Political Economy based on Marx

Elena Papagiannaki
Summer Academy 2022 for Pluralist Economics, 2022
Niveau: débutant
Perspective: Économie politique marxiste
Sujet: Crises, Critique du capitalisme
Format: Description du cours/syllabus

This workshop was originally taught at the Summer Academy for Pluralist Economics 2022
Instructor:  Elena Papagiannaki (Birmingham City University, UK)

‘We cannot afford their peace & We cannot bear their wars’:
Value, Exploitation, Profitability Crises & ‘Rectification’

Schedule:

Day 1

  • Workshop Session 1: INTRODUCTION (Workshop’s Structure, Political Economy as Science, Sources & Datasets)
  • Workshop Session 2: LECTURE 1: Modes of Production, Labour Theory of Value, the Law of Value & Money (RECORDING: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA8WlGy3ElQ&list=PLHmyyN2MktOkw_y236lXBt3jFvAo7bWhp&index=2)
  • Workshop Session 3: DISCUSSION OF LECTURE 1 – Q&A, Quiz questions, Practical Exercises on calculating value, price and money based on statistical databases.

Day 2

  • Workshop Session 4: FREE-FLOW discussion based on Lecture 1, Q&A and potential essay topics for students’ assessment. 
  • Workshop Session 5: LECTURE 2: Marx on Surplus Value, Exploitation, Wages and the Rate of Profit (RECORDING: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2xDnUbLgzU)
  • Workshop Session 6: DISCUSSION OF LECTURE 2 – Q&A, Quiz questions, Practical Exercises on calculating the rate of surplus value, the rate of profit and graphical representation based on statistical databases.

Day 3

  • Workshop Session 7: FREE-FLOW discussion based on Lecture 2, Q&A and narrowing down to possible essay topics for students’ assessment.
  • Workshop Session 8: LECTURE 3: Simple & Extended Capitalist Reproduction, Capitalist Crises, Rectification and Wars (RECORDING: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7TF0Rs_Of4)
  • Workshop Session 9: DISCUSSION OF LECTURE 3 – Q&A, Quiz questions, Practical Exercises on mapping Department I and II of the economy and Productive and Unproductive labour on archeogram.

Day 4

  • Workshop Session 10: FREE-FLOW discussion based on Lecture 3, Q&A, finalising essay topics for students’ assessment and division of labour among students. 
  • Workshop Session 11: Explore journal articles and books to compose the theoretical part of the essay. 
  • Workshop Session 12: Explore statistical datasets to compose the theoretical part of the essay.

Day 5

  • Workshop Session 13:  Student meetings (facilitator present upon request) 
  • Workshop Session 14: Student meetings (facilitator present upon request)
  • Workshop Session 15: Student meetings (facilitator present upon request)

Day 6

  • Wrap-up:  Final Meeting 

Resources:

These journals, websites, databases are all good places to start searching for research on any given topic:  

Reading List:

Lecture 1 Topics

Dialectical and Historical Materialism (brief introduction)

  • Political Economy as a Science 
  • The Forces of Production, the Relations of Production and the Modes of Production
  • Class Struggle
  • The Economic Laws
  • The Classical Political Economy (CPE), Neoclassical Economics vs the Critique of Political Economy

The Law of Value (extended analysis)

  • Use Value VS Value
  • Concrete VS Abstract Labour
  • Form of Value
  • The Functions of Money
  • Price VS Value

Essential Reading:

Further reading:

  • Engels, F. (1876). 1986." The part played by labour in the transition from ape to man.". Karl Marx and Frederick Engels Selected Works. New York: International Publishers. Available at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1876/part-played-labour/index.htm 
  • Manya M. Mooya, Aristotle to Marshall: The Evolution of Economic Value Theory. 
  • Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1888). Theses on Feuerbach, no. 11. Marx and F. Engels, The German Ideology, Pts I &, 3, 199. Available: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/ 
  • Marx, K. (1857). Grundrisse: Foundations of the critique of political economy (rough draft) Penguin, Harmondsworth. Available at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ 
    • The Chapter on Money
  • Philp, B., and Trigg, A. (2015) Heterodox economics, distribution and the class struggle. In Jo, T, and Todorova, Z.  (eds. ) Advancing the Frontiers of Heterodox Economics: Essays in Honor of Frederic S. Lee. London: Routledge Advances in Heterodox Economics.
  • Spirkin, A.G., 1983. Dialectical materialism. Moscow: Progress Publishers.

