Interest-bearing Capital Research Articles

A New Formulation of Interest-Bearing Capital and Debt: A Marxian Perspective on the Circuit of Capital

This article refines the analysis of interest-bearing capital and debt in Marx’s circuit of capital, incorporating Kōzō Uno’s critique for a more precise depiction. It reassesses Marx’s model of interest-bearing capital () and Uno’s distinction between creditor and debtor roles, proposing an advanced model that highlights the role of financial instruments () and debt (). The form of money-lending capital for the creditor is articulated as , where represents the issuance of a loan and the collection of debt. On the other hand, the form of merchant capital with debt for the debtor is depicted as , incorporating both the borrowing () and repayment () processes within the form of merchant capital. This approach not only clarifies the transactions between creditors and debtors but also builds upon Uno’s theoretical contributions, offering a comprehensive framework for understanding the dynamics of interest-bearing capital and the movement of capital with debt. The revision aims to elucidate the processes of loan issuance, debt collection, borrowing, and repayment, rectifying previous conceptual oversights and offering a solid foundation for future economic research.

The Commodities Fetish? Financialisation and Finance Capital in the US Oil Industry

Abstract This article explores the financialisation of the world’s most important commodity, oil. It argues that much of the literature on the financialisation of commodities tends to adopt a dualistic approach to financial markets and physical producers, where financial and non-financial activities are assumed to be externally-related and counterposed to one another. The article locates the roots of this analytical separation in a mistaken acceptance of the fetish character of interest-bearing capital (IBC) – a view that the exchange of loanable sums of capital represents a relationship between money-capitalists rather than a relationship to the moment of production. Against such dichotomous readings, the article argues that the financialisation of oil needs to be understood as part of the reworking of ownership and control across the oil commodity circuit, expressed through the combined centralisation and concentration of capital over the money, productive and commercial moments. This argument is demonstrated through an original empirical investigation of the US oil industry, including 20 years of weekly trading data on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and a detailed study of more than 160 oil and energy-related firms in the US. By mapping the structural weight and connections between different capitalist actors involved in accumulation across the oil sector, we gain a better understanding of the ultimate dynamics (and beneficiaries) of the carbon economy.

Acceptance Speech for World Marxian Economics Award (III)

June 17, 2016It is such an honor for me to receive the World Marxian Economics Award by highly valuing my contribution to the development of Marxist economics through my research activities and their results. I am sincerely grateful for that.Some days ago, my new book titled Marx's Theory of Interest-Bearing came out in Japanese. four-volume book consists of my various articles on Marx's theory of interest-bearing capital that I published over the last 30 years since 1982, though I improved and expanded them profiting from this opportunity.The book aims truly to reconstruct Marx's theory of interest-bearing capital through philological analyses of his own manuscripts and to convey it to readers because it is not able to see it when one reads the Engels's edition of volume III of Capital.After Marx's death, Engels found a number of manuscripts for Volume II and III of Capital, and he decided to edit the manuscript to publish them as Volume II and III, respectively. He was able to publish his own edition of Volume II shortly within a year and half. However, it took him 9 years to finish editing Volume III. main reason for consuming such a long period of time was the enormous difficulty in editing the fifth chapter of the manuscript that deals with interest-bearing capital. After a lot of hardships, Engels modified Marx's incomplete manuscript here and there and finally managed to publish his edition of Volume III that reasonably looks like a complete text. Without doubt, his skill of editing is astonishing. Nonetheless, Engels' own interpretation ended up creating Part V of his edition, which significantly differs from the characteristic and structure of the fifth chapter originally intended by Marx.In 1981/82 I conducted research on Marx's original manuscript for Volume III of in the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam, and I was also able to read its deciphered text in the Institute for Marxism-Leninism in Moscow. I came to realize Engels's bias at the time. Since then over 30 years I have documented the difference between the fifth chapter of Marx's manuscript and the Part V of the Engels's edition in order to reveal what Marx analyzed in the fifth chapter of Volume III of Capital.In 1993, MEGA volume II/4.2 was published, and it became possible to read Marx's first manuscript of Volume III in a printed format. Before that I conducted my research based on my own notebooks that I made during my stay in Amsterdam and Moscow, but after the publication of the MEGA edition I can also use this edition while examining the content of Marx's manuscript.My new book marks the point where I reached after 30 years.In my book, I aimed at carefully examining how Engels edited the fifth chapter of Marx's own manuscript for Volume III, The Division of Profit into Interest and Profit of Enterprise. Interest-Bearing Capital and created Part V of the current Engels's edition, so that I can reveal Marx's original structure and content of the chapter, which has become invisible in the Engels's edition.The fifth chapter of Marx's manuscript consists of six sections divided by title numbers with or without head titles. Sections 1 to 5 deal with his theoretical analysis of interest-bearing capital under the capitalist mode of production, and Section 6 is a historical description of the process in which the capitalist mode of production subsumed usurer's capital in the precapitalist mode of production under itself, transforming it to the modern interest-bearing capital. With regard to the first five sections, sections 1 to 4 largely correspond to Chapters 21 to 24 in the Engels's edition, and they maintain their original figure. Section 6 also is almost identical with Chapter 36, the last chapter of the Engels's edition. Thus, the problem revolves around Section 5 titled by Marx Credit. Fictitious Capital. Engels edited this section and divided it into 11 chapters (Chapters 25 to 35). …

A saúde pública brasileira no contexto da crise do Estado ou do capitalismo?

Este artigo tem como objetivo analisar a tendência da saúde publica universal brasileira no contexto da crise estrutural do capitalismo, articulando os interesses do capital e do Estado, sem que seja possível se referir à uma crise do Estado Moderno. Para tanto, o artigo está organizado em duas partes. A primeira parte busca analisar a natureza da crise, identificando tendências do desenvolvimento do capitalismo, principalmente nas últimas décadas do século XX e na primeira década do século XXI, com destaque para a lei marxiana da queda tendencial da taxa de lucro e a dominância do capital portador de juros. A segunda parte discute os impactos dessa crise ao direito universal da saúde no Brasil, especialmente, a partir dos anos 1990, confirmando as incertezas do financiamento do SUS e o crescente movimento de apropriação do capital sobre os recursos das políticas sociais de direitos, as da seguridade social, especialmente a saúde. Por fim, são apresentadas as considerações finais, incluindo algumas propostas para enfrentar esse quadro de instabilidade e subfinanciamento desse sistema de saúde.

Two Approaches to the Concept of Interest-Bearing Capital

In recent years there has been a revival of interest in the issues of credit and finance among radical political economists, reflecting the remarkable growth and instability of the international financial system. This revival is especially important because credit and finance have not featured strongly in the renaissance of Anglo-Saxon radical political economy in the last three decades. The analysis of credit and finance from the standpoint of radical political economy has some evident distinguishing characteristics: for example, emphasis on the social relations encapsulated by the monetary system and focus on disequilibrium. At the same time, however, the theoretical underpinnings of radical analyses of credit and finance have not been sufficiently differentiated from those of mainstream theory, particularly from the methodological individualism that underlies concepts such as demand and supply of loans. This paper argues that appropriate underpinnings for radical analyses of credit and finance are provided by Marx's concept of interestbearing (or loanable) capital, that is, money capital traded as a commodity and commanding the payment of interest. Related to this notion is Marx's characteristic view that the rate of interest and the rate

Monopoly capital theory: Hilferding and twentieth-century capitalism

Preface Introduction Value, Competition, and Concentration Money, Interest-Bearing Capital, and the System of Credit Finance Capital and Causes of Crises Finance Capital and Organized Capitalism Bibliography Index