| John Eatwell On The Bomb Sraffa Planted At The Foundations Of Economics |
- James Galbraith on Dismal Economics, reviewing books by Mason Gaffney and Fred Harrison, Stephen Marglin, Alessandro Roncaglia, and Robert Skidelsky.
- Jane Gleeson-White, in the Guardian, on accounting, unpaid care work, and the biosphere.
- A blog post pointing out Bob Murphy's confusions and mistakes on the implications of the Cambridge Capital Controversy for the Austrian school. Compare and contrast with here.
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4 comments:
http://www.saveriomariafratini.it/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/wp-254.pdf
https://books.google.de/books?hl=es&lr=&id=IEEBEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA89&ots=-dqNLRZ2jr&sig=B1xfFyjm3Uv7JJBkcN9a7d4l7mo#v=onepage&q&f=false
Eatwell, J. (2019). ‘“Cost of production” and the theory of the rate of profit’.Contributions to Political Economy, 38(1): 31–58.
PS: It is always good to listen to Lord Eatwell again.
As to "elsewhere", here is another very short work that I found on the intertubes that could be also subtitled "Prelude to a critique of economic theory":
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ECk1DDBWsAABcAq?format=jpg
«https://books.google.de/books?hl=es&lr=&id=IEEBEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA89»
“The classical/Marxian approach, in which -- as we shall see -- capital is understood as the amount of value that allows producers to pay costs in advance, before revenues are obtained, and profit is a residual -- a surplus value. [...] capital is necessary in order to finance the expenses of production, and this is the reason why capitalists are the only possible organizers of the production processes (point iv)”
My impression is that is a distorted outline of classical/Marxian political economy, which assumes that financial capitalism is the only possible form of capitalism, and that employers therefore are not capitalists, only lenders and other investors are capitalists. It also seems to embody the accounting definition of "profits", as a residual, with the original definition of a rent ("sur-plus"-value) on top of value-added ("plus"-value). Terminology is arbitrary, but knowing its evolution can be illuminating as to the meaning.
Unfortunately K Marx wrote somewhat obscurely in the hegelian style, and when he wrote the seemingly absurd "capital is a social relationship" what I think he meant was:
* By definition, the "means of production" are not "capital" if used by their owner.
* By definition, the "means of production" are "capital" if used by the employees of their owner.
* Therefore the difference that turns the "means of production" into "capital" is the social relationship between employer and employee, and therefore "capital" "is" (in a sense that would be used by some philosopher) that social relationship.
That is regardless of whether "labour-power" is paid in advance or in arrears, or whether the "means of production" are already owned by the employer or need to be rented or purchased using finance capital.
«James Galbraith on Dismal Economics»
Interesting! It is mostly concordant with what Steve Keen (and myself in random comments repeating him and M Gaffney etc.) have been writing (Steve Keen in lucid books and articles for a long time, myself for 15 years in random comments).
It is particularly pleasing for me that JM Galbraith is mentioning the M Gaffney observation that JB Clark is responsible for turning marginalism into rent-denialism (along with R Ely and F Walker, which I have seen mentioned here and there, but I don't know much about).
My usual link to the excellent site collecting most of the late M Gaffney's works:
https://masongaffney.org/publications.html
In particular:
K-1. "Neo-classical Economics as a Stratagem Against Henry George," in Fred Harrison, The Corruption of Economics. London: Shepheard-Walwyn Publishing Co. pp. 29-164, i
https://masongaffney.org/publications/K1Neo-classical_Stratagem.CV.pdf
K-2008."Keeping Land in Capital Theory: Ricardo, Faustmann, Wicksell, and George," AJES 67(1) January 2008. For annual meeting of History of Economics Society (H.E.S.), Grinnell College, June 25, 2006
https://masongaffney.org/publications/K2008_Keeping_Land_in_Capital_Theory.pdf
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