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Understanding Capital: Marx’s Economic Theory

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... This indicates that production and labor power required in the manufacturing process (P) to make the new commodities (C′) were sold for a higher price (M′) than the capital invested (M). The difference between M′ and M (that is, M) is a surplus-value (profit) that the valorization process strives to optimize on a constant basis (Foley, 1986). Bryer (2006a) explained what roles accounting plays in the labor control process, and it used the concept of -formal‖ and -real‖ subsumption of labor; the same idea was justified by Marx (1976, Appendix to Volume 1). ...
... Furthermore, Marx's overall perspective of societal developments, as well as his concept of a capitalist organization, focuses on organizationallevel dynamics. Marx's microeconomic viewpoint does not rule out the social and cultural influences on organizations (Foley, 1986). This viewpoint differs from the assumption that things will emerge regardless of historical circumstances. ...
... It is necessary to understand the relation between Marx's ideas of -young‖ and -mature‖ to appreciate Marx's theory. Foley (1986), on the other hand, contends that rather than this form of division, Marx's ideas should be framed in a single frame. ...
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This paper aims to use theoretical literature to develop propositions and suggest a research agenda on the implications of internal audit (IA) on corporate governance (CG). The paper uses institutional theory and Marx’s theory of the circuit of industrial capital to develop theoretical and justifiable propositions and highlight influential research agenda. The key variables are identified and operationalization issues are discussed. To demonstrate the relationship between CG and IA, researchers used theories such as institutional theory, agency theory, stewardship theory, and resource dependence theory (Tripathi, 2019; Činčalová & Hedija, 2020). The existing literature does not offer norms for IA effectiveness. We claim that a positive relationship between IA compliance with standards and CG could be used to assess IA performance. It is high time that the IA should be given consideration as a service to the board, and the IA should be made independent of the top management. Studies in settings where IA is well-developed and in different contexts, similar to Fiji, where IA is relatively at an early stage of development, could provide valuable insights.
... Theorem 3.8 shows that the dynamic interaction between the wage share, the employment rate and the capital-output ratio provides a closure to the system of equations describing Marx's circuits of capital. Furthermore, equation (21) shows that changes in the equilibrium rate of growth must act through changes in the equilibrium rate of return, the period of production and the share of retained profits recommitted in the form of capital outlays (Foley, 1986). ...
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The chapter presents an equilibrium model of a multi-time-scale dynamical system of employment, income distribution, and growth based on Marx’s circuits of capital. The multi-time-scale analysis uses singular perturbation theory to distinguish between the fast adjusting behavior of economic variables describing their corresponding cyclical relations and the slow-varying movement of their corresponding centers of gravity.KeywordsCircuits of capitalGrowth theoryMultiscale analysis
... Por esta razón, resulta interesante que autores como Foley y Jaramillo debatan la teoría del valor abstracto. Por un lado,Foley (1988) argumenta que el valor es una sustancia abstracta, contenida en cantidades de productos definidos. Por ello, el proceso capitalista agrega una cualidad de uso y representa el trabajo socialmente necesario para la producción de un bien. ...
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Este estudio cuestiona las limitaciones ontológicas, metodológicas y epistemológicas de los paradigmas clásicos, neoclásico y marxista para repensar el problema de la transformación y la formación del valor en el circuito económico. Esta aproximación rescata el postulado filosófico de Arthur (2004), primero, para materializarlo en una ecuación teórica que represente la formación del valor en el intercambio, donde la mercancía se transforma en dinero; segundo, para tipificar las formas de reproducción del capital.
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This article addresses the evolving challenges in teaching radical political economy in contemporary economics curricula, where traditional Marxist perspectives are increasingly marginalized. I propose a pedagogical framework centered on multimedia integration to revitalize the teaching of topics in radical political economy. Through an exploration of popular movies and documentaries, this article elucidates how innovative approaches can be used to engage students and foster critical thinking. By leveraging multimedia resources, educators can effectively convey Marxian concepts, provoke meaningful discussions, and inspire students to critically examine economic systems and envision alternative socioeconomic models. JEL Classification: A22, B51
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This article critiques policies aimed at income redistribution within the framework of Marx’s critique of political economy. The ‘Neoliberal’ characterization of capitalist history, the tendency to divide capitalism into distinct sub-periods or phases, continues to play a significant role for describing changes to social policy in the United States. Prominent academics and public intellectuals continue to hold spirited debates over whether or not welfare spending in the United States has become less generous over the years, owing to increasing ‘neoliberalization’ of the American economy. This mixed-methods research paper analyzes trends in social welfare spending and income inequality for the United States. To supplement the analysis, a novel dataset on Distributional National Accounts from the Bureau of Economic Analysis is also analyzed. Evidence suggests previous concerns in the literature are unfounded and are not borne out by empirical evidence.
