This paper examines the challenges that a region of China is facing as it seeks to integrate a ce... more This paper examines the challenges that a region of China is facing as it seeks to integrate a centrally planned, hierarchically determined water transfer project into its own water supply systems. Water from China's South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) has been available in Shandong since 2013. How has this province been managing the integration of SNWTP water into its water supply plans, and what challenges is it facing in the process? This paper demonstrates that Shandong's planners consistently overestimated future demand for water; this, together with the threats posed by reduced flows in the Yellow River, encouraged the Shandong government to support the building of the SNWTP. However, between the genesis of the plans for the SNWTP and its construction, the supply from the Yellow River became more reliable and the engineering systems and the efficiency of water use in Shandong Province itself has improved. As a result, by the time the SNWTP water became available...
Volume 10 | Issue 2 Crow-Miller, B.; Webber, M. and Molle, F. 2017. The (re)turn to infrastructur... more Volume 10 | Issue 2 Crow-Miller, B.; Webber, M. and Molle, F. 2017. The (re)turn to infrastructure for water management? Water Alternatives 10(2): 195-207 Crow-Miller et al.: The (re)turn to infrastructure for water management? ABSTRACT: This paper introduces the papers in this special issue and uses them as evidence through which to examine four questions. First: are we witnessing a widespread (re)turn to big infrastructure projects for water management? The evidence suggests that large-scale infrastructure development has remained largely unswayed by the 'ecological turn', or the promotion of demand management or 'soft path' thinking, despite a drop in investments observed at the turn of the 20th century. Second: do these new projects have different justifications from those of the past? The papers in this issue provide evidence that the need to justify capital-intensive infrastructure in the face of commitments to sustainability, while borrowing from the conventio...
he World Bank has been lavish in its praise of Chinese resettlement policies, 1 citing procedures... more he World Bank has been lavish in its praise of Chinese resettlement policies, 1 citing procedures for the involuntary resettlement of people affected by large development projects as a potential model for other developing countries. However, good policy does not necessarily transpose into good practice and evidence is needed to support claims of successful resettlement. A review of the existing literature and our own fieldwork indicate that there is little independent evidence to support such a claim. In China, as elsewhere, the a priori assumption that development-induced displacement will lead to a deterioration in people's conditions of life (an assumption supported by studies of the kind reviewed in FMR12) can only be disproved if there is reliable data. In China, such reliable data are hard to find.
High rates of unemployment and rising levels of inequality of incomes and wealth have characteriz... more High rates of unemployment and rising levels of inequality of incomes and wealth have characterized many advanced, industrialized countries in the 1980s and 1990s. Some countries-such as the USA and Germany-have done rather better at creating jobs (though not always good jobs) while others-such as Australia, Canada and Japan-have done rather worse. But no country has a good record, at least as compared to the rates at which decent jobs were created during the 1950s and 1960s.
Despite widespread recognition of the problems caused by relying on engineering approaches to wat... more Despite widespread recognition of the problems caused by relying on engineering approaches to water management issues, since 2000 China has raised its commitment to a concrete-heavy approach to water management. While, historically, China’s embrace of modernist water management could be understood as part of a broader set of ideas about controlling nature, in the post-reform era this philosophical view has merged with a technocratic vision of national development. In the past two decades, a Chinese Water Machine has coalesced: the institutional embodiment of China’s commitment to large infrastructure. The technocratic vision of the political and economic elite at the helm of this Machine has been manifest in the form of some of the world’s largest water infrastructure projects, including the Three Gorges Dam and the South-North Water Transfer Project, and in the exporting of China’s vision of concrete-heavy development beyond its own borders. This paper argues that China’s approach ...
