MARXIAN POLITICAL ECONOMY

• Marxist Political Economics

• Marxist

• Lenin’s imperialism

• Dependency

• World Systems

MARXIST PE CON’T

• Material world analyzed through lens of exchange and “relations of production” and “forces of production” in the Base

• Political world provides “superstructure” for self-reproduction of system.

• Political-Economic systems, forces of production , are dynamic result of historical forces.

• Not static, no equilibrium.

MARXIST PE

• Economics analyzed by positions in economic system-- or mode of production

• Capitalist system creates two main classes

• Owners of capital(bourgeoisie)

• petit bourgeoisie--doomed class?

• Workers (proletariat)

• Free to sell labor at market price.

• Free to starve in periods of oversupply.

• Little ability to improve skills, actively prevented by capitalists.

MARXIST PE

• Mode of production

• productive forces inputs (capital, labor, technology.

• Relations of production: social, legal structure resulting from above.

• Superstructure- Structures of Production/reproduction

• Ideology and ideas used to sustain the modes of production. Classical economics (excepting Marx) considered apologists, or superstructure permitting/ explaining interests of dominant class.

• Laws and practices that support the mode of production.

• Government.

• As with all Marx, it is an iterative dynamic process.

MARXIST PE

• Role of Government;

• It is part of superstructure

• Captured by the dominant class

• Creates laws meant to foster reproduction of capitalist system.

MARXIST PE

• Capitalist mode of production has creative and destructive forces.

• Creative forces accumulate profits and invest in new technologies, new techniques efficient production.

• Destructive forces. Destroy old relations of production. Undermine superstructure. Destroy diversified labor types. Destroy attachment of labor with means of production.

• Access of proletarians to land puts a floor on wages.

MARXIST PE

• Source of Profit in Capitalist system.

• Separate labor from means of production

• Commoditize labor, make it exchange value based.

• Separate labor value from exchange value of a good.

• Use technology

• use labor market competition.

MARXIST PE

• Source of profits

• difference between amount paid for labor and value received for good.

• Labor only requires payment for labour value sufficient to reproduce (literally feed self and family).

• Profits re-invested in competition with other capitalists

• Competition reduces profits

• Reduces innovation and accumulation of capital concentrates in few hands.

• mass of unemployed labor and monopoly producers lowers wages to or below reproduction.

• converts almost everyone to disaffected mass of workers.

MARXIST IPE

• Three real sub-branches

• Marxians like Baran and Sweezy

• World Systems

• Dependencia

NEO-MARXISM

• Similar to Structuralism and other Dependancy and World-systems (a variant of Marxian) in that analyses structural implications of relations of production.

• Difference in seeing world structure is the division of classes-- not really as manifest by states.

• States are necessary instruments of capital classes.

• The structures of production penetrate the center and periphery.

NEO-MARXISM CONT’D

• Baran’s class system and interactions

• Underdeveloped countries have distinct versions of classes

• Agriculture: Latifunda (export plantation) and peasant agriculture

• Merchant class, traders, bankers directly linked to world markets and mediate ties of center-periphery. Manage transfer of profits from periphery to the center

NEO-MARXISM CONT’D• Classes continued

• Local industry. Protectionist development from internal and external competition, limited surplus accumulation.

• Industrial surplus exported for imports, investment abroad

• Baran’s 4th sector

• The State. Conditioned by position in system. Should accumulate surplus and cause progressive change/ investment

• Cannot. Bureaucrats are part of Structures of Reproduction. Share center technocracy/ideology

• Overseas capital and imperial institutions constrain behavior of state and punish deviance.

NEO-MARXISM CONT’D

• Implications for policy

• Disconnect from Center-dominated capitalist system.

• To keep economic surplus in state and allow progressive forces to replicate locally.

• Use state socialism to capture surplus and structure transformation of industrialization.

• Success is very unlikely, but impossible while international connections remain.

WORLD SYSTEMS

• Wallerstein main theorist

• Conceptualizes world as capitalist system divided along nation-class structure.

• States act as instruments to support system, developed states sustain positions.

