DOCSLIB.ORG

Revisiting Maurice Dobb

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Revisiting Maurice Dobb THEORIESTHEORIES OFOF VALUVALUEE ANANDD ECONOMIECONOMICC CRISES:CRISES: REVISITINREVISITINGG MAURICMAURICEE DOBBDOBB bbyy MichaeMichaell AbouzelofAbouzelof A thesithesiss submittedsubmitted toto ththee facultyfaculty ofof ThThee UniversitUniversityy ooff UtahUtah inin partiapartiall fulfillmentfulfillment ooff ththee requirementrequirementss forfor ththee degreedegree ofof MasteMasterr ooff ScienceScience DepartmentDepartment ooff EconomicsEconomics ThThee UniversitUniversityy ofof UtahUtah MaMayy 20102010 CopyrighCopyrightt © MichaeMichaell AbouzeloAbouzelof2010f 2010 AlAlll RightRightss ReservedReserved THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH GRADUATE SCHOOL SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE APPROVAL of a thesis submitted by MichaelAbouzelof This thesis has been read by each member of the following supervisory committee and by majority vote has been found to be satisfactory. • . - ,- �, 1-, \, \Cf,\ \ \ 0 i L\\�\ \0 \ \ THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH GRADUATE SCHOOL FINAL READING APPROVAL To the GraduateCouncil of the University of Utah: I have read the thesis of MichaelAbouzelof in its final form and have found that (1) its format, citations, and bibliographic style are consistent and acceptable; (2) its illustrative materials including figures, tables, and charts are in place; and (3) the final manuscript is satisfactory to the supervisory committee and is ready for submission toThe Graduate School. �t Date E.K. Hunt Chair: SupervisoryCommittee Approved for the MajorDepartment Peter Philips ChairlDean Approved for the Graduate Council oar es A. Ight Dean ofThe Graduate School ABSTRACABSTRACTT ThiThiss papepaperr reviewreviewss twtwoo areaareass ofof MauricMauricee Dobb'Dobb'ss contributioncontributionss ttoo ththee historhistoryy ofof economiceconomic thought,thought, specificallyspecifically hihiss essaessayy The Requirements of a Theory of Value andand variouvariouss writingwritingss oonn ththee classicaclassicall perspectivesperspectives ofof economiceconomic crisescrises.. TheThe firsfirstt sectionsection provideprovidess a biographbiographyy ofof Dobb,, ththee seconsecondd examineexaminess ththee requirementrequirementss DobbDobb feltfelt a theorytheory ooff valuvaluee musmustt fulfilfulfilll ttoo bbee consideredconsidered adequate,, followedfollowed bbyy a historicahistoricall recounrecountt ofof thethe originoriginss ofof ththee twtwoo maimainn competincompetingg theoriestheories,, ththee LaboLaborr TheorTheoryy andand ththee UtilityUtility Theory,, asas welwelll aass a discussiondiscussion ofof hohoww eacheach theortheoryy succeededsucceeded oror failedfailed ttoo meemeett thesthesee requirements.requirements. ThThee thirthirdd sectiosectionn discussediscussess hohoww economiceconomic crisescrises werweree vieweviewedd bbyy politicapoliticall economistseconomists frofromm AdaAdamm SmitSmithh ttoo KarKarll Marx,, witwithh speciaspeciall attentioattentionn paipaidd ttoo ththee ratratee ooff profit,profit, proportionality,, anandd specificspecific characteristicscharacteristics ooff capitaliscapitalismm thatthat makmakee iitt anan ideologideologyy proneprone ttoo periodiperiodicc disruptionsdisruptions. I woulwouldd likelike toto recognizerecognize thethe friendsfriends whowho helpedhelped mmee throughthrough thisthis periodperiod ofof life:life MikeMike Brown,, AyAymm Berges,, RorRoryy Mulhere,, AnnabellAnnabellee TranTran I couldncouldn''tt havehave donedone iitt withoutwithout you.you. CONTENTCONTENTSS ABSTRACABSTRACTT ................. ... ... .... ............ .... .................... .... ... ........ ... ............... ....................... iivv BIOLOGICABIOLOGICALL PORTRAIPORTRAITT OOFF MAURICMAURICEE DOBDOBBB .................................................. .... ..... 11 BiographBiographyy ....................................... .... ..... ... .... ................. ................ ........... .. ........... 2 THTHEE REQUIREMENTREQUIREMENTSS OOFF AA THEORTHEORYY OOFF VALUVALUEE ..........................................· .. ........ 1111 IntroductioIntroductionn ............................................................................................................ 1122 ThThee RequirementRequirementss ooff a TheorTheoryy ooff ValuValuee ........... .......... .......................................... 1133 ClassicaClassicall PoliticaPoliticall EconomistEconomistss anandd ththee LaboLaborr TheorTheoryy ooff ValuValuee .... .. ... ............. .. .... 1919 Jevonialevoniann RevolutioRevolutionn anandd ththee UtilitUtilityy TheorTheoryy oofValuef Value ........................................... 2626 ThThee ProbleProblemm ooff SurpluseSurplusess ................. ... ...... ... .... .... .................................... ........... .. 2929 ContemporarContemporaryy TheorieTheoriess anandd CritiqueCritiquess ooff ththee ClassicalistClassicalistss ... ............. ... ... .............. 3131 Conclusions ......... .......................................................... ....................... ... ............... 37 Conclusions 37 ECONOMIC CRISES ............... .. ...................................................................................... 41 ECONOMIC CRISES 41 Introduction ... ...... ... ............ ..................... ................................. .... ..... ... ........... ....... 42 IntroductioClassical Perspectivesn of Economic Crises Before Marx ... ......... ..... .............. ...... .4342 ·ClassicaUnderconsumption l Perspective ...s.......... of Economi............c.. .Crise..... ...s. ..Befor...... ........e Mar... .x........... .. ................... ........ 4743 MarxUnderconsumptio and Capital nAccumulation ................................ .. ............. .. ........... .. ... ........... 4947 ProportionalityMarx and Capita .......l Accumulatio... ... ........... .....n .... ........................ .... .......... .. .............................. 5449 CapitalismProportionalit Is ......y ........................................... ... ........................... ....... ... ............ .. ... 5654 TheCapitalis Industrialm Is Reserve Army ... ............................ .............. ............... .. ............ .. ..... 5856 InTh Defensee Industria ofl MarxReserv ........e Arm..............y .................................................................. ....... 6058 ConcIn Defenslusionse o .f. .Mar.. ... ...x... ..... .. .. ............ ... .... ...... ...... .......... ................... ... ...... ... ....... ...... 6460 Conclusions 64 SELECTEDSELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHyBIBLIOGRAPHY ... ... ........... ... ..... ..... ....... ... ... ................................. ......... .. .. 6767 BIOGRAPHICALBIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAIPORTRAITT OFOF MAURICMAURICEE DOBBDOBB 2 BiographyBiography 1th MauricMauricee DobDobbb wawass borbornn oonn JulyJuly 24 \ , 19001900 iinn a subursuburbb ofN.W.of N.W. LondonLondon.. HisHis fatherfather,, whwhoo hahadd inheritedinherited thethe familfamilyy businessbusiness,, wawass a retairetaill draperdraper,, whilwhilee hihiss mothemotherr camecame fromfrom a poopoorr Scottish-merchant'Scottish-merchant'ss familyfamily.. Dobb'Dobb'ss upbringinupbringingg appearsappears ttoo havhavee beebeenn fairlyfairly 'ordinary''ordinary' forfor ththee timtimee inin thatthat hihiss backgrounbackgroundd waswas botbothh religioureligiouss anandd conservative.'conservative.1 AAss a childchild,, MauricMauricee showedshowed littlelittle interestinterest inin academicsacademics whilwhilee attendinattendingg publipublicc schoolschoolss untiluntil arounaroundd ththee agagee ofof 17,17, whewhenn hhee wawass allowedallowed ttoo specializspecializee inin historyhistory.. HiHiss successsuccess inin thethe fieldfield provideprovidedd hihimm witwithh ththee impetusimpetus ttoo pursuepursue furtherfurther education,education, andand