Industrial Feudalism and American Capitalism
Polish Marxism after Luxemburg
ISBN: 978-1-80117-891-4, eISBN: 978-1-80117-890-7
Publication date: 9 December 2022
Abstract
Industrial feudalism is a socioeconomic formation that the Polish Marxists Ludwik Krzywicki and Oskar Lange associated with monopoly finance capital. Industrial feudalism arises in a socially static capitalism where mobility between hierarchically defined social strata is restricted. Krzywicki's account predates Hilferding's Finance Capital and outlines the functioning of the capital market-based finance capital that has become more common in capitalism. Seemingly unaware of Krzywicki's pioneering articles, Oskar Lange then presented his own account of monopoly finance capital in the United States with similar social consequences in the early 1940s with state support for monopolies. Krzywicki's work on monopoly finance capital was discovered in the 1950s by Tadeusz Kowalik.
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Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges financial support from the Leverhulme Trust and the Institute for New Economic Thinking. I am grateful to Thomas Ferguson, Riccardo Bellofiore and Grzegorz Konat for helpful comments on an earlier draft.
Citation
Toporowski, J. (2022), "Industrial Feudalism and American Capitalism", Toporowski, J. (Ed.) Polish Marxism after Luxemburg (Research in Political Economy, Vol. 37), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 43-59. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0161-723020220000037004
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2023 Jan Toporowski. Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited