著者

溝端 佐登史

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.52, no.2, pp.16-30, 2015-07-20 (Released:2017-07-03)

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This paper analyses state capitalism in Russia from the viewpoint of state capital and state functions. As far as the Russia's government size (number of public servants and financial expenditures of the public sector) equals to those in developed countries, it cannot be applied as a precise indicator to characterize state capitalism. On the other side, both the state capital as a market player and the state functions can be regarded as qualitative characteristics of the Russian capitalism. As for the state capital, both privatization and state intervention have coexisted, and have simultaneously functioned for "controlling the highlands (the mainstay of state)". Moreover, the 2008 global economic crisis authorized state intervention. In order to maintain global competitiveness, the government has established strategic enterprises and has implemented preferential measures. Even though the state sector in the economy has decreased, it has enhanced its intervention into the private sector of the economy. The state has a strong influence on the economy via holding shares and regulations. Particularly, state-owned enterprises have changed their enterprise type from state corporations and unitary enterprises to joint-stock companies. In addition, "the exchange system of interests (state capture and business capture)" has been established and the state capital has openly showed its new "internationalization" behavior. The state capital has close ties with the global financial flows and it has stipulated the emergence of Russia's multinationals that are deeply connected with tax havens. Despite the offshore problem, the state sector is deeply linked with the global network and, therefore, state capitalism cannot exist without linkages with the global market. With regards to authoritarian political regime, concentration of powers, and existence of oil and gas rents, Russia is none other than state capitalism. However, functions and quality (good governance) of the state capitalism are far behind other developed countries. The Russian state is inferior in terms of state functions and state quality; the state as a coordinator of interests by grabbing hands may not be regarded as a strong one. Thus, Russia (Putin's regime) cannot be referred as "a normal middle income democratic country". Finally, low quality and authoritarian regime are mutually complementary in Russia, and the legacy inherited from the past also aff ected institutionalization of low quality state and institutional complementarities. State capitalism has also balanced interests among players. Why has state capitalism spread into the emerging and transition economies? The state sector has become a tool to correct the distorted markets. The basis of the Russian state capitalism is its global linkages with global markets (WTO accession), low-quality state coordination of oligarchs' behavior, and premature financial markets. This state intervention is old style, but it is a new phenomenon from the viewpoint of global adaptation. Global trends are common among other transition economies. However, the Russian case is based on its own historical and social thought. Thus, being both "old" and "new," Russian state capitalism seems resilient.

著者

佐々木 啓明

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.53, no.1, pp.16, 2016 (Released:2018-04-09)

著者

内藤 敦之

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.44, no.1, pp.66-76, 2007

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Post Keynesian endogenous money supply theory appeared as one of the modern theory of credit money some twenty years ago. In recent years, while it keeping close relationship with French and Italian monetary circuit theory, the domain of the theory has expanded gradually. With regard to the role of government or state, the theory of endogenous money pays attention to the central bank which offers the means of settlement between commercial banks and plays the role of lender of last resort, but actually the state establishes money, and practices the control of money. In this respect Chartalism or state theory of money revive in the context of Post Keynesian in recent years. The relationship between the theory of endogenous money and Chartalism comes into question, because in the theory of endogenous money money supply is endogenous, while in Chartalism at a first glance exogenous money supply by the state is assumed. The two theories have not only a background of Post Keynesian, but also both theories have complementarities. That is, the theory of endogenous money deals the money of private level, and Chartalism argues the money of state level. However, both theories share nominalism especially in the theory of nature of money. In Chartalism the nature of money is regarded as establishment of money by the state, and Chartalistic money is a nominal one which has basically no relation to the real value, in the theory of endogenous money bank money also does not presuppose the relation to the real value of money. In this way, both theories share common ground, but there are differences. First, in the theory of nature of money the definition of money and various points are different. Second, both theories diverge in the role of the state. In the theory of endogenous money although the role of the state is generally assumed in relation to the function of central bank, the relationship between money and state, and the problem of Chartalism is not thoroughly examined. The placement of the state in Chartalism is unique and different from the theory of endogenous money. In this paper, aiming at clarifying what relationship both theories have, two points are examined. First, we compare both theories in the theory of nature of money, and we consider in what significance money in the real world is Chartalistic. Second, we investigate the role of the state, especially the function of the central bank respectively. The conclusions are three-fold. First, the theory of endogenous money and Chartalism share nominalism in the theory of nature of money. Nominalism is important in that it is a basis of the view against commodity theory of money. Second, two theories are different except nominalism of money in the theory of nature of money. In the theory of endogenous money the state plays important role in that it designate money as means of final settlement, this is the significance of Chartalism in the theory of endogenous money. Third, the role of the state in the theory of endogenous money moreover emerges as a function of central bank. The function of lender of last resort which is emphasized especially in Post Keynesian theory plays important role which maintains monetary and financial system, while in Chartalism central bank plays the role of bank of government, and does not conflict with central bank in the theory of endogenous money, but it has complementary function. Particularly both theories adopt the operation of short term interest rate as a measure of policy, which plays important role in the control of money.