DobDobbb decidedecidedd toto studstudyy foforr a ScholarshipScholarship ExaminatioExaminationn aatt CambridgeCambridge University.University. DobDobbb wawass unablunablee ttoo procurprocuree a fullfull scholarship,scholarship, bubutt hhee diddid managmanagee ttoo getget intointo CambridgCambridgee witwithh anan Exhibition.Exhibition?2 DobDobbb spenspentt ththee nexnextt threthreee quarterquarterss ofof a yeayearr betweenbetween schoolschool anandd collegecollege explorinexploringg thingsthings outsideoutside ooff mainstreamainstreamm academia.academia. IItt wawass duringduring thisthis timetime thathatt hhee firstfirst camecame intointo contaccontactt witwithh themesthemes likelike ththee LaboLaborr Movement,Movement, socialism,socialism, thethe ideasideas ofof thethe RussianRussian RevolutioRevolutionn (the(thenn onlyonly a yeayearr old)old),, asas welwelll asas ththee workworkss ofof unorthodounorthodoxx writerwriterss sucsuchh asas KarlKarl MarxMarx.. ThisThis timtimee perioperiodd greatlygreatly impacteimpactedd DobbDobb;; a largelarge numbernumber ofof ththee ideasideas hhee wawass exposeexposedd aatt thithiss ageage laterlater becambecamee maimainn themesthemes inin hihiss scholarlyscholarly career.career. ThThee growtgrowthh ooff hishis interesinterestt inin socialissocialismm mighmightt seemseem surprisinsurprisingg atat first,first, especiallyespecially whewhenn ononee considersconsiders ththee politicapoliticall climateclimate surroundinsurroundingg DobDobbb aatt ththee timetime.. PerhapPerhapss itit wawass inin responseresponse toto ththee predominatelpredominatelyy pro-militarpro-militaryy studentstudentss actinactingg blindlblindlyy onon ththee fervofervorr ofof patriotismpatriotism throughouthroughoutt ththee CambridgeCambridge campus.campus. HHee wawass
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Download the Complete Volume for 2017
    Midlands Historical Review Volume 1 2017 Cover Image. Detail from Britannia Saxonica (1695) by Robert Morden. Held within the Public Domain and accessed via Wikimedia Commons. Midlands Historical Review ISSN 2516-8568 Volume I, 2017 Published by the Midlands Historical Review With thanks to the editorial board. David Civil, Founding Editor David Robinson, Founding Editor Jonathan Roche, Founding Editor Gary Fisher, Founding Editor With thanks to the assistant editors Thomas Black Christopher Booth Kate Garland Joe Himsworth Joanne Lord Darcie Mawby Marco Panato Thomas Rose James Smith Kimberley Weir Published by Midlands Historical Review © 2018 Midlands Historical Review Midlands Historical Review Founded 2017 Midlands Historical Review is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, student-led journal which showcases the best student research in the Arts and Humanities. It was founded in 2017 by a group of PhD students from diverse academic backgrounds and receives support from the University of Nottingham’s Department of History and School of Humanities. Students in the Arts and Humanities produce valuable contributions to knowledge which, once a degree has been awarded, are often forgotten. High quality research deserves an audience regardless of the level of education it was produced for. The research published by the Midlands Historical Review encourages and enables later cohorts of students to build upon previous students’ work. Contents Human Nature and the Joint Social Project: Towards a Coherent 1 Notion of Alienation Gaby Beckley Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and Hollywood’s 17 Misrepresentation of the Politics of Interracial Relationships in 1960s America Sarah Dunne Ants and Cicadas: South American Football and National Identity 28 Mark Orton Pierre Nora, Memory, and the Myth of Elizabeth I 49 Tom Rose The Iconography of Kingship: Masques, Antimasques, and 66 Pastorals Thomas Black The “Russian” Woman? Cultural Exceptionalism among 88 Noblewomen in Late Imperial and Revolutionary Russia Darcie Mawby Book Reviews Belief and Unbelief in Medieval Europe.
