Tag Archives: capitalism

[embedded content] From CAPITALISM the documentary by Ilan Ziv. In this short clip a discussion of comparative advantage and its limitations, with Pascal Lamy, Robert Boyer and yours truly (many others in this chapter, including Geoff Hodgson and Ha-Joon Chang).The Mexican secretary of finance that appears in the video is actually NOT talking about the Ricardian model of trade, which at least given its assumptions is logically correct, but about the neoclassical or Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson...

Just for all you Marxists out there.Here are Marx’s comments on mass immigration into Britain in the 19th century in a letter to Sigfrid Meyer and August Vogt in 1870: “But the English bourgeoisie has also much more important interests in the present economy of Ireland. Owing to the constantly increasing concentration of leaseholds, Ireland constantly sends her own surplus to the English labour market, and thus forces down wages and lowers the material and moral position of the English...

As I noted before I've been teaching a Political Economy course, which I assumed right before classes began, and, I decided to keep the textbook, since it was already ordered. The book is written by Bowles, Edwards, and in the last edition, Roosevelt and is titled Understanding Capitalism. I discussed before the meaning of capitalism here (see also this on the use of the term capitalism as a proxy for free market policies).Here just a brief comment on the use of the idea of modes of...

[embedded content] Ilan Ziv's documentary. I appear in chapter 3 on Ricardo. But other than that, there is an impressive list of names, including Robert Boyer, Ha-Joon Chang, Noam Chomsky, David Harvey, James Galbraith, David Graeber, David Harvey, Kari Polanyi Levitt, Eric Mielants, Thomas Piketty, Robert Skidelsky and Yanis Varoufakis among others. It should be good for courses on history of ideas, history and about the crisis.

Wall Street Journal's logic. They say: "In the Americas 'thousands of persons are led to travel north in search of a better life for themselves and for their loved ones, in search of greater opportunities,' the pope said. 'Is this not what we want for our own children? We must not be taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation. To respond in a way which is always humane,...

It is a crucial point: Austrians complain about asset bubbles, but their Austrian business cycle theory (ABCT) or economic theory in general does not focus on stock market speculation or asset bubbles as a fundamental and inherent means by which an economy is destabilised.For example, in the ABCT it is real and unsustainable higher-order capital investment that is supposed to wreck the economy, not debt-financed asset speculation.The Austrians today are falsely claiming that they have some...

The English journalist Paul Mason speaks below on neoliberalism and his belief that capitalism has had its day. He is the author of the new book Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future (2015).[embedded content]Frankly, I think the debate is very confused and misses important points. Also, Mason’s book appears to base its analysis on the idea of the Kondratieff wave and Marxism (Chapter 3 of the book is even called “Was Marx Right?”). Unfortunately, I think these theories are nonsense.In my...