Judging by the yardsticks that matterthe most, though–namely,the companies’relative profi tand relative capitalization–pharmaceuticals are doing just fine. In fact, based on these yardsticks, they remain the most powerful corporate sector of all. read here
We write this essay for both lay readers and scientists, though mainstream economists are welcome to enjoy it too. Our subject is the basic toolbox of mainstream economics. The most important tools in this box are demand, supply and equilibrium. …
The 1-2-3 Toolbox of Mainstream Economics Promising Everything, Delivering Nothing
According to the theory of capital as power (CasP), capitalists and corporations are driven not to maximize profit, but to “beat the average”. Their yardstick is not an unmeasurable theoretical abstraction, but the readily observable performance of others. Their aim …
The theory of capital as power (CasP) is radically different from conventional political economy. In the conventional view, mainstream as well as heterodox, capital is seen a ‘real’ economic entity engaged in the production of goods and services, and capitalism …
Unbridgeable: Why Political Economists Cannot Accept Capital as Power
Corporate power in the United States has risen to unprecedented levels, but the rate at which this power has grown is decelerating. Both facts have important implications for the future of U.S. capitalism. read here
Until the late 2000s, our work focused primarily on why capitalism should be understood as a mode of power. We argued that capital itself is a form of organized power and researched how capitalists sustain, defend and augment their capitalized …
There is much debate over the distributive share of employees in national income – how to measure it, whether it goes up or down and, of course, why it matters. But something in this debate often seems amiss. Like many …
Can Capitalists Continue to Squeeze the Income Share of Employees?
Most explanations of stock market booms and busts are based on contrasting the underlying ‘fundamental’ logic of the economy with the exogenous, non-economic factors that presumably distort it. Our paper offers a radically different model, examining the stock market not …
THE MISMATCH THESIS: What do economists mean when they talk about “capital accumulation”? Surprisingly, the answer to this question is anything but clear, and it seems the most unclear in times of turmoil. Consider the “financial crisis” of the late …
What Do Economists Mean When They Talk About ‘Capital Accumulation’?
8Growing Through SabotageThe CasP project has identified numerous such paths of differential accumulation through strategic sabotage. A partial list of these paths includes higher unemployment that redistrib-utes income in favour of capitalists (Bichler and Nitzan 2014a); decelerating employment growth that …
Can Trump reverse or even dent this long-term evisceration of “America”? The short answer is no. So far, his policies have only hastened this evisceration, accelerating the upward redistribution of income and amplifying the de-Americanization of U.S. corporations. During his …
Until a few months ago, the stock market narrative in the United States could have been summarized by the popular acronym BTFD – or ‘buy the fucking dip’. Analysts and strategists, emboldened by the world’s synchronized recovery, Trump’s pro-business policies …