Watch:

Lecture 2 Topics

The Law of Surplus Value (extended analysis) 

  • What is Capital? 
  • Transforming Money to Capital
  • The Components of Capital 
  • Commodification of Labour OR Labour Power? 
  • The Labour Wage in Capitalism 
  • Surplus-value and Unpaid Labour
  • The Allocation of Surplus Value
  • Productive and Unproductive labour

The Rate of Profit (extended analysis)

  • The Profit of the Industrial Capitalist
  • INTRA-Industrial Competition (Competition WITHIN a branch)
  • INTER-Industrial Competition (Competition AMONG branches)
  • Merchants’ Profit, Loan Capital (Interest), Ground Rent 
  • The Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall (TRPF)

Essential Reading:

  • Marx, K. (2018). Capital: Volume I. 
    • PART II: Transformation of Money into Capital – Chapter 4, 5 and 6 
    • PART III: The production of Surplus Value – Chapters 7, 8 and 9  
    • Part IV: Production of Relative Surplus Value – Chapter 12
    • Part V: The Production of Absolute and of Relative Surplus-Value – Chapters 16, 17, 18
  • Marx, K., 1910. Value, price, and profit. CH Kerr & Company. Available at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/value-price-profit.pdf 
  • Fine B. (1989), Marx’s Capital, Palgrave MacMillan

Further reading:

  • Cuestas, J. C., and Philp, B. 2012. Economic Class and the Distribution of Income: A Time-Series Analysis of the UK Economy, 1955-2010. International Review of Applied Economics, 26(5), pp.565-578.
  • Foley D. (1986), Understanding Capital: Marx’s Economic Theory
  • Kaldor, N., 1955. Alternative theories of distribution. The review of Economic Studies, 23(2), pp.83-100.
  • Philp, B., Slater, G., and Wheatley, D. (2015) New Labour and Work-Time Regulation. Cambridge Journal of Economics 39 (3), 711-732.
  • Spencer, D., 2017. Work in and beyond the Second Machine Age: the politics of production and digital technologies. Work, employment and society, 31(1), pp.142-152.
  • Spencer, D. A. (2018). Fear and hope in an age of mass automation: debating the future of work. New Technology, Work and Employment, 33(1), 1-12.
  • Spencer, D., & Slater, G. (2020). No automation please, we’re British: technology and the prospects for work. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 13(1), 117-134.
  • Tsoulfidis, L., 2015. Contending conceptions of competition and the role of regulating capital. Panoeconomicus, 62(1), pp.15-31.

Watch:

Lecture 3 Topics

The Basic Economic Contradiction of Capitalism (brief outline)

  • The birth of the Reserve Army of Labour (Unemployment)
  • The Immiseration of the Proletariat 

The Basic Cause of Crises and their ‘solution’ (extended analysis)

  • Capitalist Simple and Extended Reproduction 
  • Disproportionality of Department I and II
  • Crisis of Over-accumulation of capital
  • The Periodicity of Crises, Rectification and Wars

Essential Reading:

  • Marx, K. (2018). Capital: Volume III. 
    • PART I - The Conversion of Surplus-Value into Profit and of the Rate of Surplus-Value into the Rate of Profit :  Chapter 2 and 3
    • Part III. The Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall : Chapter 13 and 14 
  • Marxists Internet Archive (2014). POLITICAL ECONOMY, A Textbook issued by the Economics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. Available at: https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/index.htm 
    • Part Two:  THE CAPITALIST MODE OF PRODUCTION
  • Mavroudeas, S. (2015) The Greek saga: competing explanations of the Greek crisis. (Discussion Paper) Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Kingston University. 38 p. (Economics Discussion Papers, no. 2015-01). Available at: https://eprints.kingston.ac.uk/id/eprint/30428/1/2015_001.pdf

Further Reading:

  • Dunne, J.P., R.P. Smith, D. Willenbockel. 2005. “Models of Military Expenditure and Growth: A Critical Review.” Defence and Peace Economics. Vol. 16, No. 6, pp. 449– 461. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10242690500167791
  • Dunne, J.P. 1996. “Economic Effects of Military Expenditure in Developing Countries: A Survey,” pp. 439–464 in N.P. Gleditsch, A. Cappelen, O. Bjerkholt, R.P. Smith, and J.P. Dunne, eds. The Peace Dividend. Amsterdam: North Holland.
  • Grossmann, H., & Kennedy, T. (1992). The law of accumulation and breakdown of the capitalist system. London: Pluto Press. Available at: http://digamo.free.fr/grossm29.pdf 
  • Lenin, V. I. (1927). Imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism. Vanguard Press.
  • Luxembourg R. (1913), The Accumulation of Capital. Available at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/accumulation-capital/ 
  • Maniatis, T. (2012, April). Marxist theories of crisis and the current economic crisis. In Forum for Social Economics (Vol. 41, No. 1, pp. 6-29). Routledge.
  • Sweezy, P. (1949), The Theory of capitalist development, London: Dennis Dobson
  • Shaikh, A. (1978), ‘Political Economy and Capitalism: Notes on Dobb’s Theory of Crisis’, p.233 2:2 (1978:June)
  • Smith, R., Dunne, P., 1994. Is military spending a burden? A ‘Marxo-marginalist’ response to Pivetti. Cambridge Journal of Economics 18 (5), 515–521.

