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

[Michel Bauwens]

and this is from the Big Shift report:

http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-crisis-of-value-is-for-real-return-on-assets-has-declined-by-75-since-1965/2009/11/06

The crisis of value is for real: Return on assets has declined by 75% since
1965<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-crisis-of-value-is-for-real-return-on-assets-has-declined-by-75-since-1965/2009/11/06>

The video below is a panel discussion on “the new world of work in a web
squared world’, introduced by John Hagel.

It contains a very interesting passage, starting just before the four minute
break: the return on assets (for publicly listed companies in the U.S.) has
declined, by an incredible 75%, since 1975.


On Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 7:34 AM, Ryan <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> Sent to you by Ryan via Google Reader:
>
>
> Can Marxian Economics Explain the Crisis?<http://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/EconomistsView/%7E3/mHbJA88DOtk/can-marxian-economics-explain-the-crisis.html>
> via Economist's View <http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/>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<http://crookedtimber.org/2010/01/06/marxian-economics-mia/>:
> 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<http://www.workersliberty.org/marxists-crisis>,
> 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<http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2008/07/13/marxists-capitalist-crisis-6-dick-bryan-inventiveness-capital>,
> which reads more like Cochrane or Fama with some added Marxist verbiage.
>
>
>
>
> Things you can do from here:
>
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>    *Google Reader*
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>
>
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