wine industry in the Protected Designation of Origin Montilla-Moriles through the historical, technical and formal analysis of its facilities. Particular attention will be paid to the winemaking facilities built in the 1960s and 1970s during the Franco regime: the wine cooperatives. For this purpose, the first associations of producers in the area will be analyzed, as well as the political movements and their main actors, knowing the historical and social context in which these constructions were developed. In addition, due to its importance, the legislative framework and the organizational system in which these cooperative societies were created will be addressed. Throughout this research, the industrial projects of the wine cooperatives in the Montilla-Moriles area carried out by the agronomists during this period will be analyzed in depth. Likewise, the aesthetic and constructive currents of the time will be observed and studied, among which parallels will be established, in addition to analyzing the different architectures of wine in the Spanish territory. The results obtained have made it possible to distinguish a characteristic type of architecture for this period, differentiating two styles: historicist and rationalist. The former was influenced by the traditional architecture of the area and the latter by the new aesthetic standards of the new constructions in the period studied. In this way, the analysis of the creation, development and evolution of the wine cooperatives has made it possible to establish a sequence of the industrialization process in winemaking through the machinery used and to understand the use of the space used in each activity. The final objective of this Doctoral Thesis is the need to transfer the knowledge generated through the proposal of a Geographic Information System. For this purpose, the methodology for its development has been presented, grouping the results of this research through a free viewer for the non-specialized publico This program will allow the understanding and interpretation of the data from a multidisciplinary perspective that combines history, architecture and engineering. In the study of winemaking facilities, the attributes and heritage values that imply the sustainability and uniqueness of the territory and landscape of the Montilla-Moriles Denomination of Origin will be addressed. In this way, the aim is to enhance the value of these buildings, which reached their peak in the 1960s and 1970s, and which constitute a living testimony of the social, productive and economic context in which they were created. The aim, therefore, is to contribute to the conservation and preservation of these buildings due to their historical connection and the process of modernization of the wine industry, without which the current situation of wine production in the Montilla-Moriles Protected Designation of Origin cannot be understood.

The history of the curriculum has brought some contributions in the sense of thinking the child of the future that the State, through the school institutions, wants and rejects. In this sense, it would be important to establish a discussion about one of the less studied disciplines, Music Education. Instead of articulating this child of the future considering the discipline of Musical Education with the others that make up the curriculum of nursery, primary, secondary education, I propose to articulate it with another curriculum, contained in Conservatory formations and of the Normal School, thus also covering its adult counterpart.Here we find a possibility to understand the power of Euterpe and the ways in which types of people are created with highly differentiated social destinies from the same topical of music education. In Portugal, the State seized vocational music education in 1835. From the formation of the Lisbon Conservatory (1836), a curricular tradition was inaugurated and has remained practically untouched until today. At the same time, other forms of awareness for musical art were created, with different attempts to install music education in primary education during the nineteenth century. Finally, at the end of this century, formation began in normal schools, and consequently in primary schools. At the beginning of the 20th century, initially only for girls, the experience of musical education began in the scope of secondary education. Contrary to what happened in the Conservatory, one did not learn to understand or produce music, but to sing in chorus. During the Estado Novo, this policy was encouraged. In 1968, a policy of democratization began that has been going on until nowadays, replacing choral singing with musical education and finding ways to extend vocational training to more and more people.Thus, I propose a critical-genealogical analysis that seeks to interrogate who was the child of the desired and rejected future and what fear was installed in the successive curricular reforms that covered music and the possibility for the unknown Little Euterpes to come. ; La historia del currículo ha aportado algunas contribuciones para pensar el niño del futuro que el Estado, a través de las instituciones escolares, desea y rechaza. En este sentido, sería importante establecer un debate sobre una de las disciplinas menos estudiadas, la Educación Musical. Pero en lugar de articular este niño en desarrollo teniendo en cuenta solo la disciplina de la Educación Musical, contextualizándolo en el currículo de la educación infantil, primaria y secundaria, necesito articularlo con otro currículo, casi siempre considerado aparte, porque también incluye una contraparte adulta. Me refiero a los planes de estudio vocacionales y profesionales del Conservatorio y de la Escuela Normal. Creo que he encontrado aquí un enclave desde el que podemos intentar comprender el poder de Euterpe y las formas en que se crean tipos de personas con destinos sociales muy diferenciados a partir de un mismo tema, en este caso la música.En Portugal, el Estado asumió la enseñanza profesional de la música en 1835. Con la formación del Conservatorio de Lisboa (1836), se inaugura