Showing papers on "Capitalism published in 1969"

The state in capitalist society

Abstract: Presenting a sustained and concrete challenge to the current political consensus, this reference identifies the radical alternative of adopting socialism as the key issue facing civilization and the crucial condition of making substantial progress. Demonstrating that capitalist control of the state was so comprehensive that partial reforms were impossible, this reference attempts to explain how society has managed to evade socialism, exploring how its claims have failed to persuade many intellectuals and the potential benefactors of an alternative order. Reviewing the influence of economic elites and the dominant class, this study also probes the state's claims to legitimacy, defines the purpose and role of governments, and analyzes the concepts of reform and repression. Depicting how the state reemerged from behind the mystifications of the political system and its behavior to become the central theme of political studies, this radical and philosophical investigation combines a political appeal with thorough, detailed scholarship. A discussion of servants of the state and the concept of imperfect competition are also included.

Who Pays for Defense

Abstract: Theories of the economic causes of war are at least as old as capitalism, and have in recent years appeared in myriad forms. Around the turn of the last century J. A. Hobson and Lenin developed their famous arguments about the economic driving forces behind imperialist expansion; American opponents of their country's entry into World War I blamed the lobbying of munitions makers; more recently we have had C. Wright Mills and the New Left. The assertions of these theorists are not always susceptible to scientific examination, but to supplement them there have in the past few years been a number of sound and well-documented studies locating in the national economy the groups that benefit most from military expenditures. Such studies show very effectively which industries, and which states, gain disproportionately from defense spending and hence develop some special interest in maintaining or increasing those expenditures. One need not accept Marxist or other extreme positions on the causes of war to find such information relevant to identifying political pressure groups that must be countered or compensated in any effort to reduce the level of military spending.A question closely related to “Who benefits from defense spending?” is, of course, “Who pays for it?”; but curiously this second problem has received very little attention. Nothing comes free, and defense is no exception. In this paper we shall examine some evidence about what segments of the economy and society sacrifice disproportionately when defense spending rises.

The political economy of alienation: karl marx and adam smith 1

Abstract: KARL Marx's philosophical and sociological critique of capitalism centred upon alleged deleterious effects of the market economy upon the worker's inner life as distinct from his 'economic' well-being. The development of private property capitalism and the division of labour caused workers to become degraded or dehumanized, and to reach a state of affairs which is summarized under his oft-used term 'alienation' ('Entfremdung'). Although this concept, which is now the subject of a voluminous sociological, philosophical, psychological, and political literature, has clear Hegelian/ Marxian roots there are important traces of it in earlier writers. It still comes as a surprise to many people when they learn that the first writer to make use of the idea in Britain was Adam Smith. Meanwhile, among those who have for a long time known about Smith's views on 'alienation', there are several scholars who are now confidently drawing from them conclusions to the effect that the Wealth of Nations was an important precursor of Marxist socialism.2 The purpose of the present paper is to draw attention to several misunderstandings in popular beliefs concerning the 'similarity' between the Marxian and Smithian treatment of 'alienation'. A secondary purpose is to reapply the discipline of political economy to a subject which in the twentieth century seems to have become the exclusive province of the other social sciences. In comparing Smith's treatment of 'alienation' with that of Marx we shall not confine ourselves to one source of writing from each author but draw widely from their total works. The first part of the paper

The Theory of the Optimum Regime

Abstract: This article attempts to summarize what seems to be the position of a large number of western economists on the question of the “best” economic regime. It has been written with a double purpose. On the one hand it seemed worth while to reformulate a set of doctrines that have emerged from various discussions in order to see where we stand and to make up our minds where further research is needed. On the other hand it seemed necessary that economists clarify, to a larger public, their views on a topic which plays a predominant role in the world’s largest controversy today; I mean the one between communist and non-communist opinion. Although this controversy, according to most western citizens, is primarily about political organization--democracy versus dictatorship--most communists put the emphasis in a different place. Moreover, quite a few westerners seem to see a close correspondence between the question of political regime and the one of economic regime. I am now referring to those rightist citizens who identify dictatorship with “socialism” and democracy with “capitalism” and in addition consider “socialism” and “capitalism” as two opposed economic systems without any intermediate forms. The question of the economic regime therefore plays an important role in the controversy between communists and non-communists.

