Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSN › Chapter (peer-reviewed)
Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSN › Chapter (peer-reviewed)
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TY - CHAP
T1 - The complexities of competition and competitiveness
T2 - challenges for competition law and economic governance in variegated capitalism
AU - Jessop, Bob
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - My contribution develops three themes. First, it looks at competition from the perspective of actually existing capitalism and its differential accumulation, rather than from the perspective of how to regulate or govern competition from the viewpoint of its purported role as a public good. While there is a rational kernel to this perspective of competition as a public good in the contradictions between particular capitals and the interests of capital in general, it is typically interpreted in ways that merit at least a sceptical interrogation, if not a more radical ideological critique. Second, it looks at competition law in terms of the complexities of its object, rather than in terms of its mechanisms, its institutional architecture, its advocates, facilitators, coordinators, targets, and agents. Without paying attention to these complexities, there is a tendency to blame regulatory failure on the design of competition law rather than on the inherent ungovernability of its object. And, third, it looks at competition law as one among several means in which economic and political forces seek to design social modes of regulation to promote the differential accumulation of some capitals at the expense of others. In this sense, it looks at competition law is one element in the overall governance of accumulation on a world scale.
AB - My contribution develops three themes. First, it looks at competition from the perspective of actually existing capitalism and its differential accumulation, rather than from the perspective of how to regulate or govern competition from the viewpoint of its purported role as a public good. While there is a rational kernel to this perspective of competition as a public good in the contradictions between particular capitals and the interests of capital in general, it is typically interpreted in ways that merit at least a sceptical interrogation, if not a more radical ideological critique. Second, it looks at competition law in terms of the complexities of its object, rather than in terms of its mechanisms, its institutional architecture, its advocates, facilitators, coordinators, targets, and agents. Without paying attention to these complexities, there is a tendency to blame regulatory failure on the design of competition law rather than on the inherent ungovernability of its object. And, third, it looks at competition law as one among several means in which economic and political forces seek to design social modes of regulation to promote the differential accumulation of some capitals at the expense of others. In this sense, it looks at competition law is one element in the overall governance of accumulation on a world scale.
KW - competition
KW - competitiveness
KW - regulation
KW - competition law
KW - developmental state
KW - competition state
M3 - Chapter (peer-reviewed)
SN - 9781107027428
SP - 96
EP - 120
BT - Asian capitalism and the regulation of competition
A2 - Dowdle, Michael C.
A2 - Gillespie, John S.
A2 - Maher, Imelda
PB - Cambridge University Press
CY - New York
ER -