Routledge Frontiers of Political Economy – serie

Faced with a new crisis of capitalism, many scholars are now looking back to the author whose ideas were too hastily dismissed after the fall of the Berlin Wall. During the last decade, Marx’s Capital has received renewed academic and popular attention. It has been reprinted in new editions throughout the world and the contemporary relevance of its pages is being discussed again. Today, Marx’s analyses are arguably resonating even more strongly than they did in his own time and Capital continues to provide an effective framework to understand the nature of capitalism and its transformations. This volume includes the proceedings of the biggest international conference held in the world to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Capital’s publication. The book is divided into three parts: I) "Capitalism, Past and Present"; II) "Extending the Critique of Capital"; III) "The Politics of Capital". It contains the contributions of globally renowned scholars from 13 countries and multiple academic disciplines who offer diverse perspectives, and critical insights into the principal contradictions of contemporary capitalism while pointing to alternative economic and social models. Together, they reconsider the most influential historical debates on Capital and provide new interpretations of Marx’s magnum opus in light of themes rarely associated with Capital, such as gender, ecology, and non-European societies. The book is an indispensable source for academic communities who are increasingly interested in rediscovering Marx beyond 20th century Marxism. Moreover, it will be of great appeal to students, as well as established scholars interested in critique of capitalism and socialist theory.

There are many different forms of rationality. In current economic discourse the main focus is on instrumental rationality and optimizing, while organization scholars, behavioural economists and policy scientists focus more on bounded rationality and satisficing. The interplay with value rationality or expressive rationality is mainly discussed in philosophy and sociology, but never in an empirical way. This book shows that not one, but three different forms of rationality (subjective, social and instrumental) determine the final outcomes of strategic decisions executed by major organizations.Based on an argumentation analysis of six high-profile public debates, this book adds nuance to the concept of bounded rationality. The chapters show how it is socially constructed, and thus dependent on shared beliefs or knowledge, institutional context and personal interests. Three double case studies investigating the three rationalities illustrate how decision makers and stakeholders discuss the appropriateness of these rationalities for making decisions in different practice contexts. The first touches more on personal concerns, like wearing a niqab or looking at obscene art exposed in a public environment; the second investigates debates on improving the rights and position of specific minorities; and the third is based on the agreement on instrumental reasons for two kinds of investments, but the cost arguments are regarded less relevant when social norms or personal interests are violated.The Social Construction of Rationality is for those who study political economy, economic psychology and public policy, as well as economic theory and philosophy.

The 2007–2008 financial crisis exposed the shortcomings of mainstream economic theory with economists unprepared to deal with it. In the face of this, a major rethinking of economics seems necessary and in presenting alternative approaches to economic theory, this book contributes to the rebuilding of the discipline.This volume brings together contributions from different perspectives and theoretical approaches that address the challenge of updating the economic theory corpus and seek to recover prestige for this discipline after the failure of neoclassical economics. It addresses a range of topics, including the complexity approach to economics, category theory, the Post-Keynesian approach to micro and macroeconomics, financialisation, multidimensional analysis and ecological economics.The book is aimed at economics scholars, researchers, academics and practitioners, as well as upper undergraduates and graduates in this area of knowledge. It may also be of interest for people interested in methodological issues in economics and the relationship between economic theory and the real world.

This book is set against the assumption that humans' unique feature is their infinite creativity, their ability to reflect on their deeds and to control their actions. These skills give rise to genuine uncertainty in society and hence in the economy. Here, the author sets out that uncertainty must take centre stage in all analyses of human decision making and therefore in economics. Uncertainty and Economics carefully defines a taxonomy of uncertainty and argues that it is only uncertainty in its most radical form which matters to economics. It shows that uncertainty is a powerful concept that not only helps to resolve long-standing economic puzzles but also unveils serious contradictions within current, popular economic approaches. It argues that neoclassical, real business cycle, or new-Keynesian economics must be understood as only one way to circumvent the analytical challenges posed by uncertainty. Instead, embracing uncertainty offers a new analytical paradigm which, in this book, is applied to standard economic topics such as institutions, money, the Lucas critique, fiscal policy and asset pricing. Through applying a concise uncertainty paradigm, the book sheds new light on human decision making at large. Offering policy conclusions and recommendations for further theoretical and applied research, it will be of great interest to postgraduate students, academics and policy makers.

