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Article
Publication date: 1 February 1976

ROY H. GRIEVE

These two books reflect very different attitudes to classical economics: O'Brien writes from a neoclassical standpoint, Napoleoni from a Marxist one. Two questions deserve…

Abstract

These two books reflect very different attitudes to classical economics: O'Brien writes from a neoclassical standpoint, Napoleoni from a Marxist one. Two questions deserve consideration. Is anything worthwhile to be gained by devoting attention to the works of the classical economists (and of Marx)? Where, if we do turn to the classics, do they lead us?

Details

Journal of Economic Studies, vol. 3 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-3585

Article
Publication date: 1 March 1990

Roger J. Sandilands

Allyn Young′s lectures, as recorded by the young Nicholas Kaldor,survey the historical roots of the subject from Aristotle through to themodern neo‐classical writers. The focus…

Abstract

Allyn Young′s lectures, as recorded by the young Nicholas Kaldor, survey the historical roots of the subject from Aristotle through to the modern neo‐classical writers. The focus throughout is on the conditions making for economic progress, with stress on the institutional developments that extend and are extended by the size of the market. Organisational changes that promote the division of labour and specialisation within and between firms and industries, and which promote competition and mobility, are seen as the vital factors in growth. In the absence of new markets, inventions as such play only a minor role. The economic system is an inter‐related whole, or a living “organon”. It is from this perspective that micro‐economic relations are analysed, and this helps expose certain fallacies of composition associated with the marginal productivity theory of production and distribution. Factors are paid not because they are productive but because they are scarce. Likewise he shows why Marshallian supply and demand schedules, based on the “one thing at a time” approach, cannot adequately describe the dynamic growth properties of the system. Supply and demand cannot be simply integrated to arrive at a picture of the whole economy. These notes are complemented by eleven articles in the Encyclopaedia Britannica which were published shortly after Young′s sudden death in 1929.

Details

Journal of Economic Studies, vol. 17 no. 3/4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-3585

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1988

Thomas M. Jeannot

Reflecting on “The Rehabilitation of Karl Marx” as a theoretical economist 100 years after his death, Robert Paul Wolff, on the way to writing Understanding Marx, noted that Marx…

Abstract

Reflecting on “The Rehabilitation of Karl Marx” as a theoretical economist 100 years after his death, Robert Paul Wolff, on the way to writing Understanding Marx, noted that Marx had written, “at a conservative estimate, five thousand pages of theoretical material”. Therefore, in order to understand Marx's theoretical achievement, which Wolff compares with Darwin, Freud and Einstein (p. 714), “The simplest sort of common sense demands that we estimate Marx's place in the intellectual history of our civilization on the basis of this mass of economic theory” (p. 713). In addition to the three volumes of Capital, the three volumes of the Theories of Surplus Value, the Grundrisse, and the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, however, “Marx also wrote, as a young man, a handful of exuberant, obscure, derivative, romantic reflections on the human condition…The same sort of common sense dictates that we not construe these youthful speculations as the final utterances of the true Marx” (p. 713). With these assertions, Wolff is reviving an old issue, for the benefit of a “modern mathematical reinterpretation of Marx” (pp. 715–16), that some had thought was laid to rest by the widespread availability of the Grundrisse.

Details

International Journal of Social Economics, vol. 15 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0306-8293

Article
Publication date: 22 June 2010

Steven Toms

This paper aims to argue that the principal components of the Resource‐Based View (RBV) as a theory of sustained competitive advantage are not a sufficient basis for a complete…

5139

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to argue that the principal components of the Resource‐Based View (RBV) as a theory of sustained competitive advantage are not a sufficient basis for a complete and consistent theory of firm behaviour. Two missing elements are value theory and accountability mechanisms.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper proposes a link between value theory and accountability using a Resource Value‐Resource Risk perspective as an alternative to the Capital Asset Pricing Model. The link operates first from the labour process, where value is created but is imperfectly observable by intra‐firm mechanisms of organizational control and outside governance arrangements without incurring monitoring costs. Second, it operates through contractual arrangements which impose fixed cost structures on activities with variable revenues.

Findings

The paper thereby explains how value originates in risky and difficult to monitor productive processes and is transmitted as rents to organizational and capital market constituents. It then reviews recent contributions to the RBV, arguing that the proposed new approach overcomes gaps inherent in the alternatives, and thus offers a more complete and integrated view of firm behaviour.

Originality/value

The RBV can become a coherent theory of firm behaviour, if it adopts and can integrate the labour theory of value, associated measures of risk arising from the labour process and mechanisms of accountability.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 23 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 March 1985

Tomas Riha

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely…

2543

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.

Details

International Journal of Social Economics, vol. 12 no. 3/4/5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0306-8293

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 12 October 2021

Weimin Ding and Xiaoyu Zhang

Under the circumstance that the development of developing countries is a major issue that has long been of concern to Marxist scholars, the research is focused on the category of…

Abstract

Purpose

Under the circumstance that the development of developing countries is a major issue that has long been of concern to Marxist scholars, the research is focused on the category of development benefit, which Xi Jinping has mentioned many times.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on the Marxist theory of international value, the authors of this paper indicate that development benefit is the result of developing countries' consistently increasing labor productivity, reducing squandering in labor and transforming more labor into real value, and thus the fundamental cause of unequal development in international economics turns from the field of circulation to the area of production.

