Class, Surplus, and the Division of Labour

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Class, Surplus, and the Division of Labour Michal Polak CLASS, SURPLUS, AND THE DIVISION OF LABOUR A. Post-Marxian Exploration London School of Economics A thesis submitted to the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method of the London School of Economics for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, London, October 2008 l UMI Number: U615B06 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U615B06 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 f WL I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the MPhil/PhD degree of the London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work, other than where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without the prior written consent of the author. I warrant that this authorization does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. 2. ABSTRACT The thesis attempts to account for an apparently wide array of class-like entities in present-day capitalist formation, while remaining true to the spirit of Marxian theory, in which the relationship of exploitation implies a polarised, two-class society. It is argued that the efforts to solve this puzzle usually involve notions of class based on the division of labour. The fundamental concepts of the original theory, such as reproduction, subsistence, exploitation and class are then re­ examined and reconstructed. The idea of profit as based on surplus labour is defended, securing the basis for the Marxian understanding of class. The Transformation Problem of moving from labour values to prices of production is discussed and while the force of the Sraffian critique is admitted, a new interpretation of the problem is suggested, making it possible to see the Sraffian schema as a generalisation of the Marxian one. Labour Theory of Value is analysed as a ‘dual theory of exploitation and price’ and it is argued that only the latter part is vulnerable to the criticisms advanced. The Sraffian schema is interpreted as a clear explication of the concept of exploitation, throwing into sharp relief the disjunction between exploitation-based and division-of-labour- based views of class. An integration of the two concepts is attempted by proposing a new, generalised notion termed ‘complexploitation’ (complex exploitation) flowing from what is claimed to be the essential idea behind the concept of exploitation: that one group of agents is more oppressed by the constraints of the so-called ‘Sphere of Necessity’, just so that another group may enjoy more of the fruits of the ‘Sphere of Freedom’. Finally it is suggested that the concept of complexploitation makes possible a more fine-grained class map of society than the original two-class model. 3 Table of Contents Acknowledgments Chapter I Introduction: The Legacy and The Crisis PART I - ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS Chapter II It’s Not What You Have, It’s What You Do: Return of the Division-of-Labour View of Class Chapter III Exploitation Is Not a Game: A Critique of John Roemer PART II - RECONSTRUCTING THE FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS Chapter IV Back to Basics: Reproduction, Subsistence, Exploitation, Class PART III - A DUAL THEORY OF EXPLOITATION AND PRICE Chapter V If Profit is the Answer, What Should Be the Question? Income from Capital and the Labour Theory of Value Chapter VI What Price Value? The Transformation Problem and the Sraffian Critique Chapter VII Beyond the Transformation Problem: The Sraffian Framework As a Basis for Class Theory PART IV - INTEGRATING TH E TWO CONCEPTS OF CLASS Chapter VIII A Beast of Many Faces: Complex Exploitation, the Sphere of Necessity and the Sphere of Freedom Chapter IX Conclusion: To Build Anew on Old Foundations Bibliography Acknowledgments First of all I would like to thank my friend Daniel Soukup, who all those years ago had sat at my kitchen table, sipping tea and listening to me hold forth on the brilliance of Marxian class accounts of the Middle Ages, and then asked innocendy, c<Well yes, but what good is that theory for today’s society?” Equally I need to thank Michael Albert, whose writings sustained my enthusiasm for radical change during a very unpromising period of time and whose forthright views I found both inspiring and frustrating enough to make me try and work out what exactiy is my own position — and whose influence on this thesis, while completely unbeknownst to him, goes far beyond the explicit references to his works. I am very grateful to Erik Olin Wright for his generous and friendly response to my request that he might have a look at one of the chapters of the thesis — his reading was very thorough and provided me with a large number of enormously valuable comments. I would like to thank Geoff Harcourt for his encouragement, for commenting on some earlier work related to the topics of the thesis, and for the fascinating time I was privileged to spend with him on an afternoon in Cambridge. Another person to whom I am grateful for his help is my friend Joe Grim Feinberg, who took time away from his own research in anthropology to read earlier versions of some of the chapters very thoroughly and provided many penetrating comments. Many thanks are due to Pat Devine, not just for reading and commenting on a chapter, but also for the amount of time he was willing to spend discussing difficult economic topics with me — and to forgive me when the exchanges got much more heated than I had any right to engage in — as well as for the life and the outlook on life which I find ever inspiring. 