This article examines two views about the capitalism that lies at the heart of modern industrial society. We owe to Marx and Piketty two large-scale, hugely important, but very different studies of the nature of modern industrial capitalism. In Capital, Marx provides a complex analysis of the anatomy of modern industrial capitalism, which he regards not as stable but rather as over time unstable and tending toward internal collapse on several grounds, of which the most important is apparently the so-called (...) tendency of the falling rate of profit. The falling rate of profit supposedly threatens its continued existence. Piketty criticizes the latter view in the context of his theory of contemporary capitalism. The article suggests, first, that Marx's view of the falling rate of interest is empirically implausible but Piketty's rival claim is empirically plausible. Second, a successful transition from capitalism to communism on Marxian grounds is unlikely in practice. And finally, despite Marx's intentions, it is unlikely to realize itself in practice, and is in this respect a traditional theory. (shrink)

This paper situates the subprime crisis in the context of the performance of the American economy over the last twenty-five years. The restructuring of the US economy is briefly reviewed, followed by an examination of some of the contradictions of the neoliberal model. Particular emphasis is placed on understanding the reasons behind stagnant investment, and how the US finance-led accumulation-régime has become dependent upon, and threatened by, credit-creation delinked from the financing of fixed-capital formation. I argue that while the defeat (...) of the remnants of the New-Deal/Civil-Rights liberal-democratic coalition has provided the political context for the bold re-assertion of the prerogatives of capitalist owners, the neoliberal model has not provided a path out of problems of stagnation and growing debt-dependency that presently plague the US economy. Further, I argue that evidence suggests that the post-1982 restoration of profitability that underpinned the relative improvement of US economic performance has peaked, and that compelling historical and theoretical reasons exist to expect that the profit-rate will decline in the coming decade. This will introduce additional stresses on the current debt-structure of the US economy, triggering a period of prolonged crisis and economic dislocation. The conclusion is that the US economy faces the spectre of a protracted crisis associated with the reassertion of the falling rate of profit. (shrink)

The relevance of Marx’s theory of value and his ‘law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall’ to the analysis of the financial crisis of 2007–8 and the ensuing global slump is affirmed. The hypertrophic growth of unproductive constant capital, including the wages of ‘socially necessary’ unproductive labour and tax revenues, is identified as an important manifestation of an historical-structural crisis of capitalism, alongside the increasing weight of fictitious capital and the proliferation of fictitious profits (...) in the lead-up to the financial crisis. These phenomena have obscured the deepest roots of the global slump in the long-term profitability problems of productive capital – that is, in a crisis of surplus-value production. With these considerations taken into account, a better empirical assessment of trends in the composition of capital becomes possible, and with it a more accurate understanding of the impact of the ongoing displacement of living labour from production on the average rate of profit and the future of US and global capitalism. (shrink)

Since the collapse of the bubble economy at the beginning of the 1990s, Japan has been in secular stagnation. Despite the stagnant economic conditions, the rate of profit has been rising, not falling. The coexistence of the rise in profitability and prolonged economic stagnation is a manifestation of the fundamental contradiction of present-day Japanese capitalism. Marx’s law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall (LTRPF) provides a consistent explanation regarding the paradoxical situation (...) in Japan characterised not by a falling but a rising rate of profit. Meanwhile, this paper discusses the Monopoly Capitalism school, which has studied capitalist behaviour concerning productive investment and changes in the form of capitalist competition at the monopoly stage of capitalism. While the school’s negation of the LTRPF is unacceptable, their notions may provide useful explanations as to why the rate of profit has risen under secular stagnation in Japan. (shrink)

Andrew Kliman’s Reclaiming Marx’s ‘Capital’ sets out to refute the ‘myth’ that Marx’s original presentation of the theory of the value is internally inconsistent. A century ago, Bortkiewicz purported to demonstrate that Marx’s mistake was his failure to adopt simultaneous valuation. Thereafter, twentieth-century Marxian economics worked out a ‘corrected’ version of Marx’s original theory, culminating in Steedman’s 1977 Marx after Sraffa. Conclusions Marx himself deemed central were dropped, prominently including the law of the tendential fall in the rate of (...) profit. But simultaneous valuation is absolutely incompatible with Marx’s first and fundamental premise, the determination of value by labour-time. On the other hand, if Marx’s major theoretical conclusions do consistently follow from his premises, including the transformation of values into prices of production, then the quantitative dimension of his value-theory is internally consistent after all and stands in no need of correction on this score. Advocating a temporal, single-system interpretation, Kliman shows how ‘two simple modifications’ eliminate ‘all of the alleged inconsistencies in the quantitative dimension of Marx’s value theory’: valuation is temporal, and values and prices are determined interdependently. Kliman’s refutation is sound, but his claim to know Marx’s intentions, in E.D. Hirsch’s sense, is questionable. (shrink)

