the political economy of capitalism and socialism

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Econ 710 The Political Economy of Capitalism and Socialism

Spring 2010S. Resnick

Basic Syllabus

The course aims to apply Marxian class analysis to key institutions

operating in capitalism and socialism. The first third of the course extends Marx’s

discussion of enterprises in Capital vol. 3 to analyze the functioning - includinginteractions - of industrial, banking and merchant capital. Discussion includes Marx’s

discussion of reproduction of capital in Capital vol. 2. The next third extends the analysis

to family households and then to the state. Based on analyses of these institutions, thefinal third of the course applies class theory to analyze three major historical events: (1)

the global spread and development of capitalism from the end of the 19th

century to the

present, (2) the socialist reactions across the 20th

century, and (3) capitalism in the US

since World War Two.

Applying the theory to industrial, merchant, and finance capital, the state and then

the world market helps to develop Marx’s outline presented in the Preface to the Critiqueof Political Economy. Applying it to analyze actual socialist economies enables a new

kind of Marxian critique of them and of socialism in general. Relating the theory to the

functioning of family households adds class and class struggle to current radical-feministapproaches to understanding these institutions. Analyzing US history since the War

provides a way to understand how and why capitalism oscillates between more and less

state intervention while its basic class exploitative structure continues.

One of the course’s major aims is to provide students with a coherent classapproach that can be extended to a variety of possible subjects to be explored in Ph.D.

dissertation research or possible article publications. Readings will be taken from Capital

and other writings of Marx and others within the Marxian tradition and from a variety of

newly completed Ph.D. dissertations exploring a number of these subjects.

Part 1 Introductory Review of Basic Marxian Class Theory

Resnick, S. and Wolff, R. Knowledge and Class, Ch 3.

Resnick, S. and Wolff, R. New Departures in Marxian Theory,Introduction and Chs. 2, 14.

Part 2 The Class Analysis of Capitalist Enterprises: Industrial, Merchant, and

Financial

a. Enterprises

Marx, K. Capital , 3, Chs. 17, 23, 27, 48.

Resnick and Wolff, Knowledge and Class, Ch. 4.

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Teece, D., G. Pisano, and A. Shuen, “Dynamic Capabilities and Strategic

Management,” Strategic Management Journal , Vol 18 (1997), 509-533.Resnick and Wolff, New Departures in Marxian Theory, Ch. 11.

Cullenberg, S. The Falling Rate of Profit, Ch. 4.

Russell, E. The Contradictory Imperatives of New Deal Banking

Reforms (Ph.D. Diss. UMASS, 2004), Ch 3“The class analytics of commercial banking: further

considerations in the subsumed class struggles involving

financial capital.”Resnick and Wolff, New Departures in Marxian Theory, Ch. 10.

b. Reproduction

Marx, K. Capital, 2, Chs. 20, 21.

Howard and King, The Political Economy of Marx, Ch. 11.

Part 3 The Class Analysis of Households

Fraad, Resnick, and Wolff, “For Every Knight in Shining Armor, There’s

a Castle Waiting to be Cleaned” in Cassano, Class Struggle in the Homefront, Ch. 2.Resnick and Wolff, “The Class Analysis of Households Extended:

Children, Fathers and Family Budgets” Ch. 4 and “Connecting Sex to

Class” Ch. 3. Both essays are chapters in Cassano, Class Struggle in the Homefront.

Resnick and Wolff, Class Theory and History, Ch. 7.Fraad, H. “Exploitation in the Labor of Love” Ch. 3 and Rio, C. “This Job

has no End: African-American Domestic Workers and Class Becoming”

Ch 1. Both Fraad’s and Rio’s essays are chapters in Gibson-Graham,

Resnick and Wolff, eds., Class and its Others. Fraad, H. “Class Transformation in the Household: An Opportunity and a

Threat” Critical Sociology 29:1 (2003), 47-66.