5 I would very much like to thank my supervisor, Richard Bradley, not only for the many engaging discussion on my topic (as well as many other topics!) and for the comments that he gave on my written drafts, but also for his understanding and the willingness to grant me much more freedom than I had any right to expect; I am sure that the thesis is all the better for it. I appreciate gready the help given by all these distinguished scholars; the remaining mistakes and flaws — many of which I am only too aware of — are all mine. From the personal point of view, I would like to thank Naomi Fisher and Barbora Cernusakova, who had both provided me with care and support at different periods of my life. I owe many thanks to my activist friends of stripe red, green, and all other colours of the rainbow, in my home country of Slovakia and elsewhere, in whose company I always feel anew that another world is indeed possible. I would like to thank my former colleagues at the Slovak Section of the BBC World Service, who made my life while writing much more bearable, and also my superiors there, who showed much understanding for the rival demands of my academic life and provided me with an opportunity to earn my living nevertheless. Thanks are due also to my friends and colleagues at the LSE, both from a personal point of view and for providing an intellectually stimulating environment in the time that I spent there. Finally I would like to thank my long-ago Mathematics teacher, Mrs. Brigita Kamenska, who paid me far more than just the required level of attention and cultivated in me both the confidence and the powers of logical reasoning that eventually allowed me to arrive to this point. Lastly, I would like to thank my parents, Gabriela Rothmayerova and Emil Polak, for being there for me when needed, including through a particularly difficult period of my life; as well as for instilling in me the sense of empathy with those who are less fortunate, solidarity with those who demand justice, and most of all, for teaching me to appreciate the value of those lives spent under the burden of necessity. 6 I very gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the form of Overseas Research Award, and I am grateful indeed also for the financial assistance provided over many years by the London School of Economics, in the form of scholarships and studentships too numerous to mention individually. 7 Chapter I Introduction The Legacy and the Crisis There are many ways in which a society can be split into classes. We could divide people into categories on the basis of income and wealth, power and status in a hierarchy, the kind of work they do, their level of education, their cultural characteristics such as tastes and accents, etc. The classic Marxian conception of classes is often characterised as being based on the relation to the means of production. The relation in question is one of ownership: society is divided into classes depending on who owns which productive resources. However, this is only half of the Marxian story. Although private property looms large in this picture of the world, it should be always borne in mind that it is not significant in itself.
Recommended publications
  • Materialism, Social Formation and Socio-Spatial Relations : an Essay in Marxist Geography Richard Peet
    Document généré le 1 oct. 2021 06:28 Cahiers de géographie du Québec Materialism, Social Formation and Socio-Spatial Relations : an Essay in Marxist Geography Richard Peet Volume 22, numéro 56, 1978 Résumé de l'article La géographie marxiste fait partie de la science marxiste et à ce titre elle a URI : https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/021390ar l'autonomie relative des instances qui composent le tout social étudié. Ces DOI : https://doi.org/10.7202/021390ar instances, ou les relations qui s'établissent entre elles et qui sont l'objet de la géographie marxiste, sont en premier lieu la relation dialectique entre Aller au sommaire du numéro formations sociales et environnement naturel et en second lieu la dialectique spatiale entre les composantes d'une formation sociale enracinée dans l'espace ou entre des formations sociales dans différentes régions. D'où la nécessité de Éditeur(s) renvoyer aux concepts de mode de production et de formation sociale, de définir et d'illustrer le concept de dialectique spatiale et le développement des Département de géographie de l'Université Laval contradictions dans l'espace. ISSN 0007-9766 (imprimé) 1708-8968 (numérique) Découvrir la revue Citer cet article Peet, R. (1978). Materialism, Social Formation and Socio-Spatial Relations : an Essay in Marxist Geography. Cahiers de géographie du Québec, 22(56), 147–157. https://doi.org/10.7202/021390ar Tous droits réservés © Cahiers de géographie du Québec, 1978 Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d’auteur. L’utilisation des services d’Érudit (y compris la reproduction) est assujettie à sa politique d’utilisation que vous pouvez consulter en ligne.
