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Differential Taxation: The Case of American Banking
No full textThis paper maps an empirical history of corporate profit and taxation in the United States, with a special focus on the differential profit and taxation of banks relative to other corporations. An examination of these trends reveals a striking anomaly within the American banking sector: from the early 1980s until the financial crisis of 2007-2008, its after-tax profits sharply outpaced those of the corporate average despite its effective tax rates having simultaneously increased relative to those of the corporate average. This curious combination of improved differential performance and an increased differential tax burden may have been due to banking deregulation – strong enough to boost pre-tax profits so much that they more than offset the effects of increased taxation and also raised after-tax profits along the way. In addition, these trends reveal a convergence of interests between American banking and government, with the former earning higher profits and the latter earning higher tax revenues. Whether implicitly or explicitly created, this tax arrangement relied on unsustainably deregulated banking profits and ultimately collapsed during the financial crisis of 2007-2008
Capital Accumulation: Fiction and Reality
No full textWhat 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 recent ‘financial crisis’. The very term already attests to the presumed nature and causes of the crisis, which most observers indeed believe originated in the financial sector and was amplified by pervasive financialization.
However, when theorists speak about a financial crisis, they don’t speak about it in isolation. They refer to finance not in and of itself, but in relation to the so-called real capital stock. The recent crisis, they argue, happened not because of finance as such, but due to a mismatch between financial and real capital. The world of finance, they complain, has deviated from and distorted the real world of accumulation. And since, according to Milton Friedman, there is no such thing as a free lunch, it is only fitting that, having indulged in this distortion, we must now pay the price for it in the form of a financial crisis.
This ‘mismatch thesis’ – the notion of a reality distorted by finance – is broadly accepted. In 2009, The Economist of London accused its readers of confusing ‘financial assets with real ones’, singling out their confusion as the root cause of the brewing crisis. Real assets, or wealth, the magazine explained, consist of ‘goods and products we wish to consume’ or of ‘things that give us the ability to produce more of what we want to consume’. Financial assets, by contrast, are not wealth; they are simply ‘claims on real wealth’. To confuse the inflation of latter for the expansion of the former is the surest recipe for disaster.
The division between real wealth and financial claims on real wealth is a fundamental premise of political economy. This premise is accepted not only by liberal theorists, analysts and policymakers, but also by Marxists of various persuasions. And as we shall show below, it is a premise built on very shaky foundations.
When liberals and Marxists say that there is a mismatch between financial and real capital, they are essentially making, explicitly or implicitly, three related claims: (1) that these are indeed separate entities; (2) that these entities should correspond to each other; and (3) that, in the actual world, they often do not.
In what follows, we explain why these claims don’t hold water. To put it bluntly, neither liberals nor Marxists know how to compare real and financial capital, and the main reason is simple enough: they don’t know how to determine the magnitude of real capital to start with. The common, makeshift solution is to estimate this magnitude indirectly, by using the money price of capital goods – yet this doesn’t solve the problem either, since capital goods can have many prices and there is no way of knowing which of them, if any, is the ‘true’ one. Last but not least, even if we turn a blind eye and allow for these logical impossibilities and empirical travesties to stand, the result is still highly embarrassing. As it turns out, financial accumulation not only deviates from and distorts real accumulation, it also follows an opposite trajectory. For more than two centuries, economists left and right have argued that capitalism thrives on ‘real investment’ and the growth of ‘real capital’. But as we shall see, in reality, the best time for capitalists is when their ‘real accumulation’ tanks! . . .
Putting Power Back Into Growth Theory
No full textNeoclassical growth theory assumes that economic growth is an atomistic process in which changes in distribution play no role. Unfortunately, when this assumption is tested against real-world evidence, it is systematically violated. This paper argues that a reality-based growth theory must reject neoclassical principles in favour of a powercentered approach. Building on Nitzan and Bichler’s Capital as Power hypothesis, I argue that hierarchy formation is an integral part of the growth process. I hypothesize that the role of capital accumulation (through profit) is to facilitate hierarchy formation by legitimizing the authority of capitalists
Global Capital: Political Economy of Capitalist Power (YorkU, GS/POLS 6285 3.0, Graduate, Fall Term, 2015-16)
No full textWhat is capital?