Private sector asset management and the effectiveness of monetary policy: theory and practice

Abstract: THE CONTROVERSY about how money affects the economy is deeper and more fundamental than is evident in the current literature From the current literature it seems as if the dispute is over either the definition of money and the specifications of the variables in a demand function for money or whether stable monetary growth is a) capable of being defined, b) obtainable, and c) superior, as a stabilization technique, to active discretionary monetary and fiscal policies' In truth the above are peripheral or secondary issues The fundamental issue in monetary theory is whether a capitalist economy is inherently stable or whether, due to its very nature, it is unavoidably unstable; that is whether unsustainable booms and deep depressions are due to essential characteristics of capitalism Financial crises, domestic and international, have been associated with capitalism throughout its history This does not prove that they are inherent in capitalism-the crises of history may have been due to a combination of ignorance, human error and avoidable attributes of the financial system One polar view in the stability of capitalism is represented by the Chicago School An article of faith, nowhere better stated than in Henry Simons' famous article "Rules Versus Authorities " [22], is that serious depressions are due to man-made imperfections in the financial system Friedman and Schwartz argue that "The monetary collapse [of the 1930's] was not the inescapable consequence of other forces, but rather a largely independent factor which exerted a powerful influence of the course of events The failure of the Federal Reserve System to prevent the collapse reflected not the impotence of monetary policy but rather the particular policies followed by the monetary authorities and, in smaller degree, the particular monetary arrangements in existence [10, p 4] In this "Chicago" view there exists a financial system, different from that which ruled at the time of crisis but nonetheless consistent with capitalism, which would make serious financial disturbances impossible It is the task of monetary analysis to design such a financial system, and of monetary policy to execute the design In Simons' view this depression-proof good financial society required a radical restructuring of the financial system In Friedman's view the establishment of the good financial society requires only the adoption of a stable money growth rule by the Federal Reserve System, given that the

The Political Economy of Black Power

Abstract: Black Power is a coherent ideology incorporating a philosophy, an ethic, a strategy for confrontation, and a view of the Negro as a man in relation to the broad contours of society. Giving force to the viability of the Black Power ideology are new urban conditions and a general discontent derived from the characteristics of American capitalism. Because the salvation of the black community is increasingly being viewed as existing outside the private market and outside the existing political routines, the Black Power movement may ultimately lead to the break-up or fundamental alteration of the Democratic Party. A complete solution to the Negro problem requires the Negro's control of the inner city and the launching of a vast program involving cultural, social, political, and economic development.

John Dewey in World War I: Patriotism and International Progressivism

Abstract: United States, World War I was an event of importance comparable with the anti-imperial revolution of 1776 and the bourgeois victory of 1865. While America's active military role in the European conflict covered a span of less than two years, institutional alterations which occurred concomitant with mobilization involved changes of epochal magnitude. The transformation can be epitomized as the supplanting, at the macroinstitutional level, of the leadership of the great entrepreneurs and financiers by the directorate of the capitalist bureaucratic managers. The origins of the end of laissez faire lay in the latter 19th century, and the consolidation of the new order would continue into the second half of the 20th century. Nonetheless, World War I was the revolutionary moment; in 1917-18 time became compressed. Mobilization brought in its wake the nationalization and centralization of the direction of industry, transportation, propaganda and other social processes. While much of this organization would be disestablished following the Armistice, the fabrications brought into being by wartime embodied the kind of political and economic institutional forms which would characterize the future development of the United States. The growth of monopoly capitalism was checked; the rise of state capitalism was begun. Business would no longer operate in relative freedom from government regulation. But, more openly and to a greater degree than ever before, government would be in intentional and active alliance with the radically deficient' standing order of corporation capitalism.

