Anwar Shaikh the Power of Profit
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HES Book of Abstracts
45th Annual Meetings of the History of Economics Society Book of Abstracts Loyola University Chicago Chicago, Illinois June 14 - 17, 2018 1 Abstracts of Papers to be Presented at the 2018 History of Economics Society Annual Conference Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, Illinois June 14 - 17, 2018 TABLE OF CONTENTS Friday, June 15 FRI Plenary Session: Douglas Irwin, "The Rise and Fall of Import Substitution" .................. 3 FRI1A Session: “Smith and his Intellectual Milleu (IASS)” .............................................................. 3 FRI1B Session: “Remembering Craufurd Goodwin” .......................................................................... 5 FRI1C Session: “American Political Economy” ..................................................................................... 5 FRI1D Session: “Constitutional Economics” .......................................................................................... 7 FRI1E Session: “European Issues" ............................................................................................................. 9 FRI1F Session: “Biology” .............................................................................................................................11 FRI2A Session: “Smith and his Contemporary Issues (IASS)” ......................................................14 FRI2B Session: “Archival Round Table” ................................................................................................15 FRI2C Session: “French Economics in the Long 19th Century” ...................................................16 -
The Profit Motive in Education: Continuing the Revolution the Profit Motive in Education: Continuing the Revolution
The Profit Motive in Education: Continuing the Revolution The Profit Motive in Education: Continuing the Revolution EDITED BY JAMES B. STANFIELD The Institute of Economic Affairs First published in Great Britain in 2012 by CONTENTS The Institute of Economic Affairs 2 Lord North Street Westminster London sw1p 3lb in association with Profile Books Ltd The authors 9 The mission of the Institute of Economic Affairs is to improve public understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society, with particular Foreword 14 reference to the role of markets in solving economic and social problems. Summary 22 List of tables and figures 25 Copyright © The Institute of Economic Affairs 2012 The moral right of the author has been asserted. PART 1: BASIC CONCEPTS 1 Introduction 29 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, James B. Stanfield no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, Questioning the anti-profit mentality 29 mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written Things seen and not seen in education 34 permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book. Policy lessons 38 Four simple policy proposals 41 A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A vision of the liberal ideal of education 45 ISBN 978 0 255 36646 5 References 49 eISBN 978 0 255 36678 6 Many IEA publications are translated into languages other than English or 2 Profit is about learning, not just motivation 51 are reprinted. -
Values and Value Transfers: a Comment on Itoh
: VALUES AND VALUE TRANSFERS: A COMMENT ON ITOH Anwar Shaikh Itoh's essay provides a valuable retrospective on recent debates concerning the Marxian theory of value. He points out that the economic crisis enveloping both cap itaJist and socialist worlds from the 1970s onward challenged economists to rethink and refine their basic approaches. Among other things. this sparked a resurgence of interest in fundamental issues such as Ihe theory of value. Thus, what appears as an abstraCt discussion is actually rooted in historical events, with political and economic implications for the current period (above. 53-54), Itoh also emphasizes the importance of Sraffa's work in revitalizing the Marxist discussion ofva1ue theory. Sraffa's pathbreak.ing work provided a new platform for a critique of neoclassical economics, even as it "rchabilitatcd the objcctive theory of value" which is characteristic of me classical and Marxian traditions. But his narrow focus and elliptical style left open the question of the relation between his approach and that of more general economic framewocks. Not swprisingiy, many of his followers set out to incol']X)rate his unconventional approach into a more orthodox "neo-Ricardian" framework, in which the emphasis was on mathematical and functional analyses of CQuilibriwn prices. Inevitably, this gave rise to a divergence between nco-Ricardian and Marxian writers (54--60). Two issues are highlighted by Itoh: the problems which arise with Marx's procedure for linking labor value and money price magnitudes (the transfonnatiOil problem), problems which appear LO undermine the Marxian claim that value magnitudes arc the foundation of price magnitudes; and the claim that value categories are in any case redundant, since market prices actually gravitate around prices of production, not labor values (60). -
The Profit Motive
