Capitalism, Competition and Class Conflicts: A Pedagogical Introduction to Marxist Political Economy

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Abstract

This article offers an introduction to Marxian economics for the uninitiated student or instructor. It first places Marxian economics within the surplus approach and ties Marx’s economic analysis with his theory of history, that is, historical materialism. The concepts of class, mode of production and antagonism are introduced. The article then discusses Marx’s analysis of capitalism. This is performed by first introducing the reader to the labour theory of value and then to the circuit of capital. The conflict between capital and labour and the conflict between capital and capital are explored around the question of technological change and innovation. This is followed by a brief discussion of the capitalist crises in the Marxian framework, after which the article concludes by presenting two strands of debate within Marxian economics.

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A Brief History of Neoliberalism

David Harvey (2005)

Neoliberalism--the doctrine that market exchange is an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide for all human action--has become dominant in both thought and practice throughout much of the world since 1970 or so. Writing for a wide audience, David Harvey, author of The New Imperialism and The Condition of Postmodernity, here tells the political-economic story of where neoliberalization came from and how it proliferated on the world stage. Through critical engagement with this history, he constructs a framework, not only for analyzing the political and economic dangers that now surround us, but also for assessing the prospects for the more socially just alternatives being advocated by many oppositional movements.