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Marxian economic theory criticizes capitalism systemically for causing both (a) inequality of income and wealth and (b) instability or cycles/crises of macroeconomic levels of employment, income and social welfare. Explain how the basic Marxian analysis of capitalism supports this criticism.

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Darryn D'Souza
Darryn D'SouzaLv10
28 Sep 2019
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Related questions

1. An economic system is

a. a set of institutional arrangements used to allocate scarce resources.

b. the movement of capital between countries.

c. how wealth is distributed and created in a country.

d. the natural resource available.

e. none of the above.

 

2. Contemporary economic change in Eastern Europe was preceded by

a. declining economic performance.

b. political change.

c. the withdrawal of Soviet backing.

d. all of the above.

 

3. Prior to the onset of economic reform in the late 1980s, the Soviet Union and most Eastern European countries allocated resources primarily by means of

a. Markets.

b. national economic plans.

c. neither a nor b.

d. both a and b.

 

4. Prices in the planned socialist systems were generally set by

a. supply and demand forces in the market.

b. the state.

c. external forces through international trade.

d. none of the above.

 

5. A major political change in the former planned socialist economies has been

a. the end of the political domination of Communist regimes.

b. the strengthening of the Communist regimes in combination with economic decentralization.

c. the full implementation of Western-style democracy.

d. all of the above.

 

6. The modern approach to defining economic systems

a. is based on the ”isms” of capitalism and socialism.

b. emphasizes resource allocation arrangements over incentive systems.

c. defines economic systems according to a number of characteristics.

d. states that defining economic systems is impossible.

e. none of the above.

 

7. The major attributes of an economic system are

a. its population and capital resources.

b. its level of GDP.

c. its level of GDP per capita.

d. its economic policies.

e. none of the above.

 

8. One very important characteristic of organizations in the comparing of economic systems is

a. the nature of economies of scale.

b. whether they exhibit capitalism or socialism.

c. the use of computers in the organization.

d. the level of centralization or decentralization of decisions.

e. none of the above.

 

9. A planned economy is one in which

a. subunits are coordinated by directives formulated by a superior agency.

b. subunits are not induced by appropriate incentives to carry out plan directives.

c. market allocation is combined with planned allocation.

d. a ministerial system prevails.

e. none of the above.

 

10. Ownership rights may affect economic outcomes because

a. public and private owners may have different time preferences.

b. public ownership may mean more attention to social rates of return.

c. the distribution of income is affected by ownership arrangements.

d. answers a and b are correct. e. answers a, b, and c are correct.

 

11. Which of the following would not be classified as an economic-environmental factor?

a. Natural resource endowments

b. The size of the economy

c. The nature of decision-making arrangements

d. The economy’s per capita income

e. The economy’s labor force

 

12. If one finds that the planned socialist economies all have higher growth rates than capitalist countries, this shows that

a. planned socialism necessarily produces higher growth than capitalism.

b. planned socialism may produce higher growth than capitalism, ceteris paribus.

c. capitalism may produce higher growth than planned socialism, ceteris paribus.

d. capitalism necessarily produces higher growth than planned socialism.

e. both b and c are correct.

 

13. National priorities tend to be

a. the same for countries that have similar economic systems.

b. the same for all countries.

c. different for different countries.

d. completely unknown.

e. none of the above.

 

14. Economic growth measures

a. the increase in nominal income.

b. the increase in the volume of output on either a total or a per capita basis.

c. the growth of efficiency.

d. the growth of productivity.

e. none of the above.

 

15. A measure of economic instability is

a. the unemployment rate.

b. the inflation rate.

c. the business cycle.

d. the Lorenz curve.

e. all except d are correct.

 

16. In the real world, most economic systems are in fact

a. centralized systems.

b. mixed systems.

c. market systems.

d. planned systems.

 

17. Although economic reform is difficult to characterize with precision, reform in planned socialist systems has typically been thought of as

a. revolutionary or abrupt in character.

b. occurring gradually over time.

c. successful in most cases.

d. none of the above.

 

18. In the United States, social security transfers as a percentage of the gross national product have

a. increased.

b. decreased.

c. remained the same.

d. fluctuated but with a significant downward trend.