    [Show full text]
  • Value's Law, Value's Metric
    Values Law Values Metric by P Co ckshott A Cottrell Research Rep ort RR Novemb er Values Law Values Metric W Paul Co ckshott and Allin F Cottrell septemb er Abstract It is argued that the metric space of exchanging commo dities is noneuclidean and characteristic of a system governed by a conservation law The p ossible can didates for what is conserved in commo dity exchange are reviewed with reference to inverted inputoutput matrices of the British economy Strong evidence is pre sented that the conserved substance is lab our The arguments of Mirowski and others regarding the appropriateness of such physicalist arguments are discussed What is meant by the law of value The phrase law of value is little used by Marx but p opular among his followers It has no precise denition of the typ e that one would exp ect for a scientic law Laws such as Ho okes law or Boyles law have a concise denition that any chemist or physicist could rep eat but it is doubtful if anywhere in the Marxist literature there exists a comparable denition of the law of value On the basis of what Ricardo and Marx wrote on the theory we would advance the following as a reasonable denition The law of value states that value understood as the labour time social ly necessary to produce a commodity is conserved in the exchange of commodities The advantages of this denition are that it is cast in the normal form of a sci entic law it is empirically testable it has a precise meaning and it emphasizes the fundamental Marxian prop osition that value cannot arise in circulation
    [Show full text]
  • Advertising and the Creation of Exchange Value
    University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses Summer November 2014 Advertising and the Creation of Exchange Value Zoe Sherman University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2 Part of the Economic History Commons, Political Economy Commons, and the Public Relations and Advertising Commons Recommended Citation Sherman, Zoe, "Advertising and the Creation of Exchange Value" (2014). Doctoral Dissertations. 205. https://doi.org/10.7275/5625701.0 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/205 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ADVERTISING AND THE CREATION OF EXCHANGE VALUE A Dissertation Presented by ZOE SHERMAN Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY September 2014 Economics © Copyright by Zoe Sherman 2014 All Rights Reserved ADVERTISING AND THE CREATION OF EXCHANGE VALUE A Dissertation Presented by ZOE SHERMAN Approved as to style and content by: ______________________________________ Gerald Friedman, Chair ______________________________________ Michael Ash, Member ______________________________________ Judith Smith, Member ___________________________________ Michael Ash, Department Chair Economics DEDICATION Dedicated to the memory of Stephen Resnick. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have had many strokes of good fortune in my life, not least the intellectual and emotional support I have enjoyed throughout my graduate studies. Stephen Resnick, Gerald Friedman, Michael Ash, and Judith Smith were the midwives of this work.
    [Show full text]
  • Wage Determination and Imperfect Competition
    A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Booth, Alison L. Working Paper Wage Determination and Imperfect Competition IZA Discussion Papers, No. 8034 Provided in Cooperation with: IZA – Institute of Labor Economics Suggested Citation: Booth, Alison L. (2014) : Wage Determination and Imperfect Competition, IZA Discussion Papers, No. 8034, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/96758 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle You are not to copy documents for public or commercial Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available under an Open gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. www.econstor.eu IZA DP No. 8034 Wage Determination and Imperfect Competition Alison Booth March 2014 DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit Institute for the Study of Labor Wage Determination and Imperfect Competition Alison Booth Australian National University and IZA Discussion Paper No.