una línea que persiste prácticamente intacta hasta hoy. Paralelamente, se crearon otras formas de sensibilización al arte musical, con diferentes intentos de instalar la educación musical en la enseñanza primaria durante el siglo xix. Finalmente, a finales de este siglo, la formación comenzó en las escuelas normales y, por consiguiente, en las escuelas primarias. A principios del siglo xx, inicialmente solo para las niñas, comenzó la experiencia de la educación musical en el ámbito de la enseñanza secundaria. Al contrario de lo que ocurría en el Conservatorio, no se enseñaba a entender o producir música, sino a cantar en el coro. Durante el Estado Novo se fomentó esta política. Todavía en 1968 se inició una política de democratización que continúa hasta hoy y que supuso la sustitución del canto coral por la educación musical y la búsqueda de medios para ampliar la formación profesional a un número cada vez mayor de personas.Así, propongo un análisis crítico-genealógico que pretende cuestionar quién fue el niño deseado y rechazado del futuro y cuál fue el miedo que se instaló en las sucesivas reformas curriculares que abrazaron la música. ; A história do currículo tem trazido algumas contribuições no sentido de pensar a criança do futuro que o Estado, através das instituições escolares, deseja e rejeita. Neste sentido, seria importante instaurar uma discussão acerca de uma das disciplinas menos estudadas, a Educação Musical. Mas ao invés de articular esta criança em devir tendo em conta apenas a disciplina de Educação Musical contextualizando-a no currículo do ensino infantil, primário, secundário, a predo articular com um outro currículo, quase sempre considerado à parte, porque abrange também uma contraparte adulta. Refiro-me aos currículos vocacionais e profissionalizantes do Conservatório e da Escola Normal. Julgo, deste modo, ter aqui encontrado um enclave a partir do qual se poderá tentar compreender o poder de Euterpe e os modos como se criam tipos de pessoas com destinos sociais altamente diferenciados a partir de uma mesma tópica, neste caso, a música.Em Portugal, o Estado apodera-se do ensino vocacional de música em 1835. A partir da formação do Conservatório de Lisboa (1836), inaugura-se uma linha que persiste praticamente intocada até hoje. Paralelamente, foram sendo criadas outras formas de sensibilização para a arte musical, com diferentes tentativas de instalar a educação musical no ensino primário durante o século XIX. Finalmente, no final deste século, iniciaram-se as formações nas escolas normais, e, consequentemente, nas escolas primárias. No início do século XX, inicialmente apenas para raparigas, iniciou-se a experiência de educação musical no âmbito do ensino liceal. Ao contrário do que acontecia no Conservatório, não se ensinava a compreender ou produzir música, mas a cantar em coro. Durante o Estado Novo, esta política foi incentivada. Ainda em 1968, iniciou-se uma política de democratização que segue até aos dias de hoje e que passou por substituir o canto coral pela educação musical e por encontrar formas de alargar as formações vocacionais a mais e mais pessoas.Proponho assim uma análise crítico-genealógica que visa interrogar quem foi a criança de futuro desejada e rejeitada e qual o medo que se instalou nas sucessivas reformas curriculares que abrangeram a música.

A stablecoin (SC) is a financial structure that attempts to peg the value of its liabilities (or a tranched subset of its liabilities) to an object outside its control, like the USD. To do this, the SC must effectively convince its liability holders that SC liabilities can be redeemed on demand (or on short notice) for USD at par (or some fixed exchange rate). The purpose of this structure is to render SC liabilities more attractive as a payment instrument. Pegging to the USD is attractive to people living in the U.S. because the USD is the unit of account. Non-U.S. holders may be attracted to the product because the USD is the world's reserve currency. This structure serves to increase the demand for a SC pegged to the USD. To a macroeconomist, an SC looks like a unilateral fixed exchange rate regime or a currency board. The structure also resembles a money market fund that pegs the price of its liabilities with the USD at par (presently, government money funds in the United States). It also looks like a bank without deposit insurance (bank deposit liabilities are pegged at par value against cash). The history of unilateral fixed exchange rate regimes is mixed. Hong Kong has successfully pegged its currency to the USD for decades. But the experience for many countries seems closer to that of Argentina. Unless a USD-based SC is backed fully by USD reserves (it needs an account at the Fed for this) or by USD bills (maximum denomination is $100, so unlikely), it may be prone to a bank run. Any other security (including USTs, as the events of March 2020 demonstrated) is subject to liquidity risk -- i.e., a risk that the market for the security suddenly freezes, or demand for the security vanishes as investors seek safer havens. If a SC cannot dispose of its assets at "fair" or "normal" prices, it will fail to raise the money it needs to meet its par redemption promise. The SC will turn out to be not so stable.  The theory of bank runs suggests that SCs might be rendered run-proof if their liabilities are properly designed. The famous Diamond and Dybvig (JPE 1983) model of bank runs is, in fact, a paper that demonstrates how banks can be rendered run-proof. In the first part of their paper, the explain how a credible promise to suspend redemptions when redemption activity is abnormally high can serve to discourage runs (redemptions based on belief of failure, rather than a need for liquidity) altogether. There is no need for deposit insurance (the second part of their paper is devoted to explaining why deposit insurance may nevertheless be needed, but their argument is not entirely satisfactory).  