| Quarterly Newsletter N° 14 | April- June 2008 |
PEKEA NEWSLETTER
IN THIS ISSUE (click on a heading to jump to that section) :
1- Editorial by Yves Franchet, PEKEA President
2- The consensus of Penvern
3- Polanyi Conference, Montreal, 9- 11 December 2008
4 – Karl Polanyi about Instituted Process of Economic Democratization and Social Learning by Marguerite Mendell
5- Conferences, Publications, Web sites
1- Editorial by Yves Franchet, PEKEA President
As a deep financial crisis shakes the world economy, the inadequacy of the present paradigms of capitalism to satisfy the needs and desires of the citizens is once more exacerbated.
The lack of adequate regulation and controls of the international banking system leads to absurd risks taking with negative impacts on jobs and income in many countries.
Criticism of the present growth and development indicators is spreading, as well as the research for alternative well being indicators. The French Government just asked two Nobel prize economists-also close to PEKEA - Stiglitz and Sen, to lead a research commission on this topics. OECD and the Strasbourg Council of Europe (COE) also start working on well being indicators.
The consensus prepared by PEKEA includes this approach, and we have decided to join the OECD/COE seminars as well as to cooperate with the Stiglitz commission. The economist Jean Paul Fitoussi, member of the PEKEA network, coordinates the activities of this commission. We have however to remain cautious. More and better diversified indicators elaborated by expert groups, including environmental and social dimensions, will not be sufficient to help the erudite economic speech out of its present deadlock. To try and break this deadlock, PEKEA is co-launching in France, FAIR (Forum for other wealth indicators) a new created dialogue forum with the civil society and local governments.
On the contrary, involving communities of citizens in the definition of their priority aspirations, in the selection of related indicators, and in the follow up of their changes due to adequate or inadequate public policies--will renovate and strengthen the ethical and democratic dimensions of economic analysis.
This research is part of PEKEA activities, and particularly of the ongoing ISBET project-societal and territorial well being indicators.
These considerations are at the center of Karl Polanyi’s work, and PEKEA has decided to moderate a discussion panel at the Montreal December 2008 seminar organized by Margaret Mendell and her team for his memory.
The preparation of the 2009 Geneva seminar organized with UNITAR is in progress. I renew my invitation for your suggestions and contributions.
As last year, we will hold end of June an electronic General Assembly. It will involve important changes in the Bureau, since Marc Humbert wishes to leave the position of Executive Secretary of our association, and Theotonio Dos Santos his position of Vice president.
As you know, only members who have paid their membership fees are allowed to vote in this Assembly. This leads me once more to ask you to pay as soon as possible this modest yearly contribution to our activities.
Yves Franchet April 7 2008
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2- The consensus of Penvern
Far removed from Washington, Penvern was the place where a few colleagues started something to give life to their dream. They dreamt to design the plan for a Common House able to accommodate all the researchers and a point of rallying for all citizens who were in the same kind of dissidence with the mainstream way to deal with economic activities. And they wanted to state the main characteristics of what these people would have in common, in this House, to analyze economic activities and to run economic activities in order to build a convivial civilization where cooperation is more important than competition, i.e a better world.
However this was a difficult task : the number of researchers that could be interested in the action was huge but they were scattered in a host of differentiated and sometimes competing groups. As for the ones who have been trained in economics, they use for themselves the name of Heterodox but they are hundreds of such Heterodox groups in the world. For example around 50 different groups are meeting in a conference organized every other year in the USA, by ICAPE (The International Confederation of Associations for Pluralism in Economics); they are mainly Anglo-Saxon groups, and a very few from continental Europe, Latin America and Asia.
They reached one important target: the dissemination of information – mainly within the camp of Heterodox economists members- . However, this most important gathering outside the “mainstream” – and there is no equivalent for Historians, Political Scientists, Sociologists etc…- is still almost invisible from the international community of social scientists and from the general public. Moreover it has nothing to say collectively, as a common message, except its disagreement with the mainstream. Division is also the situation in the general public. Skepticism about the mainstream discourse and disappointment, not to say more, about the way economic activities are run, are widely shared in the general public, at world level, and it nurtures true success for activists of the civil society and actions of resistance as the one of the World Social Forum. However, here again, citizens and researchers are gathered by opposition to the actual world, to the dominant rule, but there is no clear definition of what they share in common and about the bases on which they would build this other world they are calling for and about which, collectively, they cannot say more than : it will be a better world.