 

19. In the industrialized capitalist systems, taxes as a percentage of the gross national product have

a. increased.

b. decreased slightly.

c. decreased greatly.

d. remained the same.

 

20. In contemporary capitalist economic reforms, privatization means

a. expansion of private ownership of the means of production.

b. improvement of planning methods.

c. implementation of worker management.

d. none of the above.

Hello, could you please assist with this discussion question for the Economics course? Thank you.

5) Go to the internet and find an article that discusses the problems of income inequality in the U.S. economy, summarize key points, and post in the Discussions area.

http://neweconomics.org/2014/12/why-inequality-is-an-economic-problem/

Why Inequality Is An Economic Problem

Rising economic inequality was a major driver of the financial crisis. With the OECD recently debunking ‘trickle-down’ economics, our new report sets out the links between inequality, the growth in scale and influence of the financial sector, and the dangers for financial stability.

A fragile recovery

A return to growth in economies such as the UK and USA has been welcomed as a sign of recovery from the 2008 financial crisis. But as GDP picks up, so too has the widening gap between rich and poor.

The crisis may be over for the wealthy but the aftermath for ordinary workers depressed wages and growing debt is only getting worse.

Most nations have mustered only negligible growth and this has failed to benefit the vast majority of those nation's populations.

In the seven years following the crash, the UK has suffered the longest sustained decline in real wages since records began.

This decline hasn't has been shared equally across the income spectrum latest annual data up to the end of 2013 shows real earnings for the top 10% increasing by 3.9% and a 2.4% fall for the remaining 90%.

Households are once again piling on risky personal debt at a rate of almost $1billion a year.

Globally, wealth grew by 8.3% last year to $263 trillion, even as living standards stagnate for the majority. Income inequality has seen a sharp return the top 1% of earners have reaped 95% of the USA's economic gains since the crash.

Inequality increases as economies are financialised

Over the past four decades, financial sectors have been extensively deregulated and have expanded enormously as a result, particularly in the UK and USA.

This deregulation produced two systemic outcomes: finance has been freed to become the motor of the economy while the pursuit of greater equality of citizens, as was the focus after the second world war, has been abandoned.

Instead, the notion that unrestrained pursuit of wealth would trickle-down from rich to the poor has been embraced in the mainstream political and economic arenas.

Financial markets, products, and firms now play a much larger role in many areas; from pensions and social insurance to homes and public infrastructure.

Privatization and the doctrine of maximizing value for shareholders have increased the amount of economic activity focused on extracting the largest possible short-term profit. These trends are referred to collectively as ‘financialisation’.

Until now the connections between this increasing prevalence of financial activities and the steady increase in economic inequality have not been clear. But when these two trends reached a boiling point in the mid-2000s they fuelled a global collapse of financial systems.

The polarization of wealth and incomes fed asset bubbles, risky financial activity,, and necessitated vast levels of household debt – resulting in the 2008 financial crash. With little done since to address these interconnected drivers, the threat of another crisis is very real.

This diagram lays out the seven indicators of economic instability, each fuelled by rising inequality and increasing financial sector activity:

Our report describes how these indicators laid the path for the 2008 crash, and threaten to do the same again:

Increasing inequality depresses demand since consumption levels depend more on the wages of those at the lower end of the income scale than the profits of the wealthy

In the face of stagnating wages, households rely increasingly on debt to maintain their lifestyles with rising asset prices, especially in residential housing, worsening this.

Financial liberalization allows money to flood into countries with trade deficits, such as the USA and the UK, providing the funds for debt-led consumption.

Snowballing wealth at the top increases risky financial speculation.

Inequality doesn't bring growth, it brings economic instability

In recent years there has been a marked slowing of growth across the world's wealthiest economies, with none returning to the growth trends experienced before the crisis. Many have begun to speculate that this stagnation could, in fact, be a permanent development meaning that wealthy economies are fundamentally unable to create enough demand to keep growing.

The mainstream political consensus has for decades now suggested that inequality is a price worth paying for economic growth.

But new research from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows definitively that this inequality/growth trade-off is false adding to a growing body of research showing that inequality actually prevents economies from growing. This points to a fundamental structural flaw in the economy: if the proceeds of growth are not shared, the pie stops growing.