著者

クチンスキー トーマス 大谷 禎之介

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.51, no.2, pp.18-30, 2014-07-20 (Released:2017-04-25)

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The author shows why the historical-critical editions of Capital Volume I in the MEGA2 make it necessary to revisit former German text editions of this fundamental work. He makes clear that the complete set of these editions is the indispensable starting point for a new(German)text edition. The following topics are treated in the paper: 1. Engels'inevitable misinterpretation of the entries Marx made in his personal copies of Capital Vol. I; opposite evaluations of the French edition by Marx and Engels; Marx's changing ideas about future translations as a combination of two editions, i. e., the second German one and the French one. 2. Previous discussions about Engels' fourth German edition; plans for its revision, esp. by Valerie(Wally) Kropp and Kurt Nixdorf, and their stoppage. 3. Advantages and disadvantages of the French edition compared with the second German edition. 4. Some consequences of the fact that Marx quoted rather often from memory; how Engels treated the problem differently in his English translation and his fourth German edition. 5. The different features of the planned text edition in comparison with the historical-critical editions in MEGA^2. The exposition includes many quotations and some illustrative examples.

著者

伍賀 一道

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.44, no.3, pp.5-18, 2007-10-20 (Released:2017-04-25)

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The labour supply project or labour-only contracting was prevalent in the Japanese labour market before World War II. It often involved intermediate exploitation and forced labour. The Employment Security Law enacted in 1947 strictly prohibited the labour supply project. It also prohibited "indirect employment relationships" or "triangular employment relationships". The government considered them as a kind of the labour supply project. However, the Worker Dispatching Law enacted in 1985 permitted "indirect" or "triangular employment relationships". The government made it lawful for a company to direct and order a worker without employing him/her, and for a dispatching agency to employ a worker but let others direct and order him/her. The client company may in fact dismiss the dispatched worker by terminating or revoking the contract with the dispatching agency. The client company does not have any responsibilities as an employer to the dismissed dispatched worker. The "indirect employment relationships" make it easy for the client company to adjust its work force. In this way it became possible for a client company to avoid most employer responsibilities. In other words, the Law allowed that the dispatching agency commercialized surrogate services of employer responsibilities and the client company bought the services from the agency. The Worker Dispatching Law originally limited the types of work for which a worker could be dispatched and the period for which a client company could utilize a dispatched worker. Since the latter half of the 1990s, the Law was revised several times as a part of the labour market deregulation agenda. It liberalized, in principle, the designated work to which the worker could be dispatched, except for construction, security service and longshoring. The revision also extended upper limit of the period that the client company could use a dispatched worker in the same workplace. Nowadays, "indirect" or "triangular employment relationships" prevailed in most industrial sectors, such as manufacturing, information and communications, transport, wholesale and retail trade, finance and insurance, eating and drinking, public sector and so on. Not only dispatching agencies but also labour-only subcontractors assign many workers to the factories of big firms, legally or illegally. Quite a lot of temporary dispatched workers work for the clients for a short-time contract, including one-day contract. The big dispatching agencies or labour-only subcontractors built the information networks for job applicants and clients. Job applicants can book in them by mobile phone, wherever they are. It means the agencies or subcontractors succeeded in collecting the data of "the industrial reserve armies". Today, the number of the employees in "indirect employment relationships" is estimated at more than 3 millions. Client companies require the dispatching agencies or labour-only subcontractors to reduce a fee for dispatching workers. The agencies simply supply the clients with the low-paid workers who are not guaranteed social security or their minimum rights stipulated by the Labour Standards Law. Thus it seems the labour supply project is actually restored. However, it doesn't mean reversion to the feudalistic employment relations, but the expanded commercialization of surrogate services of employer responsibilities. Under tough competition for lower cost, some agencies or subcontractors tend to avoid carrying out the surrogate services. In some cases nobody exercises the employer responsibilities. The "indirect employment relationships" have absorbed the unemployed population, thereby, on the surface, reduced the unemployment rate. But they actually brought about a lot of irregular or precarious employment.