    [Show full text]
  • The Socialist Calculation Debate and New Socialist Models in Light of a Contextual Historical Materialist Interpretation
    THE SOCIALIST CALCULATION DEBATE AND NEW SOCIALIST MODELS IN LIGHT OF A CONTEXTUAL HISTORICAL MATERIALIST INTERPRETATION by Adam Balsam BSc [email protected] Supervised by Justin Podur BSc MScF PhD A Major Paper submitted to the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Environmental Studies York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada December 11, 2020 Table of Contents The Statement of Requirements for the Major Paper ................................................................................. iii Abstract ........................................................................................................................................................ iv Foreword ...................................................................................................................................................... vi Section I: Introduction, Context, Framework and Methodology .................................................................. 1 Preamble ............................................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 4 Context of this Investigation ................................................................................................................. 5 The Possibilities of Socialist Models ..................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • On Stalin's "Economic Problems"
    ON STALIN’S “Economic Problems” (part one) IRISH COMMUNIST ORGANISATION CONTENTS INTRODUCTION BACKGROUND (Dobb on his Predecessors; Brutzkus on his Colleagues; An ‘Unpleasant Piece of Work’; The Development of Oscar Lange….) WHAT IS POLITICAL ECONOMY? (Yaroshenko; A Gangster From Chicago.) THE QUESTION OF ECONOMIC CALCULATION (Von Mises and Brutzkus; Trotsky; Dobb – Precursor of Yaroshenko; Labour and Socialism; Ota Sik: The New Ecclesiastes; Lenin On Communist Labour.) * IRISH COMMUNIST ORGANISATION First Edition: May 1968 ****** Reprinted Dec. 1969 INTRODUCTION On October 18th 1952, George Matthews (now editor of the Morning Star) wrote, concerning Stalin’s “Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.”: “As we write only short extracts from Stalin’s articles are available in English… It is, however, already clear that it is an immensely important, fundamental work.” (‘Stalin’s 1 New Basic Work On Marxism’. World News and Views – forerunner of “Comment”, 18- 10-1952) Matthews and his ilk did not need (in 1952) to know what Stalin had actually written in “Economic Problems” in order to know that (in 1952) the furtherance of their careers in the Communist Party of Great Britain required that they should hail it as a brilliant development of Marxist theory. Stalin died in 1953. Within a few years of his death Matthews and his kind became convinced that the furtherance of their careers depended on the suppression of “Stalin’s New Basic Work On Marxism”. No attempts were made to actually refute the analysis made in “Economic Problems”. That would have been far too dangerous a thing for opportunists (shallow, careerist opportunists of the most trivial kind) to attempt.
    [Show full text]
  • Maurice Dobb Routledge Library Editions Various
    Available both in print and online! Volume Set The Collected Works of 7 Maurice Dobb Routledge Library Editions Various Maurice Dobb was the foremost Marxian economist of his generation in Britain. He was noted for his contributions to value theory, the theory of economic planning and the analysis of Soviet economic development. This set will re-issue 7 of his most important works. For more details contact us at: [email protected] Routledge | March 2012: 234x156: 2,502pp: Set Hb: 978-0-415-52309-7: £520.00 eBook: 978-0-203-11950-1 Routledge Library Editions The Collected Works of Maurice Dobb Capitalist Enterprise and Social Progress Papers on Capitalism, Development Originally published in 1926. and Planning ‘A singularly brilliant and stimulating piece of economic analysis.’ Originally published in 1967. –Birmingham Post ‘Never dull, he raises problems of fundamental importance in a ‘A very thoughtful piece of work which does appreciably help to clarify thought-provoking and undogmatic way.’ –New Society. ideas on the subject.’ –The Times This volume consists of lectures and articles by Maurice Dobb selected from among Part 1 of this volume analyses the main issues in the theory of Applied Economics. Part 2 those delivered or written by him during the 1950s and 60s. It includes three lectures surveys the rise of capitalist enterprise and indicates the importance of certain institutions delivered at the University of Bologna on ‘Some Problems in the History of in the growth and working of the economic system at the start of the twentieth century. The Capitalism’, two lectures on economic development given at the Delhi School of concluding chapters stress the relevance of these considerations to the problems facing Economics, articles on the theory of development, and a number of articles on various politicians and administrators.
