Capitalism, development and empowerment of labour : a heterodox political economy / Hartmut Elsenhans.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Elsenhans, Hartmut, 1941- author.

Series:

Routledge frontiers of political economy.

Routledge Frontiers of Political Economy

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Capitalism.

Globalization--Economic aspects.

Globalization.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (237 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Routledge, 2022.

Summary:

"In economics, the dominant neoliberal approach presents politics and political economy as nuisances which disturb the smooth operation of self-regulating markets. But political economy is not merely an academic issue - it is a class issue - and this book forcefully argues that political economy should return to a central position in the study of the social sciences. This book offers nothing less than a reconciliation of Marxian, Keynesian, and neoclassical economics. This model of political economy is used to analyse global capitalism, with an emphasis on the impact of globalization on the Global South. The book opens with a discussion of the key economic concepts which help to sustain capitalism: price, income, profit, value, growth and crisis. It is shown that under capitalism these concepts are all interconnected because the very emergence of capitalism resulted from the mass empowerment of the so-called "lower orders" through tightly controlled employment and income distribution. And in the Global South today it is clear that enormous riches go hand in hand with widespread misery and poverty because the market does not transform wealth into the kind of investment which might benefit the have-nots. The book argues that the new wealth triggered by productivity increases has enabled the rich to liberate themselves from the capitalist constraints of competition in order to waste their new wealth in the form of rents. The main threat today is, in fact, the globalization of rent. This book demonstrates the analytical power of political economy for all social scientists and will be invaluable reading for economists, political scientists and sociologists in particular. Hartmut Elsenhans is Professor emeritus at the Global and European Studies Institute, Leipzig, Germany"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Cover

Half Title

Series Page

Title Page

Copyright Page

Table of Contents

List of figures

List of tables

Acknowledgements

About the author

Introduction

Chapter 1 The determination of prices: The relevance of value theory against the centrality of the egalitarian foundation of flexibility and efficiency in capitalism

Summary

Marx's argument

Value formation by spending on labour which is required for making a useful product

The category of abstract labour

Value formation on account of usefulness

Why are elasticities important for social scientists?

The supply side of the balance between demand and production

Who creates the value? Prices and profit

The issue of flexibility instead of the attribution of value to social actors

References

Chapter 2 The macroeconomics of profit, crisis and growth in capitalism

On profit and rent

Endogenous money

Profit depends on net investment spending

Profits are boosted by government deficit spending and export surpluses

Profit and net investment depend on rising mass incomes

The creation of demand through capital deepening

Annexe 2.1 Extending the basic Keynesian model by government deficit spending and export surpluses

Annexe 2.2 The requirement of falling unit costs of production and the microeconomic dependence of capital deepening on rising labour costs (real wages)

Annexe 2.3 The viability of capitalist growth without rising wages on the basis of capital deepening

List of symbols

Notes

Chapter 3 Rising mass incomes as a safeguard for capitalism

Multiplier, accelerator and oscillatory movements in capitalist growth

Marx's tendency of the rate of profit to fall

Enlarged reproduction without rising mass incomes.

Neoliberal pre-Keynesians: too much state intervention and illusory demand management

Capitalism = saving on capital

Annexe 3.1 The multiplier and the accelerator

Annexe 3.2 At constant wages an increase in the organic composition of capital is possible only if the rate of profit increases

Chapter 4 Rent blocks capitalism: Today's underdeveloped world

Marginality and its consequences of blocking capitalist transformation

Marginality and patterns of growth

Unequal specialisation and the dominance of growth-impeding patterns of production in the Global South

Exploitation and unequal exchange: the terms of trade problematique

New rents from international specialisation

Note

Chapter 5 On the intelligent use of rent for overcoming underdevelopment

Development as a combination of economic, cultural and political change: import-substituting industrialisation and economic and political modernisation

Land reform and its economic dynamics

The political dimension of managing rent and the contradictions of rent-based state classes

The successful marrying of rent allocation and export-oriented manufacturing

Pragmatism instead of theoretical orthodoxy

Chapter 6 The globalisation of an underconsumptionist threat and the emergence of a doomsday scenario of globalisation

Some figures on globalisation

A convoy versus a doomsday pattern of globalisation

Hierarchies in the international division of labour

Internal contradictions of capitalism and its external expansion, or: the pitfalls of the theory of imperialism

The challenges of globalisation: a global underconsumptionist crisis

The shifting balance against labour in the West

Chapter 7 The globalisation of rent.

Summary

Fighting the decline of capitalism: financialisation and the rise of the state

The rise of financialisation

On economic bases and mechanisms: limited price competition and ample credit supply

States become hostages of financial markets

The rise of short-term capital movements and the detachment of financial markets from the real economy

The ultimate state guarantee for financial markets: overcoming instability by extending rent

Implications of a rise of rent in the global system of states

Chapter 8 The alternative: Defending mass interests and capitalism through rising mass demand: some concluding considerations

The capitalist countries and rising mass incomes

The saving trap

Environmental protection as the new frontier of capital accumulation

The contribution of the marginality-ridden world to maintaining world demand in line with world productive capacities

Alienation is acceptable and liberating

On preserving capitalism by labour

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-00-318251-8

1-003-18251-8

1-000-43595-4

9781003182511

OCLC:

1259590467