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Underconsumptionist
Underconsumption is a theory in economics that recessions and stagnation arise from an inadequate consumer demand, relative to the amount produced. In other words, there is a problem of overproduction and overinvestment during a demand crisis. The theory formed the basis for the development of Keynesian economics and the theory of aggregate demand after the 1930s. Underconsumption theory narrowly refers to heterodox economists in Britain in the 19th century, particularly from 1815 onwards, who advanced the theory of underconsumption and rejected classical economics in the form of Ricardian economics. The economists did not form a unified school, and their theories were rejected by mainstream economics of the time. Underconsumption is an old concept in economics that goes back to the 1598 French mercantilist text ''Les Trésors et richesses pour mettre l'Estat en splendeur'' (''The Treasures and riches to put the State in splendor'') by Barthélemy de Laffemas, if not earlier. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crisis Theory
Crisis theory, concerning the causes and consequences of the tendency for the rate of profit to fall in a capitalist system, is associated with Marxian critique of political economy, and was further popularised through Marxist economics. History Earlier analysis by Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi provided the first suggestions of the systemic roots of Crisis. "The distinctive feature of Sismondi's analysis is that it is geared to an explicit dynamic model in the modern sense of this phrase ... Sismondi's great merit is that he used, systematically and explicitly, a schema of periods, that is, that he was the first to practice the particular method of dynamics that is called period analysis". Marx praised and built on Sismondi's theoretical insights. Rosa Luxemburg and Henryk Grossman both subsequently drew attention to both Sismondi's work on the nature of capitalism, and as a reference point for Karl Marx. Grossman in particular pointed out how Sismondi had contributed t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mainstream Economics
Mainstream economics is the body of knowledge, theories, and models of economics, as taught by universities worldwide, that are generally accepted by economists as a basis for discussion. Also known as orthodox economics, it can be contrasted to heterodox economics, which encompasses various schools or approaches that are only accepted by a small minority of economists. The economics profession has traditionally been associated with neoclassical economics. However, this association has been challenged by prominent historians of economic thought including David Colander. They argue the current economic mainstream theories, such as game theory, behavioral economics, industrial organization, information economics, and the like, share very little common ground with the initial axioms of neoclassical economics. History Economics has historically featured multiple schools of economic thought, with different schools having different prominence across countries and over time. P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Business Cycles
Business cycles are intervals of general expansion followed by recession in economic performance. The changes in economic activity that characterize business cycles have important implications for the welfare of the general population, government institutions, and private sector firms. There are many definitions of a business cycle. The simplest defines recessions as two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. More satisfactory classifications are provided by, first including more economic indicators and second by looking for more data patterns than the two quarter definition. In the United States, the National Bureau of Economic Research oversees a Business Cycle Dating Committee that defines a recession as "a significant decline in economic activity spread across the market, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales." Business cycles are usually thought of as medium-term evo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Say's Law
In classical economics, Say's law, or the law of markets, is the claim that the production of a product creates demand for another product by providing something of value which can be exchanged for that other product. So, production is the source of demand. It is named after Jean-Baptiste Say. In his principal work, ''A Treatise on Political Economy'' "A product is no sooner created, than it, from that instant, affords a market for other products to the full extent of its own value." And also, "As each of us can only purchase the productions of others with his/her own productions – as the value we can buy is equal to the value we can produce, the more men can produce, the more they will purchase." Some maintain that Say further argued that this law of markets implies that a general glut (a widespread excess of supply over demand) cannot occur. If there is a surplus of one good, there must be unmet demand for another: "If certain goods remain unsold, it is because other goods a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Economics
Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of Agent (economics), economic agents and how economy, economies work. Microeconomics analyses what is viewed as basic elements within economy, economies, including individual agents and market (economics), markets, their interactions, and the outcomes of interactions. Individual agents may include, for example, households, firms, buyers, and sellers. Macroeconomics analyses economies as systems where production, distribution, consumption, savings, and Expenditure, investment expenditure interact; and the factors of production affecting them, such as: Labour (human activity), labour, Capital (economics), capital, Land (economics), land, and Entrepreneurship, enterprise, inflation, economic growth, and public policies that impact gloss ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Depression (economics)
An economic depression is a period of carried long-term economic downturn that is the result of lowered economic activity in one or more major national economies. It is often understood in economics that economic crisis and the following recession that may be named economic depression are part of economic cycles where the slowdown of the economy follows the economic growth and vice versa. It is a result of more severe economic problems or a ''downturn'' than the economic recession, recession itself, which is a slowdown in economic activity over the course of the normal business cycle of growing economy. Economic depressions may also be characterized by their length or duration, showing increases in unemployment, larger increases in unemployment or even abnormally large levels of unemployment (as with for example some problems in Japan in incorporating digital economy, that such technological difficulty resulting in very large unemployment rates or lack of good social balance in emp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tendency Of The Rate Of Profit To Fall
