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In its earliest economic form, money and the means for exchanging it took the oldest form of swapping : barter, which in time gave way to metal coins and then, much later, was replaced by ethereal electronic or “e-money”. During each evolutionary stage, the acceptance of money has rested upon the confidence of mediating economic agents. Such confidence may be market-based or backed by government, as when money is issued by a public authority. While this diachronic profile appears at each stage in the development of money, it becomes most obvious in the evolution of paper money and e-money. This paper sets forth a description of the origins of e-money and analyzes the phenomenon of this specific form of monetary evolution in order to better understand and anticipate the trail that e-payments will eventually blaze over the Internet.

April 17, 1982, will be one of the most important dates in the history of Canadian federalism. On that date, the Canada Bill, voted several days before by the Parliament of Westminster became the Constitution Act, 1982: the Canadian Constitution had been patriated. This article gives the history of this patriation from the beginning of the talks on this subject after the first World War of 1914-18 to the unfinished constitutional compromise of 1982.

Historical sociological studies face a challenge similar to that discussed by Martin Wight in “Why is there no International Theory?” Classical social theorists conceptualized “society” in the ontological singular, leaving their successors with a “domestic analogy” problem which has dogged attempts to provide a social theory of International Relations. Overcoming this problem requires an expansion of the premises of social theory to incorporate those general features of social reality which generate the phenomenon of “the international”. This expansion can be achieved using Leon Trotsky's idea of ‘uneven and combined development'. Specifically, the existence of ‘the international' arises ultimately from the “unevenness” of human sociohistorical existence; its distinctive characteristics can be derived from analysis of the resultant condition of “combined development”; and its significance, thus sociologically redefined, entails are conceptualization of ‘development' itself — one which removes the source of the “domestic analogy” problem for historical sociology.

Keywords: Sociologie historique, relations internationales, Trotsky, développement inégal et combiné, Historical Sociology, International Relations, Trotsky, Uneven and Combined Development  , Sociología Histórica, Relaciones Internacionales, Trotsky, desarrollo desigual y combinado

SummaryThis article traces a portrait of the social context of both the current transition and the one that is emerging, and examines the challenges they pose for current sociology and that of the coming decades. The goal is to show that a qualitative change is taking place, a shift not from modernity to post-modernity, but to another socio-historical form of social relations "awareness" (la conscientivité). To do so, the author examines four socio-historical trends: the evolution of the objectification-subjectification relation; the evolution of the capital-subject relation; the transformation of the identity-solidarity relation; and, lastly, the change occurring in the system of values. The author argues that while the current transition simultaneously involves the possibility and the necessity of shifting to the era of awareness, the likelihood of this shift is questioned in light of the possibility of the extended reproduction of capitalism, which, as such, would push its structural characteristics to a high degree of radical exacerbation, completely denying the legitimacy and primacy of the subject. The first section dwells on the issue of the genetic structuration of the transition situation, which the author examines through the lens of the objectification-subjectification dialectic. The author then examines three modes of objectification (the production of material objects; the production of non-material objects; and the production of intelligent objects) and their consequences for the development of the possibilities for subjecti-fication. The following two sections focus on the problematic of capitalist continuity, its discontinuities (long expansion phases) and the exhaustion of modernity. After having indicated how continuity is disrupted by endogenous causes due the incessant confrontation of the logics of capital and the subject, the author reviews the state of development of the crisis of the Fordist-Keynesian mode of regulation, dwelling on the causes and consequences of capital's declared war on the subject, on the form assumed by the crisis of the exhaustion of the consumption sphere's absorption capacity, and, lastly, on the increase of the possibilities and means of individuation through the Fordist, then the Fordist-Keynesian ways of life. The third section deals with the possibility of shifting to a new mode of regulation discussed-programmed regulation which would facilitate the shift to "awareness." This section successively discusses the following problematics: the emergence of the new techno-economic paradigm programming and of a new mode of alienation; the transformation of the competition relation; the emergence of the discussed-programmed mode of regulation on a global scale; and the duration of the transition in light of the uncontrollable pace taken on by capital's domination. In the fourth section, the author discusses the transformation of identity relations and of the form of solidarity, as well as the role of the subject's will. Lastly, the author argues for the need to shift to a system of values that goes beyond the determinisms of facts of origin. The article concludes by bringing together a number of comments with a view to defining "awareness."

Keywords: modernité, capitalisme, transition, conscience, phases longues d'expansion, identité, solidarité, sujet, objectivation, mode de régulation, modernity, capitalism, transition, awareness, long expansion phases, identity, solidarity, objectification, mode of regulation, modernidad, capitalismo, transición, conciencia, fases largas de expansión, identidad, solidaridad, sujeto, objetivación, modo de regulación

The lack of autonomy of Western European states, that is, the limitations which they confront in terms of translating their policy preferences into authoritative actions, cannot be considered solely in terms of idiosyncratic domestic political institutions and cultures, or as the result of greater sensibility and vulnerability to interdependence through the flow of goods, capital and technology. The argument develops around the generalisation that during the period of "détente" from 1965 to 1979, the United States, as the world central bank, inflated the world political economy ; thereafter, the questioning of détente accompanied a United States-led policy of world deflation. European politics, in a variety of intricate ways, followed the rythm set by the United States, with a period of state policy activism in the late 1960s to mid-1970s followed by more sceptical attitudes by public officials, supported by conservative or liberal parties, on the limitations of state action. But while it could be argued that the autonomy of OECD European states was strictly limited in economic policy by the integration of national into European and world markets, it is also demonstratable that the most sensitive of these markets - the world financial markets - are most susceptible to state policy, particularly that of the United States. In turn, the influence exerted on government preferences by world financial markets has grown to such an extent that by 1983, Western European governments are all aligning priorities on what are taken to be market criteria. If fact, they are aligning their priorities on the preferences of the great powers in a period of heightened international tension. Thus, the lack of autonomy of Western European states is of political origin: their subordination through lack of continued regional autonomy in defense and finance. Implicitly, this article suggests a move in Western Europe to a confederal armed force and a European Reserve Bank, as the precondition for a revitalised Atlantic alliance.