In recent times, economic theories have provided the dominant explanations of how to understand and organize human societies. This book argues that the study of economic theories must not be restricted to the disciplines of economics, political economy, or economic sociology and must encompass our relationship to the biosphere.In this new volume, Tiago Cardão-Pito further develops his innovative system to organize the major economic theories into two major theoretical groups: one is termed “hedonist economic theory” (primarily mainstream economics which generally defends moneyed persons politically) and the other is work-based economic theory (the most well-known version of which is Marxism, which defends workers politically). It is shown that economics can only be understood through the political disputes between these two major theories, but it is also argued that both major economic theories are fundamentally unprepared for addressing human societies and the biosphere. They both attribute metaphysical status to money, describing monetary flows as the constitutive being of economic, social, and ecological phenomena. Furthermore, both theories follow the overinclusive and tautological post-Adam Smith concept of capital, which confuses monetary and non-monetary flows. Although human work remains highly relevant in our technologically enhanced times, this book demonstrates that returning to work-based economic theory is no longer a viable option to contest the dominance of hedonist economic theory. A new bio-social theory is required to explain the integration of human societies into the biosphere.This book is a vital reading for students and scholars of economic and social theory, political economy, economic sociology, organization, sustainability, and ecological issues, environment and economics, environment and philosophy, environment and society, environment and business, environmental politics, environmental studies, philosophy of social science and political philosophy.

Karl Marx hypothesized that there is a long-term tendency for the profit rate to fall in capitalist economies. Immanuel Wallerstein hypothesized that capitalist development tends to drive up labor cost, material cost, and taxation cost. This book evaluates Marx’s and Wallerstein’s hypotheses by studying the long-term movement of the profit rate and contributing factors in major capitalist economies. During the twentieth century, leading capitalist economies largely succeeded in stabilizing the profit rate. However, the current decline of the profit rate in China may precipitate the global capitalist economy into a new major crisis. As economic growth slows down in all major capitalist economies, Marx’s original hypothesis may be verified by the global economic events in the twenty-first century.

Money is usually understood as a valuable object, the value of which is attributed to it by its users and which other users recognize. It serves to link disparate institutions, providing a disguised whole and prime tool for the “invisible hand” of the market.This book offers an interpretation of money as a social institution. Money provides the link between the household and the firm, the worker and his product, making that very division seem natural and money as imminently practical. Money as a Social Institution begins in the medieval period and traces the evolution of money alongside consequent implications for the changing models of the corporation and the state. This is then followed with double-entry accounting as a tool of long-distance merchants and bankers, then the monitoring of the process of production by professional corporate managers. Davis provides a framework of analysis for examining money historically, beyond the operation of those particular institutions, which includes the possibility of conceptualizing and organizing the world differently.This volume is of great importance to academics and students who are interested in economic history and history of economic thought, as well as international political economics and critique of political economy.

This book renews the Marxian theory of the general equivalent by highlighting the contradiction between the social functions of money (unit of account, means of circulation) and its private functions (store of value, accumulation).It draws a clear distinction between the monetary base and the commodity base of money and thus avoids the confusion between money and credit on the one hand, and money and capital on the other, which are found in other heterodox monetary theories. It accounts for the new forms of monetary constraints weighing on the banking systems under and inconvertible fiat money standard, the class relationships underlying the interventions of monetary authorities and governments, and presents a definition of the state which emphasises its mode of intervention on the collective and social conditions of capitalisms which are money and labour power. The emphasis on the contradiction between these two types of monetary functions gives a more fundamental account of the conflict between the international role and the national origin of the dollar than the Triffin dilemma, which has been constantly overcome or deferred by the US since 1960. The author explains this evolution by demonstrating how, from the 1950s onwards, the dollar began a process of acquiring relative autonomy from the US economy. By focusing on the role and international functions of the dollar, he offers a fresh look at the 2008 crisis and its consequences for the international monetary system, but also for a possible post-capitalist financial system – which post-revolutionary Russia experimented with in the form of the NEP, and whose contemporary implementation is foreshadowed by the rise of digital central bank currencies.The book thereby provides a necessary update to the tools and concepts inherited from Marx for analysing and understanding money, capital and the state.

