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This article represents a systematic presentation of the post-Keynesian alternative to mainstream economic theory. It places observation of reality at the centre of the investigation and derives — through an in-depth examination of post-Keynesian literature — an analytical model capable of interpreting the behaviour of firms in a capitalistic market economy. The chapter on which this article focuses is in a book covering the core elements of this heterodox model, which creates a coherent framework for investigating and interpreting the workings of an economic system that approximates reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Connecting comparative political economy (CPE) approaches, as the Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) theory, with post-Keynesian (PK) research on different demand and growth regimes in modern capitalism has recently given rise to some interesting claims regarding differentiation and shifts of demand and growth regimes. However, we find some difficulties in the way PK approaches have been interpreted and integrated in modern CPE approaches. Therefore, we first provide a theoretically consistent and empirically applicable classification of demand and growth regimes under the conditions of finance-dominated capitalism, as it recently has been proposed by PK authors. Second, instead of using the traditional VoC dual classification, we focus on a more differentiated welfare model classification, which can be seen as different socio-institutional responses towards the challenges of globalisation and financialisation. For the period before the 2007-9 crisis, we link the PK demand and growth regimes with five socio-economic models identified by Hay and Wincott (2012), and thus provide an alternative approach. Third, going beyond the current debate, we examine the regime shifts after the 2007-9 global crisis with respect to the demand and growth regimes, and we also examine the changes within the welfare models. Whereas we find a clear pattern for the shift of demand and growth regimes, the changes in the welfare models are not as clear-cut. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops an analytical approach to comparative political economy that focuses on the relative importance of different components of aggregate demand—in the first instance, exports and household consumption—and dynamic relations among the “demand drivers” of growth. We illustrate this approach by comparing patterns of economic growth in Germany, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom over the period 1994–2007. Our discussion emphasizes that export-led growth and consumption-led growth have different implications for distributive conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here I explore the possibility that capitalism is today undergoing the systemic equivalent to Marx's notion of primitive accumulation, only now as a deepening of advanced capitalism predicated on the destruction of more traditional forms of capitalism. I focus on two diverse instances which share a common systemic logic: expulsing people from more traditional capitalist encasements. One instance is that of countries devastated by an imposed debt and debt-servicing regime which took priority over all other state expenditures; at its most extreme, the ensuing devastation of traditional economies and traditional states has made the land more valuable to the global market than the people on it. The other instance, which I see as a systemic equivalent to the first, is the potential for global replication of the financial innovation that destroyed 15 million plus households in the US in two years, with many more to come; household destruction at this scale devastates whole areas of cities, and leaves vacant land. How this rapidly growing expanse of vacant land will be reincorporated into global capital circuits is not yet clear. I examine these two cases through a specific lens: the transformative processes that expand the base of current advanced capitalism, with particular attention to the assemblages of specific processes, institutions, and logics that enabled this systemic transformation. En este articulo exploro la posibilidad de que el capitalismo esta pasando actualmente por el equivalente sistemico a la nocion de Marx sobre la acumulacion primitiva, solo que ahora como un aumento al capitalismo avanzado predicado en la destruccion de mas formas tradicionales de capitalismo. Me enfoco en dos casos diversos que comparten una logica sistemica comun: la expulsion de personas de un encajonamiento capitalista mas tradicionalista. Una muestra es la de los paises devastados por una deuda impuesta y un regimen de servicio de deuda que tomo prioridad sobre todos los demas gastos del estado; y en su maximo extremo, la consecuente devastacion de las economias y de los estados tradicionales hizo que la tierra tuviera mayor valor en el mercado global, que la gente que vive en la misma. Otro problema, que yo veo como un equivalente sistemico al primero, es el potencial de una replica de la innovacion financiera que destruyo a mas de 15 millones de hogares en E.E.U.U. en dos anos y que seguira afectando en el futuro; la destruccion de hogares a esta escala devasta areas completas de ciudades y deja terrenos sin construir. No esta claro que tanto tomara la reincorporacion de esta rapida expansion de terrenos sin construir, a los circuitos capitales globales. Examino estos dos casos a traves de una lente especifica: los procesos transformadores que expanden la base del capitalismo avanzado actual, con una atencion particular al ensamble especifico de procesos, instituciones y logica que habilita esta transformacion sistemica. [image omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]