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Most scholars interpret Marx's prices of production as those which achieve simple reproduction assuming profit rates are equal and all capitals turn over completely each year. The dynamics of equalization, as circulation intertwines with production over the business cycle, is absent. The traditional 'Marxist' equation for the profit rate likewise considers only simple reproduction. This leaves a gap in our understanding of Marx, particularly regarding the impact of turnover time on the profit rate, one of Ricardo's original problems which Marx claimed to solve. Starting from a critique of Veronese Passarella's and Baron's attempt to extend the traditional equation to expanded reproduction, I develop a more general equation showing how changes in turnover times, rate of surplus value and accumulation affect the equalization process, the formation of the general profit rate and hence of prices of production. Finally, considering Moseley's introduction to the recently published translation of a 27-page excerpt from Marx's Economic Manuscript of 1867–1868, I suggest an equation for decomposing the profit adjustment during equalization. JEL Classification: B24, B51, E11. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The abstracts from the December 2024 issue of the Review of Radical Political Economics cover various topics related to Marxist theory and economic analysis. The articles explore themes such as colonization, servitude, globalization, monetary supply fluctuations, fiscal crises in capitalist countries, and the dynamics of labor exploitation. The issue also includes discussions on the nature of vulnerability in labor exploitation, cost dynamics in fragmented industries, and the centrality of labor in Marx's philosophy. Additionally, there are book reviews and announcements in Chinese and Spanish. [Extracted from the article]

Marx's concepts of commodity and money fetishism explain the perception that money and commodities have "value," presumably as part of their intrinsic properties. In fact, the exchange value of commodities and money results from living labor and the extraction of surplus value. With a historic review of the institutions for production, circulation, and credit, this appearance of capitalism can be explained. Further, the view that money is valuable in itself can lead to overexpansion of credit, stagnation, and instability. The attribution of "value" to living labor and the environment instead of money would result in different policies and priorities, and a more stable and equitable economy, rather than "financialization" and crises. JEL Classification : N23, G15, G23, B52 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In chapter 15 of volume 2 of Capital, Marx introduced the concept of set-free money capital during the turnover process of industrial capital, positing its role in the credit system. Saros further formalized this process, suggesting that set-free money capital could serve as loanable funds, impacting the credit system. This article advances this research by making three significant contributions. Firstly, it offers a more succinct formalization of the turnover process, improving pedagogical clarity. Secondly, it reinterprets the significance of set-free money capital within the modern credit money system using post-Keynesian endogenous money theory, linking production directly to the money supply. Lastly, it demonstrates through simulations that production structure influences the periodic fluctuations of set-free money capital at the macro level, affecting the money supply. JEL Classification : B51, E32, E51 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concluding chapter of Karl Marx's Capital (volume 1) has received remarkably little scholarly commentary. This is especially surprising as Marx addresses there "the modern theory of colonization" developed by Edward Gibbon Wakefield. But rather than systematically pursue the issue of colonialism, Marx investigates Wakefield's theory in order to illuminate the processes of primitive accumulation (or "originary dispossession") that gave birth to capitalism in Europe. This article suggests directions in which Marx ought to have gone in order to analyze the globalization of capitalism outside of Europe by means of colonialism. In so doing, it proposes the need to recenter bondage, slavery, colonialism, and racism as constitutive elements of capitalism as a global system. JEL Classification: B51, N3, P1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This brief note concentrates solely on a section of the first part of The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy, specifically "Karl Marx on 'Production' Labour." I discuss several issues: Mazzucato's understanding of Marx's distinction between productive and unproductive labor (henceforth PUPL), her terminological vagueness and mistakes, and some inaccurate bibliographic and factual information. JEL Classification : B0, B5, P1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explains the three dimensions of Marx's philosophy of work: work as production, work as subjectivation, and work as integration. From this, the article defends the following thesis: while Marx allows us to shed much light on exploitation (social pathology of work as production) and alienation (social pathology of work as subjectivation), in particular in capitalism, nonetheless, he lacks an understanding of the ins and outs of emancipation as it is effectively deployed in our wage societies, far from the radicalism of his communist utopia. JEL Classification: B14, B40, B52 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the theory of exploitation which Marx sets out in Capital. It argues that Marx assumes that there are five modes of extraction of surplus value. These are associated with the following principles: (1) extended duration of the working day; (2) enhanced productivity (due to the introduction of new technology); (3) efficient