‘Virtual Water: More Heat than Light?’ – Capitalism, Nature, Socialism

Capitalism Nature Socialism

Virtual Water: More Heat than Light?

DOI:

10.1080/10455752.2013.877512

Stelios Gialis^* & Stavros Mavroudeas

Published online: 10 Jan 2014

ABSTRACT

 

Virtual Water (VW) and its associated concept of Water Footprint (WF) have recently become popular terms in the field of water resources. Their proponents maintain that they offer a novel method to help countries/ regions implement sustainable water policies, through adequate balances of VW ‘trade’. Thus, a problem of management of a scarce resource is answered by creating a shadow market mechanism which would promote efficiency and sustainable development. This paper offers a critique of the VW approach from a Marxist perspective. Although these concepts have been created as practical tools without an explicit theory behind them, they have a hidden theoretical background which is mainstream economics. This is an inherently inefficient perspective since it neglects the social dimension of economic relations and thus fails to comprehend how issues of class, power and unequal exchange affect water resources. The VW approach deifies uncritically the market mechanism, treats erroneously water as a sui generis commodity substance and adopts blindly the problematic international trade theory of comparative advantage. These problematic latent theoretical choices limit its explanatory ability and its policy usefulness.

Keywords

Virtual water; water-footprint; world trade; agricultural production processes, political economy of water, unequal exchange

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‘All work and no … pay? Unpaid overtime in Greece: determining factors and theoretical explanations’ – Industrial Relations Journal

All work and no … pay? Unpaid overtime in Greece: determining factors and theoretical explanations

1. Alexis Ioannides^†,*,
2. Eleni Oxouzi^‡,
3. Stavros Mavroudeas^§

Article first published online: 6 JAN 2014

DOI: 10.1111/irj.12041

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/irj.12041/abstract

Issue

Industrial Relations Journal

Volume 45, Issue 1, pages 39–55, January 2014

Abstract

During the last decades an increase of unpaid overtime has been observed combined with the inversion of the working time decreasing trend. This article analyses the data from the Labour Force Survey to estimate the determinants of unpaid overtime in Greece and uses the results to test various theoretical explanations.

Ανάρτηση φωτογραφιών από το 3ο Συνέδριο της ΕΕΠΟ

Στην ιστοσελίδα της Επιστημονικής Εταιρείας Πολιτικής Οικονομίας έχουν αναρτηθεί αρκετές φωτογραφίες από το πρόσφατο 3ο Συνέδριο της στο Παν. Πατρών:

http://poleconom.wordpress.com/2014/01/28/%CF%86%CF%89%CF%84%CE%BF%CE%B3%CF%81%CE%B1%CF%86%CE%AF%CE%B5%CF%82-%CE%B1%CF%80%CF%8C-%CF%84%CE%BF-3%CE%BF-%CF%83%CF%85%CE%BD%CE%AD%CE%B4%CF%81%CE%B9%CE%BF-%CF%84%CE%B7%CF%82-%CE%B5%CE%B5%CF%80%CE%BF/