    [Show full text]
  • A Marxist in Keynes' Court
    A Marxist in Keynes’ Court Maurice Dobb was one of John Maynard Keynes’ protégés - he was also a committed Marxist. Illustration by Kotryna Zukauskaite No economist— maybe no human— has ever been better at scorn than John Maynard Keynes. He was a masterful debater when he wanted to be. But, like the proper scion of Britain’s elite that he was, Keynes preferred to laugh at his enemies. In 1925, sympathisers with the Soviet Union were treated to a world- class exhibition of this disdain. Keynes had just returned from his first trip to the USSR, and he was ready to wax polemical. “How can I accept a doctrine,” he asked, “which sets up as its bible, above and beyond criticism, an obsolete economic textbook which I know to be not only scientifically erroneous but without interest or application to the modern world? How can I adopt a creed which, preferring the mud to the fish, exalts the boorish proletariat above the bourgeois and intelligentsia who, with whatever faults, are the quality of life and surely carry the seeds of all human advancement? Even if we need a religion, how can we find it in the turbid rubbish of the Red bookshops.” “It is hard,” he concluded, “for an educated, decent, intelligent son of Western Europe to find his ideals here, unless he has first suffered some strange and horrid process of conversion which has changed all his values.” Keynes had never taken Marxism seriously, and for the most part he never would. But despite the rhetoric, he could treat individual Marxists with respect.
    [Show full text]
  • Friedrich Von Hayek: the Socialist-Calculation Debate, Knowledge Arguments, and Modern Economic Development Cara Elliott
    Volume 5 Article 6 2011 Friedrich von Hayek: The oS cialist-Calculation Debate, Knowledge Arguments, And Modern Economic Development Cara A. Elliott Gettysburg College Class of 2011 Follow this and additional works at: https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/ger Part of the Economic History Commons, Economic Policy Commons, Economic Theory Commons, International Economics Commons, Macroeconomics Commons, Political Economy Commons, and the Public Economics Commons Share feedback about the accessibility of this item. Elliott, Cara A. (2011) "Friedrich von Hayek: The ocS ialist-Calculation Debate, Knowledge Arguments, And Modern Economic Development," Gettysburg Economic Review: Vol. 5 , Article 6. Available at: https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/ger/vol5/iss1/6 This open access article is brought to you by The uC pola: Scholarship at Gettysburg College. It has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of The uC pola. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Friedrich von Hayek: The oS cialist-Calculation Debate, Knowledge Arguments, And Modern Economic Development Abstract At the close of the nineteenth and the commencement of the twentieth century, socialism began to gain momentum as a large-scale movement in Europe and the United States. This popularity was supported by an increased influence of the working class in society, which put pressure for representation upon European parliaments and began to secure concrete improvements in labor protection laws. Moreover, socialist proponents looked hopefully towards the living example of the Soviet Union, which began its socialist experiment in 1917 following the success of the Bolshevik Revolution. Socialism, which found its economic grounding in the legacies of such men as David Ricardo and Karl Marx, tended to encourage a more central and vital role for government intervention in the economy.
    [Show full text]
  • Humanities Through the Ages
    Edition 18 | Number 1 | August 2016 E ras Humanities Through the Ages Editorial London Under Danish Rule: Cnut’s Politics and Policies as a Demonstration of Power Matthew Firth Marx’s Concept of Class and the Athenian Polis Michael Lazarus Ned Kelly’s Last Words: “Ah, Well, I Suppose” Stuart E. Dawson Ideological Cynicism in the Modern Information Age with Sloterdijk and Z3i45e1 Liyan Gao Reviews Table of Contents Edition 18 Number 1 Editorial i London Under Danish Rule: Cnut’s Politics and Policies as a 1-20 Demonstration of Power Matthew Firth Marx’s Concept of Class and the Athenian Polis 21-37 Michael Lazarus Ned Kelly’s Last Words: “Ah, Well, I Suppose” 38-50 Stuart Dawson Ideological Cynicism in the Modern Information Age with Sloterdijk and 51-65 Žižek Liyan Gao Reviews 66-78 Editorial Eras was founded in 2001 with the intention of facilitating interdisciplinary dialogue between postgraduate and early career researchers working across all areas of history, archaeology, theology and Jewish Civilisation. In 2010 our scope further expanded to include the disciplines of international studies and philosophy, particularly when such work also contains significant historical content. In 2014, the layout underwent significant redesign under the editorial auspices of Julian Koplin. The redesign is reflected in this current edition, and has helped to transform Eras into a more accessible publication. Matthew Firth’s contribution offers a consideration and reflection of Cnut the Great’s siege of London during the millennial year of this event. Firth discusses the initial unsuccessful outcome of the siege by a defiant London population, and how Cnut had to shape a unique policy towards this important city as part of his Anglo- Scandinavian Empire.
