Monopoly Capital Research Articles

Notes from the Editors, May 2016

buy this issueA little less than two years ago, in July-August 2014, Monthly Review published a special summer issue under the title Surveillance Capitalism, edited by John Mage.… The lead article by Foster and McChesney was itself entitled "Surveillance Capitalism: Monopoly-Finance Capital, the Military-Industrial Complex, and the Digital Age." In Foster and McChesney's analysis, the problem of surplus absorption under monopoly capital was seen as having led to the development over the last seven decades of a massive surveillance network, extending across the sales effort, finance, and the military, and integral to the entire information economy.… We were therefore pleased to discover that the concept of "surveillance capitalism" has now entered the mainstream and is drawing considerable attention, through the work of Shoshana Zuboff, emeritus professor at the Harvard Business School.… " She failed, however, to mention the prior treatment of "surveillance capitalism" in Monthly Review, despite the fact that her analysis was written in November 2014—judging by her accessing of numerous articles on the Internet on that date—four months after the MR issue was published and posted online.…Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Acumulação de capital e trabalho na agroindústria no Oeste do Paraná de 1960 a 2010

This article discusses the agro-industry, capital accumulation and labor exploitation in the West of Parana State during the period from 1960 to 2010. The main perspective about this process sees the agro-industry enthusiastically, especially the poultry chain, and claims that this industry creates jobs. In opposition to this perspective, I try to argue that the agro-industry has strong connections with the international division of labor and monopoly capitalism, and depends mainly on cheap and abundant labor. Methodologically, in addition to statistical information, documents and literature, this article deals with interviews of workers employed in the poultry chain. Its main conclusion points out that (i) the agro-industry depends on big corporations and (ii) disrupts the ways of life in the region. Keywords: agro-industry, poultry productive chain, slaughterhouses, farms, West Parana.

Property, Possession and Knowledge

As Hodgson has nicely pointed out, capitalism can be only understood if we accept that, unlike possession, property is a social construction and a relation among individuals. Unlike possession, property does not require a material thing on which it should be applied. Property rights can create fictitious commodities on intangible assets symbolizing the relationships among persons. The commoditization of knowledge and the emergence of contemporary intellectual monopoly capitalism must be understood in this framework. Knowledge is a non-rival good and its possession by others is not incompatible. Since we can all possess the same piece of knowledge, the so-called knowledge economy is often seen as place where capitalist relations should weaken. However this view confuses property with possession. In modern societies, intellectual property is becoming the most important part of capital. In spite of the non-rival possession of knowledge, intellectual property rights can be defined as the exclusive right to a piece of knowledge involving the corresponding restriction of others' liberties to use it. Modern intellectual monopoly capitalism is built on sophisticated property rights that should be not confused with any sort of primitive possession.

NOTAS SOBRE A EDUCAÇÃO PROFISSIONAL NO BRASIL: 1930 a 1940

This text discusses professional education between 1930 and 1940 in Brazil, considering public policies for professional education in the period, in full expansion of monopoly capitalism. In this perspective we will take into account the ideas of industrialists through the journal of the Institute of Rational Labor Organization (IDORT), examining duality in vocational education. The formation of leaders, executives, professionals and high-level workers took place in national and foreign universities, while the operational workers were prepared in courses of rapid training and of a practitioner. The Brazilian industrial bourgeoisie, in the historical period analyzed, had a political project of building the hegemony instrumentalized through an educational proposal focused on the national development from the industrialization, consubstantiated by an ideological action that sought the imposition of a new consensus, naturalizing a new sociability.