PEKEA was launched with the following idea: not to add a new Heterodox group, not to gather only economists, but all kind of social scientists, and rallying citizens, not to design a new alternative and unique paradigm, not to find out the lowest common denominator of their theories, but to make explicit what such diverse groups are sharing in common, in contrast to the mainstream.
Thus this search was at the center of all our works since 2002.
The presentation of what is shared in common, drawn from these past works, cannot be done under one single stamp, even the PEKEA one, because, it is aimed at being as open as possible in the camp which is outside the one of the mainstream. The wording of such a general framework is like designing an “operating system as an open software”. It does not in any way preclude to put into operation, thanks to this open OS, a plurality of methods and “research programs” to carry out works that will contribute to realizing our common hopes.
Thus PEKEA subscribes to this Consensus of Penvern (Click here) which is to be widely disseminated in all networks in the hope of generating a snowball effect. But the aim is not to seek and to count signatures or membership. What we expect is that it will play the role of a Charter or the equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath for those who want to take care of society in dealing with economic activities.
Marc Humbert
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3- Polanyi Conference, Montreal, 9- 11 December 2008
Attention: initial schedule has been changed.
The eleventh international Karl Polanyi Conference will be held at Concordia University, Montreal from December 9- 11, 2008. The theme of this conference, marking the 20th anniversary of the foundation of the Karl Polanyi Institute of Political Economy at Concordia University, is “The Relevance of Karl Polanyi for the 21st Century ” ..
PEKEA is partner to this conference and beyond individual participation from pekeists who are numerous among Polanyi’s disciples, PEKEA organizes a panel on the theme:
Polanyi and Pekea: From Market to Societal Value
It is a good opportunity for our members who were located too far from our previous place of meeting to come and work and talk to each other.
To get more information Click here
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4 – Karl Polanyi about Instituted Process of Economic Democratization and Social Learning by Marguerite Mendell
Before and after The Great Transformation, Karl Polanyi and the societalized individual
This text will not focus on The Great Transformation but will deal with previous and following writings from Karl Polanyi where his emphasis is on the constitutive elements that define us as social beings and as agents of social change.
To be sure, Karl Polanyi is best known for The Great Transformation. This book published in 1944 has been translated into eleven languages and is considered a twentieth century classic. In The Great Transformation, Polanyi documents the contradictory political interventions that were necessary to install the self-regulating market economy in the nineteenth century and the subsequent protective measures to prevent social collapse. The utopian vision of a free market economy could not be realized. Polanyi’s analysis is grounded in a historical and comparative framework that has challenged foundational arguments in economic theory and economic history. The failure of the self-regulating market economy was due to a misconception of how economic life is organized. All economies are embedded in social institutions; nineteenth century liberalism wrote its own obituary in its failure to understand how societies are constituted
Extract from :
KARL POLANYI ABOUT INSTITUTED PROCESS OF ECONOMIC DEMOCRATIZATION AND SOCIAL LEARNING
by Marguerite Mendell, Karl Polanyi Institute of Political Economy, Montreal, Canada
The Karl Polanyi Institute of Political Economy is located at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Ms Marguerite Mendell is professor at Concordia University.
Download the full text in English: Click here
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5- Conferences, Publications, Web sites
Conferences, call for participation and workshops
Submission Deadline postponed to 15 May 2008 ; Conference on « Participatory Agriculture - Why, How, Up to Where ? –» date and place : 6-7-8 November 2008, at University Rennes 2, France, organised by The PEKEA working group « NURR- New Urban-Rural Relationships ». The full » call for proposals may be found : Click here. Contributions of researchers from all human and social sciences are expected in French, English and Japanese. Four themes will be dealt with : 1) City-Countryside interactions, 2) New trends in fair-bio- multifunctionnality production, exchange and consumption, 3) Education of taste and dietary balance, 4) Dynamics and local cultures.