The World Commission on Dams provided an analytical overview of the cumulative effects of years o... more The World Commission on Dams provided an analytical overview of the cumulative effects of years of dam development. A lack of commitment or capacity to cope with displacement or to consider the civil rights of, or risks to, displaced people led to the impoverishment and suffering of tens of millions and growing opposition to dams by affected communities worldwide. However, after the WCD, little has changed for the better in terms of resettlement policies. In fact, the standards of key agencies, like the Asian Development Bank, have been lowered and diluted compared to prior policies. Dam-induced development and displacement are stifled by a 'managerialist' approach to planning, in which solutions are sought internally and subordinated to the economics that underpins the existence of the project. The aim of successful resettlement is to prevent impoverishment and to enable displaced people to share in the project’s benefits. Within the field of dam-induced resettlement, this ...
ABSTRACT Unemployment has emerged as a problem in China, not only in the sense that the magnitude... more ABSTRACT Unemployment has emerged as a problem in China, not only in the sense that the magnitude of unemployment has increased, but also that the category of unemployment has become relevant. Unemployment exists where there is a market for labour - that is, in which the work of many people is organised through a market for commodity labour. This is a process elsewhere known as primitive accumulation. The paper traces the emergence of markets for commodity labour in China, by identifying changes within rural areas, urban state-owned enterprises and foreign-invested enterprises. The result has been a rapid rise in unemployment within China, especially when informal rural-urban migrants and laid- off workers are counted, and therefore a sharply increasing level of inequality. The paper concludes by illustrating the threat that unemployment poses for China's nascent social security system.
A substantial literature documents the difficult circumstances of immigrant women from non-Englis... more A substantial literature documents the difficult circumstances of immigrant women from non-English speaking backgrounds in urban Australia. This group has had considerable research attention since the 1970s, as Alcorso (1989) notes in her excellent review, resulting in distinct bodies of enquiry about immigrants in general and also about immigrant women. Our paper diverges somewhat from the starting point of most of this literature and considers the circumstances of immigrant women by explicitly comparing them with those of immigrant men. This report is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/cmsocpapers/25 THE CENTRE FOR MULTICULTURAL STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF W O LLO NG O NG Immigrant Women in Manufacturing Work Ruth Fincher, Michael Webber and Iain Campbell Occasional Paper no. 25
This paper examines the challenges that a region of China is facing as it seeks to integrate a ce... more This paper examines the challenges that a region of China is facing as it seeks to integrate a centrally planned, hierarchically determined water transfer project into its own water supply systems. Water from China's South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) has been available in Shandong since 2013. How has this province been managing the integration of SNWTP water into its water supply plans, and what challenges is it facing in the process? This paper demonstrates that Shandong's planners consistently overestimated future …
The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment
The site-generic approach currently adopted by the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology introd... more The site-generic approach currently adopted by the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology introduces uncertainties into the impact assessment phase of an LCA study. These uncertainties are greatest for localised and short-lived problems but are less significant for long lasting, cumulative environmental effects. Indeed, the reliability of LCA results is high for problems that manifest at a global scale. Nevertheless, even
Abstract The world has witnessed a recent increase of Chinese involvement in foreign dam building... more Abstract The world has witnessed a recent increase of Chinese involvement in foreign dam building, frequently interpreting it as a result of implementing the Chinese government’s “going out” policy. However, the Chinese dam industry’s interweaving with its government and external forces remains unclear, blurring the nature of the “Chinese export” of dams overseas. The theory of the Chinese water machine has uncovered the existence of a network of actors interacting on water issues in China, and framed an assemblage approach to interpret the formation, maintenance and operation of this machine. Following the assemblage approach, this paper investigates the emergence and operation of a Chinese dam export industry, which is conceptually the consequence of a network of actors, including members of the Chinese water machine. In so doing, the interaction between the Chinese government, corporations and international forces is examined. Based on fieldwork and open-source data, this paper argues that the Chinese turn to overseas dam building not only follows the Chinese government’s going out and state-owned enterprise reform policies and the self-interest of industrial players for profit, but also reflects a Chinese response to international politics on dams at the turn of the century, which is technically and politically influenced by the activities of international players in and outside China.