The publication last year in New Left Review of Robert Brenner's book-length essay ‘Uneven Development and the Long Downturn: The Advanced Capitalist Economies from Boom to Stagnation, 1950-1998’ has already provoked more discussion and controversy on the socialist Left than any other political-economic analysis in recent memory. Predictably, it has also elicited a number of highly critical response from proponents of Marx's theories of labour value and economic crisis. Amongst other things, Brenner has been charged with a one-sided preoccupation (...) with capital-to-capital relations at the expense of the capital-wage labour relation, with misinterpreting and dismissing Marx's law of the falling tendency of the rate of profit, and with ignoring Marx’s value categories entirely. (shrink)

À partir d’une approche anthropologique des prises en charge médicales de la tuberculose et du paludisme, ainsi que des conceptions et usages de la prévention dans des milieux urbains d’Afrique de l’Ouest , ce texte interroge la nature du métier de soignant. Après nous être penchés sur les spécificités de ce type d’étude anthropologique en milieu médical, nous nous attachons à décrypter les processus d’occultations des singularités du malade qui caractérisent les messages et discours de prévention. Dans les structures de (...) santé, sont étudiées les négociations des normes de diagnostic et de traitement à l’œuvre ; les attitudes des soignants qui oscillent entre sur- et sous-estimations des risques sanitaires ; et le hiatus entre la demande et les besoins réels de formations continues. Enfin, nous nous penchons sur la rencontre entre les soignants et les malades qui peut se trouver transformée par les spécificités de la maladie et de son traitement. On constate alors que les fondements de la professionnalisation tendent à disparaître au profit d’un mode de régulation du rapport au malade, au collègue et plus largement au savoir médical qui témoigne de l’émergence d’une culture soignante qui est, de fait, une culture organisationnelle. Elle se caractérise à la fois par la délégation des tâches à des non-professionnels, la production et la résolution des conflits mettant en évidence des réseaux clientélistes ainsi que par une routinisation des gestes.Drawing on an anthropological approach of tuberculosis and malaria care in West African cities , and on an analysis of prevention modes, this paper examines the characteristics of medical work. We first examined the conditions of an anthropological field study in health care centres. The concealment of both patients’ singularities and populations’ specificities targeted in the prevention messages were then studied. The negotiation of diagnosis and treatment standards, and the under- and over-estimations of nosocomial risks were also analysed. We also focused on the gap between demands and actual needs for training, and on the relationships between health care providers and patients, which can be modified by the specificities of the disease. We noticed a decay of professionalization, a kind of regulation of relationships between health care workers and patients, and among medical staff, which expresses an emerging medical culture, which is also an organizational culture. Its main features are the delegation of tasks to non-professionals workers, a strategy of conflict management based on clientelism, and the development of routine action. (shrink)

In the first thirty years after World War II, the US economy performed very well. The rate of growth averaged 4—5%, the rate of unemployment was seldom above 5%, inflation was almost non-existent, and the living standards of workers improved steadily. These were the ‘good old days'. However, this long period of expansion and prosperity ended in the 1970s. Since then, both the rate of unemployment and the rate of inflation have been much higher than before, (...) and the average real wages of workers have declined some 20%. Productivity growth has also slowed down and the debt burden of both capitalist enterprises and the Federal government has increased dramatically. It is in this sense that we may refer to the ‘economic crisis’ of the US economy over the last two decades. This crisis has certainly not been as severe as the Great Depression of the 1930s, but the economic performance has been significantly worse than in the early post-war period. (shrink)

The Marxist theory of crisis has fallen on hard times. Marx's ‘law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall’, generally seen, at least in recent times, as the basis of the theory, is now widely rejected by economists who regard themselves as broadly working in his tradition. This state of affairs is in large part a consequence on the larger assault on mounted on the theoretical structure of Capital by self-proclaimed supporters of Piero Sraffa during (...) the 1970s. Analytical Marxism, during its brief efflorescence in the 1980s, took for granted the validity of the Sraffian critique. One of this school's more vulgar advocates published an ‘obituary’ of the TRPF which dismissed Marxists' attachment to the theory as a result of the influence of ‘“extra-scientific” considerations’ on them. The editors of a dictionary of Marxian economics expressed the hope not long ago that the resolution of the debate provoked by the Sraffian critique would be to ‘release Marxian ideas on crises, growth, imperialism, the social and economic evolution of forms of production, and so on, into the mainstream of economics’. (shrink)

