On the Alleged Stagnation of Capitalism

2019

Critical Sociology

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Clear Bright Future is Paul Mason’s radical defence of humanity from Trumpist populism and de-globalisation, neo-liberalism, the threat of machine learning and, notwithstanding the book’s title (lifted from Trotsky’s Testament), Marxism, which, he considers, needs a ‘kicking’. Mason redefines Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach so that the point of change is to understand the world, or more precisely, for him to understand the world. According to Mason, the declassed, amorphous but nonetheless conscious, yet unconscious, networked individual, who is far more complex, and so essential, than traditional classes, although not a traditional class, and so subjective and not objective, and so not essential, will adopt communism, even though it has not, and implement a new world order, somehow. Mainly it would appear by arguing that machines do not have feelings, but also by rehabilitating the absolute moral philosophy of Thomas Malthus, amongst other things.

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Future for Humanity?

2019

Critical Sociology

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“…The upward trend in profit rates through the period of globalisation, but particularly after China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 shows the limited success of the neoliberal counter revolution during the 1980s. Much more fundamental was the impact of the restoration of capitalism in the Former Soviet Union, Central and Eastern Europe after 1991 and the transition of China to a market economy by the mid-1990s (Jefferies 2015). China’s entry into the WTO in 2001 led to the strongest period of growth in profit rates in the post-war period up to the Great Recession of 2008 with the bursting of the housing bubble.…”

Section: The Turnover Of Us Circulating Capital From 1964 To 2017mentioning

confidence: 99%

The US rate of profit 1964–2017 and the turnover of fixed and circulating capital

2022

Capital & Class

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This article addresses how Marxist economists have estimated the quantity of fixed and circulating capital advanced in the denominator of the rate of profit calculation. Generally, Marxist economists have used neoclassical fixed capital estimates of opportunity cost, as applied most notably, in the US system of national accounts. These Hulten and Wyckoff measures aggregate the lifetime revenues (both costs and profits) of fixed assets and so grossly over estimate the value of the fixed capital stock. This article applies the Internal Revenue Service Depreciable Assets less Depreciation for a more accurate estimate of the actual quantity of fixed capital advanced. Furthermore, it criticises the absence of a convincing measure of the rate of turnover of Marx’s circuit of capital accumulation M . . . C . . . P . . . C’ . . . M’ in most rate of profit estimates. Developing the work of Bertrand and Fauqueur, this article demonstrates that the cash conversion cycle or net operating cycle mirrors Marx’s circuit. This article applies the cash conversion cycle to Internal Revenue Service Total Corporations data 1964–2017 to estimate the rate of turnover. The article addresses the distinction between unproductive and productive output and develops an estimation of those respective quantities based on Internal Revenue Service data. It combines these elements together to estimate the US rate of profit from 1964 to 2017. It finds that the US rate of profit rose strongly, albeit with dramatic fluctuations, after 2001.

“…Prokopovich’s method was developed in the Soviet Balance of 1923–24 from an application of Marx’s schemes of reproduction in volume 2 of Capital . National income was defined as the total of new value added in a given year, where value was the amount of socially necessary labor time necessary to produce a given commodity (Jefferies 2015), where commodities are useful things (or products) that are bought and sold. The prerequisite for national income is sales or markets.…”

Section: The Misestimation Of China’s Transition To the Marketmentioning

confidence: 99%

China’s Accession to the WTO and the Collapse That Never Was

Review of Radical Political Economics

2020

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This article examines the application of neoclassical economics to the discussion of China’s transition to the market in the 1990s and its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. It shows how this theory shaped, and misled, forecasts of the impact of that accession and of China’s subsequent economic performance. It discusses the debate between mini-bang and big-bang transition policies in the 1990s and shows the two sides shared far more in common than separated them. Both sides misestimated, in fact grossly underestimated, the dynamism of China’s economy. It shows how widely anticipated predictions of crisis and collapse with China’s WTO accession were the natural result of the assumptions of the neoclassical model. It suggests that a rival model of market transition based on Bukharin and Kuznets has much to offer. JEL Classification: P22, P26, P21, B24