The Macrodynamics Of Capitalism

This book provides an introduction to advanced macrodynamics, viewed as a di- quilibriumtheoryof?uctuatinggrowth. Itbuildsonanearlierattempttoreformulate 1 the foundations of macroeconomics from the perspective of real markets diseq- librium and the con?ict over income distribution between capital and labor. It does so, not because it wants to support the view that this class con?ict is inevitable, but with the perspective that an understanding of this con?ict may help to formulate socio-economic principles and policies that can help to overcome class con?ict at least in its cruder forms or that can even lead to rationally understandable proce- 2 dures and rules that turn this con?ict into a consensus-driven interaction between 3 capitalists or their representatives and the employable workforce. The book starts from established theories of temporary equilibrium positions, the forces of real growth, and the con?ict over income distribution, represented by basic modeling approaches, which it considers in detail in its Part I in order to prepare the ground for their integration in Part II of the book. In this way we inspect what types of models of disequilibrium, income distribution, and real growth we have at our disposal, as models that have proved to be of real interest and sound from a rigorous modeling perspective.

This volume examines the macrodynamic behaviour of advanced economies with social institutions similar to those of the United States and other members of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. It is a critique of, and provides alternative models to, conventional neoclassical theory. The principles developed are used to explain two major phenomena in economic life: the nation's secular growth rate and the cyclical deviations around that growth. These interdependent movements of trend and cycle constitute the economy's macrodynamic behaviour. Eichner uses a systems framework for integrating four distinct institutional dimensions in society - the normative, the political, the economic, and the anthropogenic. This book, by one of the leading proponents of Post-Keynesian economics, is the culmination of over 13 years of scholarly work. The author's untimely death in February 1988 prevented the final revisions of his manuscript. The book should prove an essential addition to the library of scholars and students of economics both within and outside the Post-Keynesian tradition.

The Marxist theory of capitalist growth and transformation has often been shrouded in obscurity, either by endless recapitulation of Marx's texts or by excessive use of mathematical formalism. This short book presents an integrated and rigorous view of capitalist development - technical change, class relations, trends in the profit rate and share, cyclical and long-term crisis - in a form that is accessible to serious readers with or without prior training in economics or familiarity with Marxist thought.

The Marxist theory of capitalist growth and transformation has often been shrouded in obscurity, either by endless recapitulation of Marx's texts or by excessive use of mathematical formalism. This short book presents an integrated and rigorous view of capitalist development - technical change, class relations, trends in the profit rate and share, cyclical and long-term crisis - in a form that is accessible to serious readers with or without prior training in economics or familiarity with Marxist thought.

This important and timely volume brings together experts in political economy from across the globe, to comment on the return of Marxian macro-dynamics in East Asia. The contributions explore macro-dynamics, the role of the state and hegemony in the context of transnational capitalism, and Marxian alternatives for East Asia.

In this book Professor Goodwin eschewing fine-scale minutiae or classical mechanics, has addressed the big picture. His work deals with the great issues of: the class struggle a Ia Karl Marx; predator prey dramas of the Lotka- Volterra type; von Neumann's magisterial model of autonomous growth; Harrodian and Sraffian developments of Keynesian systems in their input-output aspects (or accelerator-multiplier aspects). Professor Lionello Punzo of a postwar generation provides additional chapters of multi-sector dynamics, working from and going beyond the aggregate models of Harrod, Domar, and Solow.

Orthodox economics operates within a hypothesized world of perfect competition in which perfect consumers and firms act to bring about supposedly optimal outcomes. The discrepancies between this model and the reality it claims to address are then attributed to particular imperfections in reality itself. Most heterodox economists seize on this fact and insist that the world is characterized by imperfect competition. But this only ties them to the notion of perfect competition, which remains as their point of departure and base of comparison. There is no imperfection without perfection. In Capitalism, Anwar Shaikh takes a different approach. He demonstrates that most of the central propositions of economic analysis can be derived without any reference to standard devices such as hyperrationality, optimization, perfect competition, perfect information, representative agents, or so-called rational expectations. This perspective allows him to look afresh at virtually all the elements of economic analysis: the laws of demand and supply, the determination of wage and profit rates, technological change, relative prices, interest rates, bond and equity prices, exchange rates, terms and balance of trade, growth, unemployment, inflation, and long booms culminating in recurrent general crises. In every case, Shaikh's innovative theory is applied to modern empirical patterns and contrasted with neoclassical, Keynesian, and Post-Keynesian approaches to the same issues. Shaikh's object of analysis is the economics of capitalism, and he explores the subject in this expansive light. This is how the classical economists, as well as Keynes and Kalecki, approached the issue. Anyone interested in capitalism and economics in general can gain a wealth of knowledge from this ground-breaking text.