The Profit Motive CIS Occasional Fbpen 3 The Profit Motive Department of Philosophy University of Reading THE CENTRE FOR INDEPENDENT STUDIES 1980 Published November 1980 by The Centre for Independent Studies All rights reserved National Library of Australia Cataloguing in Publication Data Flew, Antony, 1923- The profit motive. (CIS occasional papers; 3) ISBN 0 9596485 8 5. 1. Economics. 2. Philosophy. I. Centre for Independent Studies. 11. Title. (Series). @ The Centre for Independent Studies 1980 Printed by Lindsay Yates & Partners Pty. Ltd 4 Preface This third Occasional Paper publishes the proceedings of the Centre's Inaugural Occasional Seminar held at its St Leonards office on August 11, 1980. The Paper by Professor Antony Flew of the University of Reading, deals with a topic of special interest to those concerned with issues critical to the workings of a market economy. Much of this Paper forms the basis for a chapter in a new book by Professor Flew, The Politics of Procrustes. We thank the publishers, Maurice Temple Smith of London for permission to use Professor Flew's address as Occasional Paper 3. In the first section of his Paper, Professor Flew discusses the notion that the prof it motive is necessarily and uniquely selfish. If the pursuit of profit is selfish he argues, then why not the pursuit of wages, rents, fixed interest or whatever? He also feels that those who would criticise as selfish, an economic system which allows people to pursue their own interests, are making a fundamental error for it is not necessarily true that an interested action is also selfish. -
Anwar Shaikh Some Universal Patterns in Income Distribution
Anwar Shaikh Some Universal Patterns in Income Distribution: An Econophysics Approach August 2018 Working Paper 08/2018 Department of Economics The New School for Social Research The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the New School for Social Research. © 2018 by Anwar Shaikh. All rights reserved. Short sections of text may be quoted without explicit permission provided that full credit is given to the source. Some Universal Patterns in Income Distribution: An Econophysics Approach Abstract This paper utilizes the econophysics "two class" (EPTC) approach to income distribution to derive certain empirical rules applying to all countries in the comprehensive World Income Inequality (WIID) database. This approach demonstrates that wage incomes follow an exponential distribution while property incomes follow a Pareto distribution, which leads to a simple and empirically robust approximation to the Lorenz curve. We in turn show that the per capita income of any bottom fraction (x) of the population is proportional to “inequality adjusted GDP per capita”, i.e. to (GDP per capita)∙(1-Gini), the constant of proportionality a(x) being solely a function of population fraction under consideration. This proposition is empirically robust across countries and over time in our large database. We focus on two patterns. The “1.1 Rule” in which the income per capita of the bottom 80 percent of a country's population, what we call the Vast Majority Income, can be calculated in every country as 1.1(GDP per capita)∙(1-Gini). Using the VMI in place of GDP per capita gives rise to different country rankings. -
Principles of Microeconomics
PRINCIPLES OF MICROECONOMICS A. Competition The basic motivation to produce in a market economy is the expectation of income, which will generate profits. • The returns to the efforts of a business - the difference between its total revenues and its total costs - are profits. Thus, questions of revenues and costs are key in an analysis of the profit motive. • Other motivations include nonprofit incentives such as social status, the need to feel important, the desire for recognition, and the retaining of one's job. Economists' calculations of profits are different from those used by businesses in their accounting systems. Economic profit = total revenue - total economic cost • Total economic cost includes the value of all inputs used in production. • Normal profit is an economic cost since it occurs when economic profit is zero. It represents the opportunity cost of labor and capital contributed to the production process by the producer. • Accounting profits are computed only on the basis of explicit costs, including labor and capital. Since they do not take "normal profits" into consideration, they overstate true profits. Economic profits reward entrepreneurship. They are a payment to discovering new and better methods of production, taking above-average risks, and producing something that society desires. The ability of each firm to generate profits is limited by the structure of the industry in which the firm is engaged. The firms in a competitive market are price takers. • None has any market power - the ability to control the market price of the product it sells. • A firm's individual supply curve is a very small - and inconsequential - part of market supply. -
Marxian Competition Versus Perfect So-Called Choice of Technique
