Best books of 2017

Last year we had some seminal and important books on Marxist economics including: Anwar Shaikh’s lifetime compilation, Capitalism: competition, conflict and crises (that I dip into on a regular basis); Fred Moseley’s Money and Totality, a masterful defence of Marx’s value theory; Francois Chesnais’ Finance Capital Today, that recounts the current trends in modern finance; as

The economics of Luther or Munzer?

Last week leading leftist economists in the UK held a seminar on the state of mainstream economics, as taught in the universities.  They kicked this off by nailing a poster with 33 theses critiquing mainstream economics to the door of the London School of Economics.  This publicity gesture attempted to remind us that it was

Capitalism without capital – or capital without capitalism?

There is a new book out called Capitalism without capital – the rise of the intangible economy.  The authors, by Jonathan Haskel of Imperial College and Stian Westlake of Nesta, are out to emphasise a big change in the nature of modern capital accumulation – namely that increasingly investment by large and small companies is

Grossman on capitalism’s contradictions

Henryk Grossman, Capitalism’s contradictions: studies in economic theory before and after Marx, edited by Rick Kuhn, published by Haymarket Books. Rick Kuhn, the indefatigable editor, biographer and publisher of the writings of Henryk Grossman, has another book out on his work.  Grossman was an invaluable contributor to the development of Marxist political economy since Marx’s

Market power again

In a previous post, I covered the arguments of several mainstream economists who sought to explain the slowdown in productivity and investment growth especially since the beginning of the 2000s as due to market power. Now there is yet another round of mainstream economic papers trying to explain why investment in the major economies has

US rate of profit update

The latest data for net fixed assets in the US have been released, enabling me to update the calculations for the US rate of profit a la Marx up to 2016. Last year, I did the calculations with the help of Anders Axelsson from Sweden, who not only replicated the results to ensure their accuracy

Value, class and Capital

This year’s Historical Materialism conference in London focused on the Russian revolution as well as the 150th anniversary of the publication of Marx’s Volume One of Capital.  Naturally, I concentrated on presentations that flowed from the latter rather than the former. Indeed, the main plenary at HM was on Marx’s theory of value and class

The Russian revolution: some economic notes

It’s almost exactly 100 years to the day (on the modern calendar) since the revolutionary insurrection in St Petersburg that led to the Bolshevik wing of the Russian Social Democrats gaining control of the major organs of power and establishing the rule of workers Soviets. There has been much written about the ‘Russian revolution’ since

Xi takes full control of China’s future

Xi Jinping has been consecrated as China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong after a new body of political thought carrying his name was added to the Communist party’s constitution.  The symbolic move came on the final day of a week-long political summit in Beijing – the 19th party congress – at which Xi has pledged

The global debt mountain: a Minsky moment or Carchedi crunch?

During the current Chinese Communist party congress, Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China, commented on the state of the Chinese economy.  “When there are too many pro-cyclical factors in an economy, cyclical fluctuations will be amplified…If we are too optimistic when things go smoothly, tensions build up, which could lead to a