A politica de informatica na educação brasileira : do nacionalismo ao neoliberalismo

Abstract: The aim of this doctoral thesis is to provide a historic study of informatics policy in Brazilian education, with emphasis on the main experiments which were conducted in public basic education of primary and secondary schools until 1995. The study was based on a methodology combining a dialectical-materialistic approach with a critical evaluation of the economic, political and sociocultural interrelations of which it is an integral part. Therefore, it is a quite reasonable to conclude that both the State and the global market are not interested in an effectively educated population, considering that knowledge itself has always been a possession and property of the elite. Data processing and the new technologies together form a capital and are, as such, a means of production, an instrument of power, war and ideology which, under capitalism, may become a structural cause of unemployment, a more and more growing phenomenon in the dominant capitalist economies and even in Brazil as peripheral economy. And what we see, on approaching the neoliberal horizon, does not seem to overcome this trend. Thus, it is necessary to build a counter-hegemony in order to reorient the political, economic and cultural use of the new technologies in the interest of the whole population.

The All for Australia League

Abstract: A radical rhetoric?popular government, social equality and state intervention to secure economic justice?has been a persistent motif in Australian politics. Historians once regarded it as the almost exclusive possession of the labour movement. But it has also been influential among non-labour forces: the early Country parties that emerged after the first war and many Liberal politicians of a reformist stamp exhibited a marked radical cast to their thought and action.1 To recognise the significance of radicalism, however, is not to say?as does R. N. Rose crance2?that it has been the sole political ethos in Australia. It is not to argue that Australia was 'born radical' and consequently never had a liberal or a capitalist ideology; or that Australian businessmen were 'the domestics of the radical myth' and that 'Australian capitalism was "kept" by the radical ethos'.3 These arguments of Rosecrance are mis leading and strange. Misleading, for they seriously misrepresent the political ideology of Australian capitalists. Strange, for the rhetoric of capitalist ideology in Australia (at least to 1950) was very similar to the 'new whiggery' or 'democratic capitalism' of American business that Rosecrance's mentor, Louis Hartz, has discussed in his book The Liberal Tradition in America.* Indeed, the very similarity indicates that a rugged and possessive individualism has not been an unknown strand in Australian political thought. In fact, the journals of chambers of commerce and employers' federations, the addresses and speeches of businessmen on ritualistic occasions, the values advocated by a number of middle-class 'reform', 'economy' and 'anti-socialist' movements,5 not to mention the ideas expressed by some leading non-labour personalities,6 all exhibit, in their separate ideologies, an individualistic liberal rhetoric that cannot be labelled 'radical'.

The façade of equality in liberal democratic theory

Abstract: Liberal democratic theory is the ideological expression of capitalism. Its paramount function is to justify the distribution of property and power which permits a minority of men to exploit and dominate the lives of the majority. A crucial device for carrying out this task is the elaboration of a theory of political equality which maintains the economic foundation of capitalism. But as capitalism is itself an evolving system, so the theory which protects its interests passes through important stages. A fundamental change occurs in the transition from classical liberal theory to its contemporary articulation as political science. For Locke and Mill an egalitarian directive is first abstractly posited and then, through specific modification, withdrawn. For Schumpeter, however, what the classical doctrine would have regarded as the perversion of democracy, is itself made integral to the redefinition of the democratic process. The result of the behavioral restatement is the destruction of the tension which se...