    [Show full text]
  • Theatre Proletaz-Ien" and the Czechoslovakian Workers' Dramatic Union
    City Research Online City, University of London Institutional Repository Citation: Saville, I. (1990). Ideas, forms and development in the British workers' theatre, 1925-1935. (Unpublished Doctoral thesis, City University London) This is the accepted version of the paper. This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link: https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/7533/ Link to published version: Copyright: City Research Online aims to make research outputs of City, University of London available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the author(s) and/or copyright holders. URLs from City Research Online may be freely distributed and linked to. Reuse: Copies of full items can be used for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge. Provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way. City Research Online: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/ [email protected] Ideas I orii and developments in the theatre., 1925-1935. Ian Saville. Submitted for Ph.D. The City University, Department of Arts Policy and Management. January 1990. -Page 1- CONTENTS INTRODUCTION. Page 4. CHAPTER ON 1925-1926: The Groundwork for the first Workers' Theatre Movement. Page 11. CHAPTER TWO. The Hackney Group: The Workers' Theatre Movement's new nucleus. Page 57. CHAPTER THREE. The Workers' Theatre Movement and the Communist Party: Politics and Theatrical Form. Page 90. CHAPTER FOUR. From Hackney Group to National Organisation.
    [Show full text]
  • The Socialist Calculation Debate Once Again
    Calculation, Complexity And Planning: The Socialist Calculation Debate Once Again Allin Cottrell and W. Paul Cockshott∗ July, 1993 Abstract This paper offers a reassessment of the socialist calculation debate, and examines the extent to which the conclusions of that debate must be modified in the light of the subsequent development of the theory and technology of compu- tation. Following an introduction to the two main perspectives on the debate which have been offered to date, we examine the classic case mounted by von Mises against the possibility of rational economic calculation under social- ism. We discuss the response given by Oskar Lange, along with the counter-arguments to Lange from the Austrian point of view. Finally we present what we call the ‘absent response’, namely a re-assertion of the classic Marxian argument for economic calculation in terms of labour time. We argue that labour-time calculation is defensible as a ra- tional procedure, when supplemented by algorithms which allow consumer choice to guide the allocation of resources, and that such calculation is now technically feasible with the type of computing machinery currently available in the West and with a careful choice of efficient algorithms. Our argument cuts against recent discussions of economic planning which continue to assert that the task is of hopeless complexity. ∗Department of Economics, Wake Forest University, and Department of Computing Science, University of Glasgow, respectively. This paper was published in Review of Political Economy, vol. 5, no. 1, July 1993, pp. 73–112. 1 Contents 1 Introduction 3 1.1 Two histories of the debate .
    [Show full text]
  • A MARXIST INTERPRETATION Domenico Mario Nuti
    THE CONTRADICTIONS OF SOCIALIST ECONOMIES: A MARXIST INTERPRETATION Domenico Mario Nuti 1 . Premise Public ownership of the means of production (in its forms of state, co-operative and local ownership) and macro-economic planning are the fundamental features of socialist economies of Marxist- Leninist inspiration. The known variants of this type of economy differ main!y in the extent and mix of public ownership, the degree of central control and its extension beyond the macro-economic sphere, the actual techniques of management and planning. These economies differ from both 'associationist' (or 'self-management') socialism of Yugoslavian type where there is no planning, and social democracy of Scandinavian type where private ownership and enterprise continue to dominate. The large body of economic literature on socialist economies is devoted almost entirely to the practicability and efficiency of resource allocation in various models of socialism with different degrees of centralization, to the development of planning techniques for the co-ordination of economic life and a discussion of their merits relatively to the automatism of markets, and to an analysis of the economic implications of alternative decisional rules and incentive schemes in the management of public ownership. Thus the socialist economy has been investigated primarily as a kind of cafiitalism without capztalists. This is true even of Marxian economists such as Oskar Lange and Maurice Dobb, whose theoretical contributions-important as they are-are confined to these areas of inquiry, mostly in response to the challenge of bourgeois economists such as Hayek and Mises.' Paradoxically, with very few notable exceptions, the Marxian approach to modes of production has been seldom applied to socialist economies of Marxist-Leninist inspira- tion, and the development of a political economy of socialism has been delayed, slow and fragmentary.