The tendency of the rate of profit to fall (TRPF) is a theory in the crisis theory of political economy, according to which the rate of profit—the ratio of the profit to the amount of invested capital—decreases over time. This hypothesis gained additional prominence from its discussion by Karl Marx in Chapter 13 of '' Capital, Volume III,'' but economists as diverse as Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, David Ricardo and William Stanley Jevons referred explicitly to the TRPF as an empirical phenomenon that demanded further theoretical explanation, although they differed on the reasons why the TRPF should necessarily occur. Some scholars, such as David Harvey, argue against the TRPF as a quantitative phenomenon, arguing it is an internal logic driving the movement of capital itself. Geoffrey Hodgson stated that the theory of the TRPF "has been regarded, by most Marxists, as the backbone of revolutionary Marxism. According to this view, its refutation or removal would lead to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rate Of Profit
In economics and finance, the profit rate is the relative profitability of an investment project, a capitalist enterprise or a whole capitalist economy. It is similar to the concept of rate of return on investment. Historical cost ''vs.'' market value The rate of profit depends on the definition of ''capital invested''. Two measurements of the value of capital exist: capital at historical cost and capital at market value. Historical cost is the original cost of an asset at the time of purchase or payment. Market value is the re-sale value, replacement value, or value in present or alternative use. To compute the rate of profit, replacement cost of capital assets must be used to define the capital cost. Assets such as machinery cannot be replaced at their historical cost, but must be purchased at the current market value. When inflation occurs, historical cost would not take account of rising prices of equipment. The rate of profit would be overestimated, using lower historic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anwar Shaikh (economist)
Anwar M. Shaikh ( Sindhi: انور شيخ) is a Pakistani American heterodox economist in the tradition of classical political economy and Marxian economics. He is Professor of Economics in the Graduate Faculty of Social and Political Science at The New School for Social Research in New York City, where he has taught since 1972. Early life and education Shaikh was born in Karachi into a Liberal Sindhi family in 1945. He traveled extensively at an early age and attended schools and lived for various lengths of time in Ankara, Washington, D.C., New York City, Lagos, Kuala Lumpur, and Kuwait. He graduated from Stuyvesant High School in New York City in 1961, received a B.S.E from Princeton University in 1965, worked for two years in Kuwait, and then returned to the United States to study at Columbia University, from which he received his Ph.D. in Economics in 1973. In 1972 he joined the Economics Department at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research. He t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Working Class
The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most common definitions of "working class" in use in the United States limit its membership to workers who hold blue-collar and pink-collar jobs, or whose income is insufficiently high to place them in the middle class, or both. However, socialists define "working class" to include all workers who fall into the category of requiring income from wage labour to subsist; thus, this definition can include almost all of the working population of industrialized economies. Definitions As with many terms describing social class, ''working class'' is defined and used in different ways. One definition used by many socialists is that the working class includes all those who have nothing to sell but their labour, a group otherwise referred to as the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Das Kapital
''Capital: A Critique of Political Economy'' (), also known as ''Capital'' or (), is the most significant work by Karl Marx and the cornerstone of Marxian economics, published in three volumes in 1867, 1885, and 1894. The culmination of his life's work, the text contains Marx's analysis of capitalism, to which he sought to apply his theory of historical materialism in a critique of political economy, critique of classical political economy. 's second and third volumes were completed from manuscripts after Marx's death in 1883 and published by Friedrich Engels. Marx's study of political economy began in the 1840s, influenced by the works of the classical political economists Adam Smith and David Ricardo. His earlier works, including ''Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844'' and ''The German Ideology'' (1846, with Engels), laid the groundwork for his theory of historical materialism, which posits that the Base and superstructure, economic structures of a society (in par ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Productive Forces
Productive forces, productive powers, or forces of production ( German: ''Produktivkräfte'') is a central idea in Marxism and historical materialism. In Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' own critique of political economy, it refers to the combination of the means of labor (tools, machinery, land, infrastructure, and so on) with human labour power. Marx and Engels probably derived the concept from Adam Smith's reference to the "productive powers of labour" (see e.g. chapter 8 of ''The Wealth of Nations'' (1776)), although the German political economist Friedrich List also mentions the concept of "productive powers" in ''The National System of Political Economy'' (1841). All those forces which are applied by people in the production process (body and brain, tools and techniques, materials, resources, quality of workers' cooperation, and equipment) are encompassed by this concept, including those management and engineering functions technically indispensable for production (as c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