The Cambridge Capital Controversy was one of the most significant debates in Twentieth Century economics. First published in 1972, this book provides an accessible reconstruction of the controversy with detailed discussion of the major points raised by its primary protagonists: Piero Sraffa and Joan Robinson on the post-Keynesian side and Robert Solow and Paul Samuelson on the neo-classical side. The book is now considered to be a classic. This fiftieth anniversary edition comes with a new preface by the (...) author and two new afterwords that reflect on the author's contribution to the field and the significance of the book in the history of economics. Topics covered include the measurement of capital, the revival of interest in Irving Fisher's rate of return on investment, the double-switching debate, Sraffa's prelude to a critique of neoclassical theory, and the 'new' theories of the rate of profits in capitalist society. (shrink)

The Cambridge Capital Controversy was one of the most significant debates in Twentieth Century economics. First published in 1972, this book provides an accessible reconstruction of the controversy with detailed discussion of the major points raised by its primary protagonists: Piero Sraffa and Joan Robinson on the post-Keynesian side and Robert Solow and Paul Samuelson on the neo-classical side. The book is now considered to be a classic. This fiftieth anniversary edition comes with a new preface by the (...) author and two new afterwords that reflect on the author's contribution to the field and the significance of the book in the history of economics. Topics covered include the measurement of capital, the revival of interest in Irving Fisher's rate of return on investment, the double-switching debate, Sraffa's prelude to a critique of neoclassical theory, and the 'new' theories of the rate of profits in capitalist society. (shrink)

Does the most common response given by participants presented with Tversky and Kahneman’s famous taxi cab problem amount to a violation of Bayes’ theorem? In other words, do they fall victim to so-called base-rate fallacy? In the present paper, following an earlier suggestion by Crupi and Girotto, we will identify the logical arguments underlying both the original diagnosis of irrationality in this reasoning task under uncertainty and a number of objections that have been raised against such a diagnosis. This (...) will enable us to show firstly that, contrary to the dismissive arguments recently put forward by Elqayam and Evans, empirical evidence turns out to be quite useful in addressing questions of this kind. Therefore, it can make a significant contribution to moving the base-rate fallacy controversy forward. Secondly, the available empirical evidence (though limited and sometimes inconclusive) seems to support the charge of irrationality levelled against the majority of participants presented with the taxi cab problem, and hence suggests that base-rate neglect is a real fallacy − that is the conclusion of our analysis. (shrink)

Cutler et.al. declare themselves opposed to the epistemological privileging of any level of discourse, but prefer, instead, to engage in discursive analyses of specific problems. Nevertheless, their critique of specific laws of tendency in Marx's texts - concentratlon and centralisation of capital, the falling rate of profit, etc. - relies almost exclusively on a single epistemological argument: there can be no such 'thing' as a law of tendency.

A study on the concept of inversion in Marx's critique of capitalism. This volume includes references to Hegel on the unity of subject and object, Smith and Ricardo on the falling rate of profit, and the concepts of capitalism and socialism.

Professor Roemer's goal in this book is to give a rigorous view of classical Marxian economic theory by presenting specific analytic models. The theory is not extended to deal with new problems, but it is deepened: Marxian theory is given micro-foundations and upon those foundations the author begins to rebuild a tightly constructed Marxian economics. The book begins, after a methodological introduction, with an examination of the Marxian notion of equilibrium and the theory of exploitation, and goes on to deal (...) with the theory of the falling rate of profit. The next section explores one of the points made in the first section of the book, that the Marxian theory of exploitation can be constructed completely independently of the labor theory of value as a theory of exchange. Technical study of this problem allows comment on various issues, such as the relative importance of 'marginal utilities' and 'class struggle' in determining relative prices. The final part examines models of various Marxian concepts. (shrink)

The current global economic crisis concerns the way in which contemporary capitalism has turned to financialisation as a double cure for both a falling rate of profit and a deficiency of demand. Although this turning is by no means unprecedented, policies of financialisation have depressed demand (in part as a result of the long-term stagnation of average wages) while at the same time not proving adequate to restore profits and growth. This paper argues that the current crisis (...) is less the ‘normal’ one that has to do with a constitutive need to balance growth of abstract wealth with demand for concrete commodities. Rather, it marks a meta-crisis of capitalism that is to do with the difficulties of sustaining abstract growth as such. This meta-crisis is the tendency at once to abstract from the real economy of productive activities and to reduce everything to its bare materiality. By contrast with a market economy that binds material value to symbolic meaning, a capitalist economy tends to separate matter from symbol and reduce materiality to calculable numbers representing ‘wealth’. Such a conception of wealth rests on the aggregation of abstract numbers that cuts out all the relational goods and the ‘commons’ on which shared prosperity depends. (shrink)

