Articles

Has the Empire Struck Back?

In 2001 Richard Abritton asked me to write a chapter for Phases of Capitalist Development. The chapter summarises the reasons for employing Marx’s value theory to study modern imperialism, highlighting its economic character. It also marks a transition in which my focus shifted to the empirical study of actually existing inperialism which, I argued, was paving the way to a new era of war. On 9th September 2001 this prediction

The Madrid 1999 conference: key papers on value

Schedule of the 1999 international conference in Madrid organised by Diego Guerrero. One of the few events in which TSSI and other scholars both took part, it was a watershed. TSSI scholars presented work based on accumulated theoretical gains of the past decade; the defenders of the ‘old system’ simply presented their own work without engagement with the new theories. It was overshadowed by the financial crash of 1998, which

Madrid 1999: Paolo Giussani on the rate of profit

At the 1999 Madrid conference, Paolo Giussani presented two papers, the first on Joint Production and the second on TSS and the rate of profit. This is the paper on the rate of profit. I have reformatted it but the text is unchanged. It is in Italian.

Madrid 1999: Paolo Giussani on joint production

At the 1999 Madrid conference, Paolo Giussani presented two papers, the first on Joint Production and the second on TSS and the rate of profit. This is the paper on joint production, of special interest since the obscure technical question of ‘joint production’ formed one of the lesser-known centrepieces of Ian Steedman’s original ‘surplus school’ assault on Marx. The argument was that, as well as the more familiar charges of

Madrid 1999: Endogenous Market Failure

At the 1999 Madrid conference, I presented a number of papers and at Diego Guerrero’s invitation gave an undergraduate seminar. In the shadow of the 1998 crash, the central question facing Marxist Political Economy (then as now) was to provide an explanation for the tumultuous events that increasingly dominated the evolution of the capitalist world system, above all – at that time – in the United States. All my papers

The Emperor’s Tailor

The paper examines the profession of economics in the light of its disarray in the face of the financial crash of 1998. It was presented in a variety of forms and at a number of events so this entry may repeat what is to be found elsewhere on this site. Its focus was the profession of economics as such, which, by then, it was increasingly clear, had been converted into

ENCYCLOPAEDIA: Value, Price of Production and Market Price

Written jointly with Andrew Kliman, this was submitted to O’Hara, Phillip A (1999) The Encyclopaedia of Political Economy, pp318-320. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-15426-X, but was not accepted. The terms in capital letters are references to other Encyclopedaedia entries

ENCYCLOPAEDIA: The Falling Rate of Profit

Written jointly with Andrew Kliman, this is a prepublication version of the entry on the falling rate of profit in O’Hara, Phillip A (1999) The Encyclopaedia of Political Economy, pp318-320. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-15426-X.

Measuring the UK Economy

The article shows how to transform the national accounts of the UK from their present form to one in which only labour is considered productive of value.

The two systems debate: response to Laibman

On the cusp of the millenium, Paul Zarembka’s Research in Political Economy published a four-way exchange about approaches to Marx’s theory of value and the rate of profit between David Laibman, Duncan Foley, Andrew Kliman and Alan Freeman. Here I reproduce my response to Laibman’s critique of the TSSI of Marx’s value theory.

Argentina: Marx in a time of chaos

In September 1999 I made my first visit to Argentina at the invitation of IADE, the Institute for Economic Development. I arrived with debt crisis gathering force and plunged into a maelstrom of which I was an unanticipated part. I returned in 2002 in the midst of a huge social uprising provoked by the devaluation of the peso, which deposed De La Rua whilst I was there, and eventually propelled

BRAZIL: Porto Alegre at the dawn of the age of war

In October 1999 I was invited to address the de facto founding conference, in Porto Alegre, of the World Social Forum. There are two items here. The first is a report to the Research Committee of the University of Greenwich, where I taught from 1992 until I left in June 2000 to work at the Greater London Authority under the newly-elected radical Mayor Ken Livingstone. It is of historical interest.

The Brenner symposium, the crash of 1998, and the rate of profit yet again

In 1999, SOAS organised a symposium around the work of Robert Brenner. At its centre lay the question, as always, of the rate of profit. Brenner, a historian, had assembled a mass of factual data which pointed almost incontrovertibly to a long term fall in the US and other profit rates. This was disputed by most Marxists who found it inconvenient, given both that their interpretation of Marx predicted that

SOAS: Michel Husson’s contribution on Brenner and the profit rate

In 1999, SOAS organised a symposium around the work of Robert Brenner. At its centre lay the question, as always, of the rate of profit. Brenner, a historian, had assembled a mass of factual data which pointed almost incontrovertibly to a long term fall in the US and other profit rates. This was disputed by most Marxists who found it inconvenient, given both that their interpretation of Marx predicted that

Reply to Dumenil and Levy 1

In 1997 Gérard Duménil and Dominique Lévy (hence GD-DL) kindly produced a response to my 1996 general formulation of the Temporal Single-System (TSS) interpretation of Marx’s value theory. Dumenil and Levy’s paper was subsequently published in 1999 by the Review of Radical Political Economy. I submitted this response to RRPE but it was rejected, as was a second reply. My response welcomed GD-DL’s contribution, stating that ‘a near-universal silence reigns

MOSCOW: at the dawn of the age of war

In November 1999 I was invited to address a conference of the Institute of Politology ‘ISPRAN’ at Moscow State University. I presented the same report as to the Porto Alegre conference Here are my report to the Research Committee of the University of Greenwich, also of historical interest. There follows the a PDF of the English-language slides accompanying the presentation, with the same title as in Portpo Alegre – ‘Forward

Space, Computers and Learning

While teaching at Greenwich University from 1992 to 2000, I worked with George Hallam and Malcolm Ryan on how Computers could help Learning Economics. We also took part in forums dedicated to economics teaching and the application of electronics to it, such as CALECO and ALT-J, now probably lost in the mists of time. However, the work was innovative and fed into a broader wave of innovations in teaching and

Marxian Debates on the Rate of Profit – a Primer

This introductory paper examine the discussion among Marxists about the rate of profit. The paper is non-mathematical but contains many numerical examples and a detailed textual exegesis. It is a good starting point for the new student of temporal approaches to value and their difference from the simultaneist (equilibrium) standpoint.

Glamour Acquirers, Method of Payment and Post-Acquisition Performance: The UK Evidence

I provided the data work for this paper which should be cited as Sudarsanam, Puliyur Sudi and Mahate, Ashraf A. and Freeman, Alan, Glamour Acquirers, Method of Payment and Post-Acquisition Performance: The UK Evidence (January 2001). EFMA 2001 Lugano Meetings. Though I had worked with large-volume data professionally as a database freelancer, this was the first time I applied the emerging new database technologies that were to become known as