organization of the process of production; (4) increased intensity of labour and (5) depressed consumption of the labourer. The article argues that Marx's theory of exploitation is not as systematic as it could have been. For this reason it is ripe for a theoretical reconstruction. The article also discusses the views of recent commentators who have developed the idea of 'super-exploitation', which is taken from Marx's writings. There is a tendency in this literature to associate this notion with the principle of depressed consumption and to argue that it is especially relevant for understanding of what is happening in the societies of the Global South. Those concerned identify this as a third mode of extracting surplus value, in addition to the principle of extended duration (absolute surplus value) and enhanced productivity (relative surplus value). The article argues that this procedure overlooks certain aspects of Marx's theory of exploitation, especially those having to do with the efficient organization or rational administration of labour within the process of production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a case study of taxi platforms in Oslo, Norway comprised of interviews with drivers and an ethnographic fieldwork working a driver, this article explores the platformization of the Norwegian taxi industry and the drivers' working conditions through Marx's concept of subsumption. In Norway, taxi platforms emerged in an already formally subsumed industry. The platforms have developed a new market segment, and also introduced an additional element in the subsumption of labor, whereby the platforms exert control over the market relations (by determining number of rides, earnings, and potential exclusions) through digital technology. While the platforms' 'algorithmic management' is often described as a technology that might reorganize the world of work, the analysis finds that this form of control does not radically transform the drivers' labor processes and cannot be seen as an example of what Marx termed real subsumption. However, the platformization of the industry, wherein the platforms appropriate the social and technological conditions of production, might result in a reorganization and transformation corresponding to a real subsumption in the future. The article concludes that exploring platform work through Marx's notion of subsumption highlights, on one hand, the relation between platforms and workers as characterized by subordination and domination and, on the other, that a detailed and critical assessment of the actual consequences of platform-based control is necessary to capture the contextual dynamics of platformization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the distinction between money-as-money dealing capital (MMDC) and money-as-capital dealing capital (MCDC), laying the foundations for new developments in the field of Marxian political economy. First, it explains why banks, which manage the circulation of money-as-money, are able to issue instruments that perform monetary functions, and also why non-bank financial intermediaries, which manage the circulation of money-as-capital, tend to become increasingly important as the capitalist mode of production evolves. The distinction between MMDC and MCDC also allows for a more thorough understanding of the nature of Marx's category of interest-bearing capital (IBC), explaining when and why a capital's net income takes the form of profit and interest, unveiling the mechanisms that produce the (socially valid) illusion that every capital bears interest. JEL Classification: B14, B26, E11, E43, E44 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is imperative to explore the contribution of the Indian state to the country's impressive long-term growth performance during the free-market era, given the looming demand deficiency problem arising from this iniquitous growth process. Drawing on Marx's idea of circuit of capital, this article investigates the various ways in which the state contributes to the process of accumulation and economic growth, especially in the context of India during the period of market-oriented reforms. Additionally, this study aims to trace the changing nature of interventions of the Indian state to ascertain the domain and extent of its withdrawal and continued presence. Furthermore, it investigates the interventions undertaken by the Indian state to sustain or cushion the growth momentum at times of economic downturn during the free-market era. JEL Classification : B51, E62, O11, P16 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Critique of Gotha Programme, Karl Marx famously argues that a communist society will be characterised by the principle, 'From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs!' I take up a question about this principle that was originally posed by G.A. Cohen, namely: what makes communism (so conceived) possible for Marx? In reply to this question, Cohen interprets Marx as saying that communism is possible because of limitless abundance, a view that Cohen takes to be implausible for ecological reasons. I develop a new interpretation of Marx's position. On this interpretation, people in communist society achieve self-realisation through providing others with the goods and services required for their self-realisation. Coupled with a reasonably high (but not immense) development of productive power, self-realisation generates conditions in which people can produce according to their abilities and receive according to their needs. I defend this view as an interpretation of Marx and I argue that it represents a more plausible account of what makes communism possible than Cohen's interpretation in which technological advance and limitless abundance play the predominant role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the state's contemporary role in capital accumulation in the development of public land. In the literature, it is argued that the state goes beyond a regulatory role and