Marxian Economics Research Articles

A PROGRESS REPORT ON MARXIAN ECONOMIC THEORY: ON THE CONTROVERSIES IN EXPLOITATION THEORY SINCE OKISHIO (1963)

AbstractThis report explores the development of exploitation theory in mathematical Marxian economics by reviewing the main controversies surrounding the proper definition of exploitation since the contribution of Okishio. The report first examines the debates on the Fundamental Marxian Theorem and Class‐Exploitation Correspondence Principle, developed mainly in the 1970s and 1980s, followed by the property relation theory of exploitation by Roemer. Then, the more recent exploitation theory proposed by Vrousalis and Wright is introduced. Finally, the report introduces and comments on recent axiomatic studies of exploitation by focusing on the work of Veneziani and Yoshihara.

The Dialectical Logic between Human Health and Economic Development

From a perspective of Marxist economics, this paper reinterprets the composition and connotation of human health, and analyzes the logic relationship between human health and capital-oriented” economic development and the logic relationship between human health and people-oriented” economic development, namely the former economic development mode is harmful to human health while the latter economic development mode is beneficial to human health. In order to promote the virtuous circle between human health and people-oriented” economic development, this paper suggests reconstructing health economic view” and puts forward some policy suggestions based on the analysis of the connotation and composition of health economic view”.

A Green Post-capitalist Alternative to a System of Accumulation: A Bioregional Economy

ABSTRACTThis paper explores capital accumulation as the engine of the capitalist mode of production. Accumulation drives the socio-economic damage caused by capitalism, as well as the environmental crises of land use, climate change and resource depletion. It may not be possible to address these problems within a reformed capitalism. Rather, such a goal can only be met within “a practical, workable post-capitalist and post-accumulative ecological economy, an economy by the people, for the people, that is geared to production for need, not for profit” [Smith, R. (2010). “Beyond Growth or Beyond Capitalism?” Real-World Economics Review 53: 28–42., 42]. This paper sets out a post-capitalist alternative, drawing from green economics and Marxian economics, that is, applied at a local and regional level.

「グローバル・インバランス」論議におけるFed viewとBIS view : マルクス経済学信用論の観点から

「グローバル・インバランス」論議におけるFed viewとBIS view : マルクス経済学信用論の観点から

The Political Economy of Death in the Age of Information: A Critical Approach to the Digital Afterlife Industry

Online technologies enable vast amounts of data to outlive their producers online, thereby giving rise to a new, digital form of afterlife presence. Although researchers have begun investigating the nature of such presence, academic literature has until now failed to acknowledge the role of commercial interests in shaping it. The goal of this paper is to analyse what those interests are and what ethical consequences they may have. This goal is pursued in three steps. First, we introduce the concept of the Digital Afterlife Industry (DAI), and define it as an object of study. Second, we identify the politico-economic interests of the DAI. For this purpose, we develop an analytical approach based on an informational interpretation of Marxian economics. Third, we explain the practical manifestations of the interests using four real life cases. The findings expose the incentives of the DAI to alter what is referred to as the “informational bodies” of the dead, which in turn is to be seen as a violation of the principle of human dignity. To prevent such consequences, we argue that the ethical conventions that guide trade with remains of organic bodies may serve as a good model for future regulation of DAI.

Innovation and Development of Social Structure of Accumulation (SSA) Theory: A Discussion with Lü Shoujun

The social structure of accumulation (SSA) theory is one of the important schools of Western Marxist economics, but China’s theoretical circles do not fully understand its developmental path or its latest research findings. This is reflected in the comments about the SSA School in Lü Shoujun’s paper, “Grasping Intermediate-Level Analysis of Contemporary Capitalism: The Evolution of the French Regulation School’s Theoretical System.” We need to give a clearer explanation of the relation between SSA theory and the French Regulation School. In particular, we need to review the major innovations and developments in SSA theory in recent years, including its theoretical analysis of the 2008 financial crisis, of sustainable SSA (SSSA) theory, and of China SSA (CSSA) theory.

現代経済の解読-グローバル資本主義と日本経済, SGCIME編, 御茶の水書房, 2010年

現代経済の解読-グローバル資本主義と日本経済, SGCIME編, 御茶の水書房, 2010年

Art and Value – Museum Collections as Commons

Abstract Art and Value: Art’s Economic Exceptionalism in Classical, Neoclassical and Marxist Economics reveals the irreconcilable differences between the Marxist economic definition of the term ‘value’ and its other uses in relation to the art object. It corrects the faulty assumption, symptomatic of a capitalist worldview, that rare or historic objects bear intrinsic value. Beech’s analysis of art’s value-form is critical to unpacking the double ontological condition of art as both an object of collective symbolic value and as a hoard of monetary value, since the two operate in mutually exclusive spheres, yet function to constitute one another. The book can help us understand the capitalist sleight of hand that allows art to flicker between two forms of being, making profit appear as value, and value appear as significance (and vice versa), the toggling between the two facilitating the transfer of commonly-held symbolic value in support of the individual accumulation of wealth.

