Daniel E. Saros on Digital Socialism and the Abolition of Capital

Modern authors have identified a variety of striking economic patterns, most importantly those involving the distribution of incomes and profit rates. In recent times, the econophysics literature has demonstrated that bottom incomes follow an exponential distribution, top incomes follow a Pareto, profit rates display a tent-shaped distribution. This paper is concerned with the theory underlying various explanations of these phenomena. Traditional econophysics relies on energy-conserving “particle collision” models in which simulation is often used to derive a stationary distribution. Those in the Jaynesian tradition rely on entropy maximization, subject to certain constraints, to infer the final distribution. This paper argues that economic phenomena should be derived as results of explicit economic processes. For instance, the entry and exit process motivated by supply decisions of firms underlies the drift-diffusion form of wage, interest and profit rates arbitrage. These processes give rise to stationary distributions that turn out to be also entropy maximizing. In arbitrage approach, entropy maximization is a result. In the Jaynesian approaches, entropy maximization is the means.

Führt die Digitalisierung in eine smarte grüne Welt oder in eine Wachstumsökonomie mit zunehmender Einkommensungleichheit, Machtgefällen und ökologischen Schäden?

This is a recording of an introductory course held at the 4th International Degrowth Conference for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity in Leipzig in 2014. Federico Demaria from the French-Spanish organisation Research and Degrowth gives an introduction to degrowth. The presentation is based on the introduction to the book “Degrowth. A vocabulary for a new era.” and discusses definitions of degrowth, degrowth literature, debates, history and further research to be done.

In this overview paper, Laura Porak reviews the history of industrial policy in the European Union before the background of a Cultural Political Economy approach.

Wie der Staat Landeigentumsverhältnisse (über)sieht. Ein Beitrag von Felicitas Sommer.

Discusión sobre la relación negativa entre desigualdad y el movilidad social. Los últimos estudios realizados en los países de OECD y en los Estados Unidos aportan importantes elementos para analizar el deterioro de la movilidad social.