    [Show full text]
  • When Liberty Presupposes Order: FA Hayek's Learning Ordoliberalism
    When Liberty Presupposes Order: F. A. Hayek’s Learning Ordoliberalism Stefan Kolev 21/2 Freiburger Diskussionspapiere zur Ordnungsökonomik Freiburg Discussionpapers on Constitutional Economics Institut für allgemeine Wirtschaftsforschung Abteilung Wirtschaftspolitik und Ordnungsökonomik ISSN 1437-1510 Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg When Liberty Presupposes Order: F. A. Hayek’s Learning Ordoliberalism Stefan Kolev1 Abstract This paper contextualizes the early political economy of Austrian economist and social philosopher F. A. Hayek in the intellectual milieu of German ordoliberalism. It argues that the particular urgency during the 1930s and 1940s to preserve and stabilize the disintegrating orders of economy and society was a crucial driver behind the numerous parallelisms between Hayek and the ordoliberals. Their political economies are reconstructed by emphasizing the notion of the framework as an economic constitution of general and stable rules, with the overarching goal to render the orders in the postwar world more robust. In a nutshell, the central configuration is that liberty can thrive sustainably only after such a framework has been established. Hayek’s “learning ordoliberalism” emerged during the socialist calculation debates when knowledge became the center of his œuvre, so that he aimed at identifying rules which could enhance the use of knowledge in society and thus societal learning. Hayek’s search was similar to that of the ordoliberals in substance and in rhetoric, and culminated in the competitive order as the chiffre for a well-ordered market economy. These parallelisms surfaced during the 1930s and became most explicit in The Road to Serfdom and at the founding meeting of the Mont Pèlerin Society in 1947. In the years after The Constitution of Liberty, a shift of Hayek’s focus is identified: from a theory of designing frameworks at a point of time towards a theory of their evolution across time.
    [Show full text]
  • Revisiting the Demise of Feudalism and the Dobb-Sweezy Debate
    Munich Personal RePEc Archive Game of Thrones or Game of Class Struggle? Revisiting the Demise of Feudalism and the Dobb-Sweezy Debate Lambert, Thomas University of Louisville 29 October 2019 Online at https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/96741/ MPRA Paper No. 96741, posted 05 Nov 2019 17:13 UTC Game of Thrones or Game of Class Struggle? Revisiting the Demise of Feudalism and the Dobb-Sweezy Debate Thomas E. Lambert, PhD Economics Department, College of Business University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky 40292 E-mail: [email protected] Phone: 502-852-7838 Abstract In 1947, the Marxist economist Maurice Dobb published a book that attempted to outline and explain how the feudalistic economic system of medieval times gave way to capitalism. Dobb’s Studies in the Development of Capitalism (1947) started a debate among economists and historians over the following decades that has continued until this day. One of his most prominent and earliest critics was Paul M. Sweezy who, although he commended Dobb on raising the question of why feudalism gave way to capitalism, disagreed with Dobb’s conclusions on why the transition from feudalism to capitalism occurred. In general, Dobb thought that feudalism went into decline and was replaced by capitalism because of endogenous causes rooted in the class struggles between serfs and noblemen. Sweezy and others, on the other hand, thought that the factors which led to the decline of feudalism and rise of capitalism were exogenous, and these factors included the development and growth of international trade, production for markets and money, the growth and importance of cities, and the need for European monarchies to finance their wars and overseas empires.
    [Show full text]