Trust is generally assumed to be an essential precondition for effective water resource managemen... more Trust is generally assumed to be an essential precondition for effective water resource management. However, there is piecemeal evidence about the extent to which trust matters for water management and the conditions under which it is more or less important. Moreover, most evidence comes from research in a small number of liberal-democracies. We seek to advance knowledge of the importance of trust in water resource management through a qualitative study that explains the extent to which trust is a factor in managing urban water supply in Shanghai (China), and the factors that influence this relationship. This is the first study of its kind in China, and one of only a handful that use in depth interviews to explain conditions under which trust is more or less important in water management. We find that there are three (not exclusive) conditions under which trust becomes a seemingly insignificant factor in water resources management: when people do not perceive a risk; when people believe they can manage the risk themselves; and when people feel powerless to influence the systems that administer and regulate the water risk. We conclude that trust is not always an important factor in managing the risks of drinking water, at least in authoritarian regimes such as in China.
Abstract The paper offers a geographical interpretation of the evolving technical, political, and... more Abstract The paper offers a geographical interpretation of the evolving technical, political, and economic intricacy of large dams. It incorporates existing hydropolitical scholarship and the notion of the Chinese Water Machine to reframe dams as assemblages built by specific political, financial and technical processes in particular socioenvironmental regions. The paper examines the continuity of hydropolitical relationships through a genealogical inquiry into the formulation and materialisation of Ghana's three dams: the Akosombo and Kpong dams built during the Cold War, backed by Western lenders and engineering companies; and the Bui dam commissioned in the 2010s, with support from China. Based on fieldwork in Ghana and China, as well as documentary evidence, the paper argues that the thinking, planning and building of dams interconnect the host regime and external techno-financial actors with their floating political-economic interests, but in a durable way. Sometimes, even if little concrete is actually poured, the symbolic power of dams endures, transforms, and at certain times and places expands, through events and discourses of national and international interest groups pursuing their own purposes, albeit with the replacement of influential individuals and powerful institutions, and regardless of the involvement of Western, Chinese and/or other actors. Ruptures exist but do not necessarily break the continuity of dam assemblages. The emergence of an opposition assemblage that battles against dams is a more recent complexity.
Shanghai is experiencing water supply problems caused by heavy pollution of its raw water supply,... more Shanghai is experiencing water supply problems caused by heavy pollution of its raw water supply, deficiencies in its treatment processes and water quality deteoriation in the distribution system. However, little attention has been paid these problems of water quality in raw water, water treatment and household drinking water. Based on water quality data we show that the raw water sources of the Huangpu River and the Changjiang (Yangtze River) estuary are polluted by microbes (TBC), eutrophication (TP, TN and NH3-N), heavy metals (Fe, Mn and Hg) and organic contamination (chemical oxygen demand [COD], detergent and volatile phenols [VP]). The average concentrations of these contaminants in the Huangpu River are almost double that of the Changjiang estuary forcing a rapid shift to the Changjiang estuary for raw water. In spite of filtering and treatment, TN, NH3-N, Fe, COD and chlorine maxima of the treated water and drinking water still exceed the Chinese National Standard (GB5749)....