Notes from the Editors, January 2016

<div class="buynow"><a title="Back issue of Monthly Review, January 2016 (Volume 67, Number 8)" href="http://monthlyreview.org/product/mr-067-08-2016-01/">buy this issue</a></div>Prabhat Patnaik's Review of the Month in this issue addresses problems of economic stagnation and imperialism in the context of explaining the current global crisis. Patnaik is part of a broad tradition of Marxian thought and heterodox economic analysis more generally that has long focused on issues of economic stagnation under monopoly capitalism. Such questions are now finally being taken up even by orthodox economists, but in ways that systematically ignore decades of contributions in this regard made by heterodox theorists. Ever since Larry Summers raised the issue of secular stagnation (referring back to Alvin Hansen's theory of the 1930s and '40s) at an IMF meeting in 2013, the question of stagnation has become part of a worldwide economic debate, moving issues that were once on the margins to center stage. This has resulted in a proliferation of mainstream economic treatments of the history of the secular stagnation concept in the 1930–1950s period, after which mainstream economists had essentially declared the issue dead.<p class="mrlink"><p class="mrpurchaselink"><a href="http://monthlyreview.org/index/volume-67-number-8" title="Vol. 67, No. 8: January 2016" target="_self">Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the <em>Monthly Review</em> website.</a></p>

Erratum

Labor Studies Journal Interactive Issue: Volume 40, Number 3, September 2015, guest edited by Joe Berry. In the printed version of the above issue, the special issue title is incorrect. It should read: 40 Years Later, the Impact of Harry Braverman’s Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century Instead of: Labor’s Defense of Public Employee Unionism and Fight Against Right-to-Work Laws in the Midwest

Comments on “When Hephaestus Fell to Earth” and “Continuity and Change in Labour Process Analysis Forty Years after Labor and Monopoly Capital”

Comments on “When Hephaestus Fell to Earth” and “Continuity and Change in Labour Process Analysis Forty Years after <i>Labor and Monopoly Capital</i>”

Migration and Super-exploitation: Marxist Theory and the Role of Migration in the present Period of Capitalist Decay

Migration is a central issue in most advanced capitalist countries in the Western world. Today migrants represent a significant sector both of the labor forces as well as of the population. Essentially, migration is part of the fundamental process of the super-exploitation of the so-called Third World by imperialist monopoly capital. Just as the monopoly capital extracts surplus profits from the semi-colonial world, there is also an appropriation of extra profits through migration. Imperialist capital draws profit by paying the migrant workers below the value of their labor force in several ways. As a result migrants can be characterized as ‘a nationally oppressed layer of super-exploited labour force.’

Monopoly Capital and Labor

Harry Braverman’s Labor and Monopoly Capital, although the single most influential work in labor sociology in the post–Second World War period, is often viewed narrowly as a theory of the labor process and labor degradation. However, the central focus of Braverman’s analysis was the structure and dynamics of the working class as it evolved in the period of monopoly capitalism. While the labor process was key to unlocking class dynamics, including changing class composition and increasing precariousness within the working class, Braverman never failed to emphasize how the labor process was intimately intertwined with contradictions and tendencies buried deep within contemporary monopoly capitalism. Indeed, Marx’s theory of the reserve army of labor, which Braverman used as a basis for explaining the degradation of labor and the generalization of precariousness, formed a crucial link between Braverman’s analysis and that of monopoly capital theory. In this essay, we reengage with these neglected dimensions of Braverman’s analysis making it possible to address contemporary problems such as increasing worker precariousness and the internationalization of production, in a broader and more comprehensive context. In the course of the analysis, we develop fresh perspectives on the continuing significance of Braverman’s work.

Continuity and Change in Labor Process Analysis Forty Years After Labor and Monopoly Capital

