Capital and ideology
TL;DR: Piketty as mentioned in this paper focuses on the interaction between ideology and capital over the last few hundred years, in both Western countries and selected non-western countries, including Russia, Brazil an...
Abstract: Piketty’s new book focuses on the interaction between ideology and capital over the last few hundred years, in both Western countries and selected non-Western countries, including Russia, Brazil an...
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore over 30 interventions across the following nine categories of change that hold the potential to address inequality, provide all citizens with access to essential goods and services, and advance progress towards sustainability.
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted billions of lives across the world and has revealed and worsened the social and economic inequalities that have emerged over the past several decades. As governments consider public health and economic strategies to respond to the crisis, it is critical they also address the weaknesses of their economic and social systems that inhibited their ability to respond comprehensively to the pandemic. These same weaknesses have also undermined efforts to advance equality and sustainability. This paper explores over 30 interventions across the following nine categories of change that hold the potential to address inequality, provide all citizens with access to essential goods and services, and advance progress towards sustainability: (1) Income and wealth transfers to facilitate an equitable increase in purchasing power/disposable income; (2) broadening worker and citizen ownership of the means of production and supply of services, allowing corporate profit-taking to be more equitably distributed; (3) changes in the supply of essential goods and services for more citizens; (4) changes in the demand for more sustainable goods and services desired by people; (5) stabilizing and securing employment and the workforce; (6) reducing the disproportionate power of corporations and the very wealthy on the market and political system through the expansion and enforcement of antitrust law such that the dominance of a few firms in critical sectors no longer prevails; (7) government provision of essential goods and services such as education, healthcare, housing, food, and mobility; (8) a reallocation of government spending between military operations and domestic social needs; and (9) suspending or restructuring debt from emerging and developing countries. Any interventions that focus on growing the economy must also be accompanied by those that offset the resulting compromises to health, safety, and the environment from increasing unsustainable consumption. This paper compares and identifies the interventions that should be considered as an important foundational first step in moving beyond the COVID-19 pandemic and towards sustainability. In this regard, it provides a comprehensive set of strategies that could advance progress towards a component of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 10 to reduce inequality within countries. However, the candidate interventions are also contrasted with all 17 SDGs to reveal potential problem areas/tradeoffs that may need careful attention.
69 citations
Cites background from "Capital and ideology"
...Addressing income disparities by redistributing purchasing power through tax reforms suggested by Piketty and Goldhammer [57,58], Stiglitz [3], Standing [25], and Zucman and Saez [9] envisages more consumption of essential goods and services by those at lower income levels....
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TL;DR: The advent of mass schooling played a pivotal role in European societies of the later nineteenth century, transforming rural peasants into national citizens as discussed by the authors, and the late-twentieth-century global expan...
Abstract: The advent of mass schooling played a pivotal role in European societies of the later nineteenth century, transforming rural peasants into national citizens. The late-twentieth-century global expan...
65 citations
25 Jun 2021
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors employ racial capitalism as a framework for understanding the urban process, focusing on the role of race and racism within urbanization processes, in order to highlight not only the contradictions of capitalism but also those of Marxist scholars in understanding urban development.
Abstract: This paper employs racial capitalism as a framework for understanding the urban process. The purpose of this paper is two-fold: (1) to center the racial character of the urban process within a broader political economy of racial capitalism and (2) to position capitalism and racism as mutually dependent systems of exploitation. The paper begins by discussing the omission of race and racism within urbanization processes. Here, the work of David Harvey is critiqued in order to highlight not only the contradictions of capitalism, but also those of Marxist scholars in understanding urban development. The paper then discusses the forms of racial capitalism through modalities of dispossession and displacement, the agents engaged in this process, and the competing ideologies that structure the urban political economy, particularly in the U.S. The paper ends with suggestions for future research to consider the constitutive nature of capitalism and racism in producing urbanization processes.
52 citations
Cites background from "Capital and ideology"
...However, as Piketty (2020) notes, “Given the complexity of the issues, it should be obvious that no ideology can ever command full and total assent: ideological conflict and disagreement are inherent in the very notion of ideology” (p. 3)....
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Posted Content•
TL;DR: In contrast to the canonical hold-up hypothesis that increasing labor's power reduces owners' capital investment, the authors find that granting formal control rights to workers raises capital formation. But they do not find any clear effect on profitability, leverage, or costs of debt.
Abstract: We estimate the effects of a mandate allocating a third of corporate board seats to workers (shared governance). We study a reform in Germany that abruptly abolished this mandate for certain firms incorporated after August 1994 but locked it in for the older cohorts. In sharp contrast to the canonical hold-up hypothesis - that increasing labor's power reduces owners' capital investment - we find that granting formal control rights to workers raises capital formation. The capital stock, the capital-labor ratio, and the capital share all increase. Shared governance does not raise wage premia or rent sharing. It lowers outsourcing, while moderately shifting employment to skilled labor. Shared governance has no clear effect on profitability, leverage, or costs of debt. Overall, the evidence is consistent with richer models of industrial relations whereby shared governance raises capital by permitting workers to bargain over investment or by institutionalizing communication and repeated interactions between labor and capital.
46 citations
Cites background from "Capital and ideology"
...In his analysis of capital and ideology, Piketty (2020) argues for an expansion of codetermination rights....
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TL;DR: In the view of Samuel Bowles and Wendy Carlin, macroeconomics 101 requires serious changes as discussed by the authors, and they advocate instead the use of the new CORE textbook, The Economy, to which they contributed.
Abstract: In the view of Samuel Bowles and Wendy Carlin, macroeconomics 101 requires serious changes. They advocate instead the use of the new CORE textbook, The Economy, to which they contributed. The autho...
