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Created six years apart, Scrooge and Pickwick exhibit extraordinary similarities in their backgrounds and plot trajectories. Scrooge and Pickwick start out as relatively isolated businessmen who make journeys of discovery and learn lessons in compassion. Their metamorphoses are deepened through their relationships with loyal employees. This article explores the scant details about the two men's business lives, including Scrooge's role as a creditor and his connection to the Second Royal Exchange in London, which burned down in January 1838. It also contextualizes Pickwick's ties to the South American sugar trade and the enslaved labor that contributes to his great wealth. The article speculates on the parallelisms between Scrooge and Pickwick and the effects of seeing them both within the scope of their identified business practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the Chinese central government's anti-corruption policies and restrictions on Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cadres' conduct, many rural cadres still hold or join lavish banquets, but in secret. Why do cadres take such risks? Why is banqueting so important for them? This ethnographic study in one rural county shows how instrumental banqueting (fanju) and associated interactions enhance exchange among rural cadres and businessmen, which can be understood as a process of relational work. This relational work exaggerates and adorns participants' personal relationships and constructs a moral basis for corruption. This style of relational work uses the Confucian notion of li as an excuse to show benevolence(ren), creating "ritualized relational work." This paper contributes to an understanding of the resilience of guanxi practices during President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes lopezobradorism, based on political identities theory (Aboy Carlés, 2001a) and Ernesto Laclau´s concept of populism (2005). Assuming that lopezobradorism has constituted a populist political identity, this paper analyzes how this identity articulated demands and extended its electoral base between 2005 and 2018. Particularly, we highlight the antagonistic displacements and mutations of lopezobradorism as a political subject. In this sense, we observe that in 2005-06 AMLO presented himself as "the candidate of the poor" and established a political frontier between rich and poor, while in 2012 he was more centered on insecurity and corruption, trying to "reconcile" with some social sectors for his protest post-2006. In 2018, he accomplished to articulate his priority against poverty and insecurity, adding a strong discourse against corruption and trying to include politics, businessmen and famous people in his coalition; in this way, lopezobradorism suffered its last mutation establishing a frontier between "a corrupt elite" and "the people". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the scientific names of many cultivated and well-known medicinal fungal species have been changed. However, the results of taxonomic and nomenclature works on these economically important fungi are often overlooked or ignored in applied researches. The incorrect use of scientific names may cause uncertainty in research and in the global medicinal mushroom market. In this paper, we briefly review the current taxonomy and nomenclature of "Fuling" medicinal mushroom and make a proposal for biochemists, pharmacists and businessmen on the correct use of scientific names related to this species. Based on the recent taxonomic results and nomenclatural proposals, the use of the names Wolfiporia extensa, W. cocos and especially Poria cocos for the "Fuling" mushroom are incorrect and misleading; therefore, the acceptance of the names Pachyma hoelen or Wolfiporia hoelen is recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies and characterizes a corporate network based on Argentinian-Spanish business (Catalan mainly) that was built around a dozen companies all located in Buenos Aires, in the first half of 20th century. Studying the board of directors of the company Providencia Compañía Argentina de Seguros, it finds meeting points in which different groups are involved and it analyzes what corporate strategies they applied. It also determines whether any political compromise was acquired by the members of the network, both in Spain and Argentina. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ibiza is very dependent on the tourism sector and is a highly recognized international brand. However, before the tourist boom, the situation was different, since it was an economically underdeveloped and almost unknown island. In the 1950s, an eminently endogenous tourism development began thanks to local entrepreneurship, usually workers and modest traders who dared to invest in the new sector. The development was not homogeneous throughout the island, with Sant Antoni de Portmany being the pioneer town in the post-Spanish Civil War recovery (1939–1959), the example from which the rest of the island learned and the starting point of the current image of Ibiza. This article seeks to delve into the social context of Sant Antoni in its tourist beginnings, especially in the mentality and way of being of the workers and businessmen of that time. It is an economic history paper that analyzes bibliography and testimonies of that time to provide a vision of what society, tourism and pioneering entrepreneurs were like. The peculiarities of the society, workers and entrepreneurs from the beginnings of the tourism sector have generated many of the positive and negative elements of current society and tourism in Ibiza, highlighting the survival of a mentality, way of doing and vital approach based on networking, irregularities and improvisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]