participates in the capital-accumulation process as the owner of land or financial assets derived from land-based revenue, thus transforming from an external to an internal actor. It is argued that, in this way, the state governs urban development and the distribution of the land rent. This article argues that in the privatisation of land before development, the state is involved as the regulator and landowner, as suggested in the literature; however, when the state participates in the development of public land through public-private partnerships led by entrepreneurial state agencies and state-owned companies, it is also involved in production, trade and finance. In the latter case, the state manipulates the distribution, and its revenue consists not only of land rent but also of profit. Based on Marx's analysis of the total circuit of capital, which does not include the forms of state involvement, the article attempts to elucidate contemporary transformations in the state-capital relationship in the development of public land. It claims that the new government strategies aim to address problems of capital accumulation and state finance through land development. The article is based on an analysis of official data on the practices and revenue of three state agencies engaged in land privatisation and development in Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this scholarly enquiry, we delve into the confluence of Karl Marx's theory of alienation and contemporary approaches to fostering employee engagement. It contends that Marx's profound insights into the estrangement experienced by workers furnish a robust framework for comprehending and remedying workplace disengagement. By scrutinising the facets of alienation—such as detachment from the fruits of labour, the labour process itself, one's inherent humanity and colleagues—this study identifies strategic interventions to cultivate a more dedicated and engaged workforce. Through a critical evaluation of modern organisational strategies, this paper proposes that addressing the foundational roots of alienation via empowerment, acknowledgement, meaningful tasks and supportive atmospheres can notably enhance employee engagement and organisational effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relationship between materialism and philosophical idealism in the political philosophy of Marxist revolutionary movements, by illuminating the influence of Neo-Confucian idealism on the sinification of Marxism. Although they had virtually no access to the writings of the young Marx, Li Dazhao and Mao Zedong incorporated idealist philosophical ideas into their sinified Marxism. I argue that three elements of Neo-Confucian idealism contributed to the sinification of Marxism that emerged by the 1940s: (1) acknowledgment of the real existence of the material world as apprehended by the mind-and-heart in Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucianism; (2) emphasis on human will and consciousness, drawn from Wang Yangming's Neo-Confucianism; and (3) recognition of an autonomous, even decisive role of consciousness and culture in revolutionary change. The resulting sinified Marxism constituted a revolutionary New Confucianism, highlighting the most universal, humanistic, liberative elements in the Chinese philosophical tradition. These community-affirming and spiritually rich elements can be mobilized against authoritarian forces to support the continuing struggle for human rights and democratization within and well beyond China today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A production boundary consistent with Marx's theory of value may be drawn around labor that is quantitatively predicated by output at the point of exchange, as opposed to being merely causally predicated. The key difference between that production boundary and received Marxist doctrine on unproductive labor is that all other labor is excluded, rather than only such other labor that also falls to be treated as forming part of the "sphere of circulation." Alternatively put, both sides of the "smile curve" are unproductive of value, rather than just the right-hand side. This conclusion substantiates the analytical nexus as between material production and global inequality to be found in critical global value chain literature. JEL Classification : B51, D43, D46, F66, O34 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book review titled "Book Review: Pollution Is Colonialism" discusses Max Liboiron's book, which offers a radical perspective on science and technology studies (STS) from an anticolonial standpoint. Liboiron, the founder of the Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR), explores the ethics of data collection and use, emphasizing the importance of good land relations and anticolonialism. The review highlights the book's critique of dominant science, particularly in the field of economics, and its call for a comprehensive transformation of thinking and living to address pollution and promote good land relations. The reviewer suggests that the book's insights are valuable for political economy and advocates for a recognition of the planet as land rather than a resource. [Extracted from the article]