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Adam Smith and Karl Marx are commonly viewed as opposites, both in terms of their approaches to political economy and their ideological outlooks: Smith as a champion of individual self-interest and unfettered capitalist development; Marx as the harsh critic of the injustice and irrationality of capitalist commodity production. Marx was, however, in many important methodological and theoretical dimensions, in fact, a “Smithian”. In this paper we explore Smith’s influence on Marx in several dimensions. The most important in our view is Marx’s adoption of Smith’s “long-period reasoning” as the framework for his theories of value, surplus value, allocation of labor and exploitation. Marx instinctively shared many other Smithian views, including Smith’s rejection of diminishing returns to specialization as a limiting factor in capital accumulation, the factors underlying demographics, the role and potential of technical change, and the theory of money. Marx’s “vision” diverged sharply from Smith on the question of the universality of capitalist social relations of commodity production, and the possibility of socialist alternatives to capitalist commodity production as a framework for organizing the division of labor. This paper surveys the areas where Marx found substantial common ground with Smith, as well as the questions on which Marx parted company with Smith through a careful exegesis of Marx’s own discussion and evaluation of Smith’s ideas. This clarifies the ways in which Marx worked from his understanding of Smith as a base to develop his critique of political economy.
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The paper reconstructs the Marxian circuit of capital model to identify distinctive dynamics of the growth and reproduction of the total capital stock. The growth of the financial, productive, and commercial capital stock and the reproduction of the capital-labor relation in this model is primarily induced by the change in both the three capital flows that link the three capital stocks and time-lags tied to the accumulation of each capital stock. The paper develops a representative Marxian circuit of capital model in a single sector and conducts a series of comparative dynamic analyses through simulations. The simulation result shows that there exist nonlinear interactions among the three capital stocks that generate divergent growth patterns of the total capital stock, and these dynamic interactions are induced by the change in both three capital flows and time-lags required for the reproduction of the system. The simulation approach to the model also sheds light into the nature and effect of financialization and the realization crisis on the growth pattern of the three capital stocks, in which delays in either mobilizing financial capital outlay or in sales of final products alters the composition of the total capital stock, thereby pointing to the potential presence of distinct and divergent “growth regimes” of capital accumulation.
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This paper uses the notion of Natural Kinds to defend the “scientific” character of Marxian economics as a discipline. Drawing from Saul Kripke and other natural kind theorists, a criterion will be supplied that is at once logical, modal, semantic, ontological, and empirical. This would represent an encapsulation of the intuitive standards around which different economic theories compete, representing a theory-indistinct target that all scientific claims of economics aim to hit. We will demonstrate this using the case example of the work of Marx. This procedure could be repeated with any contending economic theory, giving us a theory-neutral condition for evaluating the “scientific” status of economic claims. Three results follow: (a) we get a logical framework for defining the validity-space of claims that would make up “economics;” (b) we get a tool for comparing varying economic claims or theories against one another, a tool that could be used with many others; and (c) we will see how counter to some theorists, economics does in fact represent a Natural Kind.
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Karl Heinrich Marx (1818–1883) is renowned as a philosopher-economist and the visionary behind a revolutionary approach to both economic theory and societal change. His profound contributions span diverse domains, encompassing the labor theory of value and the generation of surplus value through the exploitation of labor, as well as the dynamics of capital accumulation and unemployment. Marx also investigated competition as a war-like process ultimately leading to the increasing concentration and centralization of capital. His work extensively explores the intricacies of the law of the falling tendency of the rate of profit, intimately connected with economic crises. Marx's extensive body of work serves as a catalyst for economic thought, venturing into unexplored territories such as issues on money and international trade, economic growth and crises, and the financial aspects of the economy. Additionally, he made notable contributions to the theory of rent, among other groundbreaking insights.