The 1930s–1940s underwent profound structural economic and political turmoil following the collapse of the nineteenth century liberal market economies. The intellectual debates of the time were dominated by the question of whether Marx’s theory of the tendency of rate of profit to fall was true, or what consequence could be imagined in the survival of capitalist societies. Placed in the middle of such debates was also the reorganization of national productions into war economies. By means of reconstructive analysis, (...) the paper provides a critical overview of the debates that took place within the circle of the Frankfurt School during those years. It also advances an interpretive thesis suggesting that remedies to capitalist crises of the time turned state powers into privatized, illiberal coercive entities. Coercion and privatization reinforced each other. This general tendency is well illustrated by the famous Pollock-Neumann debate. These intellectuals expressed views not only intended to shed light on the historical period of time, but also to formulate long-term considerations on the authoritarian trends embedded in our contemporary democracies. Through historical reconstruction, the paper’s aim is to identify a long-term structural thread of transformation starting from the transformation of the German economy in 1930s and touching upon post Second World War problems of states’ restructuring along privatization/coercion divides. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 11, Issue 1, pp 3 - 25 In several iterations of the Gnostic ontogenetic myth, we find variations on an intriguing notion: namely, that the first rupture in the otherwise eternal and continuous procession of ‘aeons’ in the divine ‘pleroma’ is caused by a _cognitive overreach and failure_. As much as it might contain a distant echo of certain myths concerning hubris in the classical tradition or in biblical literature, this general schema of _cognitive overreach—cognitive failure—fall_ has (...) no obvious parallel in Greek philosophy prior to Plotinus, in some of whose more pessimistic accounts of hypostatic procession we find a similar schema, in which the generation of each ontological stratum occurs as the result of a cognitive failure on the superjacent level. If Plotinus borrowed this schema from the Gnostics, one might ask how the latter came up with it in the first place. In response, this paper makes the following three points. [1] Gnostic thinkers ultimately derived this schema from a particular juxtaposition of two profoundly aporetic Platonic passages referring to the travails of the individual soul, one certainly genuine, the other quite possibly spurious. [2] The Platonizing Sethian Gnostics closest to Plotinus also employed this latter source text to justify their conception of the _individual_ soul, whose vicissitudes were understood to parallel those of Sophia. [3] This hypothesis is confirmed by evidence of tacit anti-Gnostic argumentation alluding to the _2nd Letter_ throughout Plotinus’ oeuvre. (shrink)

Whereas most previous and later discussions of Marx’s transformation of values into prices of production have focused on his mathematical procedure, Henryk Grossman addressed the logic of its place in the structure ofCapital. On this basis he criticised underconsumptionist and disproportionality theorists of economic crises for inappropriately basing their accounts on the level of analysis of the value schemas in the second volume ofCapital. Such a criticism cannot be made of Grossman’s and Marx’s explanation of systemic crises in terms of (...) the tendency for the rate of profit to fall. Grossman’s article still provides insights into Marx’s analysis of capitalism and his theory of economic crises, unsurpassed in the subsequent literature. (shrink)

Marx claims that economic crisis is endemic to capitalism and will worsen as capitalism develops. The article situates Marx’s crisis theory within the discipline of political economy, explains its relationship to mainstream economics, charts economic crises that have happened since the 1840s, and explains Marx’s crisis theorem of the fall in the rate of profit. In conclusion, the 2008 economic crisis, and the notion of crisis in general, are speculatively considered. Special attention is given to the affective desire (...) to own a home, particularly as this is desire is developed by capitalism, in relation to the sub-prime mortgage credit crisis. (shrink)