In reality, we do see attempts to render run-prone structures less prone to runs. The Dodd-Frank Act, for example, prevented institutional money funds from pricing their liabilities at par with the USD (only government funds can now do this). In addition, the Act required that fund managers implement liquidity fees and redemption gates in the event of heavy redemption activity. These provisions have not been entirely successful. Even banks that suspended redemptions in the old days did not manage to prevent mass redemption events. The theory suggests that what is needed is a *credible* policy. Evidently, when push comes to shove, people cannot always be expected to follow through on their promises.  Back in my teaching days, I used a "crowded movie theatre" as a metaphor to explain the phenomenon. Imagine a movie theatre that seats 500 people. If someone was to yell "fire!" (for legitimate or illegitimate reasons), people can be expected to rush for the exits. Invariably, some people are likely to be trampled and even killed. If people would instead react to the alarm by rising calmly from their seats and proceeding sequentially to the exits, then only the very last few people in the queue are destined not to make it. Losing one or two people relative to (say) is terrible, but it's preferable to losing 50 people in a mad rush for the exits. An economist might detect a missing market here. Why not sell tickets with queue positions (in the event of fire)? The tickets with the last few queue positions are likely to sell at a discount (that would depend on the likelihood of the event). This way, if someone yells "fire!", customers will simply show their assigned queue position to the ushers and proceed calmly out of the exits. If the fire does exist, the few people know they are doomed and accept their fate with stoic resignation, knowing that they are dying so that many others may live. (And if it turns out there is no fire, they are saved from the fire and the prospect of death that would have been present had they joined the rush to the exits). Except we know that's not what is likely to happen. People cannot be expected to commit in this manner. And there's no obvious way to enforce such contractual stipulations.  But this is where SCs may have an advantage over conventional institutional structures. In particular, their use of "smart contracts" means that commitment is not an issue. The terms of such contracts are executed under the specified contingencies whether you like it or not. You may not like it ex post, but such commitment can be valuable ex ante. In the context of SCs, the credible threat of suspending redemptions in the event of abnormal redemption activity may actually prevent any runs from occurring in the first place. There are, of course, limits to what smart contracts can achieve. They wouldn't, for example, solve the movie theatre problem I just described. This is because people do not live "on-chain." (See also my blog post Smart Contracts and Asset Tokenization.) To some extent, the same issue exists for USD SCs because USDs and USTs exist "off-chain." Nevertheless, money accounts are different than people, so I think the principle described above can apply to financial products. ****Related work: Preventing Bank Runs (w/ Nosal and Sultanum, TE 2017). 

In the field of economics, the two main branches that deal with the analyses of economy-ecology interactions are Environmental and Resource Economics (ERE) and Ecological Economics (EE). The latter is typically characterized as being fundamentally at odds with ERE's negligence of biophysical constraints to economic activity. EE has proceeded to develop as a pluralist and trans-disciplinary field whose literature engages in the stipulation of previously overlooked considerations. For some, this pluralism represents the biggest strength: its success hinges on both the acceptance of multiple and incommensurable epistemologies that detect fissures in the dominant epistemology and the debate that arises out of the different delineations of dissent. Others argue that over the course of EE's existence, pluralism has been insufficiently able to rid the field from mainstream, particularly neoclassical, economic epistemologies and formalisms.

The aim of this paper is to provide recommendations for the development of an alternative to the current formal abstractions of ecology-economy configurations. This is done through a reinterpretation of the natural capital concept from an eco-Marxist perspective. After introducing the natural capital concept and discussing how the treatment thereof differs across ERE and EE, we isolate strong sustainability as one of the main attributes of EE when it comes to formalization practices. Strong sustainability's prescription to treat natural capital as a complementary input in economic production functions has led to the implementation of various strategies concerning natural capital conservation. The bulk of these strategies has subsequently relied on monetary valuation for the purpose of embedding conservation strategies within the broader rationale of the market. In this paper we discuss monetary valuation in light of planetary boundaries, such as atmospheric sink capacities, and ecosystem services such as the habitat provision for endangered species. Critical studies have identified the monetary valuation of biophysical and ecological processes as commodification and we address both the theorized and experienced contradictions it is associated with.

In our view, the logic behind the exchange value assessment of ecological processes can easily be traced back to the underlying assumptions of mathematical formalization in EE. In order to dissect these assumptions, we find it fruitful to draw on ecological Marxism. After introducing the reader to the gist of Marx's ecological insights we discuss the concept of dualism in ecological Marxism and economics. We contend that our explicit focus on mathematical formalization forecloses a complete rejection of dualism since the specification of variables requires a process of conceptual distinction. This is why we adopt the notion of duality; where the separation and opposition between two essential elements is replaced by interdependence.

