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Responding to criticisms of Mohun (1996) by Houston (1997) and Laibman (1999) in the RRPE, this paper explores the empirical consequences of the competing definitions proposed for productive labor, and concludes that abandoning the productive-unproductive labor distinction renders the Marxian theory of capitalist accumulation an unconvincing account of U.S. accumulation from 1948 to 1989. JEL classification: E11; E32; N12 Keywords: Productive labor; Unproductive labor; Rate of profit; U.S. economy

Despite its exasperating opacity and lack of closure, the value debate has a vital objective: to grasp those defining aspects of capitalist society that do not appear on the visible surface space of conscious individual actors. In pursuit of this objective, careful conceptual analysis reveals that the long-standing 'transformation problem' is misconceived; that the labor value dimension in the abstract capitalist economy is determinate and unique. This solution to age-old puzzles enables us to renew the study of the relation between labor-as-value and the homeostatic and systemic aspects of capitalist reproduction that cannot be reduced to individual constrained optimization. JEL classification: B14; B24 Keywords: Value theory; Marxist economics; Capitalism

Veblen is a systematic economic theorist whose economic views run in parallel with those of his contemporaries. Also, his economic analysis is important for Marx's system. Veblen's economic theory as analyzed here consists of four basic components: reserve capacity, markup pricing, productivity, and aggregate demand; these elements constitute a coherent structure of economic analysis containing both microeconomics and macroeconomics used not only to analyze capitalism but to replace, it. It is also argued that Veblen's economic theory is radical, because it utilizes social conflict as the driving force for social evolution. Keywords: Veblen; Social conflict

This essay examines the intellectual antecedents of David Gordon's social structure of accumulation (SSA) approach. It argues that Gordon's systematic treatment of long periods of growth and stagnation is the culmination of a long Marxist tradition which began early in the twentieth century with the work of Hilferding, Bukharin, and Lenin. Contemporary Marxist analyses of the recovery of capitalism from the great depression of the late nineteenth century parallel that developed by Gordon for the post-World War II period. Gordon's approach is genealogically linked to these turn of the century analyses through the work of Ernest Mandel on late capitalism and through the American monopoly capital school. Gordon's key contribution is to transform the early Marxist theory of the highest stage of capitalism into a general theory of capitalist stages.

The author examines the metaphorical bases of Western moral principles, focusing on Marxism's use of the labor theory of value. An analysis of Marx's interest in commodities is used to reveal the use of metaphors to mask the exploitation of labor and its achievement as the status of common sense in Western culture.

Wal Suchting's idea that Analytical Marxism cannot be defined as the converging point of mainstream methodology and the Marxian agenda is wrong. However, Suchting is right in viewing the 'historical materialism' presented in the book 'Reconstructing Marxism' as a weak historical materialism. The later works of Marx, which are more significant than his earlier works, should be studied with reference to Charles Darwin more than Adam Smith.

The diversity of thought among American economists is investigated using samples of the memberships of the American Economic Association, the Union for Racial Political Economists and the Association for Evolutionary Economics. Discriminant analysis reveals a complex web of theoretical and organizational integration and separatism involving theoretical orientation in economics, emulative economists, scholarly research focus, organizational membership, and political values. The model radical economist espouses a radical political economic philosophy and pursues Marxist/radical scholarship in an academic setting. The modal neoclassical economist, radical in neither disciplinary nor personal political beliefs, is found, more often than the other types, in nonacademic administrative work. Marxist/radical and institutionalist scholarship are mutually exclusive. Other dimensions of the professional role, as well as a number of social and biographical background characteristics, do not differentiate between types of economists.

Otto Bauer, a member of the second generation of Austro-Marxists, greatly contributed to the Marxian theory of capitalist business cycles and inevitable crisis. Bauer sought to reconstruct Marx's simple model of a commodity-producing economy in crisis by taking into account the ability of capitalist economies to indefinitely extend reproduction. The sophistication of Bauer's thought lies in his ability to see the crisis developing through cycles over time instead of being a sudden collapse.