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We re-examine the systemic cycles of accumulation (SCA) of Arrighi (2010) and Arrighi and Silver (1999) which provide a framework for the analysis of the cyclical patterns of geographical expansion of trade and production and the related shifts of hegemonic power within the world capitalist system. Within the SCA framework, the last stage of a hegemonic cycle is characterized by what is called ‘systemic chaos’. However, the drivers of these dynamics have not been explicitly analyzed. This article fills this gap by providing a link between the accumulation process and systemic chaos. Introducing the logistic map into the SCA analysis, our approach provides the missing detailed understanding of how systemic chaos is an outcome of the contradictory socioeconomic dynamics of capital accumulation itself while being based on the key insights of the SCA framework of hegemonic cycles.
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In this theoretical paper, we respond to the Triple Day Thesis (TDT) by positioning it within the context of the neoclassical labour supply literature and existing public policy. The TDT applies a theoretical lens to the practical experiences of mothers as they distribute time between self-reproductive, reproductive, and waged work. Self-reproductive work refers to self-care, self-investment, and self-realizable activities, including time for good sleep, schooling, and intellectual and social engagements that promote mothers’ human development and well-being. The TDT identifies the Triple Day Problem (TDP) as the lack of freedom or inability of mothers to engage in self-reproductive work as they balance the increasing demands of reproductive work with waged work and proposes Motherhood Compensation as a social policy solution. In this paper, we demonstrate that the existence of the TDP can be used to explain persistent gender differences in labour force participation. We envision the TDT as a novel theoretical approach to promoting mothers’ labour force participation and social mobility through self-reproductive work. We suggest that Motherhood Compensation can be created from a mix of already existing family programs, including paid leave, parental allowance, and cash transfer programs.
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This paper critically examines the assumption of effective labor mobilization underlying Cockshott and Cottrell’s canonical labor-time calculation model of planning. According to these scholars, the practical limitations of planning in kind can be overcome by using labor time instead of monetary values as the accounting unit of the plan. From Marx’s theory of value, we know that this approach involves converting various forms of concrete labor into equal quantities of abstract, socially necessary labor time. These quantities could then serve as technical coefficients employed by the planning board. While market competition naturally provides this equivalence by enforcing labor discipline and ensuring an appropriate distribution of concrete working times across industries, attaining the same outcome in a planned economy requires a deliberate effort to establish technically sufficient proportions among different types of work activities. These proportions differ when considering diverse technical needs and the actual time spent in production, which challenges the idea that labor commitment can be motivated solely by remunerating workers based on their working time rather than their unequal contributions to the production process. Labor in production and distribution can follow different economic proportions, but the expectation that material incentives can compensate for the absence of labor discipline in a planned economy conflicts with the assumption that labor coefficients are inputs rather than outputs of the production process. The paper argues that a more comprehensive exploration of the interplay between labor mobilization and labor equalization is essential for strengthening the case of the labor-time calculation model.
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The conceptual tools of Marxist rent theory, such as absolute and monopoly rent, need clarification. The institution of landed property, alone, is not responsible for absolute rent. The Marxist theory of land rent continues to apply under two contemporary conditions: (1) the agrarian stagnation in developing countries such as India and (2) the urban rents and property prices. Most owner-cultivators in developing countries could be earning negative rents. Furthermore, differential rents and monopoly rents — fueled by speculation and state policies — explain movements in urban rent and property prices if the organic composition of capital is similar across sectors.
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Most scholars interpret Marx’s prices of production as those which achieve simple reproduction assuming profit rates are equal and all capitals turn over completely each year. The dynamics of equalization, as circulation intertwines with production over the business cycle, is absent. The traditional ‘Marxist’ equation for the profit rate likewise considers only simple reproduction. This leaves a gap in our understanding of Marx, particularly regarding the impact of turnover time on the profit rate, one of Ricardo’s original problems which Marx claimed to solve. Starting from a critique of Veronese Passarella’s and Baron’s attempt to extend the traditional equation to expanded reproduction, I develop a more general equation showing how changes in turnover times, rate of surplus value and accumulation affect the equalization process, the formation of the general profit rate and hence of prices of production. Finally, considering Moseley’s introduction to the recently published translation of a 27-page excerpt from Marx’s Economic Manuscript of 1867–1868, I suggest an equation for decomposing the profit adjustment during equalization. JEL Classification: B24, B51, E11.
