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The paper argues that the classical Marxist theory of capitalist accumulation is inadequate to understand new forms of capitalism and their accumulation processes determined by “platforms” and “big data”. Big data platforms are shaping the processes of production, labour, the price of products and market conditions. “Digital platforms” and “big data” have become an integral part of the processes of production, distribution and exchange relations. These twin pillars are central to the capitalist accumulation processes. The article argues that the classical Marxist theory of capitalist accumulation is inadequate to understand new forms of capitalism and their accumulation processes determined by “platforms” and “big data”.

As a conceptual paper, this paper follows critical methodological lineages and traditions based on non-linear historical narratives around the conceptualisation, construction and transition of the “Marxist theory of capital accumulation” in the age of platform economy. This paper follows a discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2003) to locate the way in which an artificial intelligence (AI)-led platform economy helps identify and conceptualise new forms of capitalist accumulation. It engages with Jørgensen and Phillips' (2002) contextual and empirical discursive traditions to undertake a qualitative comparative analysis by exploring a broad range of complex factors with case studies and examples from leading firms within the platform economy. Finally, it adopts two steps of “Theory Synthesis and Theory Adaptation” as outlined by Jaakkola (2020) to synthesise, adopt and expand the Marxist theory of capital accumulation under platform capitalism.

This article identifies new trends and forms of data driven capitalist accumulation processes within the platform capitalism. The findings suggest that an AI led platform economy creates new forms of capitalist accumulation. The article helps to develop theoretical understanding and conceptual frameworks to understand and explain these new forms of capital accumulation.

This study builds upon the limited theorisation on the AI and new capitalist accumulation processes. This article identifies new trends and forms of data driven capitalist accumulation processes within platform capitalism. The article helps to understand digital and platform capitalisms in the lens of digital labour and expands the theory of capitalist accumulation and its new forms in the age of datafication. While critiquing the Marxist theory of capitalist accumulation, the article offers alternative approaches for the future.

Following Braudel's conceptualization of capitalism and Arrighi's periodization of systemic cycles of accumulation, the authors focus on the patterns of recurrence of financial expansions enabling capitalism to revitalize itself through crisis; in this, crisis is considered in both aspects — crisis‐as‐restructuring and crisis‐as‐rupture. The ways in which finance aided by the blocks of governmental and business agencies in the present stage affects investment and business cycles result in a progressive increase of inequality between rich and poor countries, as well as inequality within the most developed countries. The authors tackle the crisis phenomenon through a genealogical analysis of the formation, consolidation and disintegration of the successive regimes of accumulation on a world scale through which the capital economy expands. They furthermore examine the crisis of capitalist accumulation through the relation of money and the state, which leads them to the field of debates on the changed relationship between the global economy and the national state. However, the crisis is also marked by a milestone which, despite dangers and pitfalls, opens up endless possibilities. They end the paper with a critique of the politics of money and advocate a socially responsible finance management, which will pave the way for a structure of society in which humanity will exist as an end in itself, rather than as a resource for the accumulation of money.

Following Braudel’s conceptualization of capitalism and Arrighi’s periodization of systemic cycles of accumulation, the authors focus on the patterns of recurrence of financial expansions enabling capitalism to revitalize itself through crisis; in this, crisis is considered in both aspects ‐ crisis‐as‐restructuring and crisis‐as‐rupture. The ways in whichfinance aided by the blocks of governmental and business agencies in the present stage affects investment and business cycles result in a progressive increase of inequality between rich and poor countries, as well as inequality within the most developed countries. The authors tackle the crisis phenomenon through a genealogical analysis of the formation, consolidation and disintegration of the successive regimes of accumulation on a world scale through which the capital economy expands. They furthermore examine the crisis of capitalist accumulation through the relation of money and the state, which leads them to the field of debates on the changed relationship between the global economy and the national state. However, the crisis is also marked by a milestone which, despite dangers and pitfalls, opens up endless possibilities. They end the paper with a critique of the politics of money and advocate a socially responsible finance management, which will pave the way for a structure of society in which humanity will exist as an end in itself, rather than as a resource for the accumulation of money.

Traditionally, demographic factors have been recognized as important factors of social capital accumulation. Owing to the differences in social structure and relationships resulted from the Internet development, the social capital accumulation mechanism is likely different. Hence, this study investigated the significance of the demographic factors and the Internet-related factors (Internet mobilization, collective identity, and digital literacy) of social capital accumulation nowadays, so as to understand the factors contributing to social capital accumulation nowadays, and reflect upon the applicability of traditional social capital accumulation mechanism.

There were 1,747 participants aged between 13 and 30 taking part in this quantitative study. Correlation analysis was performed to find out the relationship of participants' demographic background and Internet-related factors with offline and online social capital. Structural equation modeling, hierarchical regression analysis, and mediation analysis was performed to investigate how these factors were related to the social capital accumulated from the Internet.

Results showed that demographic background and engagement in Internet activities affected the acquisition of social capital from the Internet. Digital literacy displayed the largest mediating effect on online social capital accumulation. Corresponding implications were discussed.

