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Invitation to a seminar -- "No Way Out: Crime, Punishment & the Capitalization of Power"
No full textSEMINAR: "No Way Out: Crime, Punishment & the Capitalization of Power"
WHERE & WHEN: Monday, November 12, 2012, 2:30 – 4:30 pm, Verney Room, S674 Ross, Keele Campus of York University
WHAT: The United States is often hailed as the world’s largest ‘free market’. But this ‘free market’ is also the world’s largest penal colony. It holds over seven million adults – roughly five per cent of the labour force – in jail, in prison, on parole and on probation. Is this an anomaly, or does the ‘free market’ require massive state punishment? Why did the correctional population start to rise in the 1980s, together with the onset of neoliberalism? How is this increase related to the upward redistribution of income and the capitalization of power? Can soaring incarceration sustain the unprecedented power of dominant capital, or is there a reversal in the offing?
Attendance is free
No Way Out: Crime, Punishment & the Capitalization of Power -- Video and Transcript
No full textThe United States is often hailed as the world’s largest ‘free market’. But this ‘free market’ is also the world’s largest penal colony. It holds over seven million adults – roughly five per cent of the labour force – in jail, in prison, on parole and on probation. Is this an anomaly, or does the ‘free market’ require massive state punishment? Why did the correctional population start to rise in the 1980s, together with the onset of neoliberalism? How is this increase related to the upward redistribution of income and the capitalization of power? Can soaring incarceration sustain the unprecedented power of dominant capital, or is there a reversal in the offing?
Video duration: 1:50 hour
Global Capital: Political Economy of Capitalist Power (YorkU, GS/POLS 6285 3.0, Graduate, Fall Term, 2011-12)
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
Review of Nitzan and Bichler's "Capital as Power: A Study of Order and Creorder"
No full textFROM THE REVIEW: "What is capital? In this impressive work, Nitzan and Bichler argue cogently, carefully, and (to my mind) convincingly that we should reject both the neoclassical and the Marxian conceptions of capital, and embrace instead the alternative conception they offer: that capital is power. I admit I was highly skeptical before I read the book, despite my admiration for their previous work, especially their analysis of differential profit rates and other issues in Nitzan and Bichler (2002). I was surprised, then, to find that I was largely persuaded that in some important sense capital is power, and that this view implies a rigorous, empirically sound research program that yields highly useful results. This short review cannot hope adequately to convey the depth and rigor of their analysis, or the encyclopedic knowledge of Marxian and other literature on which it is based; my hope is simply that it inspires or provokes the reader to pick up the book and argue with its ideas.
Power, Profit and Inflation: A Study of Inflation and Influence in Pakistan
No full text[An economist’s take on differential accumulation and inflation in Pakistan]
Our analysis seeks to look at inflation as a political economic phenomenon, based on a framework devised by Jonathan Nitzan and christened differential accumulation. The theory of differential accumulation rejects the conventional definitions of capital and draws upon Veblenian economics to integrate the definitions of power and capital by describing the ownership of capital as differential power claims over social processes. In order to maximize capital accumulation, businessmen allocate resources, in response to the socio-political environment, to beat a certain benchmark rate of return in their pursuit of maximizing capital accumulation. We find evidence for the existence of this phenomenon in Pakistan by assuming that a certain group of businessmen seeks to maximize power by maximizing relative profit, which in turn affects overall inflation. However, we have not established proof through a scientifically rigorous process due to incomplete datasets. We believe that these findings merit further investigation and propose that the maximization of relative profit as opposed to absolute profit, may, in fact, be a behavioral phenomenon. Such a finding will merely be the doppelganger of the maximization of relative utility, as opposed to absolute utility, in consumer decision-making models
Castoriadis, Veblen and the 'Power Theory of Capital'
No full textA critical examination of value theories, capital accumulation and organized powe
Call for Papers: "The Capitalist Mode of Power: Past, Present, Future"
No full textThe annual conference series organized by the Forum on Capital as Power brings together a diverse range of radically minded people interested in exploring the concept of power as a basis for re-thinking and re-searching value, capital and accumulation. The second conference in this series will be held at York University in Toronto on October 20-21, 2011.
Keynote speakers: Bob Jessop, Michael Perelman and Randall Wray.
Extended deadline for abstract submission: July 31, 2011
Systemic Crisis, Systemic Fear: An Exchange
No full textReflections on crisis, fear and behavioural Marxism
Systemic Crisis, Systemic Fear: An Exchange
No full textAn exchange between Andrew Kliman and Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan.
1. Andrew Kliman: 'Value and Crisis: Bichler and Nitzan versus Marx'
EDITORS' NOTE: In the first article, Andrew Kliman responds to Bichler and Nitzan's recent paper on 'Systemic Fear, Modern Finance and the Future of Capitalism' (2010). He then goes on to raise a series of issues concerning the critique of Marxian value theory which these authors put forward in their book Capital as Power (Nitzan and Bichler, 2009). It is followed by a rejoinder from Bichler and Nitzan.
2. Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan: 'Kliman on Systemic Fear: A Rejoinder'
EDITORS' NOTE: Andrew Kliman's paper in this issue, 'Value and Crisis: Bichler and Nitzan versus Marx', consists of two sections. The first section deals with Bichler and Nitzan's recent paper on 'Systemic Fear, Modern Finance and the Future of Capitalism' (2010). The second section takes issue with their earlier critique of Marx’s labour theory of value (Nitzan and Bichler, 2009), and offers an explanation of the global economic crisis. In the following rejoinder, Bichler and Nitzan address the points raised in the first of these sections
Review of Nitzan and Bichler's "Capital as Power: A Study of Order and Creorder"
No full textFROM THE REVIEW: "Capitalism is the 'natural reality' of the day: we live in and with its beauty and perplexities. As of now, we seem to be helpless before its gigantic leap forward and submit ourselves to its power. The rules by which we abide, the morals we keep and the very life we love to cherish all sprout up, engage, adjust, fight in and with the different manifestations of capitalism, and owe much debt to its intricate legacies. But do we know what capitalism really is? And how do we know that what we know of capitalism is accurate? This book brilliantly examines and rigorously analyses these very old questions of political economy and the theoretical attempts to define capitalism in its political, social and philosophical sense, situating them in the classical political economy of the 18th and 19th centuries.