Why Capitalism Survives Crises (eBook)

Focuses attention on why capitalism survives crises by developing the argument that it has moved on from its 19th century embodiment to include a class of shock absorbers. This book tells how this class, consisting of fractionalised individuals, absorbs the massive surpluses of produced commodities.
The book focuses attention on why capitalism survives crises by developing the argument that it has moved on from its 19th century embodiment to include a class of shock absorbers. This class absorbs the excess of produced commodities while buffering capitalism against the declines of values during crises of the financial system. Reformism, rather than class conflict, arises as a central concern. The absorptive class is important for reformism, and consideration of the individual becomes thereby mandated. Even with its distinct importance, the absorptive class helps glue capitalist economy and state together, therefore, consideration of the theory of the state is also necessary and leads to an understanding of the necessity for a 'big' state. Still, the proposed three-class approach is essential for understanding capitalism. The second portion of the volume considers the application and conceptualization of the labor theory of value.

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The book, authored in the main by Simon Stander and true to the interdisciplinary nature of political economy, focuses attention on why capitalism survives crises by developing the novel argument that it has moved on from its 19th century embodiment to include a class of shock absorbers. This class, consisting of fractionalised individuals, absorbs the massive surpluses of produced commodities while buffering capitalism against the declines of values during crises of the financial system. This gives rise to Reformism, rather than class conflict, which becomes a central feature in the political arena. The absorptive class in its dialectical relationship to the other two major classes, capitalist and working class, is vital for this reformist tendency; in this context consideration of the individual in a narcissistic social environment also becomes a focus of attention. With its distinct importance, the absorptive class helps glue capitalist economy and state together, and this provides an understanding of the contradiction between the need for a 'big' state in the interest of the absorption of commodities and the 'small state' in the interest of efficient resource allocation and profit. The second portion of the volume considers the application and conceptualization of the value theory by two leading academics in political economy and concludes with an exposition of the methodology differences between two important Japanese Marxian economists.