Braverman’s Labor and Monopoly Capital tapped into a late twentieth century sense that work while appearing ever safer, cleaner and more automated, was actually, less skilled, more controlled, and more intensive. For Braverman the general movement in work in the twentieth century had been towards degradation of skill and worker control, devoid of creative technical content and thought. Braverman’s monumental book drew on Marx’s writings on technology and the labour process, for the conditions of American capitalism in the 1970s. He provoked such heated debate that the term ‘Bravermania’ has entered the sociological lexicon. His analysis on the labour process in late modernity has seen scholars of organization, work and society at loggerheads over an array of issues. While some writers have attacked Braverman for underplaying the potential for worker resistance, others have defended his analysis as more nuanced and ultimately true to its Marxist inheritance. These debates, which continue to this day on both sides of the Atlantic, but as the paper demonstrates, there has been a movement away from some of the grander themes of Labor and Monopoly Capital (the state, the class structure, the universal market) towards a narrow focus on skill. But there has also been a widening of debates, with new themes (embodiment of labour, globalization, heightened mobility of labour, fragmentation of employment contracts, and spatial division of labour) which has moved labour process theory on and continued to rejuvenate discussion around the control and direction of work that Braverman helped to initiate.

A “World-Class” (Labor) Camp/us: Foxconn and China's New Generation of Labor Migrants

The fact that in 2010 eighteen young workers attempted suicide at Foxconn production facilities in China has attracted worldwide attention. Drawing on research conducted in Foxconn factories in three regions of China—the Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta, and West China—the authors trace the development of the Foxconn Technology Group as a case that demonstrates the aggressive nature of capital expansion in China and its impact on the lives of Chinese workers. While the Foxconn Group produces Apple products for the world's consumers, it simultaneously produces a new Chinese working class, the majority of whom are young migrant laborers. The authors claim that in China the state played a significant role in accelerating global capital accumulation. The authors hope to make sense of the way that a state-capital alliance is shaping a new form of labor recruitment and labor use. This article analyzes the emerging labor regime, specifically, the use of student labor in the process of Foxconn's expansion in China. First, the article discusses the ways in which the state contributes to the rise of monopoly capital by supplying workers who are both cheaper and younger. Second, the article examines how the new labor regime, established by Foxconn, generates more pressure on workers, leading to increased levels of anxiety and desperation among young factory workers. The article's principal research question is how a labor crisis was structurally produced in a mega global factory regime, when a new youth working class was emergent in China.

Is the Neo-Marxian monopoly capital framework still valid?: Reviewing Foster and McChesney’s The Endless Crisis

This review essay examines John Bellamy Foster and Robert W.McChesney’s recent book, The Endless Crisis: How Monopoly-Finance Capital Produces Stagnation and Upheaval from the U.S.A. to China(New York: Monthly Review Press, 2012). The eruption of the global financial crisis and the ongoing ‘Great Recession’ worldwide requires a coherent Marxian theory that seeks to explain complex interactions between the real and financial sides of an economy in their historical and social contexts. Foster and McChesney suggest, in this connection, that Paul Sweezy and Paul Baran’s neo-Marxian analyses of American monopoly capital, initially proposed in the late 1940-1960s, are still valid for analyzing contemporary global economic phenomena. The two authors reappraise this neo-Marxian theme of monopoly capital and its prediction of the secular stagnation tendency in most advanced capitalist economies. They also claim that the increasing degree of financial bubble-bust cycles and various kinds of speculative activities that they call financialization is one of the most fundamental features of the monopoly stage of capitalism. After carefully reviewing their core arguments, however, the reviewer suggests that their theories of the relationship between monopoly capital and the secular stagnation tendency,the relationship between monopoly capital and the financialization, and the relationship between monopoly capital and changing nature of market competition still need further theoretical clarification and more empirical support.