Findings

Also, the authors summarize China's experience of obtaining the development benefit and China's development path featuring common development and criticized the comparative advantage of mainstream Western economics, revealed the path of dependency development represented by mainstream Western economics.

Originality/value

Finally, the authors analyze the essence of the economy and trade conflict between China and the US and the respective strategic goals of the two countries and provide an outlook on the contest between the two roads of development and the evolutionary trend of the relationship between developed and developing countries.

Details

China Political Economy, vol. 4 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2516-1652

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 16 February 2010

Tom Jeannot

The purpose of this paper is to assess Marx's enduring significance in the center of his thought, the first volume of Capital. In Capital and related writings, Marx systematically…

2386

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to assess Marx's enduring significance in the center of his thought, the first volume of Capital. In Capital and related writings, Marx systematically works out his theory of value. Although Marx's value theory has been widely thought to be internally inconsistent, the “myth of inconsistency” in reclaiming Marx's “Capital” has been recently refuted by Kliman.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on Kliman's refutation, a logically coherent interpretation of Marx's theory is on hand. The paper therefore aims to bring out the philosophical character of Marx's critique of political economy, to which the terms and relations of value theory are essential. It is rooted in the abiding humanism he first discovered through his critical appropriation and transformation of Hegelian philosophy.

Findings

Following Raya Dunayevskaya in Marxism and Freedom, this paper interprets Marx to have founded a new critical science of society “that was at the same time a philosophy of history.” Hence Marx's use of ontological categories in Capital (“substance,” “essence,” “appearance”) is fully methodologically self‐conscious and deliberate. Categories derived from Hegel's Science of Logic (as Lenin rightly grasped) explain the “bewitched and distorted world” of capitalist social relations.

Originality/value

This paper shows that, thinking historically, Marx works out the “notion” of capital from the standpoint of its negation. As if seen through a camera obscura, capital is the domination of alienated, past, objectified, abstract, and dead labor over living labor power. In conclusion, emphasis is placed on the subjective as well as the objective condition necessary to the revolutionary transcendence of the law of value.

Details

International Journal of Social Economics, vol. 37 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0306-8293

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 13 December 2019

Guogang Wang

Marx’s monetary theory is an important part of Marxist economics and an irreplaceable milestone in the intellectual history of the monetary theory. The purpose of this paper is to…

24013

Abstract

Purpose

Marx’s monetary theory is an important part of Marxist economics and an irreplaceable milestone in the intellectual history of the monetary theory. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the main content of Marx’s monetary theory from three aspects: the source and nature of money, the function of money and the historical significance of money.

Design/methodology/approach

Moreover, this paper also gives an extended understanding of Marx’s monetary theory from four perspectives: the endogenous credit mechanism of money, the functions of money and demands for money, the financial function of money and the economic and social functions of money.

Findings

Lastly, the present paper discusses the practical significance of Marx’s monetary theory from three perspectives, namely, the inspection of “Bitcoin” from the nature and function of money, the definition of demands and the division of supplies at the monetary level, and the prevention of systemic financial risks and the focus of financial supervision.

Originality/value

Marx’s monetary theory is an important part of Marxist economics and an irreplaceable milestone in the intellectual history of the monetary theory. However, for a long time, the contribution of Marx has rarely been mentioned in the intellectual history of monetary theory. Even the book, Political Economy (On Capitalism), has been only summarily concerned with the source and function of money in Marx’s monetary theory, rather than revealing Marx’s outstanding contribution in the monetary theory and the financial connotation of Marx’s monetary theory, and expounding its practical significance.

Details

China Political Economy, vol. 2 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2516-1652

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 November 1988

Tibor R. Machan

Here Marx's philosophy is dissected from the angle of bourgeois capitalism which he, Marx, sought to overcome. His social, political and economic ideas are criticised. Although it…

1349

Abstract

Here Marx's philosophy is dissected from the angle of bourgeois capitalism which he, Marx, sought to overcome. His social, political and economic ideas are criticised. Although it is noted that Marx wanted to ameliorate human suffering, the result turned out to be Utopian, contrary to his own intentions. Contrary to Marx, it is individualism that makes the best sense and capitalism that holds out the best hope for coping with most of the problems he sought to solve. Marx's philosophy is alluring but flawed at a very basic level, namely, where it denies the individuality of each person and treats humanity as “an organic body”. Capitalism, while by no means out to guarantee a perfect society, is the best setting for the realisation of the diverse but often equally noble human goals of its membership.

Details

International Journal of Social Economics, vol. 15 no. 11/12
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0306-8293

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 June 1993

R.H. Grieve

Brewer's Study of Cantillon Anthony Brewer, introducing his study of Cantillon, recalls how favourably impressed he was as soon as he had read a page or two of the Essai (Essai

Abstract

Brewer's Study of Cantillon Anthony Brewer, introducing his study of Cantillon, recalls how favourably impressed he was as soon as he had read a page or two of the Essai (Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en Général, the only work by Cantillon we possess). Although written as early as around 1730, Cantillon's Essai is still extraordinarily fresh and thought‐provoking. Brewer very soon, as he says, recognized “a real theorist, of a really quite modern kind… (a theorist) with a clear vision of the economy as an interrelated system and a strikingly consistent analysis of how the system worked” (Brewer, p. ix).

Details

Journal of Economic Studies, vol. 20 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-3585

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