Despite centuries of debate, there is no clear answer to this question – and for a good reason. Capital is a polemic term. The way we define it attests our theoretical biases, ideological disposition, view of politics, class consciousness, social position, and more.
Is capital the same as machines, or is it merely a financial asset? Is it a material article or a social process? Is it a static substance or a dynamic entity? The form of capital, its existence as monetary wealth, is hardly in doubt. The problem is with the content, the stuff that makes capital grow – and on this issue there is no agreement whatsoever. For example, does capital accumulate because it is productive, or due to the exploitation of workers? Does capital expand from within capitalism, or does it need non-capitalist institutions like the state and other ‘external’ forces? Is accumulation synonymous with economic growth, or can capital expand by damaging production and undermining efficiency? What exactly is being accumulated? Does the value of capital represent utility, abstract labour – or perhaps something totally different, such as power or force? What units should we use to measure its accumulation?
Surprisingly, these questions remain unanswered; in fact, with the victory of liberalism, most of them are no longer being asked. But the silence cannot last for long. As crisis and social strife intensify, the questions are bound to resurface. The accumulation of capital is the central process of capitalism, and unless we can clarify what that process means, we’ll remain unable to understand our world, let alone to change it.
The seminar has two related goals: substantive and pedagogical. The substantive purpose is to tackle the question of capital head on. The course explores a spectrum of liberal and Marxist theories, ideologies and dogmas – as well as a radical alternative to these views. The argument is developed theoretically, historically and empirically. The first part of the seminar provides a critical overview of political economy, examining its historical emergence, triumph and eventual demise. The second part deals with the two ‘materialistic’ schools of capital – the liberal theory of utility and the Marxist theory of labour time – dissecting their structure, strengths and limitations. The third part brings power back in: it analyses the relation between accumulation and sabotage, studies the institutions of the corporation and the state and introduces a new framework – the capitalist mode of power. The final part offers an alternative approach – the theory of capital as power – and illustrates how this approach can shed light on conflict-ridden processes such as corporate merger, stagflation, imperialism and Middle East wars.
Pedagogically, the seminar seeks to prepare students toward conducting their own independent re-search. Students are introduced to various electronic data sources, instructed in different methods of analysis and tutored in developing their empirical research skills. As the seminar progresses, these skills are used both to assess various theories and to develop the students’ own theoretical/empirical research projects
Is Hollywood Running Out of Risk?
Get PDFIf we are to believe the conventional creed, Hollywood films are highly risky investments. The common view is that movies are like a box of chocolates. Their producers and distributors never know what they’re going to get when the movies open to the viewing public. They can be loved or hated. They can succeed or bomb. They can gross hundreds of millions or generate huge losses. In short, their ex-post performance is ex-ante unpredictable. But as James McMahon shows in his 2015 PhD thesis, this conventional view is seriously out of tune with the rapidly changing reality
Rethinking Economic Growth Theory From a Biophysical Perspective
No full textNeoclassical growth theory is the dominant perspective for explaining economic growth. At its core are four implicit assumptions: 1) economic output can become decoupled from energy consumption; 2) economic distribution is unrelated to growth; 3) large institutions are not important for growth; and 4) labor force structure is not important for growth. Drawing on a wide range of data from the economic history of the United States, this book tests the validity of these assumptions and finds no empirical support. Instead, connections are found between the growth in energy consumption and such disparate phenomena as economic redistribution, corporate employment concentration, and changing labor force structure. The integration of energy into an economic growth model has the potential to offer insight into the future effects of fossil fuel depletion on key macroeconomic indicators, which is already manifested in stalled or diminished growth and escalating debt in many national economies. This book argues for an alternative, biophysical perspective to the study of growth, and presents a set of ‘stylized facts’ that such an approach must successfully explain. Aspects of biophysical analysis are combined with differential monetary analysis to arrive at a unique empirical methodology for investigating the elements and dependencies of the economic growth process.