    [Show full text]
  • Labour Supply
    7/30/2009 Chapter 2 Labour Supply McGraw-Hill/Irwin Labor Economics, 4th edition Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 2- 2 Introduction to Labour Supply • This chapter: The static theory of labour supply (LS), i. e. how workers allocate their time at a point in time, plus some extensions beyond the static model (labour supply over the life cycle; household fertility decisions). • The ‘neoclassical model of labour-leisure choice’. - Basic idea: Individuals seek to maximise well -being by consuming both goods and leisure. Most people have to work to earn money to buy goods. Therefore, there is a trade-off between hours worked and leisure. 1 7/30/2009 2- 3 2.1 Measuring the Labour Force • The US de finit io ns in t his sect io n a re s imila r to t hose in N Z. - However, you have to know the NZ definitions (see, for example, chapter 14 of the New Zealand Official Yearbook 2008, and the explanatory notes in Labour Market Statistics 2008, which were both handed out in class). • Labour Force (LF) = Employed (E) + Unemployed (U). - Any person in the working -age population who is neither employed nor unemployed is “not in the labour force”. - Who counts as ‘employed’? Size of LF does not tell us about “intensity” of work (hours worked) because someone working ONE hour per week counts as employed. - Full-time workers are those working 30 hours or more per week. 2- 4 Measuring the Labour Force • Labor Force Participation Rate: LFPR = LF/P - Fraction of the working-age population P that is in the labour force.
    [Show full text]
  • Beyond Social Democracy in West Germany?
    BEYOND SOCIAL DEMOCRACY IN WEST GERMANY? William Graf I The theme of transcending, bypassing, revising, reinvigorating or otherwise raising German Social Democracy to a higher level recurs throughout the party's century-and-a-quarter history. Figures such as Luxemburg, Hilferding, Liebknecht-as well as Lassalle, Kautsky and Bernstein-recall prolonged, intensive intra-party debates about the desirable relationship between the party and the capitalist state, the sources of its mass support, and the strategy and tactics best suited to accomplishing socialism. Although the post-1945 SPD has in many ways replicated these controversies surrounding the limits and prospects of Social Democracy, it has not reproduced the Left-Right dimension, the fundamental lines of political discourse that characterised the party before 1933 and indeed, in exile or underground during the Third Reich. The crucial difference between then and now is that during the Second Reich and Weimar Republic, any significant shift to the right on the part of the SPD leader- ship,' such as the parliamentary party's approval of war credits in 1914, its truck under Ebert with the reactionary forces, its periodic lapses into 'parliamentary opportunism' or the right rump's acceptance of Hitler's Enabling Law in 1933, would be countered and challenged at every step by the Left. The success of the USPD, the rise of the Spartacus move- ment, and the consistent increase in the KPD's mass following throughout the Weimar era were all concrete and determined reactions to deficiences or revisions in Social Democratic praxis. Since 1945, however, the dynamics of Social Democracy have changed considerably.
    [Show full text]
  • Slavery, Capitalism, and the “Proletariat”
    1 1 The Slave-Machine: Slavery, Capital- ism, and the “Proletariat” in The Black Jacobins and Capital Nick Nesbitt This essay argues that C. L. R. James’s Marxist humanism is inherently inade- quate for describing the distinction and transition between slavery and capitalism. To do so, the essay interrogates James’s famous claim in The Black Jacobins (1938) that the slaves of St. Domingue were “closer to a modern proletariat than any group of workers in existence at the time,” by comparing James’s understand- ing of the concept of proletariat—there and in World Revolution (1937)—with Marx’s various developments of the concept across the three volumes of Capital. This analysis distinguishes James’s political and historicist deployment of the term from Marx’s analytical usage of the notion in his categorial critique of capitalism.In contrast with James’s linear, Marxist-humanist understanding of the passage from slavery to capitalism, Marx himself demarcates a well-defined delineation between these two basic categories, understood in Capital as analytically (as opposed to historically) distinct modes of production.The essay thus concludes by analyzing Marx’s conceptual differentiation of slavery and industrial capitalism in Capital, drawing on Etienne Balibar’s analysis of the concepts of mode of production and transition in Reading Capital (1965). The slaves worked on the land, and, like revolutionary peasants everywhere, they aimed at the extermination of their oppressors. But working and living together in gangs of hundreds on the huge sugar-factories which covered the North Plain, they were closer to a modern proletariat than any group of workers in existence at the time, and the rising was, therefore, a thoroughly prepared and organized mass movement.