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O objetivo deste texto é fazer uma breve análise das condições de trabalho,renda e proteção social oferecidas aos trabalhadores da economia solidária com base na categoria marxista do Exército Industrial de Reserva(EIR). Para isso, é feitauma análise dos dados dos empreendimentos solidários no Brasil a partir do Segundo Mapeamento Nacional de Empreendimentos Solidários realizado em 2013. As principais conclusões apontam que uma parcela significativa dos Empreendimentos de Economia Solidária(EES)oferece aos seus membros pouca proteção social e baixos rendimentos. Com isso, apesar de ser uma fonte de subsistência, a economia solidária termina por manter uma parte dos trabalhadores na condição de EIR
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JEL: B15; B41; B52; B51; E11; E24; O11; O14; O41; P48.
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Does the intensification of labor increase the rate of exploitation? Does it produce absolute surplus value or relative surplus value? This article develops a framework to answer these questions by incorporating intensity of labor in the widely used linear model of production, both in its one- and two-department forms. We show that (a) an intensification of labor always leads to an increase in the rate of exploitation, and (b) the increase in the rate of exploitation takes the form of the production of absolute surplus value in all realistic situations. We also highlight, in the case of any model with more than one industry or sector, an interesting difference in short- and long-run changes in the rate and form of surplus value. JEL Classification: B51, C02
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The profound insights provided by Minsky's theory of financial instability are insufficient. On the one hand, as Marxists and other critics have pointed out, they tend to dissociate finance from the instability-creating dynamics of the wider economy. On the other hand, they tend to depict the state as an exogenous, stabilizing, influence. This creates an inherent tension in Minsky's analysis, which also insists, “stability is destabilizing.” A Marxist understanding resolves this tension. The state is an essential and active component of capitalism and its contradictions. State interventions may attenuate some of capitalism's destabilizing processes but these displace rather than eliminate the underlying contradictions and themselves contribute to longer-term instability and crises.
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Marxian economics has been dealing extensively with the issue of falling profitability and its connection with financialisation. One finds in this line of research contributions linking financialisation with the list of counter-elements to the Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall, with financialisation being interpreted as the 'sixth'. In the past, various authors have either briefly commented on the 'sixth' factor or left it aside. We aim to provide an alternative interpretation , based on three elements. First, the role of joint-stock companies' issuance of long-term financing instruments yielding low remuneration. Second, the fact that sectors such as railways and public utilities, belonging to the category of natural monopolies, are excluded from gravitation towards an average rate of profit. Third, the role of the organic composition of capital in determining differences in sectoral profitability. Therefore, we claim that the sixth element should be read as a reference to natural monopolies remaining outside the field of profit rate equalisation.
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Can cost-reducing technical change lead to a fall in the long run rate of profit if class struggle manages to keep the rate of exploitation constant? In this paper, we derive three results that, taken together, answer this question in the affirmative. First, we identify three properties that new real wage bundles must satisfy to keep the rate of exploitation constant and lead to a falling rate of profit. Second, we derive sufficient conditions for existence of an infinite number of such real wage bundles. Third, we show that, if the initial real wage bundle is such that the maximum price-labor value ratio is larger than 1 plus the rate of exploitation, then starting from any configuration of technology, there always exists a viable, capital-using labour-saving technical change that satisfies the sufficient conditions of the previous result. These results vindicate Marx's claim that if the rate of exploitation remains unchanged then technical change in capitalist economies can lead to a fall in the long run rate of profit.
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Marx assumes a uniform rate of exploitation throughout Capital, yet the theoretical basis for this assumption and its role in his theory of value are not widely recognised in the existing literature. This article shows that Marx assumed a tendentially equalised rate of exploitation to be the outcome of labour mobility and that he viewed this as a general tendency of capitalist economies. Marx draws extensively on Adam Smith to support his views on labour mobility and the equalised rate of exploitation. The close connection between Smith and Marx on notions of labour mobility is examined here. Understanding the role of labour mobility and the equalised rate of exploitation in Marx’s work holds implications for contemporary approaches to classical-Marxian price and value theory and supports the view that Marx’s theory of value is, in the most general sense, a theory of the allocation of social labour.
