Capitalism as we know it presents typical dialectical features that isolate it from nature, in which real oppositions make evolution revolutionary: A dialectical metaphysics replaces the free flow of events allowing capitalist relationships but preventing the practice of materialism. Some...

This article explores why a deep understanding of Marx's project is essential for developing an adequate science of society. Marx focused on two aspects of social reality that are critical to its understanding, but are absent from the contemporary practice of social science. First, he viewed...

Debating markets requires debating values. To answer questions of how free markets affect women, we must first ask about standards of measurement. We should also ask how we can have a “free” market when the participants can never be free from gender bias.

The key assumption of economic anthropology—maximizing behavior by the individual (or Max U)—has been subject to criticism both from outside and within economics. This article suggests that the philosophical or theological approach known as “personalism” may be useful in generating an...

A unique dataset of social and economic networks collected in 60 rural Gambian villages is used to study the ways in which households with links outside the village (that are considered as a proxy for market connections) behave in the locally available exchange networks for land, labor, input...

Educational expansion has often been discussed in terms of possiblydeclining returns to education. The theoretical debate provides arguments supportingboth expectations about declining and increasing returns. Declining returns wouldnot only menace individual investment strategies but also put...

Using the 2009 data of the China Health and Nutrition Survey from Guizhou province, this paper analyzes whether an official ethnic label can be linked to a lower probability of non-agricultural employment. Results suggest that the Buyi and the Miao are less likely to work in non-agricultural...

This study investigated whether earnings inequality is associated with social capital as measured by active membership in organizations and interpersonal trust. Pearson product-moment correlation analysis showed that greater earnings inequality was associated with lower values on both measures...

We study empirically whether there is scope for parents to shape the economicpreferences and attitudes of their children through purposeful investments. Weexploit information on the risk and trust attitudes of parents and their children, as well as rich information about parental efforts in the...

We study the effect that a series of fundamentalist-Islamic terrorist attacks in Europe had on the attitudes of Muslim immigrants in the Netherlands towards integration. Shortly after the attacks, Muslim immigrants perceived integration, as measured by various indicators, decreased significantly...