Contemporary mainstream economists see social wealth as the sum of individual incomes, but for three centuries many economists saw wealth as consisting of the public and private resources of a nation. This led them to explore the idea of unproductive labour, which provides a nation with an individual income, but does not contribute to an increase in social wealth or help to foster development. This book analyses the evolution of ideas surrounding unproductive labour, offering an unprecedented history that guides readers from the work of Petty through to the present economic crisis. This volume explores the work of several key scholars, including Smith, Petty, Marx, Ricardo, Mill, Say and Schumpeter. This book is suitable for scholars and researchers with an interest in the history of economic thought, labour economics and economic philosophy. Winner of the 2019 Ernest Lluch Prize from the Spanish Association of Economic History

This book constitutes an overview of recent developments in political economy in general, and Marxist value theory in particular. The implications of value theory for bank credit, inflation and deflation are fully explored.

This book provides an alternate foundation for the measurement of the production of nations, and applies it to the U.S. economy for the postwar period. The patterns that result are significantly different from those derived within conventional systems of national accounts. Conventional national accounts seriously distort basic economic aggregates, because they classify military, bureaucratic and financial activities as the creation of new wealth, when in fact they should be classified as forms of social consumption that, like personal consumption, actually use up social wealth in the performance of their functions.

The connection between productive labour and effective demand has often been ignored and disputed in political economy, even by giants like Ricardo and Marx. This book traces the historical development of theories, concentrating in particularly on those of Malthus, Marx and Keynes. Particular attention is also paid to the Great Depression in the UK and USA. * The Pre-Classical Approach * The Classical Economists * Socialists and Dissidents * Anti-Classical Theories in the Twentieth Century

Political economy, defined in the study of social relations and culture. Originally published in the former Soviet Union, was suppressed and after 1928 it was never re-issued. This is the first English-language edition. Includes an outstanding introductory essay on "Commodity Fetishism" by Freddy Perlman.

Conventional theories of capitalism are mired in a deep crisis: after centuries of debate, they are still unable to tell us what capital is. Liberals and Marxists both think of capital as an ‘economic’ entity that they count in universal units of ‘utils’ or ‘abstract labour’, respectively. But these units are totally fictitious. Nobody has ever been able to observe or measure them, and for a good reason: they don’t exist. Since liberalism and Marxism depend on these non-existing units, their theories hang in suspension. They cannot explain the process that matters most – the accumulation of capital. This book offers a radical alternative. According to the authors, capital is not a narrow economic entity, but a symbolic quantification of power. It has little to do with utility or abstract labour, and it extends far beyond machines and production lines. Capital, the authors claim, represents the organized power of dominant capital groups to reshape – or creorder – their society. Written in simple language, accessible to lay readers and experts alike, the book develops a novel political economy. It takes the reader through the history, assumptions and limitations of mainstream economics and its associated theories of politics. It examines the evolution of Marxist thinking on accumulation and the state. And it articulates an innovative theory of ‘capital as power’ and a new history of the ‘capitalist mode of power’.

Nearly two hundred years have passed since the birth of Karl Marx and continuing to this day the influence of his economic views, insights and theories can still be felt. However, since the publication of Das Kapital, the scientific community has not been sitting idle – it is time to evaluate Marx as an economist and explore what he can bring to modern economic thinking, particularly post-Keynesian economics. Starting with Marx’s schemes of reproduction, which, it is shown, are the basis of the linear model of production as used since the 1960s by Piero Sraffa, Michio Morishima and others, the book reviews and assesses Marx’s major economic theses. These include: the labour theory of value; accumulation and technical change and its impact on labour; the concept of unproductive labour; the tendential falling rate of profits; the evolution and determinants of the share of wages in national income; as well as short-run and long-run economic dynamics. The Economic Ideas of Marx's Capital updates the theses of the labour theory of value and the conditions for balanced growth using the recent scholarly literature, and also further develops issues related to Marx’s concept of productive labour. Moreover, the book analyses the intellectual relationship of Marx’s economic theory with post-Keynesian neo-Marxism, particularly in the writings of Michal Kalecki, Joan Robinson and others. By doing so, the book shows the need and possibilities of integrating major insights of Marxist and post-Keynesian theory. This volume will be of interest to those who wish to explore Marx’s economic theories through a non-ideological approach, as well as students of Marxist economics, post-Keynesian economics and the history of economic thought.