Shaikh, Anwar, Marxian competition versus perfect competition: further comments on the so-called choice of technique , Cambridge Journal of Economics, 4:1 (1980:Mar.) p.75 Cambridge Journal of Economics 1980,4,75-83 Marxian competition versus perfect cOlDpetition: further cOlDlDents on the so-called choice of technique Anwar Shaikh* In my notes on Dobb, I chose to focus on his discussion of Marx's theory of the falling rate of profit, for three reasons: first, because I believed that Dobb's representation of Marx is inadequate; second, because I wished to disentangle Dobb's version from Marx's, since the former has become quite influential and is often presented as being identical to the latter;t last, and most important, because I believed that Marx's own argument is both more interesting and more powerful than that of Dobb. I remain firmly unrepentant on all three points. t In my development of the argument as it actually appears in Marx, I tried to make two central points. The first of these was that mechanisation becomes the dominant form of technical change precisely because it is the production of surplus value, not use value, which is the dominant aspect of the labour process under capitalism. Thus for Marx the inherent tendency towards automation arises out of the social relations of production themselves, out of the relation of capital to labour in the production process, and not out of the relation of capital to capital in competition (Marx, 1973, pp. 776-777). The second point I tried to make is that nonetheless competition does have a bearing on possible mechanisations: it tests these potential weapons in the fire of battle. -
The Transformation from Marx to Sraffa Anwar Shaikh
3 The Transformation from Marx to Sraffa Anwar Shaikh I. Introduction Recent history has seen a tremendous revival of Marxist economic analysis. But this process has also produced its own specific problems, because as Marxist economics gain in respectibility, the temptation to represent itself i~ respectable terms grows accordingly. And these terms, in the end, are ·almost always the wrong ones. There is no question but that Marxism must appropriate all modem developments. Bur to appropriate them involves much more than merely adopting them. It involves tearing them out of the bourgeois framework in which they appear, examining their hidden premises, and re-situating them (when and if possible) on a Marxist terrain-a terrain which cannot be derived merely by algebraic variation or sociological transformation of the premises of orthodox economics. We must, and indeed we do, have our own ground to stand upon. It is my contention that the Sraffian, neo-Ricardian, tradition is by far too respectable. Its roots in left Keynesianism are easy to establish, and its refuge in mathematical economics is quite revealing. Nonetheless, the claims made by this school must be addressed, and· its real contributions must be separated out from what is merely part of its cloak of respectability. In this paper I do not intend to reproduce previous criticisms of the neo-Ricardians, nor even to reproduce my own arguments in favour of Marx's theory of value. Instead, in the discussion that follows I would like to show that even within the algebraic framework of which the neo-Ricardians are so proud, there are a host of issues which they do not, and cannot, face. -
Towards a Unified Theory Analysing Workplace Ideologies: Marxism And
Marxism and Racial Oppression: Towards a Unified Theory Charles Post (City University of New York) Half a century ago, the revival of the womens movementsecond wave feminismforced the revolutionary left and Marxist theory to revisit the Womens Question. As historical materialists in the 1960s and 1970s grappled with the relationship between capitalism, class and gender, two fundamental positions emerged. The dominant response was dual systems theory. Beginning with the historically correct observation that male domination predates the emergence of the capitalist mode of production, these theorists argued that contemporary gender oppression could only be comprehended as the result of the interaction of two separate systemsa patriarchal system of gender domination and the capitalist mode of production. The alternative approach emerged from the debates on domestic labor and the predominantly privatized character of the social reproduction of labor-power under capitalism. In 1979, Lise Vogel synthesized an alternative unitary approach that rooted gender oppression in the tensions between the increasingly socialized character of (most) commodity production and the essentially privatized character of the social reproduction of labor-power. Today, dual-systems theory has morphed into intersectionality where distinct systems of class, gender, sexuality and race interact to shape oppression, exploitation and identity. This paper attempts to begin the construction of an outline of a unified theory of race and capitalism. The paper begins by critically examining two Marxian approaches. On one side are those like Ellen Meiksins Wood who argued that capitalism is essentially color-blind and can reproduce itself without racial or gender oppression. On the other are those like David Roediger and Elizabeth Esch who argue that only an intersectional analysis can allow historical materialists to grasp the relationship of capitalism and racial oppression. -
Political Economy and Capitalism: Notes on Dobb's Theory of Crisis , Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2:2 (1978:June) P.233