The neo-Schumpeterian interpretation dominating the field of evolutionary economics puts focus on technological innovation, Darwinian evolution and economic growth, and has proven to be fertile ground for the past forty years. However, as the evolutionary school attempts to engage with a world of inequality, financialization and economic fragility, the limits of such an interpretation begin to show. Contributing to the development of a more balanced post-Schumpeterian economics, this book offers a complementary interpretation of Schumpeter’s theory which is based on economic innovation, Bergsonian creative evolution and monetary mechanisms and institutions.The theoretical consequences of this new interpretation are significant and numerous. First, it leads to a conceptual separation of economic and technological innovation. Second, it offers a deeper integration of monetary and financial elements within the theory of the process of development, illustrating the adaptive and planning role provided by financial speculation under capitalist conditions. Third, it provides the foundations for a post-Schumpeterian theory of capitalist crisis, built on the relationship between innovation funding, the institutional development of banking and speculative credit creation. Finally, by discussing several key recent developments in evolutionary economics, the interpretation illustrates the opportunities unlocked by a pluralist approach to disciplinary development, aiming towards the development of a comprehensive post-Schumpeterian approach to economics. This text is essential reading for scholars and students of Schumpeter, evolutionary economics, post-Keynesian economics, institutional economics and all economists interested in the ontological, methodological and theoretical challenges posed by economic development.

This book expands upon a range of economic insights within the overall context of critical theory, particularly with respect to the question of socioeconomic inequalities, and presents an explanation of how critical theory provides a number of interesting perspectives for economists.Economic agents, deliberately imprisoned in their instrumental rationality as a means to survive under competitive relationships, are microscopic constituents of systemic forces which exist beyond their will. Despite the subjective rationality of such agents in terms of formally logical transitivity and consistency, aggregate market distributional mechanisms also display non-rational patterns. The crucial aspect of the dynamics of this system consists of the paralysing effect of the high level of socioeconomic inequality, which is driven by a permanent struggle for self-preservation under competitive rules; it is a reminiscence of natural, uncivilised relationships that constituted the reproduction process of the whole. These reified agents thus become instruments of their socially constructed powers on the one hand, and objects of their existential conditionality on the other. Hence, the dialectical approach adopted by the author aims to uncover the way in which structurally genetic market forces govern individual behaviour, as well as how individual behaviour shapes these structurally genetic forces, which, together, form the transcending principles of unequal distribution.This book will be of particular interest to scholars of the political economy, philosophy and the methodology of the social sciences, especially those concerned with inequality issues. This book includes a preface written by Professor Martin Jay.

In this age of overlapping and mutually reinforcing deep global crises (financial convulsions, global warming, mass migrations, militarism, inequality, selfish nation-states, etc.), there needs to be more realistic dialogue about radical alternatives to the status quo. Most literature produced heretofore has focused on the surface causes of these crises without much attention given to the sorts of major societal changes needed in order to deal with the crises we face.This book moves the debate beyond the critiques and the false or not fully realised alternatives, to focus on what can be termed "practical utopias". The contributors to this book outline a range of practical proposals for constructing pathways out of the global economic, ecological and social crisis. Varieties of Alternative Economic Systems eschews a single blueprint but insists on dealing directly with the deep structural problems and contradictions of contemporary global capitalism. It provides a diverse array of complementary proposals and perspectives that can inform both theoretical thinking and practical action.This volume will be of interest to academics and students who study political science, ecological economics, international politics and socialism.

In the economic debate, power is defined and studied mainly as an interpersonal relation occurring out of perfect competition. This is a consequence of the combination of methodological individualism and the assumption of competition as a natural and everlasting coordinating mechanism, operating without any sort of coercion. This methodology, however, is not adequate to analyze the forms of social coercion that characterize capitalism. Economics and Power criticizes the main theories of power developed in economic literature, analyzing ultraliberal contractualism to radical political economics, and ultimately suggesting a Marxist conception of power and coercion in capitalism. Palermo’s ontological argument is rooted in the philosophy of ‘critical realism’.This unique volume presents his main finding as being that the essential coercive mechanism of capitalism is competition. Capitalist power is not caused by a lack of competition, but by the central role it plays in this mode of production. Following this, the chapters reconstruct a Marxian conception of power where it is analyzed as a social relation and argues that perfect competition does in fact exist under the disguise of capitalist power. This book criticizes the construct of power and the underlying ideas surrounding perfect competition. This book is of interest to those who study political economy, as well as economic theory and philosophy.