Book page on Springer's site: http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-319-12826-9
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-12826-
Fuel, Feed and the Corporate Restructuring of the Food Regime
No full textThe agrofuel boom has brought about some of the most significant transformations in the world food system in recent decades. A rich and diverse body of agrarian political economy research has emerged that elucidates the conflicts and redistributional shifts engendered by these transformations. However, less attention has been given to differences within agri-food capital. This paper contributes to the existing literature on agrofuels, by showing how one cluster of agri-food corporations and farmers within the US has benefited from soaring ethanol production at the expense of another cluster. More specifically, I delineate and chart the pecuniary trajectories of two corporate-led distributional coalitions that have vied over the course taken by the US ethanol sector: the 'Agro-Trader nexus' and the 'Animal Processor nexus'. My main finding is that the US ethanol boom has been a vector of redistribution: increasing the earnings of the Agro-Trader nexus and corn growers while reducing the earnings of the Animal Processor nexus and livestock farmers. This finding points to the limits and contradictions of agrofuels capitalism and the acute tensions that exist at the heart of the corporate food regime
Introduction to "The Scientist and the Church"
No full textFROM THE INTRODUCTION:
Human society, one may argue, is propelled by a dynamic clash of two primordial drives: creativity and power. The urge to invent confronts the impulse to conserve, the desire to change contests the quest to impose, the will to transcend conflicts with the impetus to restrict, harness and sabotage. It seems that the ever-present need to create something new always stands against the itch to redistribute and appropriate.
Arthur Koestler described this clash, somewhat romantically, in his masterful history of cosmology, 'The Sleepwalkers' (1959). His lone scientists grope in the dark. They search for cues, hints and leads. They often stumble, falling flat on their faces. Rarely do they know exactly what they are looking for. But they go on. And then, suddenly, comes a revelation. The scientist sees a spark. Many a time the spark fizzles out and dies. But sometimes it persists long enough to ignite a fire. Novel ideas, syllogisms, explanations, equations and theories start to emerge in quick succession. Before long, a whirlwind of light builds up in the middle of the darkness. The whirlwind twists and turns, drawing in other scientists, generating more light, more ideas, more findings. In rare cases, it even gives rise to a totally new cosmology.
But this creativity is never easy to manifest. Wherever they go, the scientists find themselves faced with a monolithic wall of resistance. Confronting them are the dominant power institutions of society, the opaque and seemingly impenetrable complex of church, academy, state, army and business organizations that control and leverage the prevailing beliefs, ideologies, dogmas and paradigms. Occasionally, a single scientist manages to break through the wall. Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Maxwell and Einstein, among others, were immortalized for doing so. But of those who try, the vast majority fail and sink into oblivion. The odds are overwhelmingly against them. To challenge power with creativity is to risk your life, job, reputation, family and future – as the heroic Cecilia Paine, the first to discover what stars are made of, was to learn the hard way (see Chapter 11). Those who contest the dogma – like the poet in George Orwell’s 'Keep the Aspidistra Flying' (1936) – face ridicule, poverty, life in the shadows. No wonder most people end up taking the safe route of consent, moving obediently with the herd.
Many of those who examined the clash between creativity and power – from Socrates and Plato to Freud and Marcuse – searched for universal drives and inhibitions, for the eternal underpinnings of Eros and Civilization. But while the drives and inhibitions may be universal, their social manifestations are often unique. The clash of creativity and power is the engine of the social creorder – the ongoing creation of order that propels and transforms all historical societies. And so, whatever its sources, this clash is always specific to the mode of power in which it is manifested.
The first mode of power we know of was born in Mesopotamia, about six thousand years ago. . . .
