Subjects Archives: Economic Theory

One of the best reasons for studying Marxian economics is to understand all those criticisms—the criticisms of mainstream economic theory and the criticisms of capitalism.

The leak of the FinCEN Files over the weekend has rocked global markets and augurs a financial crisis of epic proportions as Deutsche Bank hovers over the precipice.

This is certainly not the first time people have looked beyond mainstream economics.

My goal is to write a textbook that can fulfill two purposes: first, a stand-alone book for courses that are focused on Marxian economics or survey courses that have a section devoted to Marxian economics; second, it will also be useful as a companion text in a course that is based on reading all of or major selections from Karl Marx’s Capital.

The current economic crisis has hit workers hard. Unemployment rates remain high, with total weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance benefits continuing to grow.

The number of continued claims for unemployment compensation, while below its peak, rose from the previous week and was more than 29 million American workers—a figure that includes workers receiving Pandemic Unemployment Assistance.

The history of capitalism as a world system is punctuated by struggles for world hegemony between declining hegemonic powers and rising states, usually leading to world wars. We are now in such a period, which had been building for some time under Obama and is now being pursued much more openly and belligerently under Trump.

2019 was a very good year for the world’s wealthiest individuals. The normal workings of global capitalism created both more billionaires and more combined wealth owned by those billionaires.

New figures from the Institute for Policy Studies show that, despite a pandemic that has stunted the economy for months, America’s billionaire class is becoming richer than ever, adding nearly $700 billion to their fortune since the nationwide lockdown in March.

Mary Filippo began in 2004 to audit economics classes in the hope that she could “learn something about globalization. Does it really help people in developing countries? What are its downsides?” She did not learn these things.

First, a lot of it is simply wrong: that is, it is misleading about how economies work and the implications of economic policies and processes. For decades now, a significant and powerful lobby within the discipline has peddled half-truths and absolute falsehoods on many critical issues.

An article by President Xi Jinping on opening new horizons of the Marxist political economy in contemporary China will be published Sunday.

My Mis-Education in 3 Graphics is a document of the filmmaker’s darkly humorous journey through the mind-boggling constructs of mainstream economics.

Can China do much to fight back against the power wielded by the U.S. in the world economy? At first sight, that looks unlikely. China is big, but world trade is conducted in dollars, and the U.S. has economic, political and military influence across the globe.

All told, 54.1 million American workers have filed initial unemployment claims during the past nineteen weeks.

A statement signed by former Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff and Indian Kerala State’s finance minister Thomas Isaac, among others, highlights the inadequacy of the measures announced recently by the G20 and IMF to postpone debt repayment.

The excessive use of force and killings of unarmed Black Americans by police has fueled a popular movement for slashing police budgets, reimagining policing, and directing freed funds to community-based programs that provide medical and mental health care, housing, and employment support to those in need. This is a long overdue development.

This year marks 25 years since Ernest Mandel died. Mandel (5 April 1923–20 July 1995) was one of the most significant Marxist economists of the second half of the twentieth century. In 1982, he was central to founding our Institute. A prolific scholar and activist until the end of his life, Mandel wrote dozens of books and hundreds of articles.

Economist, musician & Money on the Left audio engineer, Alex Williams, joins the podcast to discuss money, music and method in light of Modern Monetary Theory and heterodox economics. At the outset, we chat about methodology and the riddles of “administrative capacity” that drive so much of Williams’ work. Next, Williams guides us through his […]

One of the graver risks for big-time criminals is that investigators will be able to identify them and their deeds by ‘following the money’. The criminals have to hide the proceeds of their crimes. This is done by depositing their monies into legitimate finance houses and businesses.