Marx's account of technical progress has been criticized by philosophers as being a metanarrative, by ecological economists as being unduly strong, by economists as being unduly weak, and by post-Sraffian authors as being ill-founded. This article discusses Marx's account of technical progress in light of these criticisms on a conceptual, theoretical, and empirical level, relying on the apparatus of wage curves. It argues that some of the critiques cannot be sustained, since the criticized positions cannot be attributed to Marx. The remaining critiques, in turn, amount to alternative predictions on the evolution of wage curves which are, however, and in contrast to those of Marx, not in line with empirical evidence, as the estimation of wage curves for thirteen countries from 2000 to 2013 shows. JEL Classification : B14, B24, O33 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to assess clinical and functional outcomes in separate cohorts of operatively and nonoperatively managed pediatric patella fractures. Methods: A retrospective review was completed for patients aged 5–19 years treated for a unilateral patella fracture at a single pediatric level-1 trauma center. Patients were excluded for osteochondral fracture associated with patellar dislocation, polytrauma presentation with additional fractures, or <3 months of clinical follow-up. Functional outcomes were assessed via the Pediatric International Knee Documentation Committee form and the Marx Knee Activity Scale. Results: A total of 53 patients met inclusion criteria; 30 patients were treated operatively and 23 patients were treated nonoperatively. Patients with patellar sleeve/pole fractures were significantly younger by 5.2 years (p < 0.01) and presented with greater variability in mechanism of injury (p < 0.01). The nonoperative cohort achieved bony healing and returned to sports at a median (interquartile range) of 1.7 (1.2–2.3) months and 2.8 (2.3–3.3) months, respectively, post-injury. The operative group achieved bony healing and returned to sports at 2.8 (2.1–3.5) months and 5.9 (4.0–7.1) months, respectively, following surgery. Median (interquartile range) Pediatric International Knee Documentation Committee and Marx scores were 98 (89–100) and 14 (10–16), respectively, for the nonoperative group, and 92 (84–99) and 13 (12–16), respectively, for the operative group. No significant differences in patient-reported outcomes were observed between fracture patterns or treatment cohorts. Conclusion: Pediatric and adolescent patients sustaining patella fractures reported long-term functional outcomes comparable to normative values, across multiple fracture patterns and with appropriate operative and nonoperative treatment. Fractures requiring surgery were expectedly associated with slower healing and return to sport timelines. Level of evidence: Therapeutic Level III. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article engages relays between the origins of money and origins of slavery, using Marxist reconstructions of "substance" in order to approach the negative zone of anti-blackness. In one move, I read money and slavery as two sides of the same coin: expressions of anxieties concerning equivalences that cannot be in reality (money) and inequalities that persist in democratic life (slavery). In another, I continue to argue that slavery exerts an important role in the story of capitalism, not only as a past index for a "mode of production," but more importantly in encrypting a certain monetary form of domination that translates the realization of commensurability. While there have been connections drawn between the origin of freedom in slavery, the origin of subjectivity in the money-form, and the origin of money in slavery, the vanishing mediator in this triad is blackness, a negative substance whose flexible uses and appearances are driven towards its own actualized disappearance in scenes of racial violence. If money masks the impossibility of commensurability, and labor and race ground the conditions for commensurability exemplified in freedom, slavery marks the space of incommensurability itself. In the line from Aristotle to Marx, the slave can serve as the first non-substantialist origin story for exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I argue against any essentialist framing of the consumer in a context of the circulation of money and for a dialectical materialist framing of the consumer in a context of capital accumulation. I reflect on how the current conjuncture pressurises basic assumptions about everyday liveability and requires a fundamental rethink. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The eighteenth century is still the bottleneck of the history of political theory: the century that separates pre-economic theorists such as Machiavelli, Bodin and Hobbes from post-economic theorists such as Hegel, Mill and Marx. Political thinking became immeasurably much more complicated in the eighteenth century: and yet historians, after at least half a century of extremely judicious scholarship, still have difficulty explaining its significance for contemporary theory. Sagar's Adam Smith Reconsidered is an important contribution to the attempt to clarify just how modern political theorists should look backward – without hastening back to the abstractions of the seventeenth century or remaining confined to particular involutions of the nineteenth century. Its specific originality is in drawing attention to two important ideas of Adam Smith, seldom seen clearly or at all, 'the quirk of rationality' and 'the conspiracy of merchants'. Political theorists as well as historians of political thought will benefit from familiarising themselves with these ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this personal memoir of my lifelong collaborator and friend, Herb Gintis, I reflect on his "A Radical Analysis of Welfare Economics and Individual Development." Published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 1972, the article advances a novel Marx-inspired interpretation of the societal origins of preferences, one that profoundly influenced the ideas of a group of like-minded young economists at Harvard at the time, economics more broadly, and Herb and my subsequent joint work. JEL Classification: B14, B21, D01 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on Uno's new insight that in the first chapter on the commodity, the value of a commodity is not yet defined as objectified abstract labor, this article first examines the problems in Marx's value form theory and presents a new understanding of the simple, the expanded, and the general value form, and reformulates the theory of the commodity into a dialectical whole composed of the world of commodities. Second, the article responds to Elena Lange's