In the Great Leveler, Christophers (2016) argues that the grand narrative of capitalism – growth,... more In the Great Leveler, Christophers (2016) argues that the grand narrative of capitalism – growth, slowdown, crisis and response – can in part be understood in the light of the manner in which markets are organised. Although he recognises that other dynamics also underpin this cycle, Christophers nevertheless argues both that slowdowns have historically coincided with imbalances in the degree to which markets are competitive and that the subsequent recoveries were powered by a rebalancing of the degree of competition. The critical legal arrangements for configuring the degree of competition have been those related to concentration and monopoly on the one hand and those related to the protection of intellectual property on the other. The evidence that Christophers assembles concerns the crises of the 1890s, 1930s and 1970s in the USA and the UK and their subsequent periods of growth and expansion. There is a lot to admire in this book, particularly its recognition of the need to understand theoretically and empirically the details of the changing composition of market competition. The historical detail is impressive indeed. And so is the book’s extension of the usual period of reckoning beyond the post-Second World War era back to the 1890s. In accounts of capitalist dynamics from now on, the form of the market – its level of competitiveness – will surely continue to figure in the story, and that is much to Christophers’ credit. However, the bare outlines of this story of growth and stagnation do need some historical nuance. In particular, some of the details of the story of profitability and growth can be debated, and to illustrate this comment, I will make three observations. My first observation is that historically the rate of profit is relatively constant, as Christophers writes. Whereas Christophers, like others, takes this to be an intriguing feature of capitalist development, the reason for the fact that economy-wide rates of profit are bounded was provided nearly 25 years ago (Farjoun and Machover, 1983). Firms’ rates of profit are a stochastic variable. Therefore, as the average rate of profit falls below the average, then rapidly increasing numbers of firms make losses; as those firms go out of business, their capital (and their loss) is removed from the surplus/capital calculation and the rate of profit rises, quite independently of any changes in policy. If, on the other hand, the rate of profit rises above the average, then increasing numbers of (less efficient) firms begin production, dragging down average rates of productivity and raising the demand for labour; these tendencies tend to increase the capital stock faster than they increase the surplus, again independent of any countervailing policies. Of course,
ABSTRACT The control of water pollution in China's South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP)... more ABSTRACT The control of water pollution in China's South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) is examined through the lens of promotion tournaments as Chinese governmentality to offer a special perspective on China's hydro-politics and Chinese manners of water pollution control. This paper characterizes the existing form of governmentality in the SNWTP, pointing to its problems and potential resolutions. The promotion tournament is a market system with authoritarian control, designed to reconcile the incentives of local officials and the central managers of the SNWTP. This governmentality embodies characteristics of China's authoritarian water management system: centralized personnel control combined with market-oriented promotion competitions. However, a clear conflict between the requirements of ecological modernization and the use of power in China's water management system leads to distorted behaviors among local officials, an important source of problems in China's water management system. Compared to promotion tournaments, payments for ecosystem services or eco-compensation are applications of neoliberal environmentalism that could overcome the shortcomings of tournaments, and become the most critical governmentality for water pollution control in the SNWTP.
This paper examines the challenges that a region of China is facing as it seeks to integrate a ce... more This paper examines the challenges that a region of China is facing as it seeks to integrate a centrally planned, hierarchically determined water transfer project into its own water supply systems. Water from China's South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) has been available in Shandong since 2013. How has this province been managing the integration of SNWTP water into its water supply plans, and what challenges is it facing in the process? This paper demonstrates that Shandong's planners consistently overestimated future demand for water; this, together with the threats posed by reduced flows in the Yellow River, encouraged the Shandong government to support the building of the SNWTP. However, between the genesis of the plans for the SNWTP and its construction, the supply from the Yellow River became more reliable and the engineering systems and the efficiency of water use in Shandong Province itself has improved. As a result, by the time the SNWTP water became available...
Volume 10 | Issue 2 Crow-Miller, B.; Webber, M. and Molle, F. 2017. The (re)turn to infrastructur... more Volume 10 | Issue 2 Crow-Miller, B.; Webber, M. and Molle, F. 2017. The (re)turn to infrastructure for water management? Water Alternatives 10(2): 195-207 Crow-Miller et al.: The (re)turn to infrastructure for water management? ABSTRACT: This paper introduces the papers in this special issue and uses them as evidence through which to examine four questions. First: are we witnessing a widespread (re)turn to big infrastructure projects for water management? The evidence suggests that large-scale infrastructure development has remained largely unswayed by the 'ecological turn', or the promotion of demand management or 'soft path' thinking, despite a drop in investments observed at the turn of the 20th century. Second: do these new projects have different justifications from those of the past? The papers in this issue provide evidence that the need to justify capital-intensive infrastructure in the face of commitments to sustainability, while borrowing from the conventio...
he World Bank has been lavish in its praise of Chinese resettlement policies, 1 citing procedures... more he World Bank has been lavish in its praise of Chinese resettlement policies, 1 citing procedures for the involuntary resettlement of people affected by large development projects as a potential model for other developing countries. However, good policy does not necessarily transpose into good practice and evidence is needed to support claims of successful resettlement. A review of the existing literature and our own fieldwork indicate that there is little independent evidence to support such a claim. In China, as elsewhere, the a priori assumption that development-induced displacement will lead to a deterioration in people's conditions of life (an assumption supported by studies of the kind reviewed in FMR12) can only be disproved if there is reliable data. In China, such reliable data are hard to find.
