Monopoly Capital and Capitalist Inefficiency

Lambert, Thomas and Kwon, Ed (2014): Monopoly Capital and Capitalist Inefficiency. Published in: International Review of Appplied Economics (2015)

Abstract

This paper examines the arguments and assertions of Baran’s and Sweezy’s Monopoly Capital: An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order (1966) by assessing the degree of economic efficiency or inefficiency in how surplus value and economic surplus were created by 16 major capitalist economies during the 2000s using data envelopment analysis (DEA). After assigning a score to the degree of economic efficiency/inefficiency for each country, one can then assess which factors influence the degree of efficiency/inefficiency. This paper finds empirical support for many of the arguments put forth by the authors, Baran and Sweezy, as well as others regarding the inefficiency of the use of some forms of economic activity to help absorb economic surplus and to create surplus value.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: data envelopment analysis, Marxian economics, neoclassical economics, over production, over investment, stagnation thesis, surplus value, under consumption, x-inefficiency
• Subjects: B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B2 - History of Economic Thought since 1925 > B24 - Socialist ; Marxist ; Sraffian; B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B5 - Current Heterodox Approaches > B51 - Socialist ; Marxian ; Sraffian

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