Religion and Economic Development

Abstract: There hardly exists a writing on the relationship between religion and economic development which does not owe something to Max Weber's formulations. Two of his main theses are of interest theo retically and practically: first, his formulation of the specific relationship between the Protestant ethic and the rise of the spirit of capitalism m 16th and 17th century Europe, and secondly, his contention that the ethic of the major Oriental religions was not conducive to capitalistic development in Asia. Both these issues have given rise to wide-ranging controversies, resulting in the growth of a large body of literature. This paper,1 however, does not attempt to review them in detail. Its purpose, rather, is to evaluate generally the different aspects of the complex problem of the relation between religion and economic development, and more parti cularly, to examine the connection between Hinduism and economic growth.

An Economic Analysis of the Concept of Freedom

Abstract: Economists, especially of the libertarian variety, often discuss how the market increases personal freedom. Milton Friedman (1962) has ably described this relationship in his book Capitalism and Freedom. Paul Samuelson (1963) has recently taken Friedman and others to task for this. He has claimed that "complete freedom is not definable once two wills exist in the same interdependent universe. . . . What is actually called 'freedom' is really a vector of almost infinite components rather than a one-dimensional thing that can be given a simple ordering." While no one claims that complete freedom is possible, it is the intent of this paper to show that freedom can be measured in the same sense that welfare can be measured, and that a discussion of maximizing freedom can be made operational. Before we do that let us consider why an individual in the United States is considered to be freer than one in Russia. There are many reasons, of course, but one element that I believe we would all agree on is that a citizen of the United States can criticize the government, the president, or his employer with relative impunity. In Russia (or any generally considered non-free society) such action will usually have severe repercussions-such as a few years' rest in Siberia. But even in the United States such action can have repercussions. If my employer is a Republican and a great supporter of the president, I may find myself looking for new work. If I work for the government, I may have to try to find employment in private industry. If I happen to be supporting communism I may actually find it difficult to secure a good job. In other words, the exercise of free speech, even in a " free " society, may not be costless. In fact, the essential difference between a citizen here and a citizen in Russia is one of relative cost. In both places I can criticize the government and advocate a different economic system, but the relative costs of this behavior differ significantly. The thesis, then, of this paper is that freedom can be defined in terms of welfare. A change in the cost of action (or non-action) can be considered

Trade Union reactions to the economic crisis

Abstract: The trade unions in Britain, like those in the majority of European states, had long before 1929 become associated with a political party of socialist leanings. In this country the immediate reason for this association had been the hope of political influence and a share in the law-making power, rather than doctrinal support, but here, too, the unions had a right to expect some economic insight, and a guide line to the major economic events and policies, from their allied political wing. In this they were to be disappointed. When the crisis of I929 struck and was followed by mass unemployment, the Labour Party and those union leaders who had been converted to socialism merely reacted by blaming capitalism in general, and reiterating that only socialism could effect a cure. A similar position was also taken by the International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU).1 At a time when the Labour Government of I929-3I became totally committed to reviving capitalism rather than burying it, such an attitude became an escape from reality rather than a blueprint for realistic policy: the belief in ultimate socialism became an excuse for not doing anything meanwhile.2 Ernest Bevin dealt with this escapism in a characteristically blunt and revealing outburst: 'I know that I could be answered by the usual socialist philosophy', he said contemptuously on one occasion in I93I, 'but when you go on a Royal Commission you have to deal with facts as they are and the problem as it is.'3 In consequence of this confusion of thought within the Labour Party, much of the running was made by the trade unions. It was

Meanings of Capitalism

Abstract: While it is inevitable that the word “capitalism” will be used by various participants at the Congress in various senses, some mutual understandings concerning the different meanings likely to be intended may help to clarify the discussions. The following is an attempt (a) to indicate the different usages which will probably occur, (b) to suggest modifying adjectives or substitute terms by which the different meanings may be distinguished, and (c) to indicate relevant historical questions.