High rates of unemployment and rising levels of inequality of incomes and wealth have characteriz... more High rates of unemployment and rising levels of inequality of incomes and wealth have characterized many advanced, industrialized countries in the 1980s and 1990s. Some countries-such as the USA and Germany-have done rather better at creating jobs (though not always good jobs) while others-such as Australia, Canada and Japan-have done rather worse. But no country has a good record, at least as compared to the rates at which decent jobs were created during the 1950s and 1960s.
Despite widespread recognition of the problems caused by relying on engineering approaches to wat... more Despite widespread recognition of the problems caused by relying on engineering approaches to water management issues, since 2000 China has raised its commitment to a concrete-heavy approach to water management. While, historically, China’s embrace of modernist water management could be understood as part of a broader set of ideas about controlling nature, in the post-reform era this philosophical view has merged with a technocratic vision of national development. In the past two decades, a Chinese Water Machine has coalesced: the institutional embodiment of China’s commitment to large infrastructure. The technocratic vision of the political and economic elite at the helm of this Machine has been manifest in the form of some of the world’s largest water infrastructure projects, including the Three Gorges Dam and the South-North Water Transfer Project, and in the exporting of China’s vision of concrete-heavy development beyond its own borders. This paper argues that China’s approach ...
The World Commission on Dams provided an analytical overview of the cumulative effects of years o... more The World Commission on Dams provided an analytical overview of the cumulative effects of years of dam development. A lack of commitment or capacity to cope with displacement or to consider the civil rights of, or risks to, displaced people led to the impoverishment and suffering of tens of millions and growing opposition to dams by affected communities worldwide. However, after the WCD, little has changed for the better in terms of resettlement policies. In fact, the standards of key agencies, like the Asian Development Bank, have been lowered and diluted compared to prior policies. Dam-induced development and displacement are stifled by a 'managerialist' approach to planning, in which solutions are sought internally and subordinated to the economics that underpins the existence of the project. The aim of successful resettlement is to prevent impoverishment and to enable displaced people to share in the project’s benefits. Within the field of dam-induced resettlement, this ...
ABSTRACT Unemployment has emerged as a problem in China, not only in the sense that the magnitude... more ABSTRACT Unemployment has emerged as a problem in China, not only in the sense that the magnitude of unemployment has increased, but also that the category of unemployment has become relevant. Unemployment exists where there is a market for labour - that is, in which the work of many people is organised through a market for commodity labour. This is a process elsewhere known as primitive accumulation. The paper traces the emergence of markets for commodity labour in China, by identifying changes within rural areas, urban state-owned enterprises and foreign-invested enterprises. The result has been a rapid rise in unemployment within China, especially when informal rural-urban migrants and laid- off workers are counted, and therefore a sharply increasing level of inequality. The paper concludes by illustrating the threat that unemployment poses for China's nascent social security system.
