The Austrian Business Cycle

The Austrian school of economics is outside the mainstream. The Austrians start from micro-assumptions. This is not the neoclassical view of rational, fully informed human agents, maximizing their utility and profits. On the contrary, human actions are speculative and there is no guarantee of success in investment. According to Karl Menger, the founder of this

Global warming: planning not pricing

Carbon pricing and carbon taxes are now proposed by international institutions and mainstream economics as the main solutions to ending global warming and destructive climate change.  For some time, the IMF has been pushing for carbon pricing as ‘a necessary if not sufficient’ part of a climate policy package that also includes investment in ‘green

Capitalism: has the leopard changed its spots?

“Let me be clear: capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism. It’s exploitation.”, US President Biden tweeted when signing an executive order to expand competition across the economy and crack down on monopolistic practices, describing a misguided 40-year “experiment” in letting US corporations consolidate with little regulation that he said has hurt ordinary Americans.  “The heart of

Marx’s reproduction schema

Recently, I made a short presentation to a discussion group of the Communist Party of India (M) youth on Marx’s reproduction schema.  I thought the subject might also be worth a post on my blog.  Marx’s reproduction schema are to be found in Capital Volume Two Part 3 chapters 18 to 21. What are these

Chinese Communist Party: a party of workers or capitalists?

It’s 100 years today since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was first formed by just 50 members, mostly intellectuals, but including railway and mine workers.  100 years later to the day, the official membership figure is 95m and there are 4.8m party branches.  This is surely the largest political party the world has ever seen.

Inflation, interest rates and debt

Inflation of the prices of goods and services is good or bad news depending on your relation to the means of production.  For labour, with no ownership of the means of production and only making a living from selling its power to work, inflation is not good news, because it eats into real incomes by

1% own 45% of the world’s personal wealth while nearly 3bn people have little or no wealth at all

Just 56m or 1% of adults out of 5.3bn globally are millionaires in net wealth terms.  And they own 45% of all global personal wealth.  The other 99% own the rest and there are nearly 3bn people in the world that have little or no wealth at all (after debts are deducted). Every year I

Marx’s law of profitability after Capital

The Global Marxism series organized by SSK in Korea has delivered a number of important presentations and papers on aspects of Marxist economics. I participated in the second round with a paper on the Economics of Modern Imperialism. Recently Hideto Akashi of Komazawa University, Tokyo returned to the fray with a presentation on Marx’s law of

Profits call the tune

I have argued in many posts that ‘profits call the tune’ in capitalist accumulation.  What I mean by that is that any change in business profits (and profitability) will lead to changes in business investment – and not vice versa over time.  Profits are key to capitalist investment, not ‘effective demand’ as Keynesians argue, or

Imperialism meets in Cornwall

This weekend, the leaders of the ‘free world’ are flying (and helicoptering) into Cornwall, at the tiny end of England, for the first physical meeting of the G7 nations.  As they increase the carbon footprint sharply through extensive fossil fuel activity, the G7 agenda will include dealing with climate change, global ‘action’ on the COVID