Intro -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Praise for Marx, Uno and the Critique of Economics -- Contents -- Part I -- 1 Introduction -- Note -- 2 Distinguishing Marxian Economic Theory from Bourgeois Political Economy -- 3 The Scientificity of Marxian Economic Theory and the Spuriousness of Bourgeois Natural Science of Society -- 4 The Necessity of Levels of Analysis in Marxian Political Economy -- 5 Kozo Uno's Elaboration of Marxism in the Light of Marx and Hegel -- Note -- Part II -- 6 Theorizing World Economic Change Following the Unraveling of the Imperialist Stage -- 7 Bourgeois Economics in the Era of Ex-Capitalist Transition -- Note -- 8 Whither Policy in the Phase of Capitalist Disintegration? -- Notes -- 9 Neoliberalism and the Futility of Monetarism -- Note -- 10 Road to a New Historical Society -- Notes -- Index.
Access options:
The following links lead to the full text from the respective local libraries:
This challenging book induces us to rethink how and why dominant neo-classical economics fails to present correct problems and solutions for really existing capitalism. It demonstrates how and why Kozo Uno's restructured political economy with three levels of research: principles of political economy based upon Marx's Book Capital, stages theory of capitalist development utilizing Lenin's Imperialism, and concrete analyses of capitalism since the first world war. Sekine explains why the contemporary economy is mired in an era of ex-capitalist transition and offers policy recommendations for building really feasible socialism. - Makoto Itoh, Professor Emeritus of the University of Tokyo, and a member of the Japan Academy If the Nobel Prize in economics was genuinely awarded for revolutionizing economic science Thomas T. Sekine would have been one of its recipients. - Richard Westra, Author of Economics, Science and Capitalism This unique book, written in a question and answer style, brings to life the work of the world's foremost Marxian economist Thomas T. Sekine on the scientificity of Marx's project in Capital, its applicability to navigating world-historic change across capitalist stages of development and what Marxian economics teaches us about building viable future historical societies. Sekine, a student and follower of Marxist Kozo Uno, argues that capitalism neither constitutes the end of history nor does its overthrow await socialist revolution. Rather, based upon its own historical delimitations capitalism, following World War I and the Great Depression of the 1930s, has entered a period of disintegration. Grounded on a scathing critique of bourgeois economics in all its forms, Sekine exposes the futility of bourgeois policy interventions attempting to revive capitalism. This book will be of interest to economists in both the mainstream and heterodox schools, and those broadly interested in the history of economic thought. Thomas T. Sekine received his Ph.D. at LSE in 1966. For 26 years he taught economics at York University, Canada. He completed his teaching career as Director of the International Research Center, Aichi Gakuin University, Japan.
Uno's reformulation of Marx's value-form theory has not been correctly understood. In highlighting the process of the emergence of money from the value expression of the commodity, not from commodity exchanges, it makes the first important step towards releasing economic theory from its bourgeois confines. In responding to Arthur's critique of the Uno School, here Sekine stresses the importance of distinguishing the supplier's value expression of the commodity from its demanders' measurement of value, in the light of which he shows that the passage from expanded to general value form, whether by Marx or by Arthur, makes no economic sense.
This book, consisting of eight related articles, deals with several dimensions of socialism in the 1980s just before the beginning of the great changes which took place in Eastern Europe. Profound changes in the political economy of the world in the 1970s led to a decline of over-confidence and over-optimism characteristic of the earlier times both in the West and in the East. The painful experience of stagnation ended the grand Keynesian dream and led to the return of neo-conservatism in the West. The disappointing pace of industrial and technological progress during the Brezhnev era and increasing shortages of productivity of communism in the East. With both sides in the grip of political and economic uncertainties, the ideological confrontation seemed to have lost much of its sharp edge. No longer did the accepted dogmas and ideologies of the past appear either valid or convincing. The presupposition of the debate on comparative economic systems were in need of fundamental revisions. It was in this perspective that the Political Economy Workshop at York University undertook to feature a series of lectures on socialism in its 1988 sessions. Of about a dozen presentations by York University scholars and invited speakers, eight were subsequently made available in the form of articles and are published in this volume. These articles cover a wide range of issues, both theoretical and practical, and from both the Western and the Eastern perspective. It is recognized by all authors that neither the East European experiments in communism nor the Western process into social democracy have been a great success. The clue to what might lie beyond the socialist dilemmas in the age of perestroika will be found only by going through once again to the circumstances which led to the failure of socialism thus far.