    [Show full text]
  • Biografie Über Rudolf Bahro
    Rudolf Bahro (1935 - 1997) Biografie Rudolf Bahro wurde am 18. November 1935 in Bad Flinsberg (heute: Swieradów Zdrój, Polen) geboren, einem damals bedeutenden Kurort im niederschlesischen Isergebirge. Sein Vater Max Bahro war als Viehwirtschaftsberater tätig, seine Mutter Irmgard kam aus einem Ort in der Umgebung. Gegen Ende des Krieges wurden die Kinder mit ihrer Mutter evakuiert. Der knapp Zehnjährige verlor seine Mutter und die beiden Geschwister in den Kriegswirren und erlebte ab Februar 1945 eine Odyssee durch verschiedene Orte in der Tschechoslowakei, die ihn über Wien und Kärnten schließlich in den Westen Deutschlands, nach Biedenkopf an der Lahn brachte. 1946 kam Rudolf Bahro dann wieder zu seinem Vater, der im Oderland das Ende des Krieges überstanden hatte und dort nun eine neue Familie gründete. Zwischen 1946 und 1950 besuchte Rudolf Bahro die Grundschule in verschiedenen Orten im Oderbruch und schließlich in Fürstenberg (heute Eisenhüttenstadt, das 1961 aus der Vereinigung von Fürstenberg mit dem 1951 gegründeten Stalinstadt entstand), anschließend – überdurchschnittlich begabt und intelligent - bis 1954 die Oberschule. Seit 1950 Mitglied der Freien Deutschen Jugend (FDJ), trat Rudolf Bahro bereits 1952 in die SED ein – gewonnen durch die Haltung eines seiner Lehrer. Als SED-Mitglied verstand sich Bahro als Teil einer bewussten Minderheit, die mit dem Staat DDR eine "übergeschichtliche Perspektive" verband. An der Berliner Humboldt-Universität studierte Rudolf Bahro von 1954 bis 1959 Philosophie, u. a. bei Hager, Scheler, Klaus und Heise. Seine Diplomarbeit schrieb er über "Johannes R. Becher und das Verhältnis der deutschen Arbeiterklasse und ihrer Partei zur nationalen Frage unseres Volkes". Nach dem Diplom ging Bahro nach Sachsendorf, in seine zweite Heimat Oderbruch, wo er u.
    [Show full text]
  • Heleieth I. B. Saffioti. Women in Class Society
    Women in Class Society by Heleith I. B. Saffioti Women in Class Society by Heleith I. B. Saffioti Review by: Barbara Celarent American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 119, No. 6 (May 2014), pp. 1821-1827 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/677208 . Accessed: 12/09/2014 18:48 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Journal of Sociology. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.135.12.127 on Fri, 12 Sep 2014 18:48:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Book Reviews describes the writings he studies as examples of the “deviance memoir genre,” with many a tall tale, much lying and self-vindication along the lines of once I was lost, now I am found and do good works. He takes the key supposed facts in a story and examines how the author rhetorically exculpates him- or herself. The fact that a distinguished historian like the late Eric Hobsbawm does not deal with the gossip Goode alleges about his private life means his memoir is of little interest and merely confirms his typically Marxist re- luctance to face up to the real issues of life, as opposed to fascism, the Ho- locaust, and the Jewish experience.