Having positioned ourselves in the eco-Marxist debate on dualism, we then proceed with a discussion of Marx's labour process theory and Moore's world-ecology. The labour process is subject to two elements: 'purpose realisation' and 'material metabolism'. The first refers to labour as an imposition of human intention; causing nature to capitulate to humanity's will. 'Material metabolism' describes labour as an exchange or mediation between itself and nature. World-ecology offers an ecological interpretation of capital accumulation over the course of history. One of the concepts used to distinguish historical ecology-economy configurations, or world-ecological regimes, over capitalism's long-dureé is the ecological surplus. This is a ratio between the system-wide appropriation and capitalization of both human and extra-human inputs. High ecological surpluses allow capital accumulation to proceed by means of labour productivity gains which are facilitated by appropriated labours, entities and processes. Low ecological surpluses hamper accumulation and trigger investments in new sources of appropriation, cheaper capitalized inputs or efficiency increasing technologies.

How do these two eco-Marxist insights facilitate a reinterpretation of the assumptions underlying the practice of mathematical formalization in EE? Through the concept of the ecological surplus, world-ecology allows us to consider the commodification of ecological processes as an instance of capitalization. When valuation techniques disclose the benefit of an ecological process in monetary terms, said ecological process can be treated as an input in the production function. But according to world-ecology, an increase in capitalization also diminishes the ecological surplus which subsequently hampers capital accumulation. This begs us to question why the capitalization of ecological processes is a dominant strategy in response to ecological degradations. We argue that capitalization is a fruitful strategy in the face of future constraints to accumulation, such as diminished labour or human-made capital productivity and/or future opportunities for accumulation through for example, greenwashing.

Marx's labour process theory allows us to further argue that the incentives which capitalization aim to foster can be seen as desired alternations to the 'material metabolism' element of the labour process. The socially defined set of 'purpose realisations' on the other hand remains faithful to "the endowment of natural objects with humanistic forms for the purpose not of use value creation, but exchange value accumulation". This leads us to conclude that the depiction of economy-ecology configurations by means of natural capital which enters the production function supports the underlying assumption that ecological sustainability is best achieved when capital bargains on behalf of nature. Furthermore, by explicitly focusing on capitalized ecological processes, the status-quo of formal abstraction in EE presumes dualism and is therefore incomplete. We argue that a more comprehensive portrayal requires the consideration of appropriated ecological processes in order to capture reciprocity and the unified management of interdependent flows which reproduce metabolic value. To this end, we introduce a trivial conceptual framework which summarizes the (proposed) mathematical formalization of economy-ecology configurations across ERE, EE and Ecological Marxism. The formal abstraction we propose from an eco-Marxist perspective is not only based on the consideration of appropriated ecological processes but also imposes duality instead of dualism between the 'societal' and 'natural' elements of production. The contribution of Ecological Marxism in this paper should not be seen as the formulation of an alternative to capitalization. Our proposed formal abstraction is based on the assumption that the 'purpose realisation' element of the labour process facilitates the goal of exchange value accumulation. Instead, we hope our contribution has shown that Ecological Marxism provides useful insights which can stretch the current confines of EE's mathematical formalization; allowing for a more comprehensive portrayal of economy-ecology configurations.

Background The City of Cape Town's Comprehensive Integrated Transport Plan (CITP) 2018 to 2023 identifies public transport as the key driver to changing the spatial form of Cape Town, with all its urban inefficiencies and social inequality. A key element to building sustainable communities is the establishment of Transit Oriented Developments (TODs) at the right locations along the rail and BRT transport corridors. However, the Metrorail railway service in Cape Town, which should be the backbone of the public transport system, has collapsed because of issues with safety, reliability, vandalism and comfort. This has forced commuters to opt for other modes of transport, mainly private vehicles and minibus taxis (MBTs), which has contributed to Cape Town becoming the most congested city in South Africa. Autonomous vehicles have been touted as the elixir for the problems of road safety and congestion. Along with their ability to find the most efficient routes they are anticipated, inter alia, to be able to free up road space by decreasing the following distance between vehicles Aim The aim of this dissertation is to describe an autonomous vehicle, review the current status of the industry in the evolution towards driverless cars, and predict how autonomous vehicles will be able to penetrate and impact the road transport network of South Africa, with a particular emphasis on Cape Town and the MBT industry. Method The research method included a literature study of the research and development happening in the Global North and how this would benefit South Africa, along with a Delphi Survey of a panel of experts in the field of South African road transport. Findings The literature review and Delphi survey produced the following propositions: • The high-stakes competition between car manufacturers and technology companies to produce the first driverless car that will