Número 32, ene-abr 2014 Imprimir
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Editorial

Foundations and Debate

  • Berch Berberoglu
    The Global Capitalist Crisis: Its Origins, Dynamics and Impact on the United States

    Abstract: This article is an analysis of the continuing global capitalist crisis, which originated in the United States during the “great recession” of 2007-2009. It outlines the dynamics and impact of the crisis on the U.S. economy and society. It shows that the crisis, which continues unabated to this day, is characterized by high rates of unemployment, low purchasing power, rising personal and institutional debt, home mortgage foreclosures, personal and corporate bankruptcies, increasing income and wealth inequality, lower living standards, and rising poverty. This article contends that the source of the current economic crisis is to be found in the growing gap between labor and capital (i.e., between wages and profits) over the past several decades. The rising productivity of labor during this period has not translated into rising incomes. The accelerated globalization of capital and further outsourcing of production, speculative financial markets, mushrooming bank loans and rising institutional and consumer debt, a dramatic increase in the price of oil, and a consequent decline in consumer spending, have triggered massive layoffs, hence rising unemployment, and led to major disruptions and dislocations in various sectors of the U.S. economy. Given the systemic nature of the crisis, this article concludes that any long-term solution to the problems of the U.S. and world economy will need to come from a thorough transformation of global capitalism

  • James W. Russell
    Capitalist expropriation of retirement savings in Latin America and the United States
    Abstract: Since 1981 there has been a massive capitalist expropriation of collective retirement : savings through privatizations of national retirement systems in Latin America and replacement of traditional pensions with 401(k) plans in the United States. The results have been a significant inflation of financial services industry profits and severe decreases in retirement incomes compared to previous defined benefit plans. Neoliberal ideology rationalizes the expropriation. The expropriation has provoked resistance, the most radical in Latin America being renationalization of private accounts in Argentina and Bolivia in 2008 and 2010 respectively. In the United States an impressive array of organizations has formed to fight attempts to privatize or cut back benefits from Social Security, its national public retirement system.
  • Miguel A. Ruiz Acosta
    The social and environmental devastation of capitalism in the age of Anthropocene

    Abstract: In this article we describe, from the critique of political economy perspective, the development of a planetary crisis as a crisis of erosion, scarcity, also epochal or civilizatory. The argument is developed in three sections: the first one exposes the transhistorical character of the metabolism between society and nature. The second one addresses the development of a metabolic rift under the capitalist mode of production, and its manifestations as social and environmental devastation. In the third section, we present evidence of a metabolic rift at a global scale and argue for the emergence of Anthropocene er

Articles and Miscellany

  • Gabriela Millán Quintero/Nevid Israel Meza Rodríguez/María del Pilar Longar Blanco
    Intellectual Property Analysis: the Corn case (Zea mays L.) in Mexico

    Abstract: The purpose of this research was to analyze technological dynamics related to the intellectual protection of corn in Mexico. A study on patenting was carried out, which intends to clarify how the authorization of patents has evolved. Likewise, additional information is given from the area of technological change that intends to contribute to spread the problem of corn in Mexico from a trans-disciplinary approach. The existence of a tendency related to intellectual protection in this area was determined, that can be studied through the data basis of patents. At the same time, it was made clear that the analysis of intellectual protection can be a parameter that allows the identification and comparison of public policies that can avoid negative changes to society.

  • Gabriela Munguía/Osvaldo U. Becerril-Torres/Sara Quiroz
    The bilateral flow between Mexico and Canada by sea: gravitational analysis 1990-2010

    Abstract: This work is carried out a quantitative assessment of the bilateral flow between Mexico and Canada by sea through the use of a gravity equation. Confirms the proposal that trade liberalization caused a change in the pattern of prevailing trade between these countries, producing a creation of trade for exports; Moreover it is concluded that integration, by itself, does not seem to be primarily responsible for the deterioration of the trade balance during the study period, notwithstanding that at the other end, the population of the exporting country becomes relevant to explain the flow of trade between the countries involved in international trad

  • Sergio Menna
    Heuristics and Methodology of Science

    Abstract: The term ‘heuristic’ is used to refer to the methodological rules and criteria that have creative qualities. However, there is a problem with this term. He is applied to a large number and variety of rules or principles of action, and in many different areas. The main objective of this article is to distinguish a broad sense and a strict sense of the term ‘heuristic’, and argue that only the heuristics in strict sense can be considered part of a methodology of science

  • Fernando Miranda/María Ramos
    Feasible and optimal regions of Iso-Profit to consumer

    Abstract: This paper presents the modeling of endogenous and exogenous growth rate of consumption of goods, inputs and outputs balance economies of course preferred. We develop profit maximization in income, money and the possible choices of the rational consumer through interpolation market prices having essentially the nonlinearity of its actual value by the three technical variables that are time, space and work.