    [Show full text]
  • Modern Monetary Theory: a Marxist Critique
    Class, Race and Corporate Power Volume 7 Issue 1 Article 1 2019 Modern Monetary Theory: A Marxist Critique Michael Roberts [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/classracecorporatepower Part of the Economics Commons Recommended Citation Roberts, Michael (2019) "Modern Monetary Theory: A Marxist Critique," Class, Race and Corporate Power: Vol. 7 : Iss. 1 , Article 1. DOI: 10.25148/CRCP.7.1.008316 Available at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/classracecorporatepower/vol7/iss1/1 This work is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Arts, Sciences & Education at FIU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Class, Race and Corporate Power by an authorized administrator of FIU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Modern Monetary Theory: A Marxist Critique Abstract Compiled from a series of blog posts which can be found at "The Next Recession." Modern monetary theory (MMT) has become flavor of the time among many leftist economic views in recent years. MMT has some traction in the left as it appears to offer theoretical support for policies of fiscal spending funded yb central bank money and running up budget deficits and public debt without earf of crises – and thus backing policies of government spending on infrastructure projects, job creation and industry in direct contrast to neoliberal mainstream policies of austerity and minimal government intervention. Here I will offer my view on the worth of MMT and its policy implications for the labor movement. First, I’ll try and give broad outline to bring out the similarities and difference with Marx’s monetary theory.
    [Show full text]
  • Computational Methods and Classical-Marxian Economics Jonathan F
    Computational Methods and Classical-Marxian Economics Jonathan F. Cogliano, Roberto Veneziani, Naoki Yoshihara Working Paper No. 913 October 2020 ISSN 1473-0278 School of Economics and Finance Computational Methods and Classical-Marxian Economics∗ Jonathan F. Cogliano,† Roberto Veneziani,‡ Naoki Yoshihara§ September 15, 2020 Abstract This article surveys computational approaches to classical-Marxian economics. These approaches include a range of techniques { such as numerical simulations, agent-based models, and Monte Carlo methods { and cover many areas within the classical-Marxian tradition. We focus on three major themes in classical-Marxian economics, namely price and value theory; inequality, exploitation, and classes; and technical change, profitability, growth and cycles. We show that computational methods are particularly well-suited to capture certain key elements of the vision of the classical-Marxian ap- proach and can be fruitfully used to make significant progress in the study of classical- Marxian topics. Keywords: Computational Methods; Agent-Based Models; Classical Economists; Marx. JEL Classification Codes: C63 (Computational Techniques, Simulation Modeling); B51 (Socialist, Marxian, Sraffian); B41 (Economic Methodology). ∗We would like to thank Peter Flaschel, Duncan Foley, Heinz Kurz, David Laibman, Peter Matthews, Bertram Schefold, Mark Setterfield, and Lefteris Tsoulfidis for helpful comments and suggestions. The usual disclaimer applies. †(Corresponding author) Economics Department, University of Massachusetts Boston, Wheatley
    [Show full text]
  • Market Socialism As a Distinct Socioeconomic Formation Internal to the Modern Mode of Production
    New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry Vol. 5, No. 2 (May 2012) Pp. 20-50 Market Socialism as a Distinct Socioeconomic Formation Internal to the Modern Mode of Production Alberto Gabriele UNCTAD Francesco Schettino University of Rome ABSTRACT: This paper argues that, during the present historical period, only one mode of production is sustainable, which we call the modern mode of production. Nevertheless, there can be (both in theory and in practice) enough differences among the specific forms of modern mode of production prevailing in different countries to justify the identification of distinct socioeconomic formations, one of them being market socialism. In its present stage of evolution, market socialism in China and Vietnam allows for a rapid development of productive forces, but it is seriously flawed from other points of view. We argue that the development of a radically reformed and improved form of market social- ism is far from being an inevitable historical necessity, but constitutes a theoretically plausible and auspicable possibility. KEYWORDS: Marx, Marxism, Mode of Production, Socioeconomic Formation, Socialism, Communism, China, Vietnam Introduction o our view, the correct interpretation of the the most advanced mode of production, capitalism, presently existing market socialism system (MS) was still prevailing only in a few countries. Yet, Marx Tin China and Vietnam requires a new and partly confidently predicted that, thanks to its intrinsic modified utilization of one of Marx’s fundamental superiority and to its inbuilt tendency towards inces- categories, that of mode of production. According to sant expansion, capitalism would eventually embrace Marx, different Modes of Production (MPs) and dif- the whole world.
    [Show full text]