[p2p-research] Can Marxian Economics Explain the Crisis?

[Ryan]

  Sent to you by Ryan via Google Reader: Can Marxian Economics Explain
the Crisis? via Economist's View by Mark Thoma on 1/6/10

John Quiggin wonders if anyone has constructed "a distinctively Marxian
analysis of the current crisis":
Marxian economics MIA?, by John Quiggin: The financial crisis has,
justifiably, enhanced the reputation of Karl Marx as an economic
thinker. Marx was the first economist to treat crises and panics as an
inherent feature of capitalism rather than as an inexplicable, but
fortunately temporary, departures from a natural equilibrium.
Unfortunately, most of his analytical effort, and even more, that of
the school of thought that followed him, was devoted to pointless
exercises in value theory[1]. Marx’s discussion of crisis rested mainly
on the idea of the falling rate of profit which seemed at the time to
be both a theoretical inevitability and an observable trend. But with
technological progress, there’s no necessity for the rate of profit to
fall consistently, and it hasn’t. There are other ideas in Marx that
might be developed to yield a better theory of crisis, but nothing
resembling a systematic theory. And, in the current crisis, Marxian
economics seems to be pretty much Missing in Action. I haven’t seen
much and what I have seen hasn’t added much, in analytical terms, to
the standard left-Keynesian analysis. Perhaps the problem is that just
about everyone expects capitalism, in one form or another, to survive
this crisis, contrary to the orthodox Marxist view where crises become
ever more severe and eventually precipitate the revolutionary overthrow
of the entire system. But it’s equally possible that I haven’t been
looking in the right places. Readers of my blog have pointed me here,
which has some good stuff, but, as I said, isn’t much different from
the standard left-Keynesian analysis[2]. Can anyone recommend a
distinctively Marxian analysis of the current crisis? fn1. If I get
time, I’ll write a longer post on this point. ... fn2. Except for this
piece, which reads more like Cochrane or Fama with some added Marxist
verbiage.
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