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In this chapter I outline and critically evaluate two competing interpretations of Marx’s explanation of the money prices of commodities found in the literature. I refer to these as the traditional and monetary interpretations or approaches. The traditional approach interprets Marx conceiving of the value of the commodity as the quantity of abstract labour time actually expended in its production while the monetary approach interprets him conceiving of the value of the commodity as the quantity of money appropriated as incomes in the context of its production where money represents a certain quantity of abstract labour time. The basic argument I develop is that both approaches misinterpret Marx’s conception of the value of the commodity, causing them to misinterpret his conception of money and, consequently, his explanation of the money price of the commodity. I argue that the most obvious manifestation of these mistaken interpretations of Marx’s explanation of the money price of the commodity is that they interpret him seeing changes in the relative money prices of commodities taking place independently of changes in the aggregate money price level, and not also in the context of the latter.
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Following the commodity-money system that prevailed at the time of his research, Marx assumed the monetary expression of labor time (MELT) to be fixed. This assumption cannot hold in the contemporary regime of non-commodity money. It is essential to resolve the question of how the MELT is determined in a system of non-commodity money. The expression is the ratio of the total paper money circulating in the economy, less all paper money advanced on constant capital, to the total number of socially necessary labor hours exerted in the economy. Expressed algebraically, m = (Mv − C)/L. This model differs from those proposed by Moseley; Saros; Rieu, Lee, and Ahn; and Foley. JEL Classification: B51, E11
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This article presents a comprehensive values and prices formation model based on Marx’s (1992, 1993) labor theory of value within a Temporal Single-System Interpretation (TSSI) framework. This model bases on a new interpretation of the Marxian Fundamental Theorem (FMT) and the Monetary Expression of Labor Time (MELT). If the modification in the dialectical sequence of the formation of the categories and the introduction of the dual determination of socially necessary labor time are accepted, the transformation problem encounters solution in the interpretation of Carchedi and de Haan (1996). Likewise, contemporary approaches reveal the need for a redefinition of key categories of the Marxist labor theory of value to develop a logically coherent model. Thus, the proposed model includes the dimension of the realization problem that commodities face in the market and introduce analytical categories for both production and realization periods. Finally, value category is redefined.
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This chapter discusses the Okishio theorem. By examining a prototype of the theorem provided by Shibata, it is shown that the Okishio theorem should not be considered as a real “disproof” of the falling rate of profit under any condition. In this regard, the chapter critically examines a recent critique of the Okishio theorem by the “temporal single-system interpretation” (TSSI) and demonstrate how the TSSI’s refutation of the theorem cannot be regarded an internal critique in any sense. The main thrust of this chapter, to establish the Okishio theorem as a counterfactual thesis, is pursued by comparing the former with the Foley-Laibman theorem. This will elucidate the meaning of Okishio’s pursuit of the dynamics of competition in his later years, especially related to his seemingly embarrassing recognition of the theorem’s limitations.
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This chapter demonstrates how the New Interpretation relies on two axioms regarding the “monetary expression of labor time” (MELT) and the value of labor-power. The aim of this chapter is to follow the inherent logic of the NI and thus clarify why the constant capital part, unlike the conventional literature of Marxian value theory, is necessarily excluded in the transformation procedure from values into prices of production. Continuing the decomposition of the MELT into the “value expression of labor time” (VELT) and “monetary expression of value” (MEV), made in Chapter 2, the construction of a disaggregated model is also described. It will be shown that the NI, at least its original form, implicitly assumes a uniform rate of exploitation, or, more precisely, the VELTs are proportional to wage rates. In light of these discussions, an inverse transformation method is also given.
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This paper constructs a unified framework to evaluate the Marxian transformation models, where the exploitation rate is an endogenous variable determined within value and price of production systems. All different procedures are based on two different value‐price invariance equations. These could be chosen among either two aggregate product equations (gross or net output) or three capital invariant equations (total, variable or constant). Different combinations of invariance equations result in most Marxian solutions developed in recent decades. The solution does not imply that one model (prices) is logically prior to the other (values), but that in fact that the joint solution is needed.
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In Marx’s analysis of capitalism, time and motion are central to the dynamics of the system. In the twenty-first century, capital deployed new forms of technology and logistical planning to increase profits and reduce the circulation phase of the turnover time of capital. The introduction of fibre optic cable, data centres, the transformation of the warehouse into a site of movement, the rise of third-party logistics (3 PL ) firms, and improvements in infrastructure all promoted ‘the annihilation of space by time’ in the effort to increase profitability. As increased velocity of value became central to capital, the system in turn became more vulnerable to disruption by labour.
