Search results
The well-being of Europe’s citizens depends less on individual consumption and more on their social consumption of essential goods and services – from water and retail banking to schools and care homes – in what we call the foundational economy. Individual consumption depends on market income, while foundational consumption depends on social infrastructure and delivery systems of networks and branches, which are neither created nor renewed automatically, even as incomes increase. This historically created foundational economy has been wrecked in the last generation by privatisation, outsourcing, franchising and the widespread penetration of opportunistic and predatory business models. The distinctive, primary role of public policy should therefore be to secure the supply of basic services for all citizens (not a quantum of economic growth and jobs). Reconstructing the foundational has to start with a vision of citizenship that identifies foundational entitlements as the conditions for dignified human development, and likewise has to depend on treating the business enterprises central to the foundational economy as juridical persons with claims to entitlements but also with responsibilities and duties. If the aim is citizen well-being and flourishing for the many not the few, then European politics at regional, national and EU level needs to be refocused on foundational consumption and securing universal minimum access and quality. If/when government is unresponsive, the impetus for change has to come from engaging citizens locally and regionally in actions which break with the top down politics of ‘vote for us and we will do this for you’.
focuses on the nexus of displacement with another emerging global phenomenon: the changing nature of work. Digitalisation and the digital economy are at the forefront of these transformations. This includes online gig work and how innovations in technology, artificial intelligence (AI), and robotics are driving forward rapid changes in most fields of work. Economies are increasingly becoming digital and web-based, reshaping labour markets and employment
The well-being of Europe’s citizens depends less on individual consumption and more on their social consumption of essential goods and services – from water and retail banking to schools and care homes – in what we call the foundational economy. Individual consumption depends on market income, while foundational consumption depends on social infrastructure and delivery systems of networks and branches, which are neither created nor renewed automatically, even as incomes increase. This historically created foundational economy has been wrecked in the last generation by privatisation, outsourcing, franchising and the widespread penetration of opportunistic and predatory business models. The distinctive, primary role of public policy should therefore be to secure the supply of basic services for all citizens (not a quantum of economic growth and jobs). Reconstructing the foundational has to start with a vision of citizenship that identifies foundational entitlements as the conditions for dignified human development, and likewise has to depend on treating the business enterprises central to the foundational economy as juridical persons with claims to entitlements but also with responsibilities and duties. If the aim is citizen well-being and flourishing for the many not the few, then European politics at regional, national and EU level needs to be refocused on foundational consumption and securing universal minimum access and quality. If/when government is unresponsive, the impetus for change has to come from engaging citizens locally and regionally in actions which break with the top down politics of ‘vote for us and we will do this for you’.
Bacon 07 3/2/06 10:31 AM Page 151 7 The economy In considering the economy from the point of view of securitisation the underlying dilemma which is present throughout this book shifts a little. In most chapters, because of the issues with which we are dealing, the background theme is the trade-off between democracy and authoritarianism. Although because of the focus of our analysis we have not often put it in quite these terms, what we are assessing on one level is the balance between practices associated with the Soviet Union, and those associated with a
Slave economies 2 Slave economies Early French accounts of the Antilles reflect the transformations in settlement patterns from initiatives with a strong military and commercial character, to more established patterns of plantation colonisation. A number of testimonies have also been left by participants in the transportation of slaves across the Atlantic to the Americas. These texts reflect significant displacements and societal changes. They illustrate how human beings were introduced into new circuits of exchange, and how African slaves were commoditised
23 Social financing, social economy: Chantier de l’Économie Sociale Trust, Montreal Jean-Marc Fontan and Denis Bussières Context For several years, managers of social economy enterprises have been expressing the need to have access to financial products other than traditional grants and loans, while at the same time asking how best to maintain their business capital over the long term. They deemed that new products which kept their social mission in mind would be needed. At the request of the Chantier de l’Économie Sociale Trust, a study on these issues was
In a city on the south coast of England one evening, just after the 2016 referendum on the European Union, Diane talks about the economy at the offices where she works as a cleaner. She is on the top floor in a corridor overlooking the housing estate where she grew up and where her mother still lives. She is in her early thirties, married with four children. She is composed and, at times, reticent. She describes how just before the 2008 financial crisis her husband was earning high wages as a painter and decorator so they decided to buy a house. A few months
4062 building a peace economy_2652Prelims 25/11/2013 15:06 Page 69 4 Transforming a war economy: learning from the case of Kosovo AVING BUILT up a preliminary framework in the previous chapter through which war economies and transformation policies can be assessed, the case of Kosovo and transformation policies implemented by the DSI following the conflict there will be analysed, not simply to test the framework but to build and improve upon it. As a starting point, it is important to note that the conflict in Kosovo has primarily been analysed in relation to
Bandwidth is the petrol of the digital economy, and before the international cables were built it was supplied largely through satellite services: quality was often poor and the costs were high. Sub-Saharan Africa had ‘the lowest capacity in the world for international Internet bandwidth’. 1 Without effective internet, there were few incentives to develop local African content. This chapter looks at how sub-Saharan Africa got connected to the internet, the birth of independent African ISPs and
4147 Inglis–Are the Irish different_BB_Layout 1 29/07/2014 09:26 Page 34 4 Just another bubble economy? Denis O’Hearn Q: What is the difference between Iceland and Ireland? A: One letter and six months. That joke looked remarkably accurate after the Celtic ‘Tiger’ turned into a ‘pig’ (or PIIG) overnight at the end of 2008.1 The immediate story, as in many other parts of the world after the bankruptcy of Lehmann Brothers in the United States, was a massive banking crisis and a state bailout that would prove untenable within months. Irish gross domestic product