Indian Journal of Industrial Relations: Economics & Social Dev.

Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Subscription Access
Open Access Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Restricted Access Subscription Access

The Crisis of Capitalism: Keynes Versus Marx


Affiliations
1 University of Warwick, UK
     

   Subscribe/Renew Journal


Marx believed that the Ricardian class struggle for shares of the national product would be settled decisively in favour of labour: capitalism would be abolished, and with it the profits of capitalists and rents of landlords. But Marx missed the growth of a social balance between the 'countervailing powers' of business, labour, and government, which put the revolution off the agenda. Since the business class lost its ability to enforce the real wage reductions necessary to its continued profitability, mass unemployment became endemic in the developed world. This was the setting in which Keynes' analysis in terms of 'under-employment equilibrium' could gain traction. It promised to break the social stasis by invoking the economic power of the state, argues the author.
Subscription Login to verify subscription
User
Notifications
Font Size


  • Collini, Stefan (2009), “Impact on Humanities”, TLS 13 November.

  • Cartwright, Nancy, (1999), The Dappled World, CUP, Cambridge.

  • Dasgupta, Amir Kumar (1985), Epochs of Economic Theory, BSIL Blackwell, Oxford.

  • Davidson, Paul (2007), John Maynard Keynes, Palgrave Macmillan, London.

  • Galbraith, J.K. (1952), American Capitalism: The Concept of Countervailing Power, Harper Publications, London.

  • Gough, Ian (1975), “State Expenditure in Advanced Capitalism”, New Left Review, 92.

  • Keynes, J.M (1936), The General Theory of Employment, Interest & Money, Macmillan, London, reproduced in The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, vol vii, Macmillan for the Royal Economic Society, London, 1973.

  • Keynes, J.M. (1945), Letter to S.G. Macfarlane, 5 June 1945, reproduced in the Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, vol. xxvii, 1980.

  • Keynes, J.M. (1937) “The General Theory of Employment”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, February; reproduced in The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, vol.xiv, 1973.

  • Leijonhufvud, Axel (1969), Keynes and the Classics, Institute of Economic Affairs, London.

  • Lukes, Steven (1974), Power –A Radical View, (reissued 2005), Palgrave Macmillan, London.

  • Lowe, A (1965), On Economic Knowledge: Toward a Science of Political Economics, Harper and Row, New York.

  • Marx-Engels Selected Works (1962), vol.1.

  • Masch, Vladimir (2010), “An Application Risk- Constrained Optimization to a Problem of International Trade”, The International Journal of Trade and Quantitative Management, 16 (forthcoming).

  • Pall, Thomas (2009), America’s Exhausted Paradigm: Macroeconomic Causes of the Financial Crisis and Great Recession, New American Foundation, Washington DC.

  • Skidelsky, Robert. (2003), John Maynard Keynes 1883-1946, Economist, Philosopher, Statesman, Macmillan, London.

  • Wood, John Cunningham (1983), John Meynard Keynes: Critical Assessments, 4 vols. Croom Helm, London.


Abstract Views: 233

PDF Views: 1




  • The Crisis of Capitalism: Keynes Versus Marx

Abstract Views: 233  |  PDF Views: 1

Authors

Robert Skidelsky
University of Warwick, UK

Abstract


Marx believed that the Ricardian class struggle for shares of the national product would be settled decisively in favour of labour: capitalism would be abolished, and with it the profits of capitalists and rents of landlords. But Marx missed the growth of a social balance between the 'countervailing powers' of business, labour, and government, which put the revolution off the agenda. Since the business class lost its ability to enforce the real wage reductions necessary to its continued profitability, mass unemployment became endemic in the developed world. This was the setting in which Keynes' analysis in terms of 'under-employment equilibrium' could gain traction. It promised to break the social stasis by invoking the economic power of the state, argues the author.

References