Watch:

Download syllabus here

Tags: capital | competition | contradictions of capitalism | crisis of capitalism | financial capitalism | labour | Marx | Marxian economics | Marxism | marxist | Marxist Economics | overaccumuation | profit | reproductive labour | surplus value | unpaid labour

Contenu lié

Die Podcast Episode des Geschichte der kommenden Welten Podcasts erzählt die Geschichte der Lohn für Hausarbeit Bewegung in den 70er Jahren. Sie rekonstruieren dabei sowohl Theorie als auch Praxis der Lohn für Hausarbeit Kampagne.
2024
Level: débutant
Lohn für Hausarbeit
Indigo & Sina
Geschichte der kommenden Welten
Zunächst motiviert Steffen Lange für eine sozial-ökologische Transformation hin zu einer Postwachstumsökonomie und erläutert, was darunter verstanden werden kann. Anschließend stellt er die Fragen, was die makroökonomischen Rahmenbedingungen für solch eine Ökonomie sein müssten. Dafür präsentiert Steffen Lange Rahmenbedingungen und Schlussfolgerungen, die sich aus verschiedenen ökonomischen Theorieschulen ableiten lassen. Hierbie …
2016
Level: avancé
Makroökonomische Rahmenbedingungen einer Postwachstumsökonomie
Steffen Lange
Netzwerk Plurale Ökonomik
In diesem Interview geht es insbesondere um die Beschäftigung mit der Ungleichheit, der sich Thomas Piketty in seinen Büchern "Das Kapital im 21. Jahrhundert" sowie "Kapital und Ideologie" widmet.
2020
Level: débutant
Thomas Piketty im Gespräch über Ungleichheit und Kapitalismus
SRF Kultur
Sternstunde Philosophie, SRF Kultur
Das Dossier enthält eine Sammlung von empfehlenswerten YouTube-Kanälen und Youtube-Videos in den Themenbereichen Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Wirtschaft und Wirtschaftspolitik. Sie umfasst sowohl deutschsprachige als auch englischsprachige Angebote.
2024
Level: débutant
EconTube: Der ultimative Guide durch die pluralen Wirtschaftskanäle auf Youtube
Frederick Heussner, Theresa Walter
Exploring Economics
Andrea Binder ist Expertin für Offshore Finanzen und humanitäre Politik. In ihrer kürzlich ausgezeichneten Dissertation hat sie sich damit beschäftigt, wie G...
2020
Level: débutant
Offshore Geldschöpfung & globale Finanzstabilität
Andrea Binder & Michael Peters
Finanzwende
Auf dieser interaktiven Webseite werden die Hintergründe und Ursachen der Finanz- und Wirtschaftskrise präsentiert.
Level: débutant
Die Krise verstehen
 
https://www.diekriseverstehen.net/
The Bank of England's introduction to money in the modern economy is composed by a video and a paper which work hand in hand. In them, money is presented as a form of debt, issued by someone and spent as credit by someone else. Furthermore, the three main types of …
2014
Level: débutant
Money in the modern economy: an introduction
Michael McLeay, Amar Radia and Ryland Thomas
Bank of England
In the interview, Robert Skidelsky discusses the emergence of political influence of a certain school of economic thought and how the success of an economic theory depends on the power relations in the society. He introduces the historical example of Keynesian economics and its replacement by liberal economic theory and policy in the aftermath of the Great Depression, and transfers this historical case to the dominant paradigm of austerity policies in the Europe as response to rising public debts caused by the Financial Crisis. He contrasts austerity policies with a Keynesian approach. Furthermore, he relates the targets of policy to the underlying power structures, for example when not the reduction of unemployment but the protection of financial capital is politically addressed.
2015
Level: avancé
Economics and Political Power during the Crisis
Robert Skidelsky
INET
An article in the New York Times from early 2025 suggests that the political influence of mainstream economics is declining. While economists have been highly influential in supporting and shaping free-market policies in recent decades, their expertise has become less relevant during intensified economic crises that necessitate state interventions.
2025
Level: débutant
The Strange Non-Death of Mainstream Economics
 
Exploring Economics
Unternehmen wird eine besondere Veränderungsbereitschaft zugeschrieben, und die Hoffnung ist, dass sie zu einem neuen Bild der Wirtschaft beitragen. Darin fehlen jedoch wesentliche andere Institutionen, die den Unternehmen Grenzen setzen. Ein Beitrag von Sabrina Schmidt und Carla Young.
2024
Level: débutant
Transformation durch Unternehmen?
Sabrina Schmidt und Carla Young
Economists for Future
This article introduces the series, “Reclaiming Africa’s Early Post- Independence History,'' from Post-Colonialisms Today. It explores the policies and thinking of African governments in the early post-independence period, and the lessons for today’s struggles for political and economic agency on the continent.
2020
Level: débutant
Reclaiming Africa’s Early Post-Independence History
Adebayo Olukoshi, Tetteh Hormeku-Ajei, Aishu Balaji, and Anita Nayar
Post-Colonialisms Today: postcolonialisms.regionsrefocus.org

Nous soutenir

Ce projet est le fruit du travail des membres du réseau international pour le pluralisme en économie, dans la sphère germanophone (Netzwerk Plurale Ökonomik e.V.) et dans la sphère francophone (Rethinking Economics Switzerland / Rethinking Economics Belgium / PEPS-Économie France). Nous sommes fortement attachés à notre indépendance et à notre diversité et vos dons permettent de le rester ! 

Donner