• Core

• periphery and

• semi-periphery.

WORLD SYSTEMS

• Three mechanisms of world-system stability (not leaders, but of the system).

• Concentration of military force in core states

• Pervasiveness of ideological commitment to the system among elites.

• Existence of semi-periphery states with compliant elites. Who live like those in the core.

WORLD SYSTEMS

• Core-- Advanced capitalist states

• support international system to maintain flow of resources to center.

• labor-intensive production wider-gap between use-value and labor-value or labor value and wages.

• Solve problem of obsolescence

• sustain wages (state compromise)

WORLD SYSTEMS

• semi-periphery

• Slightly more developed

• stronger state, more rent-seeking

• destination for used capital

• market for finished goods

• Necessary example to under-developed states

• Insulate core states from periphery shocks

WORLD SYSTEMS

• periphery

• weak states

• primary goods producers

• import goods from semi-periphery and core

• Society and government penetrated by core capitalists

WORLD SYSTEMS

• Promotion and decline

• All states compete with each other.

• Promotion

• invitation (security reasons eg)

• seizing chance ISI in global economic dislocation

• Self-reliance

DEPENDENCY 2.0

• Cardoso and Faletto

• More hope for structural change

• Understand position of state based on materialist history and social-political-economic structures.

• End up with conclusions similar to structuralists but emphasize locally specific structures and relations of production that must be understood to create appropriate policy.

DEPENDENCY 2.0• Cardoso and Faletto

• Dependent development

• retains analysis of relations of production

• But focuses on the domestic effects and domestic class-relations as effected by externally directed investment.

• Differentiates between forms of capital and domestic capitalists (industrial vs finance)

• More focus on domestic relations

• Breaking political control by latifundia or other non-investing

DEPENDENCY 2.0

• Investment industrial decisions controlled externally in countries with historically powerful enclaves.

• Other countries have had externally controlled enclaves weakened by economic changes or political changes (revolutions) that had granted political control to local capitalists/industrialists.

• Countries with locally engaged and directed capitalists transitioned to economically liberal development (tariffs for ISI), while others used populism and state directed ISI and investment to generate growth and transition to value-added production.

DEPENDENCY 2.0• Prescription

• Context matters

• prior relations and structures of production condition opportunities for change

• State and/or domestic industrialists can use competition between capitalist centers for investment and development of vertically integrated production etc.

• Semi-periphery production reduces imports to only most advanced products (ideally.)

• Creation of trade blocs comparable states.

STRUCTURALISM

• Raul Prebisch

• Analyzed international structure of trade and development

• Noted that capital intensive industry concentrated in former colonial powers (Center).

• Developing countries concentrate in exporting primary goods suffer terms of trade decline.

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STRUCTURALISM

• Borrowed Materialist Analysis and concern with structure of international relations.

• Examined the movement of profits, and the structure of societies.

• Found that internal structures of underdeveloped countries stuck in pseudo-feudal structure.

• Large land-holding with low productivity, low pressure to use land intensively.

• Many small holders with low capital.

STRUCTURALISM

• Terms of trade result in the frequent disturbance of economy and increasing export of surplus.

• Agriculture, small merchant classes reinforce own position.

• Periods of interruption of trade give indication of policy recommendation.

STRUCTURALISM• Economic disruptions permit change weaken conservative forces.

• Strong state policies,

• Reduce trade links to Center-states

• Tariffs against manufactured goods to reduce consumption and accumulate surplus domestically.

• Infant industry policies/ ISI

• Agriculture reform,

• Change land tenure for efficient mid-size production, release peasants to be labor in efficient sectors.

• Education and Infrastructure.

• Improve productivity.

STRUCTURALISM: POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

• Create trade blocs of similar development level states

• Some (Prebisch) access to financial markets, and import of technology and capital goods as needed. Efficient ag, and tariffs help facilitate this

• Some- Permit import replacing FDI. Value added at home, learning by doing, technology gains.

• Some potential for transformation in position in system, and possible reconnection, or at least regionally efficient production.