著者

隅田 聡一郎

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.53, no.3, pp.59, 2016 (Released:2018-10-09)

著者

神山 義治

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.49, no.4, pp.109-111, 2013-01-20 (Released:2017-04-25)

著者

山本 英司

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.47, no.4, pp.42-52, 2011-01-20 (Released:2017-04-25)

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This article reargues my book, Kalecki's Politic l Economy, which was published in 2009 and a revised version of my doctoral dissertation submitted to Kyoto University in 2003. The book was reviewed at two academic meetings and two book reviews were published. Replying to them, this article summarizes the gist of my book and corrects some errors if necessary. My book consists of eight chapters. Apart from chapter 1 of "introduction of Kalecki," it may be divided into three parts: Kalecki's studies in capitalist economies, Kalecki's comparative economic studies, and Kalecki as a "Marxist." First, this article examines Kalecki's biographical problems. Kalecki's life may be divided into three parts: from his birth in 1899 until his leaving Poland in 1936, his exile days until his returning home in late 1954 or early 1955, and the rest of his life until his death in 1970. Although my book mainly used Kalecki's chronological personal history by Osiatynski in Collected Works of Michal Kalecki, it has been found not to be necessarily correct. So this article describes the true story as possible. Second, this article examines Kalecki's studies in capitalist economies, focusing Essay on the Business Cycle Theory (1933) in particular. Essay is very famous as the evidence of Kalecki's priority over Keynes's General Theory (1936). But it was written in Polish, and has been known through a shortened English version, which has led to rather limited understanding of the work. The publication of the English version of Collected Works of Michal Kalecki enabled the detailed examination of the full version of Essay. Here is the result. Third, this article examines Kalecki's comparative economic studies. Kalecki studied socialist and developing economies as well as capitalist economies. This article presents a perspective from which those three economic systems should be viewd. In addition to that, Kalecki's version of "the presuppositions of Harvey Road" is mentioned. Forth, this article examines Kalecki as a "Marxist." Although a lot of comparative studies on him with Keynes have been presented, ones with Marx were relatively rare. Kalecki had never been a member of the communist party, nor an orthodox and dogmatic Marxist. Nevertheless, this article tries to describe Kalecki as a Marxist in a sense, and claims that his interpretation of historical materialism enabled his non-dogmatic and realistic analysis of the transformation of capitalism. Finally, remaining themes are considered. I am going to pay attention to Post-Keynesian ecoomics, especially Kaleckian macroeconomics. I must admit that application to modern economy should not be forgotten.

著者

馬渡 尚憲

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.50, no.1, pp.55-67, 2013-04-20 (Released:2017-04-25)