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In this paper, we provide an interpretation of Marx’s category of fictitious capital by analysing its main attributes and pointing out its role in understanding the capitalist dynamics from a value-form approach. We criticise the widespread notion that fictitious capital is a category related to the degree of detachment between its capital value and the value of the real capital that it might eventually represent. We argue that fictitious capital should be defined by three key attributes: the future flow of income, the secondary market and its ‘real nonexistence’. Fictitious capital is therefore presented as the genetic development of interest-bearing capital, a process in which any expected money income is converted into a capital value in the present and transformed into a commodity. In this perspective, the importance of fictitious capital for the understanding of contemporary capitalism is analysed, particularly with respect to the process of the distribution of social labour.
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The paper incorporates the hoard of money in a simple three-department scheme of expanded reproduction. The sui-generis features of the hoard of money are briefly set out. The paper then demonstrates that due to the existence of the hoard of money, it is possible for there to be generalised over-production of all non-money commodities. The paper concludes with some suggestions for further work in this research direction. JEL classifications: B14, B24, B51, E11.
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Between 2010 and 2015 Greek banks received capital injections as part of an EU-led rescue package that left the Greek state with large losses on their investments and a debt to repay; in the most acute moments of the crisis the European central bank twice forced the Bank of Greece to assume sole responsibility for any losses on lending to Greek banks, and; in 2015 Greek banks were subject to EU-mandated controls that restricted the transformation of Greek bank deposits into Euros in other forms. Why did European banking infrastructure leave the Greek state facing losses and liabilities alone, while still full members of the EU and Euro Area (EA)? We find that European banking infrastructure is combined-but-not-unified, and that integration requires both. Drawing on Marxist political economy we examine the financial mechanisms in detail and find a scalar split in state provision of banking infrastructure in the EU/EA. At the supranational level, the removal of barriers to cross-border banking and a common rule book. Meanwhile, promises of monetary support, such as deposit guarantees and lending of last resort have largely remained the responsibility of nation states. The combined-but-not-unified structure ensured that when crisis struck, Greece was isolated, yet still fully part of the EU/EA.
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Karl Marx’s (1818–1883) analysis of the capitalist system in Capital, Vol. I memorably inferred that the system’s fragility is rooted in “real” causes. Marx also analyzed significant contributing causes entrenched in the banking and financial spheres in Capital, Vol. III and other writings. The paper utilizes recently available drafts not previously accessible to shed light on Marx’s evolving ideas concerning “real” versus “less real” causes for fragility in the system. The paper contrasts the studies of fragility by Marx and Friedrich von Hayek (1899–1992) who, unlike Marx, was a dedicated supporter of capitalism. Hayek argued that the fragility of the capitalist system was rooted in “monetary” causes, i.e., in “less real” causes rather than in “real” ones. The paper reviews the two scholars’ divergent explanations of fragility, emphasizing a focal point concerning possible remedies to the fragility. Marx, as is well known, argued that there was no such remedy. Hayek, who blamed the banking sector for the fragility, argued in his 1930s theory of business cycles that more passive banks and central banks could provide an answer to the fragility. However, it was not until the mid-1970s that Hayek supported a radical reform which would leave the monetary system to be ruled by “free banking.”
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We argue in this article that Marx’s scientific method coupled with his analysis of the phenomenological consciousness of agents trapped within the capitalist mode of production provides a sufficient solution to the transformation problem. That is, Marx needs no amending – mathematical, philosophical, or otherwise – and the tools he uses to demonstrate and resolve the problem – science and phenomenology – were already clearly spelled out in his texts. Critics of Marx either fail to understand his scientific method, or are themselves trapped within a non-scientific capitalist phenomenology. Similarly, Marxists that mathematically resolve the transformation problem fail to realise that Marx’s scientific analysis alone demonstrates that a mathematical solution to the transformation problem is a misapprehension of the relation between Marx’s abstract theory and concrete phenomena. Consequently, we also criticise the monetary theorists who try to dismiss the problem as pointless by claiming that Marx was not a pre-monetary theorist.