Moseley on Marx’s Method

Fred Mosely wrote a remarkable paper and book. He reexamines Marx’s method in order to conclude rightly that the centenary “transformation problem” is false. However, this commentary argues that he has produced an analytical reconstruction of Marx’s dialectical exposition, and this is the reason why one would contest the idea that Marx’s Capital is really a macromonetary theory. My comment claims, rather, that it is an ontological critique of capitalism and at the same time an ontological critique of economic theories in general, including all kinds of Marxist economics.

(Re)thinking like an economist: pluralism, critical thinking and economic pedagogy

This paper describes the economic way of thinking and how adherence to the goal of encouraging students to think like an economist arose. The example of the theory of demand in institutional and Marxian economics is used to illustrate how the mainstream economics curriculum, by adhering to a singular way of thinking, deprives students of the opportunity to think critically about their role as producers and consumers in the economy and about how economic theories work. Only by adopting theoretical and pedagogical pluralism can the profession overcome these weaknesses. It concludes by assessing the prospects and strategies for promoting a pluralist approach within the profession and by outlining steps that faculty and students might take to ensure that education in economics is genuinely empowering.

(Re)thinking like an economist: pluralism, critical thinking and economic pedagogy

This paper describes the economic way of thinking and how adherence to the goal of encouraging students to think like an economist arose. The example of the theory of demand in institutional and Marxian economics is used to illustrate how the mainstream economics curriculum, by adhering to a singular way of thinking, deprives students of the opportunity to think critically about their role as producers and consumers in the economy and about how economic theories work. Only by adopting theoretical and pedagogical pluralism can the profession overcome these weaknesses. It concludes by assessing the prospects and strategies for promoting a pluralist approach within the profession and by outlining steps that faculty and students might take to ensure that education in economics is genuinely empowering.

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). …

Financialization or capitalization? Debating capitalist power in South Korea in the context of neoliberal globalization

The article reviews debates concerning financialization in South Korea, with a focus on ongoing arguments between liberal, post-Keynesian, institutionalist and Marxist economists. It argues that post-Keynesian and institutionalist perspectives in particular neglect important class processes through which the financial circuit operates within the Korean economy, especially the power of Korea’s large, family-led conglomerates, or chaebol. In order to build upon Marxist approaches to Korean finance, we argue that Nitzen and Bichler’s approach to the ‘capitalization’ of capitalist class power provides a useful heuristic for understanding the differential power of Korean chaebol and their integration into global capital.

Centro y periferia en el marxismo de posguerra

Cuatro economistas marxistas desenvolvieron en la posguerra importantes estudios de la relación centro-periferia. Mientras que Paul Baran y Paul Sweezy fueron precursores de ese abordaje, Samir Amin y Ernest Mandel aportaron desarrollos más elaborados del mismo tema. Todos investigaron en un período de reconstrucción pos-bélica y expansión capitalista, que amplió la brecha entre las economías avanzadas y atrasadas. ¿Cuál fue su visión de esa asimetría?

Multinational Corporations and the Globalization of Monopoly Capital: From the 1960s to the Present

In 1964, Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy wrote an essay entitled "Notes on the Theory of Imperialism" for a festschrift in honor of the sixty-fifth birthday of the great Polish Marxist economist Michał Kalecki.… [T]he essay offered the first major analysis of multinational corporations within Marxian theory. Parts of it were incorporated into Baran and Sweezy's Monopoly Capital in 1966, two years after Baran's death. Yet for all that book's depth, "Notes on the Theory of Imperialism" provided a more complete view of their argument on the growth of multinationals. In October and November 1969, Harry Magdoff and Sweezy wrote their article "Notes on the Multinational Corporation," picking up where Baran and Sweezy had left off. That same year, Magdoff published his landmark The Age of Imperialism, which systematically extended the analysis of the U.S. economy into the international domain.… In the analyses of Baran, Sweezy, and Magdoff, as distinct from the dominant liberal perspective, the multinational corporation was the product of the very same process of concentration and centralization of capital that had created monopoly capital itself.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

<em>Monopoly Capital</em> Then and Now

Monopoly Capital had an outstanding impact on students of my generation. It was published just as the Vietnam War was heating up, when students and youth throughout the world were beginning to "contest the structures"—to use a favorite expression of that time—and were eagerly looking for analyses of these "structures." Monopoly Capital, written jointly by two renowned Marxist economists, each of whom had already authored a classic, provided just that. It was avidly read in progressive circles around the world.… For students of economics like myself, there was an additional reason for its impact. Economic literature from both the Communist world and from Communist writers in the West tended to underplay the problem of aggregate demand. While Marx had been a trenchant critic of Say's Law and had highlighted the demand problem, it was by this time seen at most as a problem underlying periodic crises, but not one that could affect capitalism in a secular sense, ex ante.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