The pursuit of higher returns for the already wealthy within this dwindling pie cannot persist forever. With wealth refusing year on year to trickle down, debt has been used to plug the wage-consumption gap for the rest.

The signals are showing quite plainly that this pursuit of growth, via inequality, is ineffective and unsustainable.

WRITE a one-sentence summary of each paragraph!

The False Income-Inequality Narrative

BY JASON L. RILEY

Published in the Wall Street Journal on Sept. 29, 2015

An enduring theme of the Democratic presidential race has been income inequality, coupled with an enduring belief that America's affluent reached their status at the expense of the poor and the middle class.

Bernie Sanders speaks of little else on the stump. And when not busy dissembling on her handling of email correspondence at the State Department, Hillary Clinton will tell you that the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top. If Joe Biden gets in, expect more of the same. The vice president is said to be contemplating a 2016 bid in large part because struggling middle-income families may have trouble relating to Mrs. Clinton on inequality given her high living since leaving the White House.

This theme, in any case, seems to resonate with voters, which is no huge shock in the sixth year of an economic recovery. Envy and resentment fuel class warfare and lackluster economic growth throughout the Obama presidency have made people less optimistic and more inclined to fault others for their circumstances. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll this week reports that four-in-five Americans “were either angry because our political system seems to only be working for the insiders with money and power or anxious and uncertain. After all, the economy still feels rocky and unpredictable or both.

Liberals want to address income disparities through wealth redistribution by taking money from more productive people and giving it to the less productive in the name of fairness as the left defines it. They want to raise income taxes, expand the welfare state, lift minimum wages, and strengthen the bargaining power of unions. Mr. Sanders has been the most explicit about this, even going so far as to propose a wealth tax. Our economic goals have to be redistributing a significant amount of [wealth] back from the top 1%, the senator said in July.

In reality, the left has overstated the problem. And all the focus on divvying up existing wealth instead of creating more risks making matters far worse for the people they are trying to help and the country in general. To the extent that the expanding welfare state allows more people to live without working and therefore without earning income or developing their own human capital—supporters of the welfare state are contributing to the very income disparities they so much decry, writes economist Thomas Sowell in his new book, “Wealth, Poverty and Politics.

Mr. Sowell is the author of more than 30 books over the past four decades, many having to do with what drives different social and economic outcomes among different groups in the U.S. and elsewhere. In his latest tome, he draws from this well of research to do what he has done so well for so long: question basic assumptions behind public policy and follow the facts where they lead him.

One common assumption is that proportionate or random outcomes are the natural order of things and that gaps or disparities are evidence of something wrong. In fact, huge disparities are the norm, not the exception, because the demographic, cultural, and political factors that influence the development of the human capital that makes people productive also tend to be unequal.

In 2013, only 9% of U.S. women with college degrees who gave birth were unmarried, versus 61% of women who were high-school dropouts and unmarried. Harvard's Robert Putnam reports that children from professional families will hear 19 million more words than their working-class peers before the first day of kindergarten.

These children don't have the same prospects. Equal opportunity, in the sense of being judged and rewarded by the same standards as others, cannot possibly mean equal life chances for children born and raised in these very different settings,writes Mr. Sowell. The fact that life is unfair is not the same as saying that a particular institution, or a particular society, is unfair.

The argument that social mobility is a thing of the past in the U.S. also is disputable. Longitudinal studies by the IRS and others that measure the progress of individuals over time show that the American dream is alive and well. One such paper, published by the Pew Charitable Trusts in 2012, measured whether a person has more or less income, earnings, or wealth than his or her parents did at the same age and concluded that the vast majority of Americans had higher incomes, while 50% had greater wealth.

In other studies, Pew has found generational stagnation but the authors have noted that it didn't apply to immigrants. If low-income immigrants can rise even when the native-born don't, writes Mr. Sowell, that strongly suggests that American society continues to offer opportunities to move up economically, but that not all groups make the same use of these opportunities.

Mr. Riley, a Manhattan Institute senior fellow and Journal contributor is the author of Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed (Encounter Books, 2014).

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