Rapid and sustained growth in the twenty-first-century global economy of large developing economies including Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, has captivated policy-makers and popular business press pundits alike. The coining of the new acronym BRICS and widespread adoption in international economics discourse of the designation "emerging markets" is symptomatic of that interest.The Political Economy of Emerging Markets situates the BRICS phenomena in the global economic context of advanced economies continuing to languish in recession and hovering over a deflationary abyss several years after the meltdown. A key question this volume seeks to answer is whether the BRICS and so-called "emerging market" phenomenon is really the new miracle it is presented as, offering new or modified varieties of reloaded capitalist development to the world, or yet another mirage. Written by ten leading global experts, this book answers the tough questions over BRICS and emerging markets potentially realizing new varieties of reloaded capitalism. It is not only international and interdisciplinary but uniquely multiperspectival. Theories framing chapters are not of one genre, but generate theoretical debate at the frontier of knowledge in political economy along with nuanced empirical analysis which flows from it.This book is of great importance to those who study political economy, development economics and international political economy.

This book investigates the relationship between wages, profits, values and labour employment from a classical-Keynesian perspective. The starting point of this approach is classical political economy (in particular, Smith, Ricardo and Marx), suitably reformulated in modern terms by Sraffa and then integrated with the Keynesian theory of employment. Such an approach proves to be more appropriate in understanding the complexities of current economies and in identifying the instruments to pursue the final goal of economic systems: putting each person in a position to earn what is necessary to live with dignity.The approach undertaken by these chapters is in contrast to the ‘marginalist’ or ‘neoclassical’ school, which constitutes the mainstream of economic analysis. Especially in recent decades, several critical analyses of the present state of economic research have emerged due to the failure of contemporary economic analysis to acutely penetrate and guide the workings of actual economic systems. But these analyses have not always been effectively presented in a coordinated manner. This work presents one possible unifying framework—grounded in a solid tradition of economic thought—which aims to describe the basic forces operating in capitalistic economies and to identify the main objectives to pursue in production economies in order to fully exploit their potential. Most importantly, the focus of such classical-Keyensian analysis concerns the production of goods and services, and this book shows how several factors typical of contemporary (post-)industrial societies thus can be understood in a way that the standard economic theory has not been able to explicate (due to the reduction of everything to a question of exchange).The book provides key reading for those on master level economics courses. Moreover, it constitutes a solid introduction to modern classical-Keynesian analysis. It may also be of interest to readers who are keen to develop a critical view of economics, political economy and history of economic thought.

Markets are usually discussed in abstract terms, as an economic organizing principle, a generalized alternative to government planning, or even as powerful actors in their own right, able to shape local and national economic destinies. But markets are not abstract. Even as the idea of the market seduces politicians around the world to take advantage of their abstract qualities, they constantly run up against material reality. Markets are always somewhere, in place, and it is in place that the smooth theories of markets falter and fail. More than simply being embedded in particular places, markets necessarily emerge in the various political, social, cultural, and environmental relations that exist in and between places. Markets shape places, but the reverse is also true.This collection of essays approaches markets from the ground up, and from a part of the world often still regarded as peripheral to global capitalism: the South Pacific. With a wide variety of case studies, including on indigenous economies, childcare, agriculture, wine, electricity metering, finance, education, and housing, the authors show how complex local, social and cultural politics matter to how markets are made within and between places, and the insights that can be gleaned from studying markets in this part of the world. They explore the way superficially similar markets work out differently in different places, and why, as well as examining how market relations are constructed in places outside and on the edges of the centres of Western capitalism, and what this says back to how markets are understood in those centres. The book will be of particular interest to scholars and students working in and between economic geography, cultural economy, political economy, economic sociology, and more.

The Informal Economy: Measures, Causes, and Consequences provides a comprehensive account of the economics of informality through the lenses of various economic perspectives.Although informal economic activity is widespread all around the world, many issues around its nature and consequences remain largely under-explored or unresolved. Most importantly, the evidence presented in the existing literature on informality has failed to generate a consensus on the measurements, causes, and effects of the informal sector among researchers. Most, if not all, of the empirical results are inconclusive or dependent on the nature of the dataset used in the analysis. This book aims to address that gap by exploring different definitions and measures of the informal economy, including different perspectives, then subjecting these measures to a battery of empirical tests to examine the determinants and effects of informality. Through this analysis and an extensive review of the literature, the book explores many of the economic, political, and social factors of the informal economy including the relationship between informality and the tax burden, tax enforcement, and institutional quality. This key text makes for compulsive reading to scholars and students interested in the informal or shadow economy.

