Suchergebnisse

ABSTRACTThis article shows that economic inequality between nations has systematically worsened in monetary terms since 1950, and that the principal explanator is inequality between blocs of nations, notably the persistent gap between the Global North and Global South. By 2022, the GDP per capita of the North was 12 times greater than that of the South, this ratio being twice as great as in 1950. This general trend has two consistent exceptions, China and Vietnam. There was also a brief reversal of the trend from 2000 to 2012. However, except for China and Vietnam, it has resumed since then. The article shows that both the Global South and North are coherent entities: they are historically stable and converge internally while diverging from each other. It assesses the implications for international inequality and convergence research and draws out some consequences for world geopolitical relations. Finally, the article sets out the case for an international classification standard that facilitates systematic research into inter‐bloc inequality.

Recent decades have seen a proliferation of literature on creativity, with no consensus about what it consists of. Chinese and Russian contributions throw new light on these debates because of their concern with economic and human development. By integrating this with the widely-used concept of the "creative industries," a rigorous concept of creativity rooted in the notion of creative labor is proposed. This can be defined as non-mechanical labor which, in conjunction with Information and Communication Technology (ICT), has produced a mass market in products embodying the use-value of distinctness. The creative industries then emerge as a branch of the division of labor making intensive use of creative labor in combination with mental objects, such as scientific and artistic products. Software, itself a mental object, is an "instrument of mental production" in these industries, helping explain their potential contribution to human development, and the obstacles to this potential imposed by the commodity form.

This article is the first part of "A General Theory of Value and Money" and sets out the foundations of an axiomatic theory of value and money. Its purpose is to equip the public to explain the four facts that define the modern capitalist economy: the long-term post-war decline of the economies of the global North, the financial instability which produced the 2008 crash, the prolonged post-war growth in inequality between the global North and the global South, and the exceptional 30-year growth of China. The axiomatic method is poorly understood among economists. It allows us to interrogate empirical evidence in a systematic way, and is therefore the necessary precondition for an inductivist, scientific enquiry into economic events, that is, an enquiry whose starting point is the explanation of facts. The second part of "A General Theory of Value and Money," to follow, deals with the empirical conclusions, especially the analysis of accumulation, the rate of profit, and financial crashes.

AbstractThis article presents the case for "assertive pluralism" in economics education and proposes how to achieve it, illustrating the point with reference to the U.K. Subject Benchmark Statement in Economics (SBSE). It proposes a revision of the benchmark, prioritizing the role of controversy in the teaching of economics, combined with pluralistic principles that uphold and guarantee critical and independent thinking. This reform is a necessary response to what Colander et al. (2009) term the "systemic failure" of economics—the inability of the profession, taken as a whole, to anticipate and understand the financial crash and recession of 2008. Failure on this scale testifies to a more deep‐seated weakness in economics than commonly recognized. It arises from what Turner (Tett 2009) terms the regulatory capture of the economics profession by narrow financial interests. The public, and the economics profession, require specific protection against the pressures that have produced this systemic failure. This requires a rethink of the relation of economics to society, founded on a rejection of the idea that the function of economics is to provide a single, unequivocal solution to every problem of policy. Instead, the article explains, good economics should be constrained to evaluate the full range of relevant solutions to any given policy issue, leaving the decisionmakers accountable for the decisions they make on which solution to adopt.