46 citations
Cites background from "Capital and ideology"
...No wonder there has been an outpouring of criticism urging for a reformation of the canon26 (Bertocco 2017; Boyle and Simms 2009; DeLong 2011; Fullbrook and Morgan 2019; Piketty 2020; Rifkin 2019; Rodrik 2016a; Saez and Zucman 2019; Sen 1977; Stiglitz 2012, 2017)....
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...…granted to the rich was supposed to trickle down to the masses and create “mass flourishing” and instead it fostered the formation of an oligarchy because mainstream economists disregarded the crucial role of power in the economy and political system (Komlos 2020; Phelps 2015; Piketty 2020)....
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...They just might turn out to be right and going half the way is the right tactic to expose the major fault lines of the discipline so that the profession eventually realizes that markets were not created in heaven by divine power and Kuhn’s paradigm shift could then be finalized (Piketty 2020)....
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References
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore over 30 interventions across the following nine categories of change that hold the potential to address inequality, provide all citizens with access to essential goods and services, and advance progress towards sustainability.
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted billions of lives across the world and has revealed and worsened the social and economic inequalities that have emerged over the past several decades. As governments consider public health and economic strategies to respond to the crisis, it is critical they also address the weaknesses of their economic and social systems that inhibited their ability to respond comprehensively to the pandemic. These same weaknesses have also undermined efforts to advance equality and sustainability. This paper explores over 30 interventions across the following nine categories of change that hold the potential to address inequality, provide all citizens with access to essential goods and services, and advance progress towards sustainability: (1) Income and wealth transfers to facilitate an equitable increase in purchasing power/disposable income; (2) broadening worker and citizen ownership of the means of production and supply of services, allowing corporate profit-taking to be more equitably distributed; (3) changes in the supply of essential goods and services for more citizens; (4) changes in the demand for more sustainable goods and services desired by people; (5) stabilizing and securing employment and the workforce; (6) reducing the disproportionate power of corporations and the very wealthy on the market and political system through the expansion and enforcement of antitrust law such that the dominance of a few firms in critical sectors no longer prevails; (7) government provision of essential goods and services such as education, healthcare, housing, food, and mobility; (8) a reallocation of government spending between military operations and domestic social needs; and (9) suspending or restructuring debt from emerging and developing countries. Any interventions that focus on growing the economy must also be accompanied by those that offset the resulting compromises to health, safety, and the environment from increasing unsustainable consumption. This paper compares and identifies the interventions that should be considered as an important foundational first step in moving beyond the COVID-19 pandemic and towards sustainability. In this regard, it provides a comprehensive set of strategies that could advance progress towards a component of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 10 to reduce inequality within countries. However, the candidate interventions are also contrasted with all 17 SDGs to reveal potential problem areas/tradeoffs that may need careful attention.
69 citations
TL;DR: The advent of mass schooling played a pivotal role in European societies of the later nineteenth century, transforming rural peasants into national citizens as discussed by the authors, and the late-twentieth-century global expan...
Abstract: The advent of mass schooling played a pivotal role in European societies of the later nineteenth century, transforming rural peasants into national citizens. The late-twentieth-century global expan...
65 citations
25 Jun 2021
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors employ racial capitalism as a framework for understanding the urban process, focusing on the role of race and racism within urbanization processes, in order to highlight not only the contradictions of capitalism but also those of Marxist scholars in understanding urban development.
Abstract: This paper employs racial capitalism as a framework for understanding the urban process. The purpose of this paper is two-fold: (1) to center the racial character of the urban process within a broader political economy of racial capitalism and (2) to position capitalism and racism as mutually dependent systems of exploitation. The paper begins by discussing the omission of race and racism within urbanization processes. Here, the work of David Harvey is critiqued in order to highlight not only the contradictions of capitalism, but also those of Marxist scholars in understanding urban development. The paper then discusses the forms of racial capitalism through modalities of dispossession and displacement, the agents engaged in this process, and the competing ideologies that structure the urban political economy, particularly in the U.S. The paper ends with suggestions for future research to consider the constitutive nature of capitalism and racism in producing urbanization processes.
52 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: In contrast to the canonical hold-up hypothesis that increasing labor's power reduces owners' capital investment, the authors find that granting formal control rights to workers raises capital formation. But they do not find any clear effect on profitability, leverage, or costs of debt.
Abstract: We estimate the effects of a mandate allocating a third of corporate board seats to workers (shared governance). We study a reform in Germany that abruptly abolished this mandate for certain firms incorporated after August 1994 but locked it in for the older cohorts. In sharp contrast to the canonical hold-up hypothesis - that increasing labor's power reduces owners' capital investment - we find that granting formal control rights to workers raises capital formation. The capital stock, the capital-labor ratio, and the capital share all increase. Shared governance does not raise wage premia or rent sharing. It lowers outsourcing, while moderately shifting employment to skilled labor. Shared governance has no clear effect on profitability, leverage, or costs of debt. Overall, the evidence is consistent with richer models of industrial relations whereby shared governance raises capital by permitting workers to bargain over investment or by institutionalizing communication and repeated interactions between labor and capital.
46 citations
TL;DR: In the view of Samuel Bowles and Wendy Carlin, macroeconomics 101 requires serious changes as discussed by the authors, and they advocate instead the use of the new CORE textbook, The Economy, to which they contributed.
Abstract: In the view of Samuel Bowles and Wendy Carlin, macroeconomics 101 requires serious changes. They advocate instead the use of the new CORE textbook, The Economy, to which they contributed. The autho...
46 citations