Monopoly Capital and Capitalist Inequality: Marx after Piketty

Lambert, Thomas (2016): Monopoly Capital and Capitalist Inequality: Marx after Piketty.

Abstract

This paper proposes that one major explanation of growing inequality in the United States (US) is through the use of the concept of economic surplus. The economic surplus is a neo-Marxian term which combines the traditional Marxian tenet of surplus value with other ways that surplus value can be invested in a mature, advanced capitalist economy. A rising economic surplus that is not absorbed through growing consumer spending, luxury spending or government spending results in stagnant wages and growing inequality via higher levels of underemployment and greater monopoly and monopsony power among a decreasing number of huge, powerful corporations. Therefore, the politics surrounding the growth of inequality in the US has to be understood first by understanding over accumulation of the economic surplus by those at the top of the US capitalist class. This research note gives estimates of the rising economic surplus over the last several decades in the US as well as how these correlate with the level of inequality. The growth of the economic surplus gives rise and form to the politics of inequality and austerity. As time goes by, the politics of inequality and austerity in the US will be manifested by greater corporate influence in the political system, greater political polarization, less government effectiveness, and more debates about welfare spending, corporate taxation, taxes on upper income households, and taxes on wealth.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: alienation, economics, fascism, inequality, monopoly capital, occupy movement, political science, socialism, tea party
• Subjects: B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B5 - Current Heterodox Approaches > B51 - Socialist ; Marxian ; Sraffian; B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B5 - Current Heterodox Approaches > B59 - Other

References

Alvaredo, Facundo, Tony Atkinson, Thomas Piketty , Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman. 2016. “World Wealth and Income Database”, http://www.wid.world/#Home: . Accessed on January 22, 2016.

Amin, Samir. 2014. “The Return of Fascism in Contemporary Capitalism”, Monthly Review, 66(04) (September). http://monthlyreview.org/2014/09/01/the-return-of-fascism-in-contemporary-capitalism/ . Accessed on January 23, 2016.

Andrews, Charles. 2014. “Professor Piketty Fights Orthodoxy and Attacks Inequality”, Marxism-Leninism Today. http://mltoday.com/professor-piketty-fights-orthodoxy-and-attacks-inequality . Accessed on January 10, 2016.

Baran, Paul A. Paul M. Sweezy. 1966. Monopoly Capital: An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Carsten, F. L. 1980. The Rise of Fascism, Second Edition. University of California Press: Berkeley and Los Angeles.

Collins, James C. 2001. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Do Not. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

Chemi, Eric and Ariana Giorgi. 2014. “The Pay-for-Performance Myth”, Bloomberg Business. July 22, 2014. http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-07-22/for-ceos-correlation-between-pay-and-stock-performance-is-pretty-random . Accessed on January 8, 2016.

Chokshi, Niraj. 2016. “The Year of ‘Enormous Rage’: Number of Hate Groups Rose by 14 Percent in 2015”, The Washington Post, February 17, 2015. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/02/17/hate-groups-rose-14-percent-last-year-the-first-increase-since-2010/ . Accessed on February 18, 2016.

Feldstein, Martin. 1999. “Reducing Poverty, Not Inequality”. The Public Interest, Number 137, Fall 1999. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. http://www.nber.org/feldstein/pi99.html . Accessed on January 8, 2016.

Foster, John Bellamy. 2014. The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism, Second Edition. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Foster, J. B., and F. Magdoff. 2009. The great financial crisis: Causes and consequences. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Foster, John Bellamy and Michael D. Yates. 2014. “Piketty and the Crisis of Neoclassical Economics”, Monthly Review, 66(6) (November): 1-24. http://monthlyreview.org/2014/11/01/piketty-and-the-crisis-of-neoclassical-economics/#fn55 . Accessed on January 10, 2016.

Goo, Sarah Kehaulani. 2015. “What Americans want to do about illegal immigration”, Pew Research Center, Fact-tank. August 24, 2015. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/08/24/what-americans-want-to-do-about-illegal-immigration/ . Accessed on January 23, 2016.

Greenhouse, S., and D. Leonhard. 2006. Real wages fail to match a rise in productivity. The New York Times, August 28. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/28/business/28wages. html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.

Houston, David. 1997. “Productive-Unproductive Labor: Rest in Peace,” Review of Radical Political Economics, 29(1): 131-139.

Laibman, David. 1999. “Productive and Unproductive Labor: A Comment,” Review of Radical Political Economics, 31(2): 61-73.

Lambert, Thomas E. 2011. Falling income and debt: Comparing views of a major cause of the Great Recession. World Review of Political Economy 2(2): 247-261.

Lambert, Thomas E. and Edward Kwon. 2015a. “The Top 1 Percent and Exploitation Measures,” Review of Radical Political Economics, 47(3): 465-476.

Lambert, Thomas E. and Edward Kwon. 2015b. “Monopoly Capital and Capitalist Inefficiency,” International Review of Applied Economics., 29(4): 1-20.

Mongiovi, Gary. 2015. “Piketty on Capitalism and Inequality: A Radical Economics Perspective,” Review of Radical Economists, 47(4): 558-565.

Mohun, Simon. 1996. “Productive and Unproductive Labor in the Labor Theory of Value", Review of Radical Political Economics, 28(4) (December): 30–54.

___________. 2014. “Unproductive Labor in the U.S. Economy, 1964-2010,” Review of Radical Political Economics, 46(3): 355-379.

Newman, Benjamin J., Christopher D. Johnston and Patrick L. Lown. 2015. “False Consciousness or Class Awareness? Local Income Inequality, Personal Economic Position, and Belief in American Meritocracy”, American Journal of Political Science, 59 (2): 326–340. April 2015.

Newport, Frank. 2015. “Americans Continue to Say U.S. Wealth Distribution Is Unfair”, Gallup Poll. May 4, 2015. http://www.ips-dc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/CEO-stocking-stuffers-report.pdf . Accessed on January 4, 2016.

O’Connor, James. 1973. The Fiscal Crisis of the State. St. Martin’s Press: New York.

Patnaik, Prabhat. 2016. “Capitalism and Its Current Crisis”, Monthly Review, 67(8) January: 1-13.

Renton, Dave. 1999. Fascism : Theory and Practice. London: Pluto Press, 1999. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost (accessed January 21, 2016).

Sabine, George H. and Thomas L. Thorson. 1973. A History of Political Theory, Fourth Edition. Dryden Press: Hinsdale, Illinois.

Shaikh, Anwar and E. Ahmet Tonak. 1994. Measuring the Wealth of Nations: The Political Economy of National Accounts. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Solt, Frederick. 2008. “Economic Inequality and Democratic Political Engagement”, American Journal of Political Science, 52(1): 48-60. January 2008.

Studenmund, A. H. 2006. Using Econometrics: A Practical Guide, 5th Edition. Pearson Education, Addison-Wesley: Boston, Massachusetts

Sweezy, Paul M. 1970 (1942). The Theory of Capitalist Development: Principles of Marxian Political Economy. New York and London: Modern Reader Paperbacks and Monthly Review Press.

Talbot, Margaret. 2015. “The Populist Prophet”, The New Yorker. October 20, 2015. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/12/the-populist-prophet . Accessed on January 4, 2016.

U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. 2016. GDP and NIPA accounts. Available at http://www.bea.gov/national/index.htm#gdp.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2012. Labor force statistics. Available at http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpslutabs.

Wolff, Edward N. 1987. Growth, Accumulation, and Unproductive Activity: An Analysis of the Postwar U.S. Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.