A Marxian analysis points to weaknesses in Shoshana Zuboff's proposal that information technology could overcome alienation in the workplace. Zuboff suggests that an 'informating' strategy giving workers access to data could break down the hierarchical organization of workers and managers. However, capital would still retain ultimate control over the means of production. Zuboff shows where the Marxian analysis is problematic in favoring social reform over workplace reform. Alienation needs to be overcome in both spheres.

The fashion for Marxist analysis in planning theory has all but passed without a satisfactory answer being given to the question: what does the theory tell planners to do? This question can only be answered by conceiving of planning as a political activity in the broadest sense, and by examining Marxian political theory which deals with its subject through the perspective of class conflict. The Marxian concept of class, however, is problematic. In this paper recent developments in Marxian class theory are traced and a movement is found away from a reductionist structural perspective towards one which accepts the importance of nonclass as well as class structures, the existence of new classes cutting across the economic categories of capital and labour, and the significance of individual interests and subjectivity, in short a movement towards pluralism. A critique of reductionism is offered, focusing initially on the work of Harvey, and concludes with some tentative answers to the question posed above.

Lu en tant qu'economiste politique, les ecrits d'Antonio Gramsci nous munient d'un vocabulaire qui permet de restructurer d'une facon productive les questions qui inspirent a l'etude du capitalisme canadien. Cet article fait le compte-rendu des termes de reference d'une problematique Gramscienne, examine cinq etudes recentes sur la crise contemporaine globale qui signale un tournant analytique vers la pensee Gramscienne, et finalement incorpore ces perspectives dans le but de mettre a jour la situation canadienne. Pour les academiques canadiens, le defi pose par Gramsci est de reevaluer, en vue des developpements historiques mondiaux, les formes specifiques avec lesquelles les institutions canadiennes ont structure le capital et organise le consensus au Canada, de sonder les transformations presentes et recentes de ces formes, et d'evaluer les aspects positifs ainsi que les dangers que ces changements presentent pour les mouvements emancipatoires. Read as a political economist, Antonio Gramsci provides a vocabulary in terms of which the questions animating studies of Canadian capitalism can be fruitfully re-framed. This paper first reviews the terms of reference for a Gramscian problematic, then examines five recent studies of the contemporary global crisis which signal an analytic turn toward Gramsci, and finally brings these perspectives to bear upon the case of Canada. For Canadian scholars, the challenge pose by Gramsci is to unravel, in view of world historical developments, the specific institutional forms in which capital has been structured and consent organized within Canada, to probe the recent and ongoing practical transformations in those forms, and to appraise the opportunities and dangers that these changes present for emancipatory movements., Restructuring capital, reorganizing consent: Gramsci, political economy, and Canada (*1) (*1) This article is a revised version of the John Porter Lecture, presented June 5, 1989 at the 24th annual [...]

This paper shows that interpretations of Marx's value theory which value inputs and outputs simultaneously imply that surplus-labor is not the sole source of profit--even in the absence of joint production. Contrary results, such as the Fundamental Marxian Theorem, rely crucially on restrictive and implausible conditions that are shown to be unnecessary for reproduction. In contrast, the temporal single-system interpretation conforms to the exploitation theory of profit under completely general conditions.

ABSTRACT There are two major themes in the Austro-Marxist discussions of the transition to socialism: the socialization of the economy and the slow revolution. The first theme was developed primarily by Hilferding and led to his concept of the 'organized economy'. The second theme is to be found mainly in the writings of Otto Bauer, where it is expounded as part of his conception of a democratic and peaceful road to socialism. Various problems posed by these ideas, and in particular the changing structure of the working class, are analyzed, in relation to the period in which the Austro-Marxist were writing, and to the development of capitalism and socialism since World War II.