Both the exponents and critics of neoliberalism assert the dominance of market forces in western nations. The Political Economy of State Intervention calls this into question. Through a re-examination of state intervention in the USA and Britain over the course of the "long depression" (1970-to date), this book argues that the state has performed an increasingly significant role in conserving capital, propping up an economic and social order that has lost its productive dynamism.The specific forms of capital’s dependency on the state may vary, however the underlying weaknesses of mature western economies have prompted new forms of state intervention narrowly aimed at conserving capital, especially in the wake of the financial crisis. The chapters consider factors which are usually posited as explanations for the long depression such as oil price shocks, domestic conditions and technological innovation. The work argues that the consensus view of neoliberalism has served to underplay the significance of the state’s role in failing to lift this long depression in several ways: it has lent a greater ideological coherence to the policies pursued by successive governments than they deserve; the state has been less subordinate to the market than is usually claimed and more often its maker; and there has been a significant growth in jobs located in the private sector that are funded by public money. The cumulative effect of this is a narrowing of the state’s purpose to conserving capital, a role which has contributed to its loss of authority as an institution that claims to represent society as a whole. It is theorised that this, in turn, has led to the insecurities of the existing political order and the rise of populism. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of political economy, public policy, political theory, economics and sociology.

Public goods are typically defined only in reference to the good itself but, as this book argues, the public goods can be better understood if contextual variables are incorporated. This book discusses the production and provision of public goods. It asserts that changes related to public goods are better understood if the category of goods are not decided solely by the properties of the good itself. We also need to focus on how the enabled utility of a good is influenced by the production and the provision of the good.The book opens with a brief introduction to common conceptions of public goods and a review of the existing literature - highlighting the limitations of current definitions of public goods. It presents a new multi-layered approach to public goods. This has implications for the discourse on public goods and for our understanding of the societal and environmental impact of public goods. The implications are illustrated in several areas; public goods in ancient history, privatization, innovation, competitiveness and prices, democracy and political standards, and economic growth.The book provides a provocative argument for a new way to analyze public goods which will appeal to scholars and students interested in the economic analysis of public goods, arguments regarding the privatizing or nationalizing of production and services, and method of modelling and measuring sustainable business activities.

Providing a thorough examination of distributive justice, Distributive Justice and Taxation presents and discusses different theories of what constitutes a just society, and how goods should be distributed in such a society.The distribution of goods in society has direct and serious consequences on the lives of the people. There are therefore important questions to be asked regarding the justice of that distribution: Is it just that some people inherit large fortunes while others inherit nothing? Do rich people have additional access to political power because of their wealth? If so, is that just? And should the ambition for economic policies be to combat poverty, or to reduce inequality? This book explores these questions and a number of others through the analysis of related theories, spanning from strong egalitarian theories on the left to right-wing libertarianism. The chapters also explicitly examine the case of taxation – one of the most important and controversial measures of distribution of goods in society. Placing emphasis on the case of Norway and using data from both the UK and USA as a point of comparison, the work details and explores the key features of the tax system. It concludes by presenting and evaluating arguments for and against taxes such as income tax, wealth tax, and inheritance tax. This book is essential reading for those interested in distributive justice, as well as students and scholars of philosophy, law, political science, and economics.

The theory of costs is a cornerstone of economic thinking, and figures crucially in the study of human action and society. From the first day of a principles-level course to the most advanced academic literature, costs play a vital role in virtually all behaviors and economic outcomes. How we make choices, why we trade, and how we build institutions and social orders are all problems that can be explained in light of the costs we face.This volume explores, develops, and critiques the rich literature on costs, examining some of the many ways cost remains relevant in economic theory and practice. The book especially studies costs from the perspective of the Austrian or “causal-realist” approach to economics. The chapters integrate the history of economic thought with contemporary research, finding valuable crossroads between numerous traditions in economics. They examine the role of costs in theories of choice and opportunity costs; demand and income effects; production and distribution; risk and interest rates; uncertainty and production; monopsony; Post-Keynesianism; transaction costs; socialism and management; and social entrepreneurship.Together, these papers represent an update and restatement of a central element in the economic way of thinking. Each chapter reveals how the Austrian, causalrealist approach to costs can be used to solve an important problem or debate in economics. These chapters are not only useful for students learning these concepts for the first time: they are also valuable for researchers seeking to understand the unique Austrian perspective and those who want to apply it to new problems.