critique of Uno's value theory. Third, the article argues that fetishism of the commodity never originates from alienated abstract labor but from a specific relationship between commodity owners; therefore, the theories of value form and fetishism of the commodity address the common theme. A reformulated theory of the value form should integrate, not omit, the fetishism of the commodity within it. JEL Classification: B14, B41, D46 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates Marx's method in the analysis of the circuits of capital, as it is carried out in Capital vol. 2, in an attempt to clarify some key aspects of the well-known problem in Marxist literature on the relation between the logical and the historical. The central question on this topic is whether Marx's analysis is logical/structural or historical. The approach elaborated upon in this article extends beyond the one-sidedness of both views which deny any kind of correlation between logical and historical sequences and the views claiming that the articulation of Capital's argument exposes a set of historical stages. We will argue that dialectic, namely, the method of ascent from the abstract to the concrete, represents, first and foremost, the inner articulation of the structure of a given self-developing object, and at the same time implicitly represents its historical development. Hence, taking Marx's analysis of the circuits of capital as a case study, this article aspires to identify the fundamental movement of the systematic dialectic, which characterizes the entire Capital and explains the fundamental function of the relation between the logical and the historical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The publication of Marx's Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (EPM) in German in 1933 immediately triggered off debate as to where the document fitted in Marx's theories generally. The obvious possibilities were first, that these writings could be dismissed as juvenilia, and that Marxism as understood by figures as diverse as Lenin, Kautsky, Bernstein, Rosa Luxemburg and Trotsky, none of whom said anything significant about alienation, could be studied and argued about while disregarding the EPM. Second, there were actually numerous reappearances of the theory of alienation in the writings of Marx after 1847, and the alienation theory must be very important in his mature writings. In what follows, I will argue the case for the unfashionable first alternative, but also be reviewing many of the arguments for and against continuity in Marx's work, hopefully making the article useful irrespective of which side one takes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, an interpretation of Marx's notions of abstraction and concretization is presented. Unlike Leszek Nowak's approach, Marx's use of idealizations is not a reversible process of adding and removing idealizing assumptions. Marx had a richer use of the term abstraction, one in which concretization involves a creative moment of conceptual innovation. Marx adds new variables and new assumptions and elaborates new categories at different levels of abstraction in order to show the unity between appearances and essences. De-idealization, according to Marx, involves both recomposition and de-isolation. Also, concretization, for Marx, does not follow a linear approximation to reality, but rather a hermeneutical circle that is constantly in the process of reframing categories to provide answers to different questions. As a case study, this article shows an interpretation of Marx's labor theory of value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book "Bourdieu and Marx: Practices of Critique" examines the intersection of the works of Pierre Bourdieu and Karl Marx. Divided into three parts, the book delves into topics such as domination, critique of economic practices and theories, and interpreting critique of ideology. The contributors offer fresh perspectives and re-readings of Bourdieu and Marx's texts, challenging common criticisms of Bourdieu and emphasizing the value of his work. The book also discusses the different intellectual contexts in which their ideas have developed and circulated, particularly highlighting the lack of emphasis on Bourdieu as a critic of neoliberalism and economic science in the British academic context. The text calls for further research and critical practice, emphasizing the importance of preserving intellectual inheritance and engaging with the ideas of Marx and Bourdieu to understand and challenge the present. [Extracted from the article]

The article by Thiem and Mkrtchyan appears in a context of rising interest about the number of cases needed to perform a QCA analysis. They question the benchmark tables proposed by Marx and Dușa (2011) and conclude the ratios from those tables are "misplaced." We believe this conclusion deviates from the scientific method and focus on two essential aspects: (1) their approach to the case to factor ratios and (2) omitted variable bias. We conclude our tables hold until a better alternative is proposed and encourage QCA researchers to continue using them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on dialogues between Michael Ball and Ben Fine, this paper proposes provisioning approaches as a way of reintegrating theoretical and institutional work on rent. Recent debates on financialisation and rent theory overlook the potential contribution of provisioning approaches because urban studies typically take the work of Ball as reference point. By looking at provisioning approaches beyond Ball, the paper shows that such approaches are already making important contributions to financialisation research. It then proposes an interpretation of provisioning approaches as extending Marx's method of moving between abstract and concrete and thereby integrating agentic and theoretic understandings of rent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In much of Western society, animals such as chickens are