Mainstream Economics' Flight from Complexity

By the late 1800s, Walras' mathematical model of a market system and Marshall's detailed description of individual markets captured the thought processes of most economists, and since then the quest for mathematical precision and the emphasis on mechanics over realism have further narrowed the scope of economic analysis. This paper examines several specific cases where overly simplistic and unrealistic models dominate despite evidence that the real world is more complex and fundamentally different from what the models suggest. For example, macroeconomists simplify their analysis by requiring mathematically tractable microfoundations of macroeconomic outcomes. Econometric practice has shifted toward single equation estimation models and away from systems of equations, often arbitrarily using instrumental variables to isolate simple relationships from systemic influences. Even economic growth theory uses static aggregate equilibrium models to explain inherently complex dynamic relationships. Among the probable causes of mainstream economics' retreat from real world complexity is the power of culture, which pushes economists to close ranks around unrealistic paradigms. These tendencies are reinforced by the active urging of wealthy interests who protect their privilege in the status quo of monopoly capitalism. The paper concludes with a call for heterodox economists to actively push our field out of its unrealistic and unproductive methodological box by undertaking all economic analysis from a holistic perspective and clearly positioning economic discussions and issues in the interconnected economic/social/natural spheres of human existence. In short, heterodox economists must undertake the difficult task of pushing our profession to respect and appreciate complexity.

Is the Neo-Marxian Monopoly Capital Framework Still Valid? Reviewing Foster and Mcchesney's &lt;i&gt;The Endless Crisis&lt;/i&gt;

This review essay examines John Bellamy Foster and Robert W.McChesney’s recent book, The Endless Crisis: How Monopoly-Finance Capital Produces Stagnation and Upheaval from the U.S.A. to China(New York: Monthly Review Press, 2012). The eruption of the global financial crisis and the ongoing ‘Great Recession’ worldwide requires a coherent Marxian theory that seeks to explain complex interactions between the real and financial sides of an economy in their historical and social contexts. Foster and McChesney suggest, in this connection, that Paul Sweezy and Paul Baran’s neo-Marxian analyses of American monopoly capital, initially proposed in the late 1940-1960s, are still valid for analyzing contemporary global economic phenomena. The two authors reappraise this neo-Marxian theme of monopoly capital and its prediction of the secular stagnation tendency in most advanced capitalist economies. They also claim that the increasing degree of financial bubble-bust cycles and various kinds of speculative activities that they call financialization is one of the most fundamental features of the monopoly stage of capitalism. After carefully reviewing their core arguments, however, the reviewer suggests that their theories of the relationship between monopoly capital and the secular stagnation tendency,the relationship between monopoly capital and the financialization, and the relationship between monopoly capital and changing nature of market competition still need further theoretical clarification and more empirical support.

Monopoly Capital and Capitalist Inefficiency

This paper examines the arguments and assertions of Baran’s and Sweezy’s Monopoly Capital: An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order (1966) by assessing the degree of economic efficiency or inefficiency in how surplus value and economic surplus were created by 16 major capitalist economies during the 2000s using data envelopment analysis (DEA). After assigning a score to the degree of economic efficiency/inefficiency for each country, one can then assess which factors influence the degree of efficiency/inefficiency. This paper finds empirical support for many of the arguments put forth by the authors, Baran and Sweezy, as well as others regarding the inefficiency of the use of some forms of economic activity to help absorb economic surplus and to create surplus value.

Monopoly capital and capitalist inefficiency

This paper examines the arguments and assertions of Baran’s and Sweezy’s Monopoly Capital: An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order (1966) by assessing the degree of economic efficiency or inefficiency in how surplus value and economic surplus were created by 16 major capitalist economies during the 2000s using data envelopment analysis (DEA). After assigning a score to the degree of economic efficiency/inefficiency for each country, one can then assess which factors influence the degree of efficiency/inefficiency. This paper finds empirical support for many of the arguments put forth by the authors, Baran and Sweezy, as well as others regarding the inefficiency of the use of some forms of economic activity to help absorb economic surplus and to create surplus value.

Sweezyian Financial Instability Hypothesis—Monopoly Capital, Inflation, Financialization, Inequality and Endless Stagnation

From the standpoint of monopoly capital theory, this paper argues that oligopolistic capitalism is internally unstable. The instability manifests from the historical evolution of finance within oligopolistic capitalism. The historical rise of oligopolistic capitalism has given rise to price fluctuations; (non-financial) firms have increasingly relied on financial firms to guarantee prices. At the level of the individual firm, this increase in future markets has reduced risk and tended to increase production. However, at the macro-economic level the increase in financial speculation has generated greater instability and inequality. This paper theorizes this macro-economic instability and inequality, along with the increase in the rate of exploitation by means of “financial expropriation.”