A substantial literature documents the difficult circumstances of immigrant women from non-Englis... more A substantial literature documents the difficult circumstances of immigrant women from non-English speaking backgrounds in urban Australia. This group has had considerable research attention since the 1970s, as Alcorso (1989) notes in her excellent review, resulting in distinct bodies of enquiry about immigrants in general and also about immigrant women. Our paper diverges somewhat from the starting point of most of this literature and considers the circumstances of immigrant women by explicitly comparing them with those of immigrant men. This report is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/cmsocpapers/25 THE CENTRE FOR MULTICULTURAL STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF W O LLO NG O NG Immigrant Women in Manufacturing Work Ruth Fincher, Michael Webber and Iain Campbell Occasional Paper no. 25
This paper examines the challenges that a region of China is facing as it seeks to integrate a ce... more This paper examines the challenges that a region of China is facing as it seeks to integrate a centrally planned, hierarchically determined water transfer project into its own water supply systems. Water from China's South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) has been available in Shandong since 2013. How has this province been managing the integration of SNWTP water into its water supply plans, and what challenges is it facing in the process? This paper demonstrates that Shandong's planners consistently overestimated future …
The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment
The site-generic approach currently adopted by the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology introd... more The site-generic approach currently adopted by the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology introduces uncertainties into the impact assessment phase of an LCA study. These uncertainties are greatest for localised and short-lived problems but are less significant for long lasting, cumulative environmental effects. Indeed, the reliability of LCA results is high for problems that manifest at a global scale. Nevertheless, even
Abstract The world has witnessed a recent increase of Chinese involvement in foreign dam building... more Abstract The world has witnessed a recent increase of Chinese involvement in foreign dam building, frequently interpreting it as a result of implementing the Chinese government’s “going out” policy. However, the Chinese dam industry’s interweaving with its government and external forces remains unclear, blurring the nature of the “Chinese export” of dams overseas. The theory of the Chinese water machine has uncovered the existence of a network of actors interacting on water issues in China, and framed an assemblage approach to interpret the formation, maintenance and operation of this machine. Following the assemblage approach, this paper investigates the emergence and operation of a Chinese dam export industry, which is conceptually the consequence of a network of actors, including members of the Chinese water machine. In so doing, the interaction between the Chinese government, corporations and international forces is examined. Based on fieldwork and open-source data, this paper argues that the Chinese turn to overseas dam building not only follows the Chinese government’s going out and state-owned enterprise reform policies and the self-interest of industrial players for profit, but also reflects a Chinese response to international politics on dams at the turn of the century, which is technically and politically influenced by the activities of international players in and outside China.
Trust is generally assumed to be an essential precondition for effective water resource managemen... more Trust is generally assumed to be an essential precondition for effective water resource management. However, there is piecemeal evidence about the extent to which trust matters for water management and the conditions under which it is more or less important. Moreover, most evidence comes from research in a small number of liberal-democracies. We seek to advance knowledge of the importance of trust in water resource management through a qualitative study that explains the extent to which trust is a factor in managing urban water supply in Shanghai (China), and the factors that influence this relationship. This is the first study of its kind in China, and one of only a handful that use in depth interviews to explain conditions under which trust is more or less important in water management. We find that there are three (not exclusive) conditions under which trust becomes a seemingly insignificant factor in water resources management: when people do not perceive a risk; when people believe they can manage the risk themselves; and when people feel powerless to influence the systems that administer and regulate the water risk. We conclude that trust is not always an important factor in managing the risks of drinking water, at least in authoritarian regimes such as in China.
Abstract The paper offers a geographical interpretation of the evolving technical, political, and... more Abstract The paper offers a geographical interpretation of the evolving technical, political, and economic intricacy of large dams. It incorporates existing hydropolitical scholarship and the notion of the Chinese Water Machine to reframe dams as assemblages built by specific political, financial and technical processes in particular socioenvironmental regions. The paper examines the continuity of hydropolitical relationships through a genealogical inquiry into the formulation and materialisation of Ghana's three dams: the Akosombo and Kpong dams built during the Cold War, backed by Western lenders and engineering companies; and the Bui dam commissioned in the 2010s, with support from China. Based on fieldwork in Ghana and China, as well as documentary evidence, the paper argues that the thinking, planning and building of dams interconnect the host regime and external techno-financial actors with their floating political-economic interests, but in a durable way. Sometimes, even if little concrete is actually poured, the symbolic power of dams endures, transforms, and at certain times and places expands, through events and discourses of national and international interest groups pursuing their own purposes, albeit with the replacement of influential individuals and powerful institutions, and regardless of the involvement of Western, Chinese and/or other actors. Ruptures exist but do not necessarily break the continuity of dam assemblages. The emergence of an opposition assemblage that battles against dams is a more recent complexity.