be legally allowed to drive on all roads, will ensure that this will happen – however the timeline is not so clear. • When it does happen, the condition of the road reserve will be one of the factors in preventing driverless cars from operating freely. The quality of the road infrastructure, only 20% South Africa's roads are paved, and the unpredictability of other road users such as pedestrians, cyclists and, in South Africa, livestock, will mean that there will probably always have to be someone behind the wheel of an autonomous vehicle even if it is legally self-driving. • The MBT industry in South Africa does not receive an operating subsidy from the Government but it is an extremely powerful and influential informal public transport provider, often at odds with the lawmakers and the traffic authorities. It is important that the Government and the MBT industry aim to form a working partnership so that the road transport industry can take advantage of the obvious benefits of this new technology. • Because the Government is ensuring that public transport is given priority over private transport, it is unlikely that it will consider the huge investment in the road infrastructure that is needed to support self-driving vehicles. But, if the Government and the MBT industry could find a way for the MBT industry to become a formal part of the public transport system, it may then consider portioning some of its public transport budget for road infrastructure upgrades to support autonomous MBTs. • The evolutionary road to fully autonomous vehicles (Level 5) is long. There are already cars on the road in the Global North that have autonomy Level 2, and some between Level 2 and 3 (Level 2+), with technology that allows the cars to change lanes, keep a safe distance from surrounding cars, etc. As communication is from vehicle to vehicle, Level 2 and 2+ vehicles do not require the huge capital outlay for the infrastructure and communications network that would be necessary for Level 3, 4 and 5 vehicles. No MBT in South Africa has any form of autonomy, and, with 3 out of the 36 people killed daily on the road involved in accidents with MBTs, it is imperative that the Government finds a way for the industry to benefit from the safety aspects of autonomy Levels 2 and 2+. • One of the major threats of the 4th Industrial Revolution is job losses. Historically, MBT, e-hailing and metered taxi drivers have been known to violently defend their livelihoods when faced by competition for their passengers. The arrival of driverless vehicles will certainly be a threat to their jobs, and it is likely that the drivers will resort to any means possible to prevent this from happening. However, prevailing conditions, such as the poor condition of the road reserve and the lack of government resources and financial input, means that these changes are not imminent, and, in the meantime, structures can be put in place to soften the impact that autonomy will have on job losses in the taxi industry. Conclusions Should the City of Cape Town plan for fully AVs? Yes. Features found in Levels 1 and 2 should become mandatory in all vehicles on the road. Planning can be done in phases, initially to support vehicles at Levels 1, 2 and 2+, by improving the road infrastructure such as lane markings and defining kerbsides, and then, more improvements for Level 3 and the finally for Levels 4 and 5 installing the telecommunications network and upgrading the whole road reserve. Cyclists and pedestrians are a major hinderance in the evolution of AVs, their unpredictable behaviour is very difficult for the vehicle's software to process. NMT is an important part of the future of Cape Town's transport system and the upgrades and extensions to pathways should be carried out with the intention of limiting the interaction with AVs. There are some benefits for South Africa being behind in the adoption of AVs in that they can learn from mistakes made by the many international cities that are presently going through the roll out of AVs. In the meantime, priority should be given by the City, to working alongside the Government, to restoring and improving the rail service to a level that will attract commuters back to this mode of transport to reduce the unsustainable pressure on the roads. Although the evolution to driverless cars is unpredictable, it is important that all levels of government engage with as many stakeholders and affected parties as possible before putting legislation in place. This is an important time in the history of road transport and every effort needs to be made to get the maximum benefit out of all the positive impacts that this technology will bring.

Problem statement. The category of so-called «state children» in modern Ukraine has not been experiencing the best times. Although the childcare institution reform is being happened directed towards the increase in child adoption rate it should be noticed that only 120 underage citizens managed to find new families. A significant percentage of childcare institutions is currently in economic hardships. The features are outdated equipment, the importance of repairing the premises etc. However, today's democratic transformations do not try to hide the scale of the problems. All difficulties are discussed in society and, as possible, any help is provided. Such a situation is typical in the system of contemporary moral values. Additionally, for a long time Ukrainian territory used to remain under the totalitarian Soviet pressure for too long — when the cult of the leader retreated to all needs. We seek to recreate the historical retrospective of social and everyday life conditions in state institutions of childcare during the 1920's and 1930's. We are determined to clarify whether present-day troubles are rooted in history or it exclusively problems of a contemporary nature. The relevance of the research.In contemporary European space, the policy of child-centrism is supported. Due to different circumstances, the category of children who have lost the opportunity of parental care is systematically replenished. Such children