Suchergebnisse

O presente artigo oferece uma análise de economia política da pandemia e das suas consequências socioeconómicas. Recusando a ideia de exogeneidade da crise, propõe-se encontrar as causas da pandemia na presente organização da economia internacional, liberalizada, financeirizada e dominada por empresas multinacionais monopolistas. É também partindo desta caracterização que se escrutinam alguns mecanismos causais por detrás da crise económica global e dos inéditos recursos mobilizados pelos Estados no combate a esta crise, ainda que assimetricamente distribuídos entre o centro e a periferia capitalistas. Através da análise das possíveis consequências desta crise, em particular no que diz respeito à reconfiguração estatal, recusa-se a ideia de fim do neoliberalismo e procuram-se pistas para a sua eventual superação.

This article aims at contributing to the literature on the financialisation of pensions in Europe by examining the transformations occurring in semi-peripheral Portugal. The Portuguese case accounts for the variegated nature of financialisation in general, and of pension provision in particular, throughout Europe. While the country followed similar processes to those of core European Union (EU) countries, leading to an increasingly integrated financial sector in the international arena, this integration was mainly led by the banking sector rather than by capital markets. This helps account for the relatively reduced role of private retirement income products in the country. Nonetheless, the Portuguese pension system has been equally subject to reform, aiming at reducing its weight in public expenditure. The result is a contraction in coverage and benefit without achieving an equivalent match in supplementary private forms of pension provision. Under a prolonged period of stagnation and crisis, the deterioration of State pensions for the majority continues while a residual private, outward-oriented and foreign-owned pension sector grows for the most affluent, further exposing the systemic and variegated nature of financialisation processes in the semi-periphery.

This article offers a critical review of the literature on consumption and household debt, with the aim of identifying the main contributions and drawbacks of disciplinary approaches for understanding the multiple factors that influence these important forms of socioeconomic behaviour. On the basis of this literature review, the authors propose an interdisciplinary line of research within political economy that places particular emphasis on structural factors such as the recent transformations in contemporary capitalism, which have led to an extraordinary growth in the economic and political power of finance. It also foregrounds relevant social changes such as the increasing dominance of the neoliberal ideology, which promotes an individualisation of the provision of goods and services that favours the financial sector.

Abstract:This paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of cooperation in productive ventures, conceived of as collective action endeavours that require cooperation rather than mere coordination. It is argued that cooperative behaviour is grounded on three kinds of 'common goods', defined as goods that are shared and recognized as beneficial by the workers. These comprise common goals, relational satisfaction, and moral norms and values. The commonly held goods are associated with motives and behavioural rules which constitute both the reasons for cooperating and the means through which the dilemmatic nature of cooperation is overcome. It is further argued that the binding character of these rules is closely linked to humans' ability and opportunity to communicate. Normative guidelines relative to management practices and directions for future research are also derived.