David M. Brennan

DEFENDING THE INDEFENSIBLE? CULTURE'S ROLE IN THE PRODUCTIVE/UNPRODUCTIVE DICHOTOMY

Abstract The purpose of this article is to reveal the justifications for different production boundaries historically. It finds that the boundaries were and are predicated on an untenable productive/unproductive dichotomy that was justified on select and shifting cultural norms. Furthermore, the production boundary informed other categories like labor, capital, income, and wealth. Hence, this article exposes the degree to which economic categories were and are unstable, fragile, contested, and culturally embedded constructs. It then explores feminist-inspired production boundaries based on third-person criterion and finds that these boundaries are likewise culturally contingent. However, these new production boundaries merely do what economics has always attempted to do, which is to theorize production under different cultural circumstances. This article reaffirms the mutually constitutive role of culture and economic categories.

“Fiduciary Capitalism,†the “Political Model of Corporate Governance,†and the Prospect of Stakeholder Capitalism in the United States

As progressive pension reforms seek to increase the opportunities for stakeholder involvement, they confront an existing set of class relations that by design exclude workers, retirees, and the state from real economic participation. This article argues that pension reforms must explicitly recognize the class underpinnings that jeopardize their success; proposes a workable, class-sensitive orientation for pension reforms; and includes the legislative context for governance reforms.

Co-opting the Shareholder Value Movement: A Class Analytic Model of Share Repurchases

This paper investigates the relationship between labor, shareholders, and CEOs to reflect the simultaneous rise in share repurchases after 1980, the increasingly exploitative outcomes for labor, and the rise of CEO compensation. The paper finds that although institutional investors may have pressured firms to be more profitable, they were not powerful enough to appropriate all of the gains. Rather, capitalists (CEOs) have been able to partially co-opt the shareholder value movement at the expense of both labor and shareholders. Important components of this conclusion are the use of stock options and the benefits to capitalists for seemingly distributing funds to shareholders with share repurchases.

The Bull-of-Last-Resort: How the U.S. Economy Capitalizes on Nationalism

The dramatic purchase of corporate equities by the U.S. government in 2008 marks a distinct change in the way crises are handled. While many fear that this represents a move toward socialism, others look forward to the progressive possibilities. This paper argues that the policy of massively purchasing stocks is an attempt to provide support for equity values when no other bull could be found. This policy was used because high share values provide important class conditions of existence for capitalist exploitation today. As a consequence, the move to “nationalize” is viewed here as an attempt to protect the capitalist status quo. In this regard, the goals of current government policy are no different from past interventions.

Regimes of Realization: Using Marx and Kalecki to Understand the US Economy, Including the Great Recession and the “Recovery”

By integrating selected Kaleckian and Marxian insights, this paper analyzes the sources of profit realization and the profit rate in the US economy from 1964–2013. The most significant sources of profit realization in the United States are capitalists’ consumption and workers’ debt, which historically have been under appreciated both theoretically and empirically. The insights gleaned by analyzing the sources of profit realization aid in understanding the Great Recession and the future of the US economy. JEL Classifications: B51, E11

Routledge Handbook of Marxian Economics

LABOR

If Class Transformation Can Happen There, It Can Happen …

Catherine Mulders Unions and Class Transformation: The Case of the Broadway Musicians brings the New Marxian Class Analysis to issues facing Broadway musicians today. Here, I summarize some of the main contributions of the book and critically engage with a few of the key elements of her analysis. The book is full of interesting details concerning how a musical is organized, the complicated contractual arrangements involved, and the working conditions facing musicians in the orchestra pit. With this background, Mulder employs a class analysis and arrives at a class-transformative strategy for the benefit of the union membership. Her analysis serves as an excellent model for future class-theoretic research.

A Tale of Two Thailands: A Minskyan Analysis of Growth in Different Regimes

This paper employs a Kaleckian/Minskyan analysis of profit flows to explain Thailand’s experiences of growth and crisis under different policy regimes. Specifically, the paper shows how profits were differently supported under the neoliberal policy regime of the day and a regime of less stable exchange rates and fiscal deficits. The analysis of the components of profit flows is helpful in explaining why capitalist economies oscillate between different types of monetary and fiscal interventions. JEL classification: F41, E60, E12

Book Review: The Rise of Fiduciary Capitalism: How Institutional Investors Can Make Corporate America More Democratic James P. Hawley and Andrew T. Williams; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000, 251 pp.,

Work should involve risks, but risks to tired minds, challenges to complacency, hazards to inertia. Work must not be the endangerment of some—the workers—for the benefit of the few—employers. Indeed, work should also not involve the endangerment of some for the benefit of the many—consumers. Democracy, health, and work are inextricably intertwined, not merely in an economic calculus but in one concerning fundamental human value and the rights of individuals and the community. (143)