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This paper proposes a set of two theories of wages induced from recent Japanese and American data. The first theory is that the demand and supply of labor will determine money wages, instead of real wages. To explain this money wage determination, this paper uses not only a labor demand curve of a representative firm, but also a labor supply curve of a representative household. The former is, not so differently from usual, reasoned from its profit maximization behavior: a firm will determine quantity of demand for labor so as to equalize the value of marginal product with the wage rate plus unit material cost. The latter is, as the worker's indifference preference between his real wage and leisure doesn't hold, deducted from the household's income earning behavior: a household will increase and determine the quantity of supply of employed labor so that its earned income would cover its cost of living. It replaces its useful and necessary unpaid domestic labor with external paid labor in order to earn money wages, which in turn causes additional living expenses as the domestic labor decreases. The supply curve of labor will be usually J-shaped while the demand curve is down-sloped. In the labor market, the equalization of demand for and supply of labor often involves 'the imperfect employment equilibrium', the equilibrium with involuntary unemployment. The second theory is that real wages are determined by three real-term factors: the labor productivity of consumers' goods industry, the household average propensity to consume, and the proportion of number of employees between producers' and consumers' goods industries. This proportion will vary mainly according to the rate of fixed capital investment. Therefore real wages will depend upon both of the two market equilibrium, those of labor market and consumers' goods. In order to demonstrate validity of these theories, besides briefly analyzing the recent Japanese labor market-its persistent trends of money wage decrease and high rate of unemployment, this paper applies the money wage theories to clarifying causes of wages differences among workers of different industries, among workers' various jobs and between male and female workers. Further it is shown that the real wage theory make it possible to explain endogenously the real wages level the existing doctrines of 'exploitation' presuppose as given. The positivist position adopted methodologically in this paper does not mean mere 'falsificationism' but 'verificationism', or rather 'confirmationism', of a theory.

著者

田中 史郎

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.55, no.3, pp.6, 2018 (Released:2020-10-05)

著者

隅田 聡一郎

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.57, no.3, pp.38-51, 2020 (Released:2023-01-11)

著者

結城 剛志

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.56, no.1, pp.73, 2019 (Released:2021-06-25)

著者

柿崎 繁

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.50, no.2, pp.6-18, 2013-07-20 (Released:2017-04-25)

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This paper discusses the rise and fall of the U. S. hegemony in relation to modern globalization. The struggling system of the cold war era ended in 1989-1991. The capitalism system in which the United States is the axis has also strengthened the nuclear and missile systems in the cold war era. The military inflation in the U. S was advancing and went sapping the foundations of the U. S. hegemony. That is, the competitiveness of the U. S. manufacturings was declining and the hollowing of the manufacturings in the U. S. was accelerated. There were big changes in the industrial structures in the U. S, which mean the financial and information services industries took the manufacturings'place and came to forefront. The U. S. also promoted to ease the regulations of the rest of the world to realize the growth of the U. S. financial and information services industries globally and strengthen the foundations of the U. S. financial capitalism's hegemony in the world. The world seemed to be stabilized by globalization under the U. S. hegemony, but the world became even more chaotic than before the Post-cold war era. The United States financed the funds from the world to make the U. S. hegemony stronger. But, it caused the asset bubbles and the excessive consumption in the U. S. The excessive consumption in the U. S made it possible for the world economy to export to U. S and grow. However, the financial crisis happened in 2008. Its aftermath is still followed in Europe. The chains of growth has been replaced by the chains of crisis. The competition for sharing the profit by the wealthy classes of the world has shifted the competition to impute the losses to the others. The gap between the rich and the poor has expanded tremendously. These have weakened the U. S. hegemony. So the United States are not forced to seek the cooperation of the G20. In these situations China has been on the rise. I think these will be the beginning of the decline of the U. S. hegemony and global liquidation of the cold war debt in the world.

著者

鍋島 直樹

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.52, no.3, pp.7-18, 2015-10-20 (Released:2017-09-19)

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Many people view the outbreak of the severe financial crisis of 2007-8 as confirming Minsky's "financial instability hypothesis". Nevertheless, those who interpret this financial crisis as a "Minsky crisis" don't get a majority even among heterodox economists who believe that the capitalist growth process is inherently unstable. One of the reason is that there are still various theories of economic crisis in the strands of heterodox economics. Therefore, heterodox economists' assessments on Minsky's theory aren't also uniform. Some indicate the limitations of Minsky's perspective. For example, many Marxian economists often point out that Minsky finds the source of instability of a capitalist economy exclusively in the financial sector of the economy and he pays little attention to the contradictions and crises of capitalist economies that result from factors located in the real sector. But economic crises don't necessarily always occur by only one cause. In many case, crises occur because of the complex interaction of plural factors. Further, the form of a crisis may depend on the institutional structure of the economic system at a particular time and place. In order to grasp the nature of economic crises that occur taking various forms each time, we need a comprehensive theoretical framework that integrates perspectives of schools of heterodox economics. We will be able to construct such a framework for the first time by the animated cross-fertilization between various strands of heterodox economics. Since their advent in the late 1960s, American radical economists have done a lot of valuable attempts toward a synthesis of heterodox economics. They have inherited the intellectual capital of Marxian, Keynesian and American institutional schools, and sought to construct an alternative framework to the neoclassical orthodoxy through the integration of those ideas. In addition to the analysis of the real aspect of the economy, they have also achieved many rich results in the analysis of financial instability of a capitalist economy. This paper reviews American radical economists' critical assessments of Minsky's financial instability hypothesis, and examines their interpretations of the current crisis. With these considerations, I explore the possibility of a synthesis of heterodox theories of economic crisis.

