The April 21, 2005 issue of the LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS carried a lead article titled ‘Blood for Oil?’ The paper is attributed to a group of writers and activists – Iain Boal, T.J. Clark, Joseph Matthews and Michael Watts – who identify themselves by the collective name ‘Retort.’ In...

The paper offers a new theoretical framework for linking inflation and accumulation, with the Israeli experience as a case study. The focal point is the process of differential accumulation by the largest core firms. The theory of differential accumulation suggests that the relative power of...

An exchange between Andrew Kliman and Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan. 1. Andrew Kliman: 'Value and Crisis: Bichler and Nitzan versus Marx' EDITORS' NOTE: In the first article, Andrew Kliman responds to Bichler and Nitzan's recent paper on 'Systemic Fear, Modern Finance and the Future of...

Do capitalists really want a recovery? Can they afford it? On the face of it, the question sounds silly: of course capitalists want a recovery; how else can they prosper? According to the textbooks, both mainstream and heterodox, capital accumulation and economic growth are two sides of the same...

If there is no objective value, how can fraud ‘distort’ prices, profit and the normal rate of return?

This essay examines the Israeli market structure from the perspective of ownership. We distinguish between the several corporate holding-groups that dominate the ‘Big Economy’ and the multitude of smaller, largely independent, business entities of the ‘Small Economy’. Although the two...

The present essay is the second in a series of four papers in which examine the political economy of armaments in recent decades. In this paper we focus on the ‘armament core’ of large military producers which recently emerged as a powerful bloc within the big economy of the United States....

This is the third paper in a series of four essays that deal with recent developments affecting the political economy of armaments. It begins by identifying the ‘military bias paradox’ of divergent behaviour, whereby the large armament corporations experienced an almost uninterrupted growth...

Do capitalists really want a recovery? Can they afford it? On the face of it, the question sounds silly: of course capitalists want a recovery; how else can they prosper? According to the textbooks, both mainstream and heterodox, capital accumulation and economic growth are two sides of the same...

Economic, financial and social commentators from all directions and persuasion are obsessed with the prospect of recovery. The world remains mired in a deep, prolonged crisis, and the key question seems to be how to get out of it. The purpose of our paper is to ask a very different question that...