AS ESCOLAS DE SAMBA COMO RESULTADO E RESULTANTE DO PROCESSO DE PRODUÇÃO DO ESPAÇO URBANO NO/DO RIO DE JANEIRO

The purpose of this article is to analyse the samba schools as agent in the production of city space in which, on the one hand, they are the result of the contradictions between appropriation-denial and domination-consent within urban space of the city of Rio de Janeiro and, on the other hand, they result in such contradictions. Based on this assumption, the space-time delimitation of the research is circumscribed to the carnival associations in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro from the 1970s, correlatively to the process of becoming super schools of samba of joint-stock companies that, intensified since this decade so far, converges toward the growing participation of monopoly capital in financing of them.

Braverman, o Estado e a "administração consensual"

Este artigo tem por objetivo discutir o papel do Estado, no plano da economia capitalista, a partir do capítulo sobre esse tema, do livro Trabalho e capital monopolista, de Harry Braverman. Inicialmente, o texto analisa e atualiza os quatro ângulos ou dimensões apontadas por Braverman, quanto ao papel do Estado: o consumo, a internacionalização do capital, a assistência social e a prestação de serviços básicos. Em seguida, identifica outras dimensões que não foram destacadas pelo teórico norte-americano e, então, avança em direção à contemporaneidade, levantando três novas funções que emergiram da crise geral dos anos 1970 e 1980 e da crise aberta em 2008. O estudo é realizado por meio de pesquisa bibliográfica e da consulta a documentos técnicos, além de periódicos. A conclusão é de que o papel do Estado em face do capitalismo contemporâneo elevou-se a um grau em que as fronteiras entre o público e o privado estão desaparecendo sob um novo caráter do Estado. Esse novo caráter, marcado pela estreita vinculação entre os governos e as empresas, inclui o abandono da distinção entre valor público e valor privado, impulsiona a transformação de todos os valores em mercadoria e torna obsoleto o debate sobre intervenção e tamanho do Estado.

Trajetórias de vida e de trabalho flexíveis: o processo de trabalho pós-Braverman

O artigo analisa características do processo de trabalho, após 40 anos da publicação do livro "Trabalho e capitalismo monopolista: a degradação do trabalho no século XX", de Harry Braverman. O foco recai na flexibilidade, característica cada vez mais requerida dos trabalhadores, no mercado de trabalho globalizado e movido à velocidade eletrônica. Generalizar a flexibilidade restringe entendimento de seus diferentes usos nos processos e relações de trabalho. Assim, são examinadas duas formas de utilização da flexibilidade: (1) no chão de fábrica, com a introdução de multifuncionalidade, trabalho em equipe, solicitação por maior qualificação e garantia de qualidade; (2) por meio de contratos atípicos de trabalho. As duas formas são exemplificadas por duas pesquisas, realizadas em momentos históricos e contextos específicos. A primeira, por uma pesquisa em indústrias do Rio Grande do Sul, durante a reestruturação produtiva dos anos 1990. A segunda, pela introdução de formas atípicas de contratação na Itália, a partir dos anos 2000. Esta última, baseia-se em depoimentos de trabalhadores italianos a uma enquete nacional sobre a flexibilização de contratos de trabalho, realizado em forma de blog, por um importante jornal. A escolha por examinar os diferentes momentos de aplicação da flexibilidade decorre da convicção de que há um aprofundamento do uso dessa estratégia produtiva, com consequências para o trabalho e trabalhadores. Algumas interrogações, já presentes em pesquisas anteriores, são renovadas no artigo. A principal refere-se aos impactos da flexibilidade nas relações de trabalho, desde os primórdios de sua aplicação.