This work focuses exclusively on the modern economic aspects of imperialism. We define it as a persistent and long-term net appropriation of surplus value by the high-technology imperialist countries from the low-technology dominated countries. This process is placed within the secular tendential fall in profitability, not only in the imperialist countries but also in the dominated ones. We identify four channels through which surplus value flows to the imperialist countries: currency seigniorage; income flows from capital investments; unequal exchange through trade; (...) and changes in exchange rates. We pay particular attention to the theorisation and quantification of international UE and of exchange-rate movements. Concerning UE, we extend Marx’s transformation procedure to the international setting. We use two variables in the analysis of UE: the organic composition of capital and the rate of exploitation, and we measure which of these two variables is more important in contributing to UE transfers. We research a time span longer than in any previous study. We also introduce the distinction between narrow and broad unequal exchange according to whether two countries are assumed to trade only with each other or also with the rest of the world. As for the analysis of the exchange rates as a channel for appropriation of international surplus value, we reject conventional approaches because they are rooted in equilibrium theory. We find very strong empirical evidence that exchange rates tend towards the point at which the productivities are equalised. This is only a tendency because this equalisation is inherently incompatible with the nature of imperialism. Finally, given its topicality, we apply our analysis to the relation between the US and China and find that China is not an imperialist country according to our definition and data. (shrink)

It is not only the physical digital media that pile waste upon waste in an era of built-in obsolescence driven by over-production attempting to balance the falling rate of profit. Energy used in the manufacture, employment and recycling of devices belongs to a system where waste is not merely accidental but integral to the operation of cognitive capitalism. Oil and gas, uranium and hydroelectricity all prey disproportionately on indigenous peoples, who are turned into economic externalities along with (...) their lands. A parallel is drawn between the waste of power in generation and transmission, and the exploitation of human energy as excess under a cyborg capital that increasingly treats all humanity as external. (shrink)

I should like to thank Ben Fine, Costas Lapavitsas and Dimitris Milonakis for their stimulating and detailed comments. In the limited space available, I cannot respond to every criticism. A number of criticisms appear to be a matter of mere semantics. In the Marxian literature, the term ‘crisis’ is often used to refer to extended downturns as well as to short and sharp declines. And Marx himself defines the organic composition of capital as the value composition considered ‘in so far (...) as this is determined by its technical composition and reflects it’, which is how the value composition is considered in my paper. Nor will I respond to the charge that my ‘use of Grossmann is mechanical and unpersuasive’, since I am not sure what exactly the objection is. Firstly, I will take up the criticisms regarding the logical structure of Capital. Then I move on to consider one substantive issue raised regarding the tendency for the falling rate of profit. I will next respond to criticism of my treatment of the relation between systematic and historical dialectics. Finally, I respond to criticism of my main thesis overall. (shrink)

This paper contends that Marx develops in Volume III of Capital an incisive conceptual framework in which excessive credit creation, indebtedness and speculation play a critical and growing role in the reproduction of social capital on an extended basis; however, given the decentralised and anarchic nature of capitalist production, the credit system does so in a highly erratic and contradictory manner which only postpones the inevitable day of reckoning. The paper also highlights Marx's relatively neglected but highly important analysis of (...) the separation of ownership from management in the advanced capitalism of his day, England, and its modern-day implications for excessive risk-taking and debt-fuelled speculation up until the eve of the crash. More importantly, the paper argues that in Volumes II and III, Marx implicitly connected the expanding role of credit (which he associated with the development of capitalism) to a significant reduction in the turnover period of capital, thereby boosting the rate of surplus-value, and countering in a highly erratic and contradictory manner, the fall in the rate of profit. The growing role of credit has been relatively ignored in the Marxian literature as an important counteracting factor to the law of the declining rate of profit. It is not mentioned at all by Marx in his famous Chapter XIV, Vol. III of Capital where he discusses other important counteracting forces to the falling rate of profit, nor by Engels (in this particular context) who edited both Volumes II and III. (shrink)

The inflation which is endemic to late capitalism does not exempt concepts and theories; if inflated money seeks to overcome the falling rate of profit, inflated concepts seek to overcome the falling rate of intelligence. Within left and radical thought this assumes a particular form: an increase in revolutionary face value. Today every theory is more revolutionary than the previous one, or so it claims. Such an increase is a response to a depreciation, as it (...) were, in the critical substance and categories of the theories; as silver coins are now fabricated with copper, revolutionary theories are constructed with conformist and establishment concepts. The result is inflation. (shrink)

The current proxy voting system in the United States has become the subject of considerable controversy. Because institutional investment managers have the authority to vote their clients’ proxies, they have a fiduciary obligation to those clients. Frequently, in an attempt to fulfill that obligation, these institutional investors employ proxy advisory services to manage the thousands of votes they must cast. However, many proxy advisory services have conflicts of interest that inhibit their utility to those seeking to discharge their fiduciary (...) duties. In this article, we describe the current proxy advisory network as an example of how current notions of conflicts of interest fall short when explaining the behavior of an interconnected set of market players whose remit is to act in the best interests of their investors. We discuss what participants in this system should do to bring transparency and accuracy to the proxy advice industry. (shrink)