著者

中谷 武

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.46, no.4, pp.6-14, 2010-01-20 (Released:2017-04-25)

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This paper attempts to evaluate the significance of wage-led economy of Post Keynesian economics. In order to achieve longterm sustainable economic growth under the low growth and the environmental constraints, the switch from profit-led economy to wage-led economy will be effective and also inevitable. The main points are as follows: 1) Our current economic crisis can not be resolved by simply resuming the Keynesian demand policies in face of environmental constraints, growing fiscal deficits and low birthrate and an aging population. What is important is that we have to consider both demand side and supply side simultaneously, which mutually interrelate in determining the output and employment levels. The supply side of Keynesian theory is the core of the issue, which is neglected for long because Keynes himself disregarded it. The main stream economics has picked up this point and criticized Keynes but falsely. 2) There are three ways to shift the supply curve downwards: (1) technical improvement, (2) cutting labor cost and (3) cutting profit margin. The ways employed by neo-liberals which are theoretically based on the main stream economics since eighties are the first and the second ones, whose effectiveness has shown to be restrictive because they shift the demand curve downwards as well as supply curve. In this sense the supply side policies are rebelled against by demand side; consumption demand is sharply depressed by deteriorating expectation in future wages and employment insecurity. On the other hand, the wage-led economy is to pursue the third way of downwards shift of supply curve. 3) The possibility of wage-led economy depends on both characteristics of investment and saving functions. We can say firstly that under the condition of low economic growth the characteristics of saving function become more important compared with those in investment function, secondly that a lower saving rate of laborers leads to greater possibility of wage-led economy, and thirdly that a more progressive tax system makes wage-led economy more possible. These Post Keynesian claims are of importance in face of recent regressive tax reforms and the relatively higher saving rate in Asian countries. 4) Blecker (1989) and Bhaduri and Marglin (1990) argued that the increasing international price competition prevents the potential of wage-led economy even if the domestic economy is wage-led. In this paper we discussed that this claim is not confined to wage-led economy: the profit-led economy is also not sustainable under the severe international competition. Therefore a domestic price increase can not be maintained regardless of whether it is wage-led or profit-led domestically under global competition. In other words, in face of international competition we need to improve the supply condition. Here we must consider again by which way we realize the shift of supply curve. 5) We discussed four cases of two-country economy composed of two-by-two combinations: wage-led or profit-led and domestic country or foreign country. An increase in wage share in domestic country with profitled foreign country has positive effects to both countries: the domestic production as well as foreign production increase. The effects of an increase in the wage share in wage-led domestic country become ambiguous, however, when the foreign country is also wage-led, but it affects favorably to domestic country compared to foreign country. 6) Finally we examine the necessary conditions of sustainable economic growth from longer run perspectives. If we maintain both the inside equilibrium condition and the outside equilibrium condition at the same time, how can the wage rate increase in the long run? By inside we consider the labor market and by outside we mean the trade balance. Then we argue that the wage rate increase depends on the natural growth rates of domestic and foreign economies, the elasticity of trade,(View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)

著者

若森 みどり

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.50, no.3, pp.41-52, 2013-10-20 (Released:2017-04-25)

