Preface and acknowledgments Introduction 1. Explanation and dialectics Part I. Philosophy and Economics: 2. Philosophical anthropology 3. Economics 4. Exploitation, freedom and justice Part II. Theory of History: 5. Modes of production 6. Classes 7. Politics and the state 8. Ideologies 9. Capitalism, communism and revolution Conclusion references Index of names index of subjects.

Making Sense of Marx

Selection d'extraits des Cahiers de Prison d'Antonio Gramsci, theoricien italien de la pensee marxiste, mort en prison en 1937 et qui proposa une reflexion sur l'education dans les regimes totalitaires, et plus generalement sur les systemes des gouvernements modernes, ou la priorite donnee a l'organisation economique et a l'efficacite de la production industrielle etouffe les valeurs humaines et historiques.

狱中札记 = The prison notebooks

This book explains the transitions in twentieth-century industrial leadership from Britain to the United States and, most recently, to Japan, in terms of the changing business investment strategies and organizational structures in these nations. The author criticizes economists for failing to understand these historical changes. The book shows that this intellectual failure is not inherent in the discipline of economics; there are important traditions in economic thought that the mainstream of the economics profession has simply ignored.

Business Organization and the Myth of the Market Economy

In the debate on no-regret potentials, transaction costs are a rather controversial issue On the one hand, the controversy concerns the level of transaction costs related to energy saving measures Existing cost-benefit analyses for energy saving measures are often criticised for being incomplete because, allegedly, they would not fully account for transaction costs Depending on the level of transaction costs, this negligence is more or less severe Some studies, e g Sutherland (1991), hold that transaction costs are so high that they challenge favourable results of quantitative cost-benefit analyses and explain why energy-efficient technologies are not adopted Other studies implicitly assume transactions costs to be zero (e g Lovins, Lovins 1991; Landwehr et al 1996) As pointed out, e g by Golove and Eto (1996, p 24) this aspect of the debate suggests a need to empirically quantify transaction costs and integrate them in the cost-benefit assessment of the measures considered

Transaction cost economics

The effect of changes in age structure on economic growth has been widely studied in the demography and population economics literature. The beneficial effect of changes in age structure after a decrease in fertility has become known as the "demographic dividend." In this article, we reassess the empirical evidence on the associations among economic growth, changes in age structure, labor force participation, and educational attainment. Using a global panel of countries, we find that after the effect of human capital dynamics is controlled for, no evidence exists that changes in age structure affect labor productivity. Our results imply that improvements in educational attainment are the key to explaining productivity and income growth and that a substantial portion of the demographic dividend is an education dividend.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs13524-013-0245-x.pdf

Is the demographic dividend an education dividend

New institutional economics explains capitalist institutions by means of neoclassical tools. This method consists of introducing non-market institutions as solutions to market failures. The explicit or implicit assumption is that ‘in the beginning there were markets’. In this paper, we criticise this conception inherited from neoclassical economics by focusing on Williamson’s theory. First, we discuss Williamson’s speculative method, which idealises the market and presents it as natural and universal. We then suggest that Williamson’s categories, his method and conception are themselves products of bourgeois ideology. In this sense, we conclude, Williamson himself is ultimately an ‘institution of capitalism’.

Anti-Williamson: a Marxian critique of New Institutional Economics

Mainstream economics conceives power to be incompatible with perfect competition. This conception, I argue, derives from its deductivist method and the ‘empirical realist’ ontology that it presupposes. Following Marx, I show that capitalism constantly reproduces asymmetrical constraints on classes of individuals, independent of the market form. My ontological argument is rooted in the philosophy of ‘critical realism’. My conclusion is that the dichotomy ‘power–competition’ is ontologically untenable. If capitalist relations necessarily involve power, it is not simply because neoclassical competition does not exist in reality, as radical mainstream economists suggest, but rather because capitalism altogether is a ‘system of power’.

The ontology of economic power in capitalism: mainstream economics and Marx

La valutazione dei titoli scientifici dei docenti del Dipartimento di Scienze economiche dell’Università di Brescia

This article points out the limits of Austrian economics as far as the passage from positive to normative economics is concerned. We propose a comparison with neoclassical economics and discuss the different theoretical solutions adopted by these two schools of thought in their legitimization of the normative discourse. The bridge from positive to normative economics is analyzed as resting upon two interdependent pillars, one of a technical nature, the other of an ethical one. In neoclassical theory, these two pillars are, respectively, the Pareto principle and the so-called minimal benevolence principle. In the case of Austrian economics, they are the coordination principle and a set of value judgments considered to be ‘quasi-universal’. One problem for Austrian economics is that the coordination principle turns out to be incompatible with process analysis, the latter being a central tenet of the Austrian theory. A second problem, which creates serious difficulties for both schools, has to do with distri...

/pdf/austrian-economics-and-value-judgments-a-critical-comparison-1p7yszt3v1.pdf

Austrian Economics and Value Judgments: a Critical Comparison with Neoclassical Economics

In the economic debate on power, seemingly opposite positions have been presented. Contractualists have claimed that power relations do not exist in capitalism, and radicals have maintained that they are ubiquitous. In the middle, transaction costs and property rights economists have argued that power relations exist only within the firm. The underlying conception, however, is the same: power is an interpersonal relation caused by imperfections in the decision-making context and is incompatible with Walrasian competition. The difference among these theories involves their viewpoints on the concrete spread of imperfections in reality. The thesis of this paper is that this narrow conception of power is a consequence of neoclassical methodology. Following Marx, I analyze power as a social relation, and I discuss three problematic aspects of the neoclassical conception: its individualistic methodology, the assumption of universal rather than historical categories, and an ontology that conflates production and...

/pdf/the-economic-debate-on-power-a-marxist-critique-2yy3zv804a.pdf

Giulio Palermo

Papers

Anti-Williamson: a Marxian critique of New Institutional Economics

The ontology of economic power in capitalism: mainstream economics and Marx

La valutazione dei titoli scientifici dei docenti del Dipartimento di Scienze economiche dell’Università di Brescia

Austrian Economics and Value Judgments: a Critical Comparison with Neoclassical Economics

The economic debate on power: a Marxist critique