The claims by the Building Societies Association (BSA), some mutual building societies and other observers that mutual status is associated with higher levels of charitable and community involvement than public status banks are tested using the proxy of charitable donations in cash as a proportion of profits before tax (PBT). Using a sample of 31 of the remaining 65 mutual societies and the population of U.K.-based retail banks and still-independent demutualised banks, two hypotheses were tested: first, that charitable giving as (...) a proportion of PBT over the period 1990–2003 was higher for mutuals than banks and second, that longitudinal records of charitable donations as a proportion of PBT for former mutuals will show a lower rate after demutualisation. Neither hypothesis was convincingly supported allowing for the conclusion that any claims suggesting that mutuals are structurally more generous than public companies are not supported by empirical evidence. (shrink)

While, as Marx argued, periods of expanded accumulation present the best conditions for increasing working-class living standards, the expansion that began in 1982 was based in large part on the rapidfallin the value of labour-power in the US. This recovery and rapid rise in the rate of surplus-value in the US was enabled by the collapse of union-resistance beginning in 1979 and the strategic choices made by union-leaders across the economy from that time on. The expansion was sustained in (...) the 1980s by dramatic work-reorganisation, enabled by the embrace of labour-management cooperation-schemes by much of the trade-union leadership, and the restructuring of several major industries that undermined the industry-wide bargaining on which rising postwar incomes had been based. Productivity, boosted by lean production-methods, would continue to outstrip real wages up until the ‘Great Recession’ of 2008 and resume again in the wake of a weak recovery in the US. The rapid geographic expansion of capital after 1990 provided new investment-possibilities, as did the explosion of financial instruments. What stands out, however, is that rising productivity, far from providing the basis for increases in working-class income, had become coupled with flat or declining real wages and a fall in the value of labour-power as the necessary condition to sustain almost any level of growth in the real economy. The link between productivity and wage-increases, central to Keynesian and institutional collective-bargaining theory, had been broken and Marx’s idea of the most favourable conditions stood on its head. The breaking of this link had, in the final analysis, been an outcome of class-struggle in which capital had the upper hand. All of this underlines the failed strategies and practices of most of the trade-union leadership in the US since 1979. New approaches to the workplace and broader forms of mobilisation will be needed. Signs of worker-resistance to the latest neoliberal clampdowns in Latin America, Europe, China, and even the US, however, may point to a renewed era of intensified class-struggle. (shrink)

The temporal single-system (TSS) quantitative approach to Marx's economics is analysed. It is shown that TSS models lack a clear equilibrium concept and a coherent (dis)equilibrium methodology, and that Marx's propositions on value and exploitation are tautologically obtained (i) by constructing a money costs theory of value, where by assumption values are equal to market prices, apart possibly from short-run deviations; and (ii) by arbitrarily assuming that the undefined monetary expression of labour time is positive. In general, the shortcomings of (...) the analytical framework make TSS claims, including the proofs of the law of the tendential fall in the profit rate, unwarranted. (shrink)

Introduction -- Karl Marx's concept of alienation -- Objectification, alienation, and estrangement -- Other origins of alienation and objectification -- Marx's account of alienation : from early to late -- The alienated object of production : commodity fetishism -- The alienated means of production : machine fetishism -- Machines and the transformation of work -- Marx's energeticist turn -- The first law of thermodynamics -- From arbeit to arbeitskraft -- The second law of thermodynamics -- Machines in the communist future (...) -- Technology and the boundaries of nature -- Material wealth and value : the Grundrisse's fragment on machines -- The strife between technology and capital : the fall in the rate of profit -- Enjoyment not value : challenging the logic of exhaustion -- Man himself as fixed capital -- Class kinship and the redistribution of the means of production -- Machines in the capitalist reality -- Between thermodynamics and humanism : approaching capital -- Machinery as an historical category of production -- Machines, trains, and other capitalist monsters -- Rough, foul-mouthed boys : women's monstrous laboring bodies -- Wage labor and race -- Wage labor and sexuality -- Machinery and revolution -- Alienation beyond Marx -- Science and technology in Marx's excerpt notebooks -- Karl Marx and Charles Babbage -- Machines and temporality : the treadmill effect and free time -- Technophobia and technophilia -- Technophobia and twentieth-century theory. (shrink)

Abner Shimony called it coherence; John Kemeny called it strict fairness; today many people speak of strict coherence. According to Shimony's definition, a set of betting rates on a series of propositions hi and ei is strictly incoherent, when “there exists a choice of stakes Si such that, if X accepts the series of bets at these stakes, then no matter what the actual truth values of hi, and ei may be, X can at best lose nothing, and in at (...) least one possible eventuality he will suffer a positive loss”. (shrink)