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In The Great Transformation, of which first-edition was published in the same year as Hayek's The Road to Serfdom (1944), Polanyi's opposition to neoliberal credo comes from his interpretation of the history of industrial society in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, when there occurred great crises and upheaval of market society; the Great Recession, unemployment problems in labor market, instabilities of financial market, crisis of democracy, economic nationalism, fascism, and great wars. This paper deals with controversial points between Polanyi's arguments and neoliberal projects from the view point of 21th century. Neoliberal credo is a term connected with an intellectual movement and new belief or ideology originating in the late 1930s that should be distinguished from the original laissez-faire liberalism. The former was born from the reflections of the dead lock of the latter. Unlike the latter, the former requires a strong state authority that has the capacity to resist "spontaneous" social protection movements in the product, labor, and financial markets. And therefore it can become openly anti-democratic in its defense and implementation of the will of the market. In other words, neoliberal credo orientates various projects of "planning for competitive market system" for creating an environment in which private interests can flourish. Neoliberal credo came to be associated mainly with the ideas of Walter Lippman, and such Austrian economists as Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. It grew in oppositions not only to socialism but to the spirits of New Deal and political thinking or public opinions of Welfare States, and spread to the Unites States in the early postwar years. Hereafter 1950s it founds fertile ground initially at the University of Chicago, with Milton Freedman and his associates. The obvious consequences of neoliberal policies since 1970s are the increasing market instabilities reminiscent of the 1930s, as well as a growing loss of democratic control. According to Polanyi, completely unfettered markets lacking social control were destructive for the livelihood of common people and eventually generated social reactions that sought to intervene in market system more securely in the societal space. Polanyi'thesis is that neoliberal projects would be eventually never-ending and failed incomplete with social destructions. Also Polanyi paid strong attention to the survival of neoliberal credo in its deadlock. Without a deep understanding and analysis of neoliberal projects, as Polanyi did in his time, we cannot get over the wall.

著者

北川 亘太

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.48, no.3, pp.69-74, 2011

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A basic framework of the varieties of capitalism (VOC) approach was introduced in Japan when Hall and Soskices' (2001) work was translated into Japanese. In the last 10 years, the study of the VOC approach for institutional change in advanced political economies has gained momentum, but it has not yet been introduced in Japan. Through this paper, we aim to get an overview of the study of the VOC approach from 2001 to 2009, particularly with regard to the treatment of institutional change. We focus on four studies on institutional change, all of which have the common theme of theoretical development. Streeck and Thelen (2005) and Deeg (2005) highlighted the limitations of the VOC approach, specifically, with the concepts of institution and institutional complementarity, in the treatment of institutional change. Hall and Thelen (2009) and Becker (2007) modified the two concepts and tried to address the problems: Hall and Thelen came up with a new concept of "institution as resource." Becker, on the other hand, amended the concept of institutional complementarity fundamentally and focused on the functional relationship between each part of political economy and reference frames. By analyzing these studies, we confirmed a research trend observed in recent years with regard to the theoretical development of the VOC approach. First, in the course of addressing the issue of treating institutional change, the problems with the basic concepts of the VOC approach-institution and institutional complementarity-were pointed out. Second, an attempt was made to modify these basic concepts in order to address the problems.

著者

石塚 良次

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.48, no.2, pp.6-16, 2011-07-20 (Released:2017-04-25)