Shaikh, Anwar, Political economy and capitalism: notes on Dobb's theory of crisis , Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2:2 (1978:June) p.233 Cambridge Journal of Economics 1978,2,233-251 Political economy and capitalism: notes on Dobb's theory of crisis Anwar Shaikh* 1. Introduction I began the formal study of economics in the late 1960s, when the cry for 'relevance' was sweeping the US. Though at the time we were frequently unclear about just what our demand for 'relevance' implied, we were certain of one thing: it did not imply any further meditation on the arcane mysteries of perfect competition, perfect knowledge and perfect greed. Not surprisingly, many of us turned elsewhere to acquire the knowledge which was so conspicuously absent from our education. And as we did so, we came to realise that 'relevance' meant much more than just focusing on the concrete history and existence of our world: it meant having a practice which made such a study necessary, and a theoretical structure which made its results intelligible. Maurice Dobb had such a practice and theory-Marxism-and he illuminated it with a guiding intelligence which makes his work 'relevant' in the precise sense of the word: it continues to be important to our understanding of the conditions in which we live. In these few pages, it is obviously impossible to do justice to the scope and depth ofDobb's contribution to Marxist economic theory. I do not intend even to try. Instead, what I would like to do is to try to focus on one particularly important work of his, Political Economy and Capitalism. -
The Political Economy of Capitalism
07-037 The Political Economy of Capitalism Bruce R. Scott Copyright © 2006 by Bruce R. Scott Working papers are in draft form. This working paper is distributed for purposes of comment and discussion only. It may not be reproduced without permission of the copyright holder. Copies of working papers are available from the author. #07-037 Abstract Capitalism is often defined as an economic system where private actors are allowed to own and control the use of property in accord with their own interests, and where the invisible hand of the pricing mechanism coordinates supply and demand in markets in a way that is automatically in the best interests of society. Government, in this perspective, is often described as responsible for peace, justice, and tolerable taxes. This paper defines capitalism as a system of indirect governance for economic relationships, where all markets exist within institutional frameworks that are provided by political authorities, i.e. governments. In this second perspective capitalism is a three level system much like any organized sports. Markets occupy the first level, where the competition takes place; the institutional foundations that underpin those markets are the second; and the political authority that administers the system is the third. While markets do indeed coordinate supply and demand with the help of the invisible hand in a short term, quasi-static perspective, government coordinates the modernization of market frameworks in accord with changing circumstances, including changing perceptions of societal costs and benefits. In this broader perspective government has two distinct roles, one to administer the existing institutional frameworks, including the provision of infrastructure and the administration of laws and regulations, and the second to mobilize political power to bring about modernization of those frameworks as circumstances and/or societal priorities change. -
We Are the Poor! Three Pieces on Political Economy
We Are the Poor! 43 Endnotes 1. See, for example, The Second Machine Age, by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andre McAfee (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2014; and The Fourth Industrial Revolution, by Klaus Schwab (Geneva: World Economic Forum, 2016). 2. “The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation?” Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne, 2013: http:// www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/ The_Future_of_Employment.pdf. 3. “Automation sweeps China’s factory floors,” Shanghai Daily, Kelvin Chan, September 26, 2015. 4. See, for example, http://poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/what-current-poverty-rate- united-states. 5. Cited in Capitalism: Competition, Conflict, Crises, by Anwar Shaikh (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), p. 491. 6. Best Care Anywhere, by Phillip Longman (Sausalito, CA: PoliPointPress, 2007, pp. xxii-xxiii. 7. For information on debt and a very interesting website, see The US Debt Clock at http://www.usdebtclock.org. 8. Just 8 men own the same wealth as half the world, Oxfam International. 2017. https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2017-01-16/just-8- men-own-same-wealth-half-world. 9. See Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Timeline_of_United_States_military_operations#Extraterritorial_and_major _domestic_deployments. ISBN: 42 We Are The Poor! private, national and international security. That is what the propaganda war against the poor, women, people of color, gay and transgendered, and the political left mean. All of this points to the fact that the ruling class knows they're preparing for a much bigger fight We Are the Poor! than they have on their hands now. And they're moving quickly to cut off the possibility for a fair fight before it even starts.