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In his macro-monetary interpretation of Marx's theory of value, Fred Moseley claims that Marx's prices of production should be considered as the long-run equilibrium condition of capital reproduction under the assumption of given technology and given capital distribution. Moseley's methodological interpretation depends on the claim that the general rate of profit is completely predetermined in the first two volumes of Capital. I argue to the contrary that though Moseley shows the inadequacy of the Standard Interpretation, he fails to provide a convincing description of Marx's category of prices of production. The production of the new total value and total surplus-value cannot be considered as simply determined by the initial conditions of production; if we want to describe how prices of production are formed and the role they play in the social reproduction of capital, we should recognize that in social reproduction this process develops temporally through an intertwined relation between the production, circulation and distribution.
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In “A Marxian reply to Hahnel: The relative explanatory power of Marx’s theory and Sraffa’s theory,” Moseley begins by arguing that I misrepresent Marx. For any like myself, who believe that because we now have linear algebra, and the theorems of Frobenius and Perron to take advantage of, we are able to elaborate a better formal framework for understanding prices and income distribution in capitalism than was available during Marx’s time, the past fifty years has become a game of whack-a-mole: whenever anyone rebuts one particular defense of using a labor theory of value framework, a different variation rises in its place. JEL Classification: B24, B51
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This paper estimates the Brazilian economy’s rate of surplus value as well as its underlying determinants, i.e., wage rate and labor productivity between 1996 and 2016. In addition, it builds a theoretical narrative of the Brazilian economy that integrates its political successions, highlighting the governments of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995–2002), Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003–2010), Dilma Rousseff (2011–August 2016), and the parliamentary coup d’état (December 2015–August 2016). The findings are presented based on the classical political economy tradition, which sees capital-labor struggle as a key, albeit nonexclusive, condition that frames the economic, political, and ideological disputes of society. JEL Classification: B51, E25, N16
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This paper critically examines Robin Hahnel’s 2017 book Radical Political Economy: Sraffa versus Marx and especially compares the relative explanatory power of Marx’s theory and Sraffa’s theory. Hahnel’s book argues that Sraffa’s theory is superior to Marx’s theory with respect to the following six subjects: prices, profit, technological change, crises, the environment, and moral critique (each one considered in a separate chapter). This paper challenges Hahnel’s arguments on all six subjects and argues that Marx’s theory has greater explanatory power than Sraffa’s theory and continues to be the best critical theory of capitalism. JEL Classification: B24, B51
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The present paper argues that the recent Brazilian crisis was related to a cyclical profit squeeze that took place between 2009 and 2014, following the long expansion that started in 2003. To do so, the cyclical trajectories of the output and the profit rate in the Brazilian economy for the period between 1996 and 2016 are examined by resorting to the framework established by Weisskopf (1979). The results indicate that profit squeezes are rare in the Brazilian economy, possibly due to the truncated character of the business cycles’ expansions. However, a profit squeeze did take place in the last cycle, partly as a result of the commodities boom, which attenuated the foreign vulnerability of the economy and allowed for a longer than usual expansion. JEL classification: B50, B51,E32
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This article argues that the development of queer theory as a field has been critically shaped by a desire to dissociate the studies of gender and sexuality from material concerns. Though what is meant by “the material” varies wildly from context to context, queer critiques of materialism have produced an entrenched impression of the incommensurability between queer theory and Marxism. Tracing the varied ways in which the notion of the material has been deployed by queer critics to pose questions about the economic reductionism of Marxism, empiricism, and corporeality, this article demonstrates that the material has functioned as a kind of spectral presence in queer theorizing, an enabling form of haunting that keeps critics worrying productively about the best way to stay true to the radically anticipatory orientation of early queer theory. The specter of the material provides the epistemological foundation for canonical texts in queer theory that do not appear to be concerned with Marxism, such as those of Butler and Sedgwick; it also serves as the conceptual fulcrum for a number of “queer Marxist” projects that attempt to synthesize these two traditions. This article concludes by suggesting that, instead of viewing queer theory and Marxism as intellectually incompatible or historically successive projects, we might productively reconceptualize them as subjectless critiques commonly concerned with the problem of social structuration.