frequently go into the care of the state. Furthermore, it is the state institutions that must create all the conditions for a harmonious upbringing of every child. That is the concept of childhood care in developed European countries which methods had been shaped in the first quarter of the last century. Unfortunately, the lives of Ukrainian citizens under the totalitarian system of the Soviet empire excluded the possibility of decent and full-fledged education and development of children, especially the children who lost the opportunity of family education. In this article, we tend to analyse the conditions created by the Soviet totalitarian system in the juvenile sphere. Applying the methods of historical retrospective, we characterise the social and living conditions which were created for the children of Soviet Ukraine during the 1920's and early 1930's. The scientific novelty. Despite the representative historiographical achievements, there are many poorly researched issues. They include the structure of state childcare institutions and the level of their social and welfare provision, clarification of the causes regarding hidden child homelessness, as well as characterizing the totalitarian state's attitude toward children who lost their ability to bring up family. This article dedicated to the disclosure of these aspects. The purpose and the objectives of the research. In this article, we aim to analyse the complex experience of forming a network of childcare institutions in the Ukrainian SSR. We intend to find out the reasons for the emergence of a large category of orphans, homeless children and fatherless children to characterise the state measures and their results aimed at overcoming the difficult situation, based on archival documents. We tend to analyse the level of social and financial support of state child care institutions and the moods of the dependents themselves and their educators and teachers. The methodological framework of the research is based on a set of principles and methods which application allows to reveal the topic. The basis was a civilizational approach which provides for the consideration of institutions of state custody of children in the system «orphans and homeless children — institutions of state care» taking into account the fact of specific historical, as well as civilizational properties of the era of the so-called «formation of the Soviet command system». Conclusions of the research. As a result of the social and political turmoil of the 1914–1922 period, a large category of children who had been deprived of family care had formed in Ukraine. According to the logic of the development of a civilized country, the government of the state had to take care of disadvantaged infants. However, this order of things is not possible in a totalitarian country where the leader's cult and ideological terror became dominant in public relations. The children had poorly cared. In the conditions of economic collapse, the funds allocated by the state were not enough. Moreover, there was a lack of teaching staff too. The incidence and mortality rate exceeded up to 50% of the total orphans in foster homes. Difficult living conditions, poor nutrition, lack of proper linen and clothing affected the weak children. And under such a situation, due to lack of finances, the state went on reducing the number of child care institutions. At the beginning of the 1930s, the situation in orphanages became even more complicated. As a result of the removal of these institutions from the state supply, the children were as good as doomed. The state was not a protector of children but a powerful conveyor of infant mortality — children suffered unsanitary conditions, hunger and sickness, catastrophic lack of necessary clothing and shoes. However, the totalitarian machine was indifferent as it solemnly celebrated the anniversary of the pioneer, then the launch of the Dniprobud then arranged demonstrative «tours» for foreign tourists. The «state children» in Soviet Ukraine were absolutely unnecessary. This could not but affect their psychological and physical condition. Unfortunately, they could not count on salvation. Keywords: children's homelessness, foster care, orphanages, social and everyday life conditions. ; В статті проаналізовано причини появи численної категорії безпритульних дітей в 1920-хрр., охарактеризовано заходи держави щодо подолання дитячої безпритульності. З'ясовано кроки, які вживали громадські та державні установи для подолання даної ситуації. Визначено причини занедбаного стану дитячих притулків. В умовах господарської розрухи коштів, що виділяла держава, хронічно не вистачало. Бракувало й педагогічних кадрів. У результаті в притулках спостерігалися високий рівень захворювань дітей на інфекційні недуги та дитяча смертність. Тим не менше, в умовах тоталітарної держави всі факти проявів дитячого маргінесу ретельно приховувалися. Було офіційно проголошено про остаточне подолання дитячої безпритульності. На початку 1930-хрр. на державних дітей очікували ще жорстокіші випробовування: в 1931р. дитячі заклади виведено з-під державного постачання, через що там суттєво зросла смертність. Ключові слова: дитяча безпритульність, дитячі притулки, патронат, соціально-побутові умови.

