Riccardo Bellofiore

A Minsky Moment? The Subprime Crisis and the ‘New’ Capitalism

The International Economic Policy Institute is a bilingual, non-partisan, non-profit policy research group (the creation of this Institute is pending university approval) at Laurentian University, Ontario (Canada), which seeks to offer critical thinking on the most relevant economic and social policies in Canada and around the world. In particular, the institutes mission is to explore themes related to macroeconomic policies, globalization and development issues, and income distribution and employment policies. Our overall concern is with the social and economic dignity of the human being and his/her role within the larger global community. We believe that everyone has a right to decent work, to a fair and equitable income and to equal opportunities to pursue ones self-fulfillment. We strongly believe that it is the role of policies and institutions to guarantee these rights. In accordance with its mission, the Institute is constantly seeking to create international research networks by hosting conferences and seminars and inviting other thinkers around the globe to reflect on crucial economic and social issues. The Institute offers ongoing, honest, and critical appraisal of current policies. His current research interests include the economics of globalization, the development and crisis of contemporary capitalism, endogenous theories of money, Marxian value and crisis theory, and economic philosophy. Quarterly Review, Monthly Review and has written chapters in a number of coedited books both by himself and by other colleagues.

Money and Development in Schumpeter

In Schumpeters model of economic development money plays an essential role and capitalism is seen as a structurally unstable process. These distinctive features of Schumpeterian theory are due to the endogeneity of innovations and, as a consequence, of money supply. The endogenous nature of technical change and the picture of the capitalist process as a monetary circuit are also important elements in the Marxian critique of political economy. This paper reviews the Schumpeterian system, confronts it with Marxs theory, and proposes Schumpeter (as well as the heterodox stream in monetary analysis in which he must be placed) as a more appropriate critical reference for a renewal of Marxian theory of value, money and capital than Ricardian or neo-Ricardian theories.

Minsky in the ‘New’ Capitalism: The New Clothes of the Financial Instability Hypothesis

This Companion provides a timely and engaging treatment of Hyman Minsky’s approach to economics, which is enjoying a renewed appreciation because of its prescient analysis of the slow but sure transformation of the capitalist economy in the post-war period. Many have called the global financial crisis that began in the United States in 2007 a ‘Minsky crisis’, and these original contributions demonstrate precisely why both academic economists as well as policymakers have turned to Minsky for guidance. The book brings together the foremost Minsky scholars to provide a comprehensive overview of his approach, with extensions to bring the analysis up to date.

Financial Keynesianism and Market Instability

During his lifetime Hyman Minsky made a seminal contribution to the development of financial Keynesianism. In this book, leading academics celebrate his work and explore his economic legacy. Special attention is paid to his work on contemporary economic method, the Great Depression, the European single currency and the global financial system and recent banking and financial crises – in particular the crisis in Asia. An attempt is made to categorise Minsky’s brand of post Keynesianism and to compare his work with the Keynesian and Marxian traditions.

Financial Fragility and Investment in the Capitalist Economy

Hyman Minsky is renowned for his theoretical and empirical investigation of the capitalist economy. In this book, a distinguished group of contributors provides an authoritative account of his contribution to the analysis of capitalism and, more particularly, to the fields of monetary and post Keynesian economics.

Sraffa after Marx: An Open Issue

The Sraffa Archives at the Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge have been open for consultation for more than a decade. During these years there have been many conferences, and several volumes have been published which take the new material into account. In a 1998 conference1, I remarked that there has been almost no discussion concerning the new perspectives that the unpublished papers of the Italian economist could suggest about his relation with Marx, in contrast to the attention that has been given to Keynes or Hayek, Marshall or Ricardo. This is quite amazing since precisely this continuity or discontinuity between Sraffa and Marx had been one of the hottest topics in the 1970s and early 1980s. Having been a regular reader of the Sraffa papers throughout these years, I increasingly felt uneasy about this situation and found this silence too noisy.

Crisis Theory and the Great Recession: A Personal Journey, from Marx to Minsky

There are two influential interpretative positions in the current debate on the crisis among Marxists. The first understands financialization as a consequence of the tendential fall of the rate of profit. The other interpretation, prevalent among those influenced by Keynesianism and Neoricardianism, refers to the tendency toward the crisis of realisation, because of the squeeze on the wage bill and the insufficiency of consumer demand. In both cases, the current crisis is the crisis of a feeble capitalism, permanently stagnationist. A Marxian interpretation of the crisis cannot be separated from the tendential fall of the rate of profit. This latter, however, cannot be accepted as it is presented by Marx, and it must be rethought as a meta-theory of the crisis, including within it the different crisis theories that can be derived from Capital. This article first provides a personal survey of Marxs crisis theories, often presented as opposed to each other. Second, it seeks to integrate the different positions into a unitary discourse, within a nonmechanical reading of the fall of the rate of profit. This discourse then mutates into an historical sketch of the long dynamic of capital: from the Great Depression of the end of the nineteenth century, to the Great Crash of the 1930s, to the Social Crisis in the immediate processes of valorisation of the 1960s–1970s (the Great Inflation). Finally, the “new” capitalism (the Great Moderation) and its recent crisis (the Great Recession) are read – integrating Marx and Minsky – as the conjunction between the real subsumption of labour to finance and the fragmentation of labour.

Marx after Schumpeter

Contemporary marxist economic theory has repeatedly raised the issues of structural change and the nature of money. The economic system of Joseph Schumpeter is a key precedent in the integration of exactly those two themes: Schumpeter provides a theory of endogenous structural economic development tied to a theory of bank credit and finance. This paper explores the lessons that can be drawn for Marxist political economy.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Thinker: Sraffa, Marx, and the Critique of Economic Theory

Sraffa’s relationship to Marx remains a controversial topic. After the opening of Sraffa’s Archive in 1993, with the Sraffa Papers (SP) and the Sraffa Collection (SC), we know that the Italian economist changed his attitude on the labour theory of value (LTV). In 1927–31 he was very critical of the LTV whereas in the early 1940s Sraffa thought that his inquiry would vindicate the ‘Old Moor’. A few years later he abandoned this view of strong continuity, however even after the publication of Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities (PCMC) Sraffa maintained a positive judgment on Marx’s transformation procedure and even more than that he interpreted the results of his book in terms of capitalist exploitation within an amended Marxian discourse. It is perhaps with such restropsective that Sraffa would write in October 1975 that ‘in economic theory the conclusions are sometimes less interesting than the route by which they are reached’ (SP C26; Letter to C P Blitch).

Finance and the Realization Problem in Rosa Luxemburg: a ‘Circuitist’ Reappraisal

The aim of this chapter is to show that Rosa Luxemburg’s analysis of capitalist accumulation is framed within a ‘circuitist’ macroeconomic reading of capitalism as a monetary production economy. The strengths and limits of her approach are to be found elsewhere than suggested by usual criticisms, especially those advocated by Marxist authors. Rosa Luxemburg cannot be reduced to the uncertain theoretical status of an ‘under-consumptionist’. On the contrary, she presents a clear (although incomplete) picture of the macro-monetary and sequential working of the capitalist process.