Erdem, E. “Contested Construction of the Migrant Home” in Cassano,Class Struggle in the Homefront, Ch. 7.

Safri, M. The Economics of Immigration: Household and Employment

Dynamics. (Ph.D. diss., UMASS, 2005), Ch. 2.

Part 4 State and Class

Resnick and Wolff, Knowledge and Class, Ch 5.

Wolff, “Limiting the State vs. Expanding It” in A. Vlachou,Contemporary Economic Theory, Ch. 3, 72-85

Balibar, On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, Chs. II and III.Gabriel, “A Class Analysis of the Iranian Revolution of 1979,” and

Chakrabarty and Cullenberg, “Development and Class Transition in India:

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A New Perspective.” Both essays are chapters in Gibson-Graham,

Resnick, and Wolff, Representing Class, 206-226 and 182-205,respectively.

Part 5. Constructing a Class History

a. An Emerging Global Capitalism from the 1870s

i. the Marxian tradition

Marx, K. “On the Question of Free Trade.” Appendix in The Poverty of Philosophy.

Marx, K. “Foreign Trade.” Capital , 3, Ch. 14, #5.

Marx, K. “The Modern Theory of Colonization.” Capital , 1, Ch. 33.

Lenin, V.I. Imperialism, The Highest State of Capitalism.

Hilferding, R. Finance Capital . Chs. 21, 22, 301-336.

Luxemburg, R. The Accumulation of Capital . Chs. 27-32. ___________. The Accumulation of Capital, An Anti-Critique, 47-62.

Bukharin, N. Imperialism and World Economy. __________. Imperialism and the Accumulation of Capital in Luxemburg, The

Accumulation of Capital, An Anti-Critique, 238-268.

Dobb, M. Political Economy and Capitalism. Ch. 7, 226-272.Sweezy, P. The Theory of Capitalist Development. Part IV “Imperialism,” Chs.

13-19.

Baran, P. and Sweezy, P. Monopoly Capital . Chs. 3, 7.Magdoff, H. Imperialism: From the Colonial Age to the Present.

Mandel, E. Late Capitalism. Chs. 10, 11.Emmanuel, A. Unequal Exchange: A Study of the Imperialism of Trade . Ch.2,

52-64.

Harvey, D. The Limits to Capital . Ch. 13.

ii. today’s capitalism

Robinson, W. “Globalization as Epochal Change in World Capitalism.” In A

Theory of Global Capitalism. Ch 1.

Ruccio, D. “Globalization and Imperialism.” Rethinking Marxism. 15, 1 Jan.

2003, 75-94.Kozel, P. “Commodity Exchange and Globalization Today” in Exchanging

Entailments: The Contested Meaning of Commodity Exchange, Ch. 6.

Guzik, E. State Power, World Trade, and the Class Structure of a Nation.Chap.10.

Hardt, M. and Negri, A. Empire.

Resnick, S. and Wolff, R. “Empire and Class Analysis.” Rethinking Marxism.

13, 3/4, 2001, 61-69.

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b. Socialist Reactions across the 20th

Century

Resnick and Wolff, Class Theory and History, Chs. 1-4.

Wolff, R. “ Reform vs Revolution: A Class Analysis and Program.”

Burczak, T. Socialism After Hayek, Ch. 6.

Engels, F. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.Kautsky, K. The Class Struggle, Ch. 4.

Bernstein, E. Evolutionary Socialism, Introd. and Ch.3.

Marx, K. Critique of the Gotha Programme.Lenin, V. State and Revolution., Ch. 5.

Sweezy P. and Bettelheim , C. On the Transition to Socialism, Part I, 3-

76.

c. Capitalism in the US Since WW Two

Teeple, G. Globalization and the Decline of Social Reform.

Resnick and Wolff, New Departures in Marxian Theory, Chs. 15,16,17.Resnick and Wolff, “The Economic Crisis: A Marxian Interpretation.”

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