Where are We Going

Abstract: After the events of the past year, there can be no doubt that the visible future belongs to capitalism. Such a perspective is relatively new. For most of this century, it was far from clear that capitalism would survive into the third millennium A.D. The great revolutions of the twentieth century, highlighted by the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Chinese Revolution of 1949, each preceded and in an important sense caused by a devastating world war, took approximately a third of the world's population and territory out of the capitalist system. The leaders of these revolutions had every intention of creating a new social system along lines adumbrated but never elaborated by Marx in the nineteenth century. For reasons we cannot dwell on here, these intentions were not realized: the socialist society envisioned by Marx was a workers' democracy, and none of the postrevolutionary societies of the twentieth century, despite frequent claims to the contrary, succeeded in achieving that goal. Still, these postrevolutionary societies were definitely not capitalist, and they provided an alternative model of development with impressive achievements to its credit and features of great appeal to the masses of impoverished and exploited people in what is now generally called the third world. For a long time the contest between capitalism and its postrevolutionary rival seemed to be close and of uncertain outcome. But this was an illusion.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

The Study of United States History in the Soviet Union

Abstract: AMERICAN studies in the Soviet Union are a comparatively young branch of historical science. They not only lack deep traditions in prerevolutionary historiography and such brilliant predecessors as N. I. Kareev, I. V. Luchitskii, M. M. Kovalevskii, and, somewhat later, the Academician E. V. Tarle (the famous Russian school of the study of the history of France), but even in the Soviet era their appearance was rather belated. As a result, one may justifiably speak of American studies as an independent field in the Soviet Union only in the 1950's and i96o's, although the first serious investigations in the history of the United States appeared in the mid-I930's. In considering the origins of the study of US history in the Soviet Union, one must first mention the names of the Corresponding, Member of the Academy of Sciences, A. V. Efimov, and Professor L. I. Zubok. The first monographic research was Efimov's doctoral dissertation, A Contribution to the History of Capitalism in the USA (I934); it was destined to play a leading role in the development of American studies. It is no exaggeration to say that an entire generation of Soviet historians specializing in US history was brought up on this book. It is regrettable that it has not yet been republished and has long been a bibliographic rarity. Having studied a considerable mass of sources and writings, Efimov was able, with his typical aptitude for broad generalizations, to raise important theoretical questions concerning the development of capitalism in the US: the problem of the so-called "free lands"; the nature of American slavery; and the basic stages and special features of the Industrial Revolution. In his conclusions the author persuasively proved that the development of the US proceeded in conformity with the general laws of capitalist society discovered by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and he generalized that there are no reasons "for assertion of some 'exceptional nature' of American capitalism."' Though Efimov considered

Marx and the Problem of Causation

Abstract: THE NUMEROUS controversial theoretical issues Karl Marx1 left behind to vex students and disciples, perhaps the most hotly contested question concerns the nature of historical causation. Is the transition of a society from capitalism to socialism inevitable, determined by inexorable and predictable economic processes that shape politics and all other aspects of social organization? Or does this transition depend on the political efforts of individual men, who by seizing political power can reorganize economic relationships in society? The question is not simply an academic one, because of its implications for revolutionary and counter-revolutionary strategies. If social change is economically determined, then Marxist revolutionaries are assured of victory but must hold their fire until capitalism has passed through its predicted flowering and putrefaction; the only conceivable way to avert revolution is to shore up capitalism through some contradiction-resolving mechanisms Marx did not foresee. On the other hand, if change can be effected by political means, immediate political agitation and even revolution are in order for Marxists no matter what the economic context may be, and the success of the social revolution hinges entirely on the power relationships involved. Because the question is of political urgency, those who follow, oppose, or seek to understand the use of Marxism have tried to draw

Is Marcuse's "Critical Theory of Society" Critical?

Abstract: In the years since World War II, the social critic has become a rather popular figure in the West. The demand for critical theories of society is readily explainable where the contradictions of social development take the form of sharp paradoxes recognized by the broad public. It may be assumed that interest in critical concepts of society will increase. People who recognize themselves as cogs without rights in the system of bureaucratic organization of state-supported monopoly capitalism, who react acutely to the threat of social catastrophes (e.g., war, militarism, fascism), endow such concepts with the halo of humanism if only because they often find in them their own moods, given shape and seemingly elevated to the level of general social protest. These feelings represent a concrete dissatisfaction with the present situation, and the sense that the society in which they live is in crisis.

