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1 – 10 of over 17000Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely…
Abstract
Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.
This article provides a detailed investigation of how Lewis revisited classical and Marxian concepts such as productive/unproductive labor, economic surplus, subsistence wages…
Abstract
This article provides a detailed investigation of how Lewis revisited classical and Marxian concepts such as productive/unproductive labor, economic surplus, subsistence wages, reserve army, and capital accumulation in his investigation of economic development. The Lewis 1954 development model is compared to other models advanced at the time by Harrod, Domar, Swan, Kaldor, Solow, von Neumann, Nurkse, Rosenstein-Rodan, Myint, and others. Lewis applied the notion of economic duality to open and closed economies.
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Political economy belongs to that borderland of economics which opens on political science. It provides economic interpretations of political phenomena, and political…
Abstract
Political economy belongs to that borderland of economics which opens on political science. It provides economic interpretations of political phenomena, and political interpretations of economic phenomena. Political economy studies social phenomena through their relational perspectives. Since all social phenomena and epiphenomena are manifestations of political and economic entities and their interactions, political economy can be conceived of as the study of interactive, discursive and integrative processes.
The labor theory of value (LTV) offers a lucid and forceful example of a “theory” thought to stand outside “history.” Considered as an “objective” form of theorizing, the LTV…
Abstract
The labor theory of value (LTV) offers a lucid and forceful example of a “theory” thought to stand outside “history.” Considered as an “objective” form of theorizing, the LTV seeks transhistorical truths about the relationship between humans and nature – whereby, as everyone knows, value in the world is produced by the fundamental force of human labor power. Marx is typically taken to have subscribed to some form of the LTV, and thus to have signed on to this form of theorizing. This article refuses to treat Marx as an analytic, ahistorical theorist who would either affirm or deny the LTV. Rather, I read Marx as a genealogist who excavates the story of labor and value within the specific historical context of an emerging capitalist social formation. This genealogical approach to Marx, and particularly to his less-often-discussed, Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, shows plainly that Marx never subscribed to the LTV, but more importantly that he eschewed the form of theory that the LTV presumes. Rather than seeking to make transhistorical theoretical claims about the relation between labor and value, Marx meant to demonstrate to his readers something about the way in which a definite and concrete (historically situated) capitalist social formation establishes value. A capitalist social formation establishes its own specific value relations, by first constituting, and then dissimulating, a link between labor and value.
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The purpose of this paper is to incorporate historical theories of political economy as means better to clarify and classify contemporary state police and private policing…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to incorporate historical theories of political economy as means better to clarify and classify contemporary state police and private policing practices.
Design/methodology/approach
A diverse historical investigation of largely, non‐traditional public police history was conducted by utilizing a selective variety of social, political, and economic sources.
Findings
The paper finds that several theoretical features of eighteenth and nineteenth century Marxian, classical, and neoclassical political economy have contributed in defining the origins of contemporary American public police and private policing practices. Born from these perspectives, public goods theories frameworks, in conjunction with Wilson's police officer job function typologies in Varieties of Police Behavior, more clearly illustrate the current political and economically defined state supported police relative to private market arrangements.
Research limitations/implications
This research describes the positioning of this mixed economy in theoretical fashion, but does not provide contemporary private sector market growths or publicly supplied police trends that are a suitable next step for further research.
Practical implications
The public “monopoly” of state supported police is largely rejected. More interdisciplinary research approaches should be pursued in the twenty‐first century that better reflect the American political and economic realities of public and private forms of policing.
Originality/value
This paper is highly original when considering the paucity of theory utilized in describing simultaneous state and private policing scenarios.
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By the mid-19th century the British colonial state introduced liberal education to India. Amongst various disciplines, political economy illustrates the concerns of the colonial…
Abstract
Purpose
By the mid-19th century the British colonial state introduced liberal education to India. Amongst various disciplines, political economy illustrates the concerns of the colonial state with the education of Indians, and its anxiety with quelling political discontentment. The emerging Indian nationalist intelligentsia also utilized ideas from classical political economy, first taught in educational institutions, to critique colonial policy and proposed the development of “Indian Economics”, suited to national economic interests. This paper explores the development of political economy as a specific knowledge form in Calcutta University and Bombay University, and its connection with colonial educational policy.