The fields of morality and ethics have been left out significantly from socio-scientific study in general and in economics and finance in particular. Yet this book argues that in this age of post-modernist analytical inquiry, the study of morality and ethics is an epistemological requirement. This book illustrates the delimiting nature of mainstream economic reasoning in treating morality and ethics and highlights the potential contribution of analytical monotheism, as typified by the Islamic concept of Tahwid.The principal purpose of this book is to undertake an introductory exploration of the critical area of comparative economic thought in order to place the nature and emergence of ethico-economic theory in its proper context. It is ultimately argued that such a post-orthodoxy revolutionary methodological worldview can be presented by Islamic political economy, Islamic economics and finance.

Rent Seeking and Human Capital: How the Hunt for Rents Is Changing Our Economic and Political Landscape explores the debates around rent seeking and contextualizes it within the capitalist economy. It is vital that the field of economics does a better job of analyzing and making policy recommendations that reduce the opportunities and rewards for rent seeking, generating returns from the redistribution of wealth rather than wealth creation. This short and provocative book addresses the key questions: Who are the rent seekers? What do they do? Where do they come from? What are the consequences of rent seeking for the broader economy? And, finally: What should policymakers do about them? The chapters examine the existing literature on rent seeking, including looking at the differences between rent seeking and economic rent. The work provides an in-depth look at the case of the impact of rent seeking degrees in the United States, particularly in business and law, and explores potential policy remedies, such as a wealth tax, changes to the rules on financial transactions, and patent law reform. This text provides an important intervention on rent seeking for students and scholars of heterodox economics, political economy, inequality, and anyone interested in the shape of the modern capitalist economy.

Faced with a new crisis of capitalism, many scholars are now looking back to the author whose ideas were too hastily dismissed after the fall of the Berlin Wall. During the last decade, Marx’s Capital has received renewed academic and popular attention. It has been reprinted in new editions throughout the world and the contemporary relevance of its pages is being discussed again. Today, Marx’s analyses are arguably resonating even more strongly than they did in his own time and Capital continues to provide an effective framework to understand the nature of capitalism and its transformations. This volume includes the proceedings of the biggest international conference held in the world to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Capital’s publication. The book is divided into three parts: I) "Capitalism, Past and Present"; II) "Extending the Critique of Capital"; III) "The Politics of Capital". It contains the contributions of globally renowned scholars from 13 countries and multiple academic disciplines who offer diverse perspectives, and critical insights into the principal contradictions of contemporary capitalism while pointing to alternative economic and social models. Together, they reconsider the most influential historical debates on Capital and provide new interpretations of Marx’s magnum opus in light of themes rarely associated with Capital, such as gender, ecology, and non-European societies. The book is an indispensable source for academic communities who are increasingly interested in rediscovering Marx beyond 20th century Marxism. Moreover, it will be of great appeal to students, as well as established scholars interested in critique of capitalism and socialist theory.

This book develops an evolutionary economics approach to welfare state dynamics. Welfare states are complex settings, including social insurance, social assistance and universal provisions. Their main aim is to shelter household incomes from instability and redistribute incomes. The book analyses welfare states in terms of how they pool business cycle uncertainty between the state (social security), firms, and households. The evolutionary and institutional analysis of welfare states, focusing in particular on labour market segmentation and national-level policy design, is applied to two particular cases: a Southern European country (Portugal) and a deep-rooted European welfare state (France). These two countries have introduced similar social protection reforms and experienced similar crises, yet the two welfare states are very different. The book explores and explains why that should be the case. It will be of interest to researchers and students of institutional and evolutionary economics, welfare states, and European politics.

This book argues that capitalism cannot be said to be truly democratic and that a system of producer cooperatives, or democratically managed enterprises, is needed to give rise to a new mode of production that is genuinely socialist and fully consistent with the ultimate rationale underlying Marx’s theoretical approach. The proposition that firms should be run by the workers on their own was endorsed by John Dewey, the greatest social thinker of the twentieth century, but is also shared by Marxists such as Anton Pannekoek, Karl Korsch, Angelo Tasca, Antonio Gramsci and Richard Wolff. This book explores the history of this argument, taking into account concepts from economic and political thought including historical materialism, cooperation, utopianism and economic democracy. The book will be of significant interest to scholars and students of political economy, Marxism, socialism, history of economic thought and political theory.