Shanghai is experiencing water supply problems caused by heavy pollution of its raw water supply,... more Shanghai is experiencing water supply problems caused by heavy pollution of its raw water supply, deficiencies in its treatment processes and water quality deteoriation in the distribution system. However, little attention has been paid these problems of water quality in raw water, water treatment and household drinking water. Based on water quality data we show that the raw water sources of the Huangpu River and the Changjiang (Yangtze River) estuary are polluted by microbes (TBC), eutrophication (TP, TN and NH3-N), heavy metals (Fe, Mn and Hg) and organic contamination (chemical oxygen demand [COD], detergent and volatile phenols [VP]). The average concentrations of these contaminants in the Huangpu River are almost double that of the Changjiang estuary forcing a rapid shift to the Changjiang estuary for raw water. In spite of filtering and treatment, TN, NH3-N, Fe, COD and chlorine maxima of the treated water and drinking water still exceed the Chinese National Standard (GB5749)....
In the Great Leveler, Christophers (2016) argues that the grand narrative of capitalism – growth,... more In the Great Leveler, Christophers (2016) argues that the grand narrative of capitalism – growth, slowdown, crisis and response – can in part be understood in the light of the manner in which markets are organised. Although he recognises that other dynamics also underpin this cycle, Christophers nevertheless argues both that slowdowns have historically coincided with imbalances in the degree to which markets are competitive and that the subsequent recoveries were powered by a rebalancing of the degree of competition. The critical legal arrangements for configuring the degree of competition have been those related to concentration and monopoly on the one hand and those related to the protection of intellectual property on the other. The evidence that Christophers assembles concerns the crises of the 1890s, 1930s and 1970s in the USA and the UK and their subsequent periods of growth and expansion. There is a lot to admire in this book, particularly its recognition of the need to understand theoretically and empirically the details of the changing composition of market competition. The historical detail is impressive indeed. And so is the book’s extension of the usual period of reckoning beyond the post-Second World War era back to the 1890s. In accounts of capitalist dynamics from now on, the form of the market – its level of competitiveness – will surely continue to figure in the story, and that is much to Christophers’ credit. However, the bare outlines of this story of growth and stagnation do need some historical nuance. In particular, some of the details of the story of profitability and growth can be debated, and to illustrate this comment, I will make three observations. My first observation is that historically the rate of profit is relatively constant, as Christophers writes. Whereas Christophers, like others, takes this to be an intriguing feature of capitalist development, the reason for the fact that economy-wide rates of profit are bounded was provided nearly 25 years ago (Farjoun and Machover, 1983). Firms’ rates of profit are a stochastic variable. Therefore, as the average rate of profit falls below the average, then rapidly increasing numbers of firms make losses; as those firms go out of business, their capital (and their loss) is removed from the surplus/capital calculation and the rate of profit rises, quite independently of any changes in policy. If, on the other hand, the rate of profit rises above the average, then increasing numbers of (less efficient) firms begin production, dragging down average rates of productivity and raising the demand for labour; these tendencies tend to increase the capital stock faster than they increase the surplus, again independent of any countervailing policies. Of course,
ABSTRACT The control of water pollution in China's South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP)... more ABSTRACT The control of water pollution in China's South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) is examined through the lens of promotion tournaments as Chinese governmentality to offer a special perspective on China's hydro-politics and Chinese manners of water pollution control. This paper characterizes the existing form of governmentality in the SNWTP, pointing to its problems and potential resolutions. The promotion tournament is a market system with authoritarian control, designed to reconcile the incentives of local officials and the central managers of the SNWTP. This governmentality embodies characteristics of China's authoritarian water management system: centralized personnel control combined with market-oriented promotion competitions. However, a clear conflict between the requirements of ecological modernization and the use of power in China's water management system leads to distorted behaviors among local officials, an important source of problems in China's water management system. Compared to promotion tournaments, payments for ecosystem services or eco-compensation are applications of neoliberal environmentalism that could overcome the shortcomings of tournaments, and become the most critical governmentality for water pollution control in the SNWTP.
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Papers by Michael Webber