considered commodities. As such, they are bred and raised to produce eggs, meat, and entertainment. Farmed animal sanctuaries challenge this status quo by rescuing, rehabilitating, and caring for these animals. In so doing, sanctuaries implicitly and often explicitly challenge chickens' and other farmed animals' status as commodities. What does decommodification entail? How do we get from capitalist lively commodities to other interactions with living beings? Drawing on mixed methods ethnographic fieldwork, this paper theorizes the decommodification process, elaborating the more-than-capitalist political economy of chicken rescue and sanctuary. I make the case that the political economic work of sanctuaries begins, though occasionally tragically ends, with processes akin to hoarding. In turn, I suggest that we think of hoarding less stigmatically and more in terms of political economy, as deviant accumulation. Building on Marx's understanding of hoarding as a process of accumulating without exchanging, deviant accumulation is accumulation that challenges capitalocentric norms. As such, by taking animals out of a system of exchange value, all sanctuaries practice deviant accumulation. Deviant accumulation thus becomes a practice that is potentially radically anti-capitalist: a practice from which different and non-anthropocentric values can emerge. I explicate the concept of deviant accumulation, how sanctuaries practice it, and to what ends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I argue that Smith's continued relevance coincides with more recent retrievals of Marx-inspired materialism. This materialism and the associated understanding of human beings—the social, language, and world people share in common—certainly do not capture all there is to say about Smith's eclectic and expansive social theory. However, the material dimension distinguishes her work from many other feminist sociologies and results in her continued relevance as a thinker who brings to the table another way of doing feminist sociology. I illustrate this by showing how Smith's Marx-inspired materialism and its associated understanding of language offer a productive and timely alternative to the feminist social theory of anti-categorical intersectional theory and new materialist theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

James Crotty, who passed away earlier this year, was one of the most important but unheralded heterodox macroeconomists of his generation. In this article, we summarize what we think were some of his signal achievements—a deep synthesis of the insights of Marx and Keynes, an appreciation of the more radical implications of the Keynesian approach, and a passion for teaching relevant ideas. JEL Classification: E12, B14 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Was Keynes trying to save capitalism or create "Liberal Socialism"? Jim Crotty's unique approach to this long-standing question makes his work an outstanding contribution to heterodox macro policy. Tracing Keynes's policy positions from World War I to Keynes's death in 1946, Jim combines rich historical detail with Keynes's insistence that the realism of assumptions affects the truth content of hypotheses. Jim's book can serve as a guide to policy positions to sustain full employment through the socialization of investment under conditions of class struggle. Contrary to the position that Keynes denied class conflict, there is no fundamental contradiction between Marx's assumption of class conflict and Keynes's policy positions in support of full employment through the socialization of investment. JEL Classification: E6, E11, E12 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following Marx's general law of capitalist accumulation, the present article seeks to evaluate the impact of fixed capital stock, labor productivity, and the mass of profits on the dynamics of employment in Colombia from 1965 to 2019 using a Vector Error Correction Model. The results show that the level of employment exhibits a significant long-term relationship with both the fixed capital stock and labor productivity. In line with Marx's theory, employment expands with fixed capital stock and contracts with labor productivity. In turn, the mass of profits has positive effects on both the capital stock and labor productivity. The empirical findings also support the existence of Marx's biased technical change as well as a negative feedback effect from employment to profits. JEL Classification: J21, C21, C22, B51 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Marx's economic theory, the level of employment is fundamentally determined by capital accumulation. Nevertheless, that determination is contradictory since, on the one hand, the employment level expands with the capital stock while, on the other hand, it tends to contract with technical change and the growing productivity of labour. This article seeks to estimate this contradictory effect employing two complementary econometric methods: first, cross-sectional regression analysis for more than 100 countries in the years 2014, 2004, 1994 and 1984; second, time-series analysis for the United States, France, Japan, Turkey and Mexico from 1964 to 2014. Our empirical results are in line with Marx's theoretical framework: the level of employment grows with the expansion of fixed capital stock and reduces with increases in the productivity of labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I demonstrate that temporal domination over subjects and producers in capitalist society is Marx's central category in the critique of political economy. Hartmut Rosa who is well known in the critical tradition for his works on social acceleration refers to Marx's value theory to explain the economic motor of social acceleration in the sphere of production and distribution, but he does not reach the very depth of Marx's critique of abstract time domination and considered it as a subordinate and marginal aspect of Marx's theory. I argue that Marx's