The paper sketches a coherent history of the choice of the measure standard from Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations to Sraffa's Production of Commodities. As neither the Smithian labour commanded unit nor the Ricardian-Marxian labour embodied one provide a general solution to the dilemma concerning...

This paper is an attempt to historicize Frank Plumpton Ramsey's Apostle talks delivered from 1923 to 1925 within the social and political context of the time. In his talks, Ramsey discusses socialism, psychoanalysis, and British women's movement. Ramsey's views on these three intellectual...

In this paper I first provide an overview of alternative approaches to money, contrasting the orthodox approach, in which money is neutral, at least in the long run; and the Marx-Veblen-Keynes approach, or the monetary theory of production. I then focus in more detail on two main categories: the...

This paper begins by defining, and distinguishing between, money and finance, and addresses alternative ways of financing spending. We next examine the role played by financial institutions (e.g., banks) in the provision of finance. The role of government as both regulator of private...

The old theories of imperialism attempted to explain the phenomenon of the militarization of the industrial nations and their conflict over colonies that led to World War I. It was the rise of monopoly capitalism, the emergence of finance capital and the control over the state that led...

Income inequality in China is severe; measured by the Gini-coefficient it amounted to 0.46 in 2011; wealth distribution is even worse with 0.61. These disparities led to a major shift in emphasis of politics in general and of the Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development by the...

Since around 2000 the education premium and the level of employment in high-skill occupations has stagnated, if not actually begun to shrink. This brings into question the generally held view that in advanced countries, while potentially harmful for those who work with their hands, globalization...

The present paper on the now partly well known Russian mathematician and "amateur economist" v. Charasoff was originally written in 1987 together with H. Duffner three years after Charasoff's remarkable contribution of 1910 "Das System des Marxismus" (The system of Marxism) had been rediscovered...

Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz (1868 - 1931) was a European statistician. His scientific work covered theoretical economics, stochastics, mathematical statistics and radiology, today we would call him a cross disciplinary scientist. With his clear views on mathematical principles with their...

Starting from Schumpeter's important distinction between "real analysis" and "monetary analysis", in this paper it is shown that major elements of Marx's economic theory fall in the camp of monetary analysis and the implications for Marx's theory of capital accumulation are derived. First,...