Foreign Policy Perspectives of the Japanese Left: Confrontation or Consensus?

Abstract: THE IDEA THAT left and right wings in Japanese politics hold to diametrically opposed and irreconcilable positions on foreign policy is an old one which has led some observers to claim that the replacement of a Conservative by a Socialist government would result in a cataclysmic change-amounting to a virtual revolution-in Japan's international policies. More recently, however, the dream of a bi-partisan (or multi-partisan) foreign policy, based on a "national consensus" about what Japan should be doing in a world newly receptive to her political as well as economic initiatives, has come to be discussed as a practicable proposition. Significantly enough, the creation of such a national consensus is an oft-stated aim of the Komeitd (the "clean government" party of the Soka Gakkai) and also clearly accords with the aspirations of many who inhabit the centre, rather than the extremes, of Japanese politics. Outside Japan, this development is encouraged by many, though there is the occasional pessimist who notes that national consensus was last achieved in Japan in the I930s, under the aegis of the militarists. Until i960, the only significant left-wing party in Japan was the Japan Socialist party (JSP), and it was the policies and views espoused by that party which distinguished the foreign policy of the Left so radically from that of the Right. Three main currents of opinion-socialism, pacifism, and nationalism-fused into a policy of "unarmed neutralism," which was bitterly denounced by Prime Minister Ikeda in the i960 election campaign as an illusion. Socialist thinking within the JSP was generally doctrinaire rather than pragmatic and resulted in a basic antipathy towards capitalist countries, especially the United States. Attempts to find an intellectual position midway between capitalism and communism tended to result in an unstable equilibrium, with the pull of socialism often proving stronger than the counter-pull of democracy. Thus, despite the claims of neutralism, criticism of the United States was both more frequent and more harsh than criticism of either the

Capitalism, Socialism, and the Social Market Economy

Abstract: Exactly nineteen years ago, Joseph Schumpeter stood before his colleagues in New York City and delivered what turned out to be his farewell address. It was entitled: The March into Socialism, and it was a reaffirmation of the great man's belief expressed in his book, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, that capitalism would not survive.1 Schum? peter was placed on the defensive because of his position, and attacks ranged all the way from the predictable questioning of his loyalty to the more serious challenges of his economic analysis. It is not our purpose here to reject or accept or even to reexamine Schumpeter's prognosis. That is by now the common property of all economists, especially that older generation of economists which reads English better than it reads mathematics. And we are most certainly not going to challenge his loyalty, even though we are intrigued by the parallel treatment accorded Marx and Schumpeter from both the opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. It appears that both these men predicted the death of capitalism, an event which we maintain here has indeed occurred. Now the treatment accorded prophets has long been ignominious. They are ignored, despised, dishonored and otherwise mistreated, espe? cially when they predict unpleasant events. But the most questionable treatment of all is to deny credit to a prophet even after the fulfillment of his prediction. Doctrinnaire Marxists, and we need scarcely state that not all Marxists today are doctrinnaire, continue to do battle with and threaten to bury capitalism as though it were in the pristine vigor of its youth. With equal zeal, the evangelists of the extreme right mount a vigorous defense of this historic concept which they insist transcends and defies any considerations of time and place on our planet. Caught in the middle are the hapless textbook writers who are uncertain whether to describe our economy to an even more hapless generation of students as "mixed capitalism," a "mixed capitalistic enterprise system," "peoples' capitalism," or just plain "American capitalism." Finally, there are the members of the Catholic Economic Association whom it is my privilege to address today. The principal reason for that organization's existence appears to rest, or at least it used to rest, on an inveterate belief that there is a third way or a middle way to run an economic system. It 23