This book provides analytical arguments that demonstrate the necessity to go beyond not only mainstream economics but also, and especially, the capitalist economy itself. It provides a radical critique of mainstream economics, comparing it to an unscientific form of single thought, and applies this criticism to the specific fields of growth, development, the institutions, defense, or the environment. It targets both neoclassical economics and reformist “soft heterodox” currents, from neoinstitutionalists to neo-Keynesians―including Thomas Piketty or Amartya Sen, among others. In doing so, it rejects Keynes’ theories of money, the crisis, and the state. It then offers a Marxist interpretation of the current crisis of capitalism, considering it as a systemic crisis without solutions internal to its own logic and dynamics, and emphasizes the links between this capitalist crisis and imperialist wars, and the destruction of the environment and natural resources by capital. The book concludes by arguing that we must find the necessary theoretical and practical alternatives in a Marxist perspective, advocating for socialist transitions away from the capitalist economy to protect humanity and the environment.
Author(s): Rémy Herrera
Series: Marx, Engels, and Marxisms
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 357
City: Cham
Series Foreword
Titles Published
Titles Forthcoming
Presentation
Contents
About the Author
PART I Toward a Radical Criticism of Mainstream
Economics
1 On Ideology: Is There a Single Thought in Economics?
1.1 Is a “Single Thought” Thinkable?
1.2 What is the “Single Thought”?
1.3 Does the “Single Thought” Have a History?
1.4 “Neoliberalism”
1.5 A Thought that Invents Its Own Economic History…
1.6 … Its Philosophical History…
1.7 …And Its Universal History
1.8 The Impossibility for Economics of Constituting Itself in a Science Against History
References
2 Growth: A Mainstream Theory (Which is also Itself) in Crisis
2.1 The Classics and Growth
2.2 The Contribution of the Keynesians
2.3 Neoclassicals, from the Traditional Dynamic Model to Optimal Growth
2.4 Generic Form of Endogenous Growth Theory
2.5 Canonical Models and Public Policies
2.6 The Dead Ends of the “New” Theory
2.7 What Reactivation of the State?
References
3 Development: Theoretical Rebirth… Or Smiling Recolonization?
3.1 Neoliberalism on the Assault on Development
3.2 Good Governance Versus Good Government?
3.3 The IMF: A Model of “Bad Governance”?
3.4 The Absorption of Development Theory by Neoclassicism
3.5 From the Intellectual Catastrophes of Neoclassical “Development”…
3.6 … To Those, Political, of Neoliberal “Development”
References
Part II The Limitations of the “Soft Heterodoxies” in Economics
4 Markets and Institutions: Economics and the Rough Understanding of Organizations
4.1 In Search of Definition(s)
4.2 A (so to Speak) Systematic Connection to the General Equilibrium of Markets
4.3 The Sacrosanct Private Property Rights
4.4 The Principle of Rationality in the Face of the “Traditional Societies” Conundrum
4.5 Legitimizing the “Re-feudalisation of the World”
4.6 The Institution Par Excellence: The State
4.7 The Neoinstitutionalist State, Guardian of Property Rights
4.8 Democracy… Or Neoliberalism?
References
5 Some Serious Limits of John Maynard Keynes on Money, the Crisis, and the State
5.1 Keynes and the Dominant Economics
5.2 On the Theory of the Crisis
5.3 Money, Credit, and the Financial System
5.4 Keynes, Yesterday and Today
References
6 Thomas Piketty’s Regulation of Capitalism Through a “Tax Revolution”
6.1 The Fundamental Contradiction of Capitalism According to Piketty
6.2 Capitalism and Its History According to Piketty
6.3 So What Is Capital and Its Dynamics?
6.4 Understanding the Strong Comeback of Capital
6.5 The Difficulty and Limits of a “Tax Revolution”
6.6 Democracy Is Not Meritocracy…
References
Part III Toward a Marxist Analysis of Contemporary Capitalism
7 From the Domination of High Finance to the Systemic Crisis of Capital: A Marxist Interpretation
7.1 The Absence (and Impossibility) of a Neoclassical Theory of the Crisis
7.2 At the Origins of High Finance: From the “Robber Barons”…
7.3 … To the “War-Mongers”
7.4 The Return of the Domination of High Finance in the Era of Neoliberalism
7.5 Overaccumulation and Fictitious Capital
7.6 A Systemic Crisis of Capital and the Inevitable Failure of Orthodox Anti-crisis Policies
References
8 For a Political Economy of Defense: Imperialist Wars and Their Links to the Crisis of Capital
8.1 A Needed Contextualization of the Debate
8.2 About Some Methodological Difficulties
8.3 The Terms of the Problematics Within Neoclassicism
8.4 Effects of Defense in the Neoclassical Mainstream
8.5 Ultraliberal Currents and the Privatization of the Army
8.6 Some Heterodox Interpretations
8.7 Toward Alternative Interpretations Within Marxism
8.8 Links Between Imperialist Wars and the Systemic Crisis of Capital
8.9 A Global System with Growing Contradictions
References
9 Overcoming Capitalism to Protect Humanity and the Environment: Revitalizing Marxism for Modern Socialist Transitions
9.1 Capitalism, a Threat to Humanity and Life
9.2 The Failure of Neoclassicism to Integrate the Environment and the Ecological Crisis
9.3 From One Consensus (that of Washington) to Another (the Copenhagen One)
9.4 Against Some False Alternatives
9.5 Social, Political, and Democratic Ecology: The Great Challenge of the Left
9.6 Revitalizing Marxism in the Perspective of Modern Socialist Transitions
References
Appendices: Confronting Mainstream Economists
Appendix A: Jean-Baptiste Say—An Atypical Classic, or a Pre-neoclassical Economist?
Appendix B: Walt W. Rostow—An Original Keynesian, from the Non-Communist Manifesto to the Execution of Che Guevara
Appendix C: Robert J. Barro—The Chemically Pure Reactionary Thought
Appendix D: Amartya K. Sen—The Economist of the Poor, or a Guru of the International Institutions?
Bibliographical References
Author Index
Subject Index
