The paper builds on the Goodwin (1967) model which describes the distributive cycle of capitalist economies whereby mass unemployment is generated periodically through the conflict about income distribution between capital and labor. We add to this model a segmented labor market structure with...

This paper is built around a theorem proved analytically and exemplified empirically in Flaschel, Franke and Veneziani (2010) which states that profitable capital-using labor-saving technical change is under mild conditions always reducing the labor content of commodities. This type of technical...

This paper depicts the negative impact of a falling labour share caused by reduced bargaining power of workers on aggregate demand and employment. Contrary to standard New Keynesian models, the presence of consumers not participating in financial markets (rule of thumb consumers) causes an...

This paper analyses the implications of classical liberal and libertarian approaches for distributive justice in the context of social welfare orderings. An axiom capturing a liberal non-interfering view of society, named the Weak Harm Principle, is studied, whose roots can be traced back to...

In the standard Okishio-Morishima approach, the existence of profits is proved to be equivalent to the exploitation of labour. Yet, it can also be proved that the existence of profits is equivalent to the ‘exploitation’ of any good. Labour and commodity exploitation are just different...

In a recent contribution on this journal, Matsuo (2009) has provided an interesting argument to refute the Generalised Commodity Exploitation Theorem (GCET), by highlighting a potential asymmetry between labour and other commodities. In this paper, a novel characterisation of the relation...

We examine the substantive arguments proposed by Kliman and Freeman (2006) in their reply to Mohun (2003). We find the temporal single-system interpretation (TSSI) seriously deficient.

Rosa Luxemburg's critique of Marx's Schemes of Reproduction is the only genuinely immanent critique of Marxian dynamics. But it needs to be brought up to date. To this end, in this paper it is placed in the context of more modern discussions of dual instability, in order to gain a better...

The concept of exploitation is central in social and political theory, but there is no precise, widely accepted definition. This paper analyses John Roemer’s seminal theory, which construes exploitation as a distributive injustice arising from asset inequalities, with no reference to notions...

Reorienting economics analyses many important issues in the social sciences. This paper focuses on Lawson’s key methodological and epistemological claims concerning the role of mathematics in social theory. Lawson provides several forceful criticisms of the search of mathematical rigour for...