Design/methodology/approach
This study relies primarily on university records and the proceedings of the Education Department to bring out the politically sensitive nature of the teaching of economics in colonial India.
Findings
The study finds that political economy grew from being a minor part of the overall university syllabi to becoming part of the first university departments created in early-20th-century India. The government and nationalist forces both found the discipline to be relevant to their respective agendas. The circulation of knowledge theoretical framework is found to be relevant here.
Originality/value
The history of political economy in Indian universities, especially during the 19th century, has not been dealt with in any detail. This study tries to fill this gap. The close connection between politics and the teaching of economics has also not been studied closely, which this paper does.
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The socialist construction with Chinese characteristics must be based on history and reality. According to the requirements of liberation and development of productivity, efforts…
Abstract
Purpose
The socialist construction with Chinese characteristics must be based on history and reality. According to the requirements of liberation and development of productivity, efforts must be made to reform and improve the production relations, as well as continually consolidate the socialist system with Chinese characteristics. The purpose of this paper is to prove the necessity and superiority of a socialist system through China’s modernization achievements.
Design/methodology/approach
Marxist political economics is a critical legacy from classical economics. Its core question is also social production and distribution, which is epitomized in the labor theory of value and the theory of surplus value.
Findings
Regarding the significant principles that must be followed, these speeches summarized the logical system and prominent features of the socialist political system in the new normal from several significant and interrelated aspects such as basic methods, core propositions, main tasks and fundamental goals.
Originality/value
The socialist system with Chinese characteristics will gradually appear through further research and prove its superiority. How can a socialist system with Chinese characteristics innovate and develop? Does the system have a future? Is there any historical necessity for the socialist system to replace the capitalist system in human history? These are the questions that need urgent answers and in-depth exploration.
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This paper is a translation of the third and most important chapter of Keizaigaku shi (History of Political Economy) by the Japanese Marxist economist Samezō Kuruma (1893–1982)…
Abstract
This paper is a translation of the third and most important chapter of Keizaigaku shi (History of Political Economy) by the Japanese Marxist economist Samezō Kuruma (1893–1982), first published in 1948. Kuruma discusses in detail the achievements and limitations of the Classical school of political economy. He examines the fundamental ideas of Adam Smith and David Ricardo regarding the determination of commodity value and the source of surplus-value, and then looks at how these ideas are connected to production price and profit. Kuruma notes that Smith and Ricardo managed to arrive at the essential labor theory of value, but that neither could correctly apply this theory to adequately explain phenomena in the realm of competition – either abandoning the labor theory of value altogether to embrace a composition theory of value (Smith) or directly applying the theory to explain phenomena without grasping the intermediary processes of development (Ricardo). Kuruma's critique of Smith and Ricardo highlights the achievement of Marx in overcoming the limitations that ultimately led to the breakdown of the Classical school of political economy.
William McColloch and Matías Vernengo
The rise of the regulatory state during the Gilded Age was closely associated with the development of institutionalist ideas in American academia. In their analysis of the…
Abstract
The rise of the regulatory state during the Gilded Age was closely associated with the development of institutionalist ideas in American academia. In their analysis of the emergent regulatory environment, institutionalists like John Commons operated with a fundamentally marginalist theory of value and distribution. This engagement is a central explanation for the ultimate ascendancy of neoclassical economics, and the limitations of the regulatory environment that emerged in the Progressive Era. The eventual rise of the Chicago School and its deregulatory ambitions did constitute a rupture, but one achieved without rejecting preceding conceptions of competition and value. The substantial compatibility of the view of markets underlying both the regulatory and deregulatory periods is stressed, casting doubt about the transformative potential of the resurgent regulatory impulse in the New Gilded Age.
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