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1) Theory of alienation and concept of subject The purpose of this paper is to discuss on how Wataru Hiromatsu's theory of reification contributes development of economics. He conceptualized transition from the early to the late Marx as 'from the theory of alienation to the theory of reification'. This transition isn't just in wording but the change in paradigm. The alienation theory presupposes the subject-object schema, because alienation originally meant the process in which human essence spilled out into object (objectification), and the object turning against the subject as a hostile and alien force (alienation). The whole alienation theory had to be abandoned once the subject-object schema was abandoned, and got relationalist worldview in which the relation is given ontological priority. According to Hiromatsu, Marx's Labor Theory of Value does not presuppose subject/object schema, but reification theory. Traditional Marxian economists insist that each commodity have inherent value because worker (subject) embodied or materialized his abstract labor, substance of value, to commodity (object). But substance of value is not prior to exchange relations, but reification of relationship between persons and things. Value is not just relations (or idea) but reificated relations. Commodity producers treat as if value is something substantial inherent to individual commodity. It is not just illusion, but social fact (Emile Durkheim) with sozialen Macht (Marx). We need to sublate (aufheben) both the 'society substantialism'-'individual substantialism'. 2) The game theoretic approach to Marxian theory of alienation Tadasu Matsuo attempts to reconstruct Marx's theoretical system as the alienation theory, which, in turn, interpreted in terms of game theory, neoclassical framework. Game theory provides a model for social institutions and cooperation between individuals. It assumes that people are rational actors. But we don't think this theoretical framework does explain social norm as it really is. Social norm is not something rationally selected. Rational actors are not real agent but theoretical fictions. Matsuo stand on the side of 'individual substantialism', we mentioned above. 3) Criminal liability and rational agent Criminal law refers a theoretical person in the society who shows average judgment, because only rational person can be liable. If he or she does not intend to do it, he or she is not guilty. Crime is not just a bodily movement but must be voluntary act droved by inherent motivation, criminal intent. But this kind of view is very modern, not historically universal. The reason why criminal law require fictional agent is very similar to economics. One of the basic facts of modern psychology is that ultimate driving force behind human behavior is not free will but involuntary unconsciousness. 4) Economics and evaluational agent Assumption of homoeconomicus received a lot of criticism, because of its unreality. Actually, it is not empirical notion but axiom of neoclassical microeconomics. Economics is not only empirical science but also normative science, making economic policy. So you need theoretical benchmark to judge its adequacy. Subject in the theory of alienation is equivalent of homoeconomics in neoclassical microeconomics. Both theory adopt methodological individualism, so benchmark must be individual, rational agent. 5) Unalienated society? Matsuo considers unalienated society, depending each other with mutual consent, is desirable. But it is not feasible and desirable. We should rather accept minimum level reification.

著者

新村 聡

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.43, no.1, pp.26-35, 2006-04-20 (Released:2017-04-25)

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This paper considers different concepts of equality and inequality in neo-liberalism and welfare states. The equality in neo-liberalism or libertarianism is based on the two principles, that is, the principle of "distribution in proportion to desert," and that of "burden in proportion to benefit." We call them "the market principles" in this paper. On the other hand, the equality in welfare states is based on the different two principles, the principle of "distribution in proportion to needs," and that of "burden in proportion to ability." We call them "the community principle." Karl Marx distinguished the works principle (a kind of the principle of distribution in proportion to desert) and the needs principle in his Critique of the Gotha Programme. He expected that the works principle would prevail in the first stage of a communist society and the needs principle would do in the second and highly developed one. Amarthya Sen pointed that the needs principle had been involved in the social security and other social services in welfare states. This paper argues that the community principles, including the needs principle and the principle of burden in proportion to ability, are more or less prevailing not only in welfare states but also in various communities such as families, local communities, companies, religious organizations, nation states, and international organizations.

著者

佐藤 嘉倫

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.44, no.4, pp.20-28, 2008-01-20 (Released:2017-04-25)

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Arguments about disparity in the Japanese society, from the viewpoint of studies on social stratification, have pointed out two important issues: Income disparity and disparity between regular and irregular workers. Studies on social stratification have not analyzed these issues seriously. They have studied occupations rather than income; they have implicitly assumed that workers have regular jobs. To overcome these deficiencies, this paper studies the effect of employment status -regular workers versus irregular workers- on income by analyzing the 2005 Social Stratification and Social Mobility (henceforth, SSM) Survey data. The result of regression analysis with logged income as the dependent variable and occupation and employment status as independent variables shows that employment status has stronger explanatory power than occupation does. Arguments about disparity, however, have made another claim that disparity has recently been growing. To check the empirical validity of this claim, we compare regression coefficients of two regression models using the 1995 SSM and the 2005 SSM data. The result of the comparison shows that the coefficient of regular workers had become smaller from 1995 to 2005, which means that income disparity between regular and irregular workers had shrunken. To test this result rigorously, we build a sophisticated regression model and apply it to the 1995 SSM and 2005 SSM data. In the model we fix coefficients of the model using the 1995 SSM data and add interaction terms between the survey year and each independent variable. The coefficient of an interaction term shows increase or decrease in the explanatory power of the independent variable in the interaction term depending on its sign (positive or negative). The result of the regression analysis shows that the coefficient of regular workers is negative, which means that income disparity between regular and irregular workers had shrunken over the decade. It is risky to say that income disparity has shrunk based only on these results. Rather, what we would like to say is that these results would promote fruitful dialogue between arguments about disparity in the Japanese society and studies on social stratification.