One of the most spectacular phenomena in the South Korean political economy has been the remarkable escalation of international capital investment, particularly inward foreign direct investment (FDI). This book provides an in-depth look at the evolution of FDI in Korea, from the late 1990s to the present day.Charting Korea’s transition from state-led capitalism to a more liberalized market, this book assesses the complex interplay between government policy, foreign capital inflows, and multinational corporations (MNCs). It analyzes the key economic policies of the past as well as more recent measures by the Moon Jae-in and Yoon Suk Yeol administrations. The book then conducts an analysis of the socio-economic, cultural, and political dynamics that shape strategies of MNCs today. The book draws on 36 interviews with CEOs of foreign companies operating in Korea to seek their insights into the realities of doing business in Korea. It closes by highlighting the current challenges Korea faces today in integrating into the international economy and suggests solutions for sustaining its economic growth.This book will appeal to scholars of political economy, Korean studies, and economic development. It will also interest business leaders and policymakers seeking a deeper understanding of insights into Korea’s economic climate.

The Political Economy of Populism explores the interplay between identity, the economy and inequality to explain the dynamics of populist votes since the beginning of the 20th century.The book discusses the political and economic implications of populist governance using data on populist incumbencies and linking it to historical data on the macro economy and democracy. Chapters draw from the most recent political science, economics and other social science literature, as well as historical data, to explain the long-term causes and consequences of populism. Populism emerges and gains traction when political entrepreneurs exploit underlying identity conflicts for political gains. As the distributional consequences of both economic distress and economic growth typically favor the elite over the poor and the lower middle class, economic shocks usually sharpen the underlying identity conflicts between the groups. The book provides evidence of significant differences in the ways fiscal and monetary policies are conducted by incumbent populists in Latin America, Europe and the OECD. The work concludes by suggesting avenues through which a 21st century social consensus can be built, so that our society can avoid repeating the mistakes that led to wars and failed economic experiments in the 20th century.The Political Economy of Populism marks a significant contribution to the study of populism and is suited to students and scholars across the social sciences, including economics, political science and sociology.

Economists occupy leading positions in many different sectors including central and private banks, multinational corporations, the state and the media, as well as serving as policy consultants on everything from health to the environment and security. Power and Influence of Economists explores the interconnected relationship between power, knowledge and influence which has led economics to be both a source and beneficiary of widespread power and influence. The contributors to this book explore the complex and diverse methods and channels that economists have used to exert and expand their influence from different disciplinary and national perspectives. Four different analytical views on the role of power and economics are taken: first, the role of economic expert discourses as power devices for the formation of influential expertise; second, the logics and modalities of governmentality that produce power/knowledge apparatuses between science and society; third, economists as involved in networks between academia, politics and the media; and forth, economics considered as a social field, including questions of legitimacy and unequal relations between economists based on the detention of various capitals. The volume includes case studies on a variety of national configurations of economics, such as the US, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Greece, Mexico and Brazil, as well as international spaces and organisations such as the IMF. This book provides innovative research perspectives for students and scholars of heterodox economics, cultural political economy, sociology of professions, network studies, and the social studies of power, discourse and knowledge.“The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9780367817084, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.”

Within Post-Keynesian economics there is a spectrum of approaches to theories of the firm but what they have in common, to their great benefit, is a proper integration of the concept of radical uncertainty: data that cannot be known. This book revisits Kalecki’s theory of the firm is located to show that it constitutes fertile theoretical ground on which to systematically understand the resultant indeterminacy when firms operate under conditions of radical uncertainty. The author proposes a way of generalising radical uncertainty by integrating some of the separate approaches within Post-Keynesian economics centred around Kalecki’s work. Through this, it is shown that radical uncertainty does more than just change the ultimate motivation of firms (dropping short-run profit maximisation; more complex motivation; interconnectivity with the environment), it is central to the emergence, existence and motivation of firms, and critically also firm strategy. It is argued that firms do not simply respond to uncertainty: it is the systematic cause of their intentional behaviour. Through developing these arguments, the book also contributes to the methodology of Kalecki and Shackle, as well as Kaleckian price theory. This book will be important reading for anyone interested in theories of the firm, Post-Keynesian economics and heterodox approaches to economics more broadly.