The paper explores the politics of birth control in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), with Russia, Poland and Romania as main cases. By looking at abortion and contraception policies and discourses during and after state socialism, I will discuss to what extent the transition has affected birth control policies. Furthermore, constructions of birth control under and after state socialism are use...

In the absence of a comprehensive institutional design for a radical democratic egalitarian alternative to capitalism what we need to work out are principles of institutional innovation and change which will tell us whether we are at least moving in the right direction. In this chapter we will explore one way of doing this. I will begin by interrogating the meaning of the word “social” in socia...

I have received many helpful comments on this paper from participants at the History of Economics Society meetings at the University of British Columbia, at seminars given at the University of Georgia, at the Austrian Colloquium at New York University, at the York University-University of Toronto Workshop on the History of Economics, and at the Duke University History of Political Economy Works...

ion and abstract labour Is it only in the process of exchange that labour become abstract? There is a confusion here between the role of abstraction in science and the partial way inwhich the abstract categories discovered by science become apparent to quotidian perception. Science must always seek the general behind the concrete, the abstract behind the particular.Thus in the developme...

Bitcoin (BTC) is often cited as Libertarian. However, the technology underpinning Bitcoin, blockchain, has properties that make it ideally suited to Socialist paradigms. Current literature supports the Libertarian viewpoint by focusing on the ability of Bitcoin to bypass central authority and provide anonymity; rarely is there an examination of blockchain technology’s capacity for decentralised...

Based on fieldwork in Yugoslavia and China. we compare medicine in two societies which are attempting to construct their own unique paths to socialism. After a brief description of each country and its sociopolitical system, we sketch the broad outlines of the health care system which has evolved. We then discuss certain constraints on achieving the socialist objectives of equality of access to...

The transition from state socialism to capitalism or market socialism has been a profound, indeed revolutionary, change in the socio-economic system of countries with about a quarter of the world’s population. The IFIs (International Financial Institutions) have been closely involved in it for more than 20 years. It has also given rise to an extensive academic literature. The purpose of this pa...