critique of class exploitation and commodification of social relations, in the final analysis, consists in the critique of domination of time over man. In particular, I articulate their relationship by representing the Hegelian onto-logical couple of essence and appearance; it is demonstrated that class exploitation as an internal and substantial structure of capitalism posits the temporal domination as an form of appearance which presupposes the first. Moreover, this article shows that class domination has taken a more inverted and mysterious form in digital capitalism through new time appropriation strategies. This implies that in contrast to Rosa who considers social acceleration above and beyond class boundaries, it still reinforces class exploitation and acts through it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article titled "Unpayable debt: What lies beneath" examines the connection between race and systemic violence experienced by black individuals. The author argues that traditional theories, such as post/Enlightenment thought and Marx's historical materialism, fail to adequately address the role of slavery and the labor of enslaved individuals in the formation of capital accumulation. The article proposes a rethinking of sociality and value, challenging separability and linear time to envision a world that does not perpetuate violence against marginalized populations. It also discusses the racial dimension of the 2007-2008 financial crisis and its impact on communities of color. The text explores the concept of racial capitalism and its relationship to Marxist theory, emphasizing the need to consider sovereignty, power, and the sociopolitical processes that shape race and racialization. The author concludes by highlighting the importance of recognizing and addressing the violence and subjugation experienced by racialized bodies to create a more just and decolonized world. [Extracted from the article]

In the effort to critically interrogate the state (and law) and global capital (and property) through Blackness as the enduring figure of the total violence of slavery and colonialism, Denise Ferreira da Silva's Unpayable Debt (2022) centrally targets the Marxian critique of capitalism (or historical materialism) as the premier example of an Enlightenment conceptual apparatus that is simply "of no use." This review rebuts Ferreira da Silva's contentions regarding Marx and Marxian critiques. Marx identifies slavery, colonialism, genocide, and warfare as necessary foundations for the very possibility of capital accumulation, rendering the colonial and racial underpinnings of capital accumulation indispensable for any viable analysis of our contemporary sociopolitical world order. As the racialized figure of the enduring legacy of enslaved labor, then, Blackness is indeed crucial for a renewal and further radicalization of Marx's theory of labor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This commentary critically engages Denise Ferreira da Silva's claim that Marxism is incapable of critically engaging the racial and capital alongside one another. It argues that, while it is true that conventional Marxists have either dismissed, undertheorized, or treated enslaved and colonial labor as ancillary to capitalist development – so-called "primitive accumulation" – rendering non-Europeans, non-proletarian laborers (and especially women of African descent) as outside the universal category of the Human, this is not necessarily representative of either Marx or Marxism. Reading Unpayable Debt alongside recent work by Lisa Lowe, Beverley Mullings, Saidiya Hartman, Nick Nesbitt, and Gary Wilder, I suggest a revisit of Marx's and Marxist's analysis of slavery, colonialism, and capitalism is necessary – and particularly the much-neglected work of Walter Rodney – in order to probe the constitutive dynamics of race, class, and gender as a constituent part and critique of capitalism and the struggle for human freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This response to Denise Ferreira da Silva's Unpayable Debt (2022) takes up the question of violence and the role it plays in Karl Marx's theorization of the capital-labor relation. Ferreira da Silva usefully highlights the way Marx, Rosa Luxemburg and David Harvey posit the violence of primitive accumulation as anterior or external to the theoretical analysis of the scene of value, including the contractual relation between the dramatis personae of the free worker and capitalist, a presupposition of the capitalist mode of production. In response, this engagement works through Marx's mode of presentation in Capital Vol. 1, arguing that the historical chapters on primitive accumulation in section eight revise and retroactively condition our understanding of the presumptive equality between capitalist and worker. By structuring the depiction of the abstract and theoretical mode of production in this way, Marx's methodology reveals the overlapping modalities of violence and their immanent relation to the juridical standing of the free worker. This essay closes by reassessing the status of the free worker, as well as Ferreira da Silva's critique, considering current conditions of neoliberal accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay holds a conversation with Denise Ferreira da Silva's book, Unpayable Debt. Ferreira da Silva describes Unpayable Debt as a Black feminist reading tool that stages the onto-epistemological conditions for the unrelenting persistence of the Colonial and the Racial—modalities of power and violence—in the present, in/as global capital. A major part of the work performed by Ferreira da Silva with this reading tool is the re/de/composition of a Marxian theory of value. This work is intended to show that Marx's analysis conceals gendered and racialized violence in the way it renders the dynamic of capitalist accumulation. In concurring with the urgency of Ferreira da Silva's question and ensuing interrogation, I offer a different way of reading