Your proposition in an attached file to be sent to the following mail address : Hiroko Amemiya : villecampagnebj@yahoo.fr
Call for papers for the 56th JSPE (JAPAN SOCIETY of POLITICAL ECONOMY) Annual Conference on Subprime Shock and the Future of Global Capitalism. It will be held on October 25 (Saturday) and 26 (Sunday), 2008, at Kyushu University in Fukuoka
City, Japan. The proposals should be reached by June 7, 2008 at the latest, to be sent to Prof. Shinjiro HAGIWARA, E-mail: jspecice@jspe.gr.jp ; Postal address: Faculty of Economics, Yokohama National University, Tokiwadai 79-3, Hodogaya-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa, 240-8501, Japan. Tel: +81-45-339-3575(Office), Fax: +81-45-339-3504
More information : Click here
Contact by mail to JSPE : secretariat@jspe.gr.jp
Over the past seven years the Swiss science landscape has made considerable investment in research partnerships with developing and transition countries. Against this background it was decided to call or an International Conference on Research for Development (ICRD 2008) which will take place on 4 July 2008 at the university of Bern, Switzerland .
The conference invites researchers, representatives from development agencies, civil society organizations and the private sector to share research results, concepts, methodologies, and pilot experiences.More information: Click here
Call for a World Social Forum sciences and democracy. Towards a political dialogue between scientists and social movements across the planet .
« Since 2001, world social forums have been gradually (…) considered as major events to elaborate, share and build social, cultural and economic transformations on global and local levels. Although the impacts of sciences and techniques on our daily lives (…) are higher than ever, we have been observing, since the origins of the WSF, a chronic deficit of scientific and technical themes in these forums. The reason for this is neither indifference nor absence of capacity of expertise but a lack of political consideration of the stakes related to the place and future of sciences in our societies, on behalf of both social movements and scientists.
That is why we believe that the building of a space of open cooperation, of wide public and democratic debates between scientists, NGOs and social movements at a world level will open new and exciting opportunities (…). (…) we, members of the scientific community, organisations and citizens, are calling for the organisation of the first World Social forum on science and democracy during the WSF in Belem - Brazil, January 2009.” Read the following, sign the call of Belem, react or participate in the Forum: Click here
Dans le cadre des conférences des amis du monde diplomatique de Grenoble, France, Jacques Perrin interviendra sur le thème : "La croissance pour la croissance, intérêts et limites du rapport Attali" . Rendez-vous le mercredi 14 mai à 20h30 au Tonneau de Diogène , 6 place Notre-Dame, Grenoble . Plus d’information : Click here
Publications and Newsletters
The Revue du Mauss set up a permanent electronic review to see it Click here mainly in French but also with some texts in other languages. For example there is a manifesto Towards an Institutionalist Political Economy to see Click here and go to below mid-page, it is in English. Then you may send your signature to the Review or go to another site where you may sign in line whether you feel in accordance to that manifesto : Click here
Web Sites
Se les inviten a consultar el sitio Internet de la Red de Investigadores Latinoamericanos http://www.riless.org/ . El objetivo del RILESS es desarrollar una Red de Investigadores Latinoamericanos que trabaje dentro de un marco plural, contribuyendo a la elaboración de proyectos, intercambios y diversas formas de cooperación, facilitando y promoviendo trabajos multidisciplinarios, con el fin de fortalecer las iniciativas colectivas por otra economía, otra sociedad y otra política en América Latina.
En el sitio web de RILESS pueden encontrar gratis y accesible libremente, articulos y otros textos estos temas. Para acceder, clica aquí: Click here
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| PEKEA President: Yves FRANCHET yves.franchet@wanadoo.fr Executive Secretary: Marc HUMBERT Marc.Humbert@univ-rennes1.fr Scientific VPdt : Theotonio DOS SANTOS theotoni@terra.com.br Treasurer: Danièle BENEZECH daniele.benezech@univ-rennes1.fr |
PEKEA Newsletter Chief editor : Robert Frouville |