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This was originally written in mid-2018 to celebrate the 200-year anniversary of Karl Marx’s birth. Its aim is to identify the position of Marx’s theory of capital in the history of economics. Thus, this article discusses Marx’s critical reception of his predecessors and the investigation after him. In this respect, Hicks’ distinction of capital theoreticians between “fundists” and “materialists” is useful. Marx’s view of capital shows several fundist characteristics in line with the classical economists preceding him. However, viewed from the materialistic perspective of capital theory, he had successors in the Russian planners of socialist centralized economy in the twentieth century. The peculiarity of Marx’s capital theory lies in its critical dimension, which supersedes the positivistic theorizing of ordinary economists. Marx would recognize the relationship of production that emerges out of the antagonistic split between subjective and objective elements (“primitive accumulation”). Thus, we must now ask if two centuries of mankind’s history has discovered a solution or made any progress in this respect.
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Creating a general model of the economy, “providing a holistic knowledge of the economic system” (AD Nekipelov) is an urgent problem. The paper considers the possibility of using the subject and method of Marx’s “The Capital” in order to build a common model. The subject is an entity of relations within capitalist mode of production of life rather than wealth. The scientific method of ascending not from the abstract but from the simplest concrete to the complex concrete led to the discovery of an “economic cell”. Cell theory has influenced both “The Capital” and the understanding of history as a “linear sequence of stages”. The subject of the general model is relations that ensure the reproduction of life in a market economy. The method is consistent with genomics. Two factors of the product are the minimum set of “genes” of an “economic DNA molecule”. The cell is totipotent, i.e. possesses a complete stock of genetic material but in different cells the same genes are in an active or repressed state. Alignment with genomics allows us to build a model of modern market economy, to reconsider the linear sequence and put forward the hypothesis of “totipotency of various methods of production”, the activation of those methods that contribute to the reproduction of the life of society as a whole.
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Critical theorists often argue that prosumption leads to new forms of exploitation. For example, social media users generate and produce content for social media pages, but undertake this activity in their leisure time and through their ‘free labour’. Yet, the vast majority are paid nothing by social media companies for their efforts. However, we are sceptical of this particular critical account primarily because we do not believe the framework of ‘exploitation’ is particularly useful when analysing the activity of prosumers. From an alternative Marxist perspective, we suggest, instead, that one important element of prosumption lies in its capacity and potential to develop a new fetish for different capitalist relations. Three main groups of theorists are drawn upon to make this argument: Deleuze and Guattari, Adorno and Horkheimer, and Marcuse and Žižek. From Deleuze and Guattari, we develop the idea that capitalist desire unleashes affectual and creative energies of fetishism, which today can be channelled into prosumption. From Adorno and Horkheimer, we show that this desire is realised through the adaptation of a factory-style do-it-yourself culture to aesthetic production and prosumption within society more generally. From Marcuse, we argue that while capitalism instils in people a desire to consume, it also creates a desire to be liberated from capital which also, as Žižek emphasises, becomes in the form of ethical consumption another object to obtain through capital. In conclusion, we suggest these authors provide a theoretical basis to move beyond problematic dualist accounts that divide and separate prosumers and knowledge capitalism from the circuit of industrial capital.
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The article analyzes the destiny of Marx’s theoretical legacy as presented in his major work - "Capital". The author discusses the development of Marxist theory in the 20th century, shows the specific features of Marxist economic science today and explicates the influence of recent interpretations of Marx’s economics on the current state of Marxism. The paper describes the status of Marxist theory in the modern economic science. The author analyzes the forecasts of the transition from the industrial society to the post-industrial one which may be found in the works of Marx and argues for their relevance for the 21st century.
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This paper examines the British Factory Acts (enacted 1833–78) to articulate a political economic theory of policy formation. It argues that the British Factory Acts stabilised conditions for both capital accumulation and social reproduction, while perpetuating patriarchal–capitalist relations. Through these Acts, the state intervened in industrial relations to address social coordination problems and overexploitation caused by the incentive structure of firms and households. Overexploitation posed three threats to social reproduction: the deterioration of the health of the working class, the destabilisation of gender norms and patriarchal structures and political mobilisation of the working and middle classes. By conceptualising protective policy as the solution to social coordination problems in the industrial capitalist labour market, this paper builds upon Polanyian insights into the ‘double movement’, with an explicit Marxian theory of exploitation, the classical theory of competition and insights from feminist theories of social reproduction, unwaged labour and the patriarchal–capitalist system.
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