Although microfinance organizations are generally considered as inherently ethical, recent events have challenged the legitimacy of the sector. High interest rates and the excessive profitability of some market leaders have raised the question of how to define a fair profit level for social enterprise. In this article, we construct a fair profit framework based on four dimensions: profitability, social mission, pricing, and surplus distribution. We then apply this framework using an empirical sample of 496 microfinance institutions. Results indicate (...) that satisfying all four criteria is a difficult, although not impossible, task. According to our framework, 24 MFIs emerge as true double bottom line organizations. These MFIs are characterized by higher outreach to women, lower portfolio risk, and higher productivity in high-density environments such as South Asia. We argue that excessive profits can be better understood relative to pricing, the outreach of the MFI, and organizational commitment to clients in the form of reduced interest rates. (shrink)

A number of studies have investigated and found a significant relationship among economic wealth, Hofstede’s national culture dimensions, and software piracy rates (SPR). No study, however, has examined the relationship between economic wealth, culture, and the fact that national SPRs have been declining steadily since 1994. Using a larger sample than has previously been available (57 countries), we confirm the expected negative relationship between economic wealth, culture (individualism and masculinity) and levels of software piracy. The rate of decline in (...) software piracy, however, is found to be a cultural phenomenon, with two factors (power distance (PDI) and uncertainty avoidance (UAI)) working in opposition. Similar results are found for a subset of 37 relatively poor countries. This suggests that, while the rise in economic wealth seen for most countries should lead to a reduction in software piracy, the rate of decline is determined by cultural factors. Global strategies for dealing with software piracy are discussed. (shrink)

This research article uses the theoretical framework of doctrine as believer's security to critique the theological framework behind the controversial activities reported amongst some South African neo-Pentecostal prophets, which include feeding congregants with grass, spraying them with insecticides and sexual violation of women congregants. The framework of the article falls within the discipline of systematic theology by raising the importance for South African Christians to develop a critical doctrinal framework for protecting themselves from controversial NPPs. The following main question is (...) answered by the article: from a systematic theological perspective, how can we evaluate the theological framework, which leads to the recent controversial activities reported amongst some NPPs in South Africa? Consequently, the article, firstly, describes the critical theological framework of the protective role of Christian doctrine. Secondly, it describes the South African NPPs and their controversial practices. Thirdly, this article analyses some of the theological problems in the current operative framework of NPPs. Fourthly, it argues for the need for doctrinally informed critical thinking as a safety measure against controversial NPPs. Finally, some steps that must be taken by NPPs to develop critical theological thinking in order to overcome doctrinally vacuous experientialism that promotes controversial religious activities are provided.CONTRIBUTION: From a systematic theological approach, this article attempts to demonstrate the importance of critical doctrinal thinking as a defence mechanism for protecting Christians from falling prey to harmful religious practices, such as those recently reported amongst some NPPs in South Africa. (shrink)