The article offers a historiographical consideration of the description of the Khotyn battle 1621with an emphasis on the historical value of M. Kostin's "Chronicle of the Land of Moldova" in the coverage of theevent. The relevance of the study is dictated by the 400th anniversary of the battle. The purpose of the study is to clarify the historical significance of thechronicle in revealing the theme of the Battle of Khotyn in 1621. Methodology describes the work of M. Kostin, its source base, comparison with other historical sources, review of its use. Conclusions. "Chronicle of the Land of Moldova" by Myron Kostin, being the only source for studying the history of Moldova in the early and mid seventeenth century. at the same time it is a true description of the events of the Khotyn War (1620–1621). Although the chronicler is not a contemporary of the events, his account of the Battle of Khotyn is based on serious Polish sources of the relevant era, oral information from contemporaries of the fighting, the traditions of the princely family of Movileshty, and so on. The work is positively characterized by a deep and detailed description of events, impartiality, clear analysis of military operations of a participant in many battles, education of the author and his broad outlook, which allowed him to understand the causal links of actions, actions of the parties, unconditional literary talent M. Kostin. His disregard for the events of the Khotyn War of 1621 by a number of Ukrainian historians shows a reluctance to consider the event comprehensively, using all sources. Moreover, we see a focus on showing only one fragment of this historical event, the participation of the Ukrainian side in it. The language barrier to the use of the Chronicle is no more a problem than a political motive. ; L'article propose une revue historiographique de la description de la guerre de Khotyn de 1621 en mettant l'accent surla valeur historique de la «Chronique de la terre moldave» de M. Kostin à la lumière des événements. Pertinencenla recherche est dictée par le 400e anniversaire de la bataille. Le but de l'étude est de déterminer le poids historique de la chronique pour la divulgation de la bataille de Khotyn de 1621 par ceux-ci.Méthodologie : analyse de l'œuvre de M. Kostin, ses sources, comparaison avec d'autres sources historiques, un aperçu de son utilisation. Conclusion. «Chronique de la terre moldave» de Miron Kostin, étant la seule source pour étudier l'histoire de la Moldavie au début et au milieu du XVIIe siècle. est en même temps une description fiable des événements de la guerre de Khotyn (1620-1621). Bien que le chroniqueur ne soit pas un contemporain des événements, sonl'histoire de la bataille de Khotyn est basée sur des sources polonaises sérieuses de l'époque correspondante, des informations orales de participants à la guerre, les traditions de la famille princière Movila, etc. Caractérise positivement le travail de profondeur et de détail description des événements, objectivité, une analyse claire des opérations militaires d'un participant à de nombreuses batailles, l'éducation de l'auteur et de son large perspective, qui lui permet de comprendre la relation causale des actions des parties, une inconditionnelle littéraire Le talent de M. Kostin. Son ignorance dans la divulgation du thème de la guerre de Khotyn de 1621 par un certain nombre d'historiens ukrainiens montre une réticence à considérer l'événement de manière exhaustive en utilisant toutes les sources. Il y a de fortes chances que nous voyions concentration à ne montrer qu'un fragment de cet événement historique, la participation de la partie ukrainienne à celui-ci. La barrière de la langue à l'utilisation de la Chronique n'est pas un problème plus important que le motif politique. ; В статье предлагается историографический обзор описания Хотинской войны 1621 г. с акцентом на исторической ценности "Летописи Земли Молдовской" М. Костина в ракурсе освещении событий. Актуальность исследования диктуется 400-летним юбилеем битвы. Целью исследования является определение исторического веса летописи для раскрытия теми Хотинской битвы 1621 г. Методология: анализ произведения М. Костина, его источников, сравнение с другими историческими источниками, обзор его использования. Выводы. "Летопись Земли Молдовской" Мирона Костина, будучи единственным источником для изучения истории Молдовы начала и середины ХVII в. одновременно является достоверным описанием событий Хотинской войны (1620–1621 гг.). Хотя летописец не современник событий, однако его рассказ о Хотинской битве основывается на серьезных польских источниках соответствующей эпохи, устной информации от участников войны, традициях княжеской семьи Мовилэ и др. Позитивно характеризует произведение глубокое и детальное описание событий, объективность, четкий анализ военных операций участника многих битв, образованность автора и его широкий кругозор, что позволяет ему понимать причинно-следственную связь поступков сторон, безусловный литературный талант М. Костина. Ее игнорирование в раскрытие темы Хотинской войны 1621 г. целым рядом украинских историков показывает нежелание рассмотреть событие комплексно с использованием всех источников. Скорее всего, мы видим концентрацию на показе только одного фрагмента этого исторического события, участия в нем украинской стороны. Языковый барьер для использования "Летописи" не является большей проблемой, чем политический мотив. ; У статті пропонується історіографічний огляд опису Хотинської війни 1621 року з акцентом на історичні цінності "Літопису Землі Молдовської" М. Костіна в ракурсі висвітленні подій. Актуальність дослідження диктується 400-річним ювілеєм битви. Метою дослідження є визначення історичної ваги літопису для розкриття теми Хотинської битви 1621 р. Методологія: аналіз твору М. Костіна, його джерел, порівняння з іншими історичними джерелами, огляд його використання. Висновки. "Літопис Землі Молдовської" Мирона Костіна, будучи єдиним джерелом для вивчення історії Молдови початку і середини ХVII ст. одночасно є достовірним описом подій Хотинської війни (1620-1621 рр.). Хоча літописець сучасник подій, проте його розповідь про Хотинську битву грунтується на серйозних польських джерелах відповідної епохи, усної інформації від учасників війни, традиціях княжої сім'ї Мовіле і ін. Позитивно характеризує твір глибокий і детальний опис подій, об'єктивність, чіткий аналіз військових операцій учасника багатьох битв, освіченість автора і йогоширокий світогляд, що дозволяє йому розуміти причинно-наслідковий зв'язок вчинків сторін, безумовний літературний талант М. Костіна. Її ігнорування в розкритті теми Хотинської війни 1621 р. цілою низкою українських істориківпоказує небажання розглянути подію комплексно з використанням усіх джерел. Швидше за все, ми бачимо концентрацію на показі тільки одного фрагмента цієї історичної події, участі в ньому української сторони. Мовний бар'єр для використання "Літопису" не є більшою проблемою, ніж політичний мотив.