Marx's theory of value, as a theory that illuminates how capital comes to mediate gendered and racialized subjugation, sustaining it through its dissimulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the Cultural Dynamics book forum on Denise Ferreira da Silva's Unpayable Debt. The book examines the epistemological principles of Western thinking that make raciality and its practical implications for the contemporary world possible. Among Ferreira da Silva's targets is Karl Marx's theory of value. Commentators respond to the author's argument, with debates on whether Marx's approach sufficiently addresses the role of race within capitalism. This introduction adds to the debate wondering whether Ferreira da Silva's framing of Marx's ideas inadvertently mirrors the post-Enlightenment pillars she criticizes in other philosophers, suggesting a potential misunderstanding of Marx's dialectics. The article winds up by emphasizing the significance of Marx's dialectics as a transformative tool to critique the commodity form and its power dynamics in a racialized world economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Underdevelopment in Peru: A Profile of Peripheral Capitalism" by Jan Lust is a comprehensive analysis of underdevelopment in Peru, focusing on its political, economic, and social aspects. Lust defines underdevelopment as the absence of sustainable inclusive economic development and argues that Peru's role in the international division of labor perpetuates this condition. The book explores various dimensions of underdevelopment, including social class structure, labor dynamics, social segmentation, the role of the state, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lust supports his insights with data from national databases and offers valuable insights into the dominance of extractive industries, informality, and the relationship between the economic base and the superstructure. However, the book could benefit from further exploration of racialization and its intersection with dependency. Overall, Lust's work provides a strong theoretical foundation and historical analysis of Peru's underdevelopment. [Extracted from the article]

Ryuji Sasaki's book, "A New Introduction to Karl Marx: New Materialism, Critique of Political Economy, and the Concept of Metabolism," provides a comprehensive analysis of Marx's work. Sasaki explores Marx's development of "new materialism" and his shift towards ecological concerns. The book is divided into three chapters, with the second chapter focusing on Marx's critique of political economy. Sasaki emphasizes the importance of labor and the concept of reification in Marx's theory. The third chapter examines Marx's interest in the concept of "metabolism" and its implications for ecology, gender, and premodern forms of community. While the book lacks attention to Engels, it offers a valuable contribution to the field of Marx studies. [Extracted from the article]

"Making Our Own History: A User's Guide to Marx's Historical Materialism" by Jonathan White is a book that aims to correct the omission of history in mainstream economics. White introduces the concept of historical and dialectical materialism, which explains societal development through contradictions in the material world rather than contradicting ideas. He argues that history is shaped by the contradictions between technological forces and property relations of production, rather than great leaders and their ideas. The book also explores the practical application of historical materialism in society, history, and politics, using examples such as the 1851 French coup d'état and the Soviet Union. While the book provides a valuable introduction to historical materialism, it does not address its critics. Overall, "Making Our Own History" is recommended for students and scholars interested in understanding Marxist thought. [Extracted from the article]

Don Munro's book, "Marx's Theory of Land, Rent and Cities," provides a comprehensive literature review of Marx's philosophy and economic analysis of land, rent, and the land property class. Munro focuses on cities and their relationship to national and global economics, addressing issues such as inequality, financialization of land, land grabbing, and climate change. The book engages with various perspectives, including Henri Lefebvre's "The Right to the City," and proposes strategies for inclusive and socially equitable urban development. Munro's work is a valuable resource for understanding Marx's theory in the context of urban development in both the Global North and South. [Extracted from the article]

This research note discusses the text of How Is Critical Economic Theory Possible, seeking to locate it in the moment of its own creation; against the object of its critique, in Das Kapital itself; and to relate it to the moment of the arrival of the Budapest School in Australia and its effects and influence on the emergent journal Thesis Eleven. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial smoothing makes use of spatial information to obtain better estimates in regression models. In particular flexible smoothing with B-splines and penalties, which has been propagated by Eilers and Marx (1996) , provides strong tools that can be used to include available spatial information. We consider alternative smoothing methods in spatial additive regression and employ them for analysing rental data in Munich. The first method applies tensor product P-splines to the geolocation of apartments, measured on a continuous scale through the centroid of the quarter where an apartment is. The alternative approach exploits the neighbourhood structure of districts on a discrete scale, where districts consist of a set of neighbouring quarters. The discrete modelling approach yields smooth estimates when using ridge-type penalties but can also enforce spatial clustering of districts with a homogeneous structure when using Lasso-type penalties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]