***
BUY THE FULL BOOK PDF HERE: http://www.worldeconomicsassociation.org/downloads/the-scientist-and-the-church
Capital Accumulation: Fiction and Reality
No full textTHE 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 2000s. The very term already attests to the presumed nature and causes of the crisis, which most observers indeed believe originated in the financial sector and was amplified by pervasive financialization.
However, when theorists speak about a financial crisis, they don’t speak about it in isolation. They refer to finance not in and of itself, but in relation to the so-called real capital stock. The recent crisis, they argue, happened not because of finance as such, but due to a mismatch between financial and real capital. The world of finance, they complain, has deviated from and distorted the real world of accumulation.
According to the conventional script, this mismatch commonly appears as a "bubble", a recurring disease that causes finance to inflate relative to reality. The bubble itself, much like cancer, develops stealthily. It is extremely hard to detect, and as long as it’s growing, nobody – save a few prophets of doom – seems able to see it. It is only after the market has crashed and the dust has settled that, suddenly, everybody knows it had been a bubble all along. Now, bubbles, like other deviations, distortions and mismatches, are born in sin. They begin with "the public" being too greedy and "policy makers" too lax; they continue with "irrational exuberance" that conjures up fictitious wealth out of thin air; and they end with a financial crisis, followed by recession, mounting losses and rising unemployment – a befitting punishment for those who believed they could trick Milton Friedman into giving them a free lunch.
This "mismatch thesis" – the notion of a reality distorted by finance – is broadly accepted. In 2009, The Economist of London accused its readers of confusing "financial assets with real ones", singling out their confusion as the root cause of the brewing crisis. Real assets, or wealth, the magazine explained, consist of “goods and products we wish to consume" or of "things that give us the ability to produce more of what we want to consume". Financial assets, by contrast, are not wealth; they are simply "claims on real wealth". To confuse the inflation of the latter for the expansion of the former is the surest recipe for disaster.
The division between real wealth and financial claims on real wealth is a fundamental premise of political economy. This premise is accepted not only by liberal theorists, analysts and policymakers, but also by Marxists of various persuasions. And as we shall show below, it is a premise built on very shaky foundations.
When liberals and Marxists say that there is a mismatch between financial and real capital, they are essentially making, explicitly or implicitly, three related claims: (1) that these are indeed separate entities; (2) that these entities should correspond to each other; and (3) that, in the actual world, they often do not.
In what follows, we explain why these claims don’t hold water. To put it bluntly, neither liberals nor Marxists know how to compare real and financial capital, and the main reason is simple: they don’t know how to determine the magnitude of real capital to start with. The common, makeshift solution is to estimate this magnitude indirectly, by using the money price of capital goods – yet this doesn’t solve the problem either, since capital goods can have many prices and there is no way of knowing which of them, if any, is the “true" one. Last but not least, even if we turn a blind eye and allow for these logical impossibilities and empirical travesties to stand, the result is still highly embarrassing. As it turns out, financial accumulation not only deviates from and distorts real accumulation (or so we are told), it also follows an opposite trajectory. For more than two centuries, economists left and right have argued that capitalists – and therefore capitalism – thrive on "real investment" and the growth of "real capital". But as we shall see, in reality, the best time for capitalists is when their “real accumulation” tanks! . .
Corporate Ownership of the Public Debt: Mapping the New Aristocracy of Finance
No full textIn various writings Karl Marx made references to an ‘aristocracy of finance’ in Western Europe and the United States that dominated ownership of the public debt. Drawing on original research, this article offers the first comprehensive analysis of public debt ownership within the US corporate sector. The research shows that over the past three decades, and especially in the context of the current crisis, a new aristocracy of finance has emerged, as holdings of the public debt have become rapidly concentrated in favor of large corporations classified within Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE). Operationalizing Wolfgang Streeck’s concept of the ‘debt state’, the article goes on to demonstrate how concentration in ownership of the public debt reinforces patterns of social inequality and proceeds in tandem with a shift in government policy, one that prioritizes the interests of government bondholders over the general citizenry