A PROGRESS REPORT ON MARXIAN ECONOMIC THEORY: ON THE CONTROVERSIES IN EXPLOITATION THEORY SINCE OKISHIO ()

AbstractThis report explores the development of exploitation theory in mathematical Marxian economics by reviewing the main controversies surrounding the proper definition of exploitation since the contribution of Okishio. The report first examines the debates on the Fundamental Marxian Theorem and Class‐Exploitation Correspondence Principle, developed mainly in the 1970s and 1980s, followed by the property relation theory of exploitation by Roemer. Then, the more recent exploitation theory proposed by Vrousalis and Wright is introduced. Finally, the report introduces and comments on recent axiomatic studies of exploitation by focusing on the work of Veneziani and Yoshihara.

What If There Are No Conventional Price Mechanisms?

:Inspired by Frederic (“Fred”) S. Lee’s theoretical contribution to institutional-heterodox economics, I make the case that the neoclassical price mechanism is not only flawed, but also irrelevant for the study of actual coordination mechanisms, hence the price mechanism — as a theory as well as a way of thinking — should be discarded. While this position was addressed by early institutionalists, starting with Thorstein Veblen, later institutionalists have not completely rejected the price mechanism. The sympathy for the price mechanism has prevented institutionalists (and other heterodox economists) from fully developing an alternative theoretical framework concerning how actual economic activities are organized. I, therefore, provide an institutionalist-heterodox framework of the provisioning process focusing on business enterprise activities. This framework shows how institutional economics becomes more refined and useful when it is married to other traditions in heterodox economics, in particular, Marxian, social, and post-Keynesian economics. Such an integrative approach is what Fred Lee showed through his work toward producing a better theory and policy for the underlying population.

Acceptance Speech for World Marxian Economics Award (II)

June 17, 2016Dear scholars and comrades,It is a pleasant surprise for me to learn that World Association for Political Economy (WAPE) has granted me its World Marxian Economics Award of 2016. I am very grateful. I understand that World Marxian Economics Award is for lifetime contributions to scientific innovation with aim of encouraging prosperity and development of Marxist economics throughout world. It is my honor to receive this award.I was born in April 1932 in a poor farmer's family in Gaoyou County, Jiangsu Province, China. I know much about poverty, backwardness and social contradictions of rural life in China. I witnessed Japanese invaders burning, killing and looting in my hometown, and I saw New Fourth Army's brave resistance in anti-Japanese struggle. These memories are still fresh in my mind.I was educated first in an old-style private school for a few years and studied in a countryside primary normal school for about 2 years. I did not go to middle school because my poor family could not afford it. I studied by myself to serve, my motherland and my people. I entered Renmin University of China in 1955 to study political economy and had chance to read more classics of Marx's economic works. After graduation from university, I kept on reading and doing more research on Marx's classic works from which I have benefited my whole life.The 10 volumes of Yifeng Wu published in 2015 show what I have learnt from Marx and how to apply Marx's economics. There are four interrelated themes: research in Marxist economics, research in Western economics, research in economic theory and reality, and comparative studies of Marxist economics and Western economics. A book review entitled Development of Economics through Comparative Study-Reading Yifeng Wu Anthology in People's Daily on February 3, 2016, said that the book is grounded in reality and demonstrates thorough research on a series of core problems in Marx's economics . . . It is of great significance.Many Chinese news media affirmed my position and views. They said that I am a Marxist Economist on People's Daily, I hold fast to Marxist economic theories on Chinese Social Sciences Weekly, and I am an economist of people whose work is based on Marxism on China Economic Times.Overview of Academic Achievements of Renowned Chinese Scientists in 20th Century, as part of national key books publishing project (under Qian Weichang's general editorship), summarizes my academic achievements as follows:1. Study of Origin of Marxist Economic TheoriesBritish Classical Economic Theories and Utopian Socialism are most important works in my study of origin of Marxist economic theories.British Classical Economic Theories presents a series of new views different from similar works at home and abroad. It argues that all economists who represented emerging capitalist class in rising stage of capitalism, and who studied internal relations within capitalist mode of production and relations of production, belong to school of classical economics. Those economists who tried to conceal capitalist contradictions and class antagonism when class struggle became acute do not belong to classical school. In this book, I divide Classical British Economic Theories into three stages, namely, emergence, development and culmination, and examined theories and policy propositions of 15 representative economists from these stages with my own comments. Its publication was reported in People's Daily and Guangming Daily, and reviewed in Economic Research and World Economy. They said that the book has both theoretical depth and makes a new contribution to its field. In 1995, it won First Prize of Award for Outstanding Achievement in Humanities and Social Science Research in Colleges and Universities.In Utopian Socialism, I divide utopian socialism into four stages and discuss history of its origin, developments and gradual decline. …

Winners of World Marxian Economics Award (2016)

Winners of World Marxian Economics Award (2016)