This paper investigates how contemporary labour-capital conflicts in the Cerrado and Amazon biomes of Brazil are centred on the expansion of value from land via dispossession and land titling, and the extraction of value through financial mechanisms that enhance the current and future rent from landholdings. Understanding the consequent territorial struggles between traditional collective ownership on the one hand, and private individual and corporate value capture on the other requires a departure from incumbent capital-(salaried) labour analyses in value chain studies. Resistance to further land capture for speculation reveals inter-and intra-class class tensions, and the facilitative role of the state in validating illicitly grabbed resources. Despite the adverse political conditions in Brazil, there are modest, but significant gains by autonomous land occupations and demarcations in confronting capital expansion. In the face of intensified land grabbing, violent threats, and the laundering of illicit resource extraction, the two cases presented open up new dimensions of, and possibilities for, capital-labour struggles linked to commodity expansion and extraction on resource-rich frontiers.

This paper explores the relationship between globalisation and mental health by using the global dataset of high-, middle-, and low-income countries for the period 1970–2020. Although the consequences of globalisation on general health have been extensively studied, limited attention has been paid to investigating the implications on mental health. To show robustness, globalisation has been divided into three main dimensions such as economic globalisation, political globalisation, and social globalisation while, mental health has been classified through various indicators, i.e., mental disorder, anxiety disorder, and depressive disorder. The study used panel fixed effect techniques to demonstrate the quadratic effects of globalisation on mental health. A U-shaped curve relationship between globalisation (including economic, political, and political globalisation) and mental disorders, anxiety disorders, and depressive disorders was identified. However, findings also indicate an inverted U-shaped curve relationship between globalisation and mental health for high-income countries and a U-shaped curve relationship for middle- and low-income countries. Prioritizing mental health is crucial for overall well-being and productivity. Furthermore, a comprehensive policy implementation is strongly recommended to protect societies from mental distress when a country plans to expand globalisation worldwide.

This special issue celebrates the career of Youssef Cassis. The introduction will outline his major contributions from his initial work on social characteristics of the financiers of the City of London, and their relationship with landed aristocrats and industry, through his analysis of a succession of financial centres, the comparative study of big business, the relationship between finance and politics, to his new project on the memory of financial crises. Then, we will draw on Youssef's mode of analysis to consider some of the more pressing issues in the era since the global financial crisis and the impact of Covid-19. We will consider the role of central banks, the challenge of fintech, the impact of low interest rates on inequality, savings and debt, and the potential shift in financial centres and reserve currencies with the rise of China. We will conclude by arguing that the mode of analysis developed by Cassis over his long and productive career has never been more pertinent.

The article considers crises of globalization: the 1840s, the 1870s, the Great War, the Great Depression, the Great Inflation (1970s), the Global Financial Crisis (2008) and the Great Lockdown (2020). Each led to a reshaping of the institutions that supervised or regulated economic development globally but also nationally. In each case, a series of questions are answered: what were the origins of the crisis, what were the monetary and fiscal policy responses, how did the crisis affect the drivers of globalization, trade, migration and capital flows? And how did these different challenges affect governance and views of politics? The article concludes that supply shocks are most easily dealt with by inflationary mechanisms, allowing groups to gain some apparent compensation for their losses through the supply shock. But the resulting mobilization into groups also strains social cohesion.