Informed by the literature and theories of social capital, this study investigates the mechanism of online social capital accumulation by exploring its contributing factors.

There exist long-term fluctuations in the process of capital accumulation. The economic long wave is an essential part of research into non-mainstream western economics. After the Second World War, the capitalist world experienced the fourth long wave of expansion and then entered into a downward phase of the long wave in the 1970s. Regarding to whether a new long wave of expansion took place in the 1980s, left-wing scholars hold different viewpoints. The purpose of this paper is to focus on this issue.

First, based on the review of the long wave history, this paper discusses three kinds of long wave theories with significant influence and puts forward the theoretical framework of analyzing the long wave of capitalist economy. Next, under the guidance of this theoretical framework and in combination with the actual development and evolution of the capitalist economy, the issue of whether the fifth long wave of the capitalist economy began to emerge in the 1980s is discussed deeply.

This paper argues that, from the early 1980s to 2007, the US-dominated developed countries experienced a new long wave of expansion driven by the information technology revolution, the adjustment of the neoliberalism system and the economic globalization. However, the financial-economic crisis of 2008–2009 led to a new phase of long wave downswing.

This paper does not agree with the single-factor analysis of the intrinsic formation mechanism of economic long wave and sticks to the multi-factor analysis centering on the fluctuation of accumulation rate. It is pointed out that the evolution of the long wave of capitalist economy depends on the combined influence of technology, institutions and market. The study of the long wave of the economy will help us to correctly understand the historical stage and characteristics of the current world capitalist economy in the long-term fluctuations, so that we can make an appropriate and positive response.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the long-run and short-run relationship between factor accumulation (i.e. physical capital and human capital) and economic growth by calculating the stocks of human capital and real physical capital.

The study uses endogenous growth model, where GDP per worker is the dependent variable and factor accumulation (real physical capital per worker and human capital) is the explanatory variable under the autoregressive distributive lag framework from 1973 to 2014 for Pakistan.

The results suggest that there is a long-run relationship between factor accumulation and GDP per worker in Pakistan. Findings of the study are consistent with the endogenous growth model suggesting that accumulation of human capital increases labor productivity, employment level and per capita income, and causes economic growth.

Developing countries like Pakistan should increase share of human capital for economic development. Government should invest in the education sector because investment in human capital has a large potential of productivity growth and welfare increase in developing countries.

This study challenges the notion of human capital and real physical capital stock used by different researchers. Considering human capital as a core factor of production, a series of human capital as average year of schooling is calculated by utilizing the perpetual inventory method.

The goal of this study is to investigate the nexus among TFP (total factor productivity), IT (information technology) capital accumulation, skills and key plant variables of 34 Indian industries for the period of 2009–2015.

Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) data series are extracted and formulated using Microsoft SQL server. The authors employ Wooldridge (2009) technique to estimate productivity. To investigate the linkages among productivity, IT, skills and key plant variables, the authors estimate specifications using system generalized method of moments (sys-GMM). Advanced estimation techniques such as Heckman two-step process, probit equations, inverse Mills ratio and panel cointegration are applied to overcome problems of nonstationarity, omitted variables, endogeneity and reverse causality.

The results indicate that the level of IT capital influences the TFP of Indian industries, so does the level of skilled workers. The outcome suggests that intermediate capital goods, location and ownership type enable the strength of IT capital and that in turn boosts productivity. The authors fail to find any impact of regional factors and contractual labor on IT capital and productivity. While medium-level gender diversity is statistically significant to influence productivity, however, no complementarities exist between gender diversity and IT capital accumulation. The results also indicate that IT demand of Indian industries is sensitive to availability of skilled workforce, fuel and electricity and access to short-term funding.

To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the nexus among TFP, IT capital accumulation, skills and organizational factors using ASI unit level data. Besides this, the paper offers two more novelties. First, it uses Wooldridge (2009) technique to estimate productivity, which is used by a handful of studies in the context of India. Second, the study identifies factors that impact productivity growth, IT demand and its adoption in Indian industries and thus contributes to growth and development literature.

The main purpose of this paper is to visualize the relation between government spending on basic education and the human capital accumulation process, observing the impacts of this spending on individual investments in higher education, and on economic growth.

The paper uses an overlapping‐generations model where the government tax the adult generation and spent it in basic education of the next generations.

It was demonstrated that the magnitude of the marginal effect of government spending in basic education on growth crucially depends on public budget constrains.

The paper explains why some countries with a lot of public investment in basic education growth at low rates. In that sense if a country has only a lot of public investment in basic education without investment in higher education it may growth at low rates because the taxation can cause distortions in the agents incentives to invest in higher education.

Aims to provide an analytical framework investigating the accumulation of human capital in an OLG framework characterized by a continuous interplay between human capital distribution and individual choice of accumulation. This leads to a wide variety of dynamics. Generally, more equal economies tend to accumulate a higher human capital but other cases are possible. The accumulation is characterized by bimodality or multimodality in the human capital distribution and by an endogenous poverty trap.

As these essays are in honor of Professor Anghel Rugina, I begin with a quote from his recent essay on Walras (1982, p. 4):