Critical Political Economy 1

Semester 1

Lecturers: Paul Dunne and Alvin Birdi

Revised November 1999

Reading list and lecture plan:

This term will provide an introduction to Critical Political Economy. It will start off with a general introduction to the different schools of thought and then move on to a detailed study of Marxist economic theory. There will be one lecture a week followed by a workshop after the first week. Students will make presentation at the workshops and those not presenting are expected to have read the essential reading given below.

This is a provisional outline of the course and will be revised in future weeks.

Reading:

As regard Marx's economics, there is no substitute for reading Marx's own writings, in particular Capital Volume 1. The three volumes of Capital are published by Laurence and Wishart and by Penguin. Penguin Volume 1 has a useful introduction by Ernest Mandel.

Also there is: CJ Arthur (1992) "Marx's Capital: A Student Edition", Lawrence and Wishart.

You should definitely get hold of a copy of Capital Volume 1 and while a number of the references will not be available at Hendon, they can be ordered from the Enfield library. In addition, photocopies will be made available.

A brief overview of Marxist Economics can be found on my website on:

http://bobbins.mdx.ac.uk/~john6/MARXIST.htm

There are a number of general texts which provide an overview of Marx's Capital:

Other general texts on Marx's economics are:

An invaluable survey of the development of Marxist economic thought is provided by:

A short review article on developments in Marxist economics is:

Dunne JP (1982) "Aspects of Contemporary Marxist Economics", Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Vol 29, No 2. Reprinted in J Cunningham-Wood (ed) (1987) "Karl Marx's Economics: Critical Assessments", Croom Helm.

A Marxist analysis of Britain is provided by:

Aaronovitch and Smith (1981)"The Political Economy of British Capitalism", McGraw Hill.

Other schools of thought are covered in:

Burkitt B (1984)"Radical Political Economy". Harvester Wheatsheaf.

Sawyer M (1989) "The Challenge of Radical Political Economy", Harvester Wheatsheaf.

A useful comparison of Marxian and Neoclassical economics:

Wolff , Richard and Stephen Resnick (1987) "Economics: Marxian versus Neoclassical", The John Hopkins University Presss.

An invaluable reference work is:

also

and

Other general texts:

Critical Political Economy 1: Lectures

Lecture 1: Introduction

Context; Overview; Schools of thought; Relation to orthodoxy; Marx's method

Lecture 2: The Labour Theory of Value and Exploitation

Seminar: Compare and contrast the theories of value underpinning the Neoclassical, Neo-Ricardian and Marxist schools of thought.

Lectures 3: The Transformation Problem

Seminar : "The transformation problem is the Achilles' heel of Marxist economics". Discuss.

 

Lecture 4: Competition, Accumulation, and The Falling Rate of Profit

Seminar: "Marx's theory of the falling rate of profit is contradicted by the failure of the organic composition of capital to increase in the advanced capitalist economies". Discuss.

Lecture 5: Industrial Reserve Army, Technology, and the Labour Market

Seminar: "Unemployment is endemic to capitalist development". Discuss

 

Lecture 6: Theories of Crisis and Capitalist Development

Seminar: "The source of crisis in the UK can be found in the conflict over the share of wages and profits". Discuss.

Seminar: "Marx predicted the demise of capitalism. That this has not occurred means his work has little value in understanding economic development". Discuss.

Lecture 7: Theories of the State

Seminar:"The state is simply the instrument of capitalist oppression. Discuss.

Lecture 8:The Neo-Ricardians

Seminar: Sraffa perfected value theory based on dated labour and rehabilitated classical economics. Discuss.

  Plus references given in lecture

Lecture 9: Post-Keynesian Economics

 

Lecture 10: Institutional Economics

******** incomplete

 

Lecture 11: Post-Modernism and Economics