This 1974 collection of six essays in economic theory represents a major contribution to the field. The first contains the formulation of the Ricardian system, whilst the next two contain, respectively, the author's synthetic treatment of the complex problems of fluctuations and economic growth, and his well-known theorem that in the long run the rate of profit and income distribution are independent of the propensities to save of the working class. The essays that follow provide the missing links: (...) a coherent picture of the macroeconomic theories that have originated in Cambridge and a discussion of their deep foundations in classical economic analysis. Finally, the author evaluates some economic controversies and draws his conclusions on the basic forces determining rate of profit in the process of economic growth. Although the arguments are highly theoretical, they require no knowledge of mathematics beyond elementary calculus and algebra. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:502 Feminist Studies 46, no. 2. © 2020 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Jaime Madden Teaching Online: Issues of Equity and Access in Writing-centric Formats The COVID-19 pandemic has turned us all into online teachers. In the context of this crisis, we have quickly learned new technologies and the affordances of asynchronous and synchronous delivery. We have grappled with the challenges of building community and supporting active engagement, and we (...) have turned to adapting our assessment methods for the remote environment. We have done this work at traditional colleges and universities, where online teaching was formerly the purview of graduate students and adjunct instructors. Online learning can no longer be associated with those who struggle to access traditional classrooms, such as disabled students and those who attend for-profit colleges. Instead, access to online learning can now be associated with access to wealth and to health—specifically as relates to avoiding contact with the virus. In K-12 education, we have seen districts that largely enroll white students make the decision to continue online or go hybrid for the fall 2020 semester, whereas those that largely enroll students of color are returning to the classroom.1 Inequalities pervade the teaching landscape as well. Teaching is not a job usually marked as high risk, but within this environment, some 1. The work of activist and artist @bmore_radical shows how these decisions are being made in Baltimore, Maryland. See https://www.instagram.com /bmore_radical/?hl=en. Jaime Madden 503 bodies suffer at higher rates. In a recent article published in this journal, coauthors writing as the Brocher Foundation Feminist Collective describe their experience and knowledge “of the ways that academia produces sickness.”2 The authors are white and cisgender women at Anglo-American and European universities, and even though they acknowledge that they did not experience high levels of racism, classism, linguistic marginalization, and/or illness, they still found themselves—at different stages of their careers—“worn thin” in a system where “bodies are disposable.”3 Commenting on this problem in another context, disability studies scholar Alison Kafer notes that disability is “more fundamental, more inevitable, for some than others.”4 The pandemic has made this much clear: able-bodied people are “temporarily able-bodied,” and those who experience racism and classism are among the most frequently and intensely sickened. In attending to how teachers and students transition online en masse, we need to consider how we are differently positioned within institutions governed by the logics of racialized capitalism. It is important to recognize not only which students can access these online spaces but also which skills such spaces tend to reward. It is also important to ask which teachers are disproportionately impacted by the transition online. In this piece, I describe the challenges of assessment and then wrestle with broader questions of access as a scholar invested in feminist studies and disability studies. The tension in online education between its promise of access and its methods of assessment is, I argue, worthy of urgent attention. The Challenges of Assessment I have taught online courses at four institutions: two private colleges and two public universities. Good teaching and learning can undoubtedly happen across a range of spaces. In online environments, I have found that my best teaching happens in the feedback I give students. 2. Laura Bisaillon, Alana Cattapan, Annelieke Driessen, Esther van Duin, Shannon Spruit, Lorena Anton, and Nancy S. Jecker, “Doing Academia Differently: ‘I Needed Self-Help Less Than I Needed a Fair Society,” Feminist Studies 46, no. 1 (2020): 132. 3. Bisaillon, et al., “Doing Academia Differently,” 136, 140. 4. Alison Kafer, Feminist, Queer, Crip (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), 26. 504 Jaime Madden This is understandable since assessment practices are important teaching opportunities in all contexts. In online environments, and particularly in asynchronous teaching, I have found that it is while carrying out assessments of student work that my most intense teaching occurs. It is through grading and offering comments on papers and assignments that I am most directly in communication with students as their teacher. When I mark student work, I ask questions of students, I prompt them to consider how our course materials may be placed... (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to analyze whether a number of firm and industry characteristics, as well as media exposure, are potential determinants of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure practices by Spanish listed firms. Empirical studies have shown that CSR disclosure activism varies across companies, industries, and time (Gray et al., Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 8(2), 47–77, 1995; Journal of Business Finance & Accounting 28(3/4), 327–356, 2001; Hackston and Milne, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 9(1), 77–108, 1996; Cormier (...) and Magnan, Journal of International Financial Management and Accounting 1(2), 171–195, 2003; Cormier et al., European Accounting Review 14(1), 3–39, 2005), which is usually justified by reference to several theoretical constructs, such as the legitimacy, stakeholder, and agency theories. Our findings evidence that firms with higher CSR ratings present a statistically significant larger size and a higher media exposure, and belong to more environmentally sensitive industries, as compared to firms with lower CSR ratings. However, neither profitability nor leverage seem to explain differences in CSR disclosure practices between Spanish listed firms. The most influential variable for explaining firms’ variation in CSR ratings is media exposure, followed by size and industry. Therefore, it seems that the legitimacy theory, as captured by those variables related to public or social visibility, is the most relevant theory for explaining CSR disclosure practices of Spanish listed firms. (shrink)

Rate, John In this first Sunday of Advent we are reminded that our lives and our world are moving towards a great finale, as envisioned in our times by the great Teilhard de Chardin. While there are some terrifying aspects to this (our natural fear of death, and the apocalyptic descriptions of the end-times in Luke's Gospel), Luke calms us with his confident admonition: 'Stand erect, hold your heads high, because your liberation is near at hand.' As we allow (...) this truth to influence daily life, we will naturally want to 'stay awake' and 'practise honesty and integrity in the land' (first reading), and we will understand more fully the beautiful Alleluia verse prayer: 'Lord, show us your mercy and love, and grant us your salvation.'. (shrink)