This volume analyzes two decisive factors that have become embedded in the world spread of capitalism, a shift toward dominance of the financial sector, now entailing massive greed and calling into question whether the ‘rules’ of capitalism have been broken, and of global wage differentials so deep that recognition of a labor aristocracy cannot be avoided. These chapters are supplemented by two additional showing that gold still regulates the dollar’s value, and that unpaid reproductive labor of women adversely affects labor productivity.
Analysis of finance engenders discussion of its place in value theory, posed around the rate of profit, and is more complex than often presented. Furthermore, the varying rates of profit at the firm level, not just for financials, are distributed in a manner exhibiting more frequent extreme cases than a Bell-curve would suggest. Implications for incorporation of randomization into political economy are drawn. The final chapters provide evidence that Marx was more correct than Kalecki and Minsky when arguing the lead of profits for investment, and that product innovations can mitigate problems of over-production resulting from process innovations. Crisis as Unexpected Transition … to a Greed-based Economic System Did Gold Remain Relevant in the Post-1971 International Monetary System? Global Wage Scaling and Left Ideology: A Critique of Charles Post on the ‘Labour Aristocracy’ Unpaid Reproductive Labor: A Marxist Analysis Value Theory and Finance Of Fat Cats and Fat Tails: From the Financial Crisis to the ‘New’ Probabilistic Marxism Does Investment call the Tune? Empirical Evidence and Endogenous Theories of the Business Cycle Product Innovation and Capital Accumulation: An attempt to Introduce Neo-Schumpeterian Insight into Marxian Economics
Wladimir Andreff, Centre d’Economie de la Sorbonne, Paris, France
Jean-Guy Loranger, Economics Department, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada
Zak Cope, School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy, Queens University, Belfast, Belfast, Northern Ireland
Cecilia Beatriz Escobar Meléndez, Department of Economic Sciences, University of Athens, Greece
Tony Norfield, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, London, UK
Julian Wells, Department of Economics, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Kingston University London, Kingston-upon-Thames, UK
José A. Tapia Granados, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA
Jie Meng, Institute of Economics, School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China
285 Pages, 2013