In a nutshell, the economy comes down to this: we have available labor time and natural resources with which we can produce some stuff and distribute it. Unemployment now means lost production now that can never be recovered in the…

Often, in trying to get at the “essentials” of how a capitalist economy functions, we consider a simplified model of a closed economy without government. Through such models it is possible to make the argument that exploitation, instability, unemployment and/or…

It was suggested in the previous post that the notion of ‘value of the currency’ adopted in Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) seems compatible with Marx’s theoretical framework, provided it is acceptable in that framework to consider a state currency, and…

In Marx’s theory, formulated in terms of the gold standard of his day, the value of commodity money is taken to be the amount of simple socially necessary labor required to produce gold. This treatment of the value of commodity…

Private and public exogenous expenditures have different impacts on the sectoral balances. The same rate of growth in income has varying implications for the domestic private sector’s financial balance (saving minus investment or, equivalently, disposable income minus private spending) depending…

Like many, I embrace the liberal motto “live and let live”. Individuals should be free to think, say and do as they please provided it doesn’t infringe on the liberty of others to do likewise. But living up to this…

In our present-day societies, which neglect to guarantee either full employment or an unconditional income, unemployment benefits are a necessary safety net. Having evolved an economic system in which most of us must offer to work for a wage or…