Problem statement. The category of so-called «state children» in modern Ukraine has not been experiencing the best times. Although the childcare institution reform is being happened directed towards the increase in child adoption rate it should be noticed that only 120 underage citizens managed to find new families. A significant percentage of childcare institutions is currently in economic hardships. The features are outdated equipment, the importance of repairing the premises etc. However, today's democratic transformations do not try to hide the scale of the problems. All difficulties are discussed in society and, as possible, any help is provided. Such a situation is typical in the system of contemporary moral values. Additionally, for a long time Ukrainian territory used to remain under the totalitarian Soviet pressure for too long — when the cult of the leader retreated to all needs. We seek to recreate the historical retrospective of social and everyday life conditions in state institutions of childcare during the 1920's and 1930's. We are determined to clarify whether present-day troubles are rooted in history or it exclusively problems of a contemporary nature. The relevance of the research.In contemporary European space, the policy of child-centrism is supported. Due to different circumstances, the category of children who have lost the opportunity of parental care is systematically replenished. Such children frequently go into the care of the state. Furthermore, it is the state institutions that must create all the conditions for a harmonious upbringing of every child. That is the concept of childhood care in developed European countries which methods had been shaped in the first quarter of the last century. Unfortunately, the lives of Ukrainian citizens under the totalitarian system of the Soviet empire excluded the possibility of decent and full-fledged education and development of children, especially the children who lost the opportunity of family education. In this article, we tend to analyse the conditions created by the Soviet totalitarian system in the juvenile sphere. Applying the methods of historical retrospective, we characterise the social and living conditions which were created for the children of Soviet Ukraine during the 1920's and early 1930's. The scientific novelty. Despite the representative historiographical achievements, there are many poorly researched issues. They include the structure of state childcare institutions and the level of their social and welfare provision, clarification of the causes regarding hidden child homelessness, as well as characterizing the totalitarian state's attitude toward children who lost their ability to bring up family. This article dedicated to the disclosure of these aspects. The purpose and the objectives of the research. In this article, we aim to analyse the complex experience of forming a network of childcare institutions in the Ukrainian SSR. We intend to find out the reasons for the emergence of a large category of orphans, homeless children and fatherless children to characterise the state measures and their results aimed at overcoming the difficult situation, based on archival documents. We tend to analyse the level of social and financial support of state child care institutions and the moods of the dependents themselves and their educators and teachers. The methodological framework of the research is based on a set of principles and methods which application allows to reveal the topic. The basis was a civilizational approach which provides for the consideration of institutions of state custody of children in the system «orphans and homeless children — institutions of state care» taking into account the fact of specific historical, as well as civilizational properties of the era of the so-called «formation of the Soviet command system». Conclusions of the research. As a result of the social and political turmoil of the 1914–1922 period, a large category of children who had been deprived of family care had formed in Ukraine. According to the logic of the development of a civilized country, the government of the state had to take care of disadvantaged infants. However, this order of things is not possible in a totalitarian country where the leader's cult and ideological terror became dominant in public relations. The children had poorly cared. In the conditions of economic collapse, the funds allocated by the state were not enough. Moreover, there was a lack of teaching staff too. The incidence and mortality rate exceeded up to 50% of the total orphans in foster homes. Difficult living conditions, poor nutrition, lack of proper linen and clothing affected the weak children. And under such a situation, due to lack of finances, the state went on reducing the number of child care institutions. At the beginning of the 1930s, the situation in orphanages became even more complicated. As a result of the removal of these institutions from the state supply, the children were as good as doomed. The state was not a protector of children but a powerful conveyor of infant mortality — children suffered unsanitary conditions, hunger and sickness, catastrophic lack of necessary clothing and shoes. However, the totalitarian machine was indifferent as it solemnly celebrated the anniversary of the pioneer, then the launch of the Dniprobud then arranged demonstrative «tours» for foreign tourists. The «state children» in Soviet Ukraine were absolutely unnecessary. This could not but affect their psychological and physical condition. Unfortunately, they could not count on salvation. Keywords: children's homelessness, foster care, orphanages, social and everyday life conditions. ; В статті проаналізовано причини появи численної категорії безпритульних дітей в 1920-хрр., охарактеризовано заходи держави щодо подолання дитячої безпритульності. З'ясовано кроки, які вживали громадські та державні установи для подолання даної ситуації. Визначено причини занедбаного стану дитячих притулків. В умовах господарської розрухи коштів, що виділяла держава, хронічно не вистачало. Бракувало й педагогічних кадрів. У результаті в притулках спостерігалися високий рівень захворювань дітей на інфекційні недуги та дитяча смертність. Тим не менше, в умовах тоталітарної держави всі факти проявів дитячого маргінесу ретельно приховувалися. Було офіційно проголошено про остаточне подолання дитячої безпритульності. На початку 1930-хрр. на державних дітей очікували ще жорстокіші випробовування: в 1931р. дитячі заклади виведено з-під державного постачання, через що там суттєво зросла смертність. Ключові слова: дитяча безпритульність, дитячі притулки, патронат, соціально-побутові умови.