Introduction To Political Economy: Marxian Economy

Concepts to understand

- Marx’s explanation of the working day, and how all terms from the above ‘Marx’ section relate in that working day.

- How the rate of profit is defined, and how it can increase / decrease (again, using the terms above)

- How capitalist competition relates to the Reserve Army of Labor

- How the capitalist system requires exploitation for accumulation

- How the value of labor power is related to the wage / variable capital, what could reduce variable capital besides just a wage decrease.

- How the wage is determined in classical economics / Marxian economics

- How capitalist competition can increase the reserve army of labor, but also tends to drive down the long term profit rate

- What Keynes thought about crisis tendencies of capitalism, and what can / should be done about them. Also how this differed from neoclassical theory.

- What components enter into Agg. Supply and Agg. Demand (hint: AS = yN AD = C+I+G)

- What Keynes said determines the variables in the AD equation (using terms like marginal propensity to consume, interest rate, etc)

- The role of the state according to Keynes

- The transition from golden age capitalism to neoliberal capitalism, and the way this shaped wealth and income inequality in the U.S.

- WHY NEOLIBERALISM IS NOT THE SAME THING AS NEOCLASSICAL ECONOMICS, AND NEOLIBERALISM IS NOT A SCHOOL OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT

- How neoclassical economists say markets work

- What neoclassical trade theory suggests about free trade / comparative advantage compared to what dependency theory says.