Richard Westra
Richard Westra is University Professor at the Institute of Political Science, University of Opole, Poland and International Adjunct Professor at the Center for Macau Studies, University of Macau. He is author or editor of 20 books. Among his recent publications are the single authored books The Political Economy of Post-Capitalism: Financialization, Globalization and Neofeudalism (Routledge 2024), Economics, Science and Capitalism (Routledge 2021), Periodizing Capitalism and Capitalist Extinction (Palgrave/Macmillan 2019), Socialism in the 21st Century (Nova Science, 2018), Unleashing Usury: How Finance Opened the Door to Capitalism Then Swallowed It Whole (Clarity Press, 2016) and Exit From Globalization (Routledge, 2015). His articles have appeared in numerous peer reviewed international journals. He is co-editor of Journal of Contemporary Asia, co-editor of The Japanese Political Economy and on the Executive Editorial Board of Marxism 21. He holds a PH.D. from Queen's University, Canada.
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Karl Marx’s revolutionary economic thought by his own disciples.
The book draws in particular on two key intellectual traditions in making its arguments: critical realism and Marxism. From the refounding of critical realist philosophy of science in the hands of Roy Bhaskar, emphasis is placed upon the position that the ontological nature of the object of study determines the form of its possible science. However, in their theoretical constructions, neither orthodox economics nor heterodox economics problematizes the unique ontology of capitalism to the detriment of knowledge about the social world. The book maintains that a century of misthinking over Marx’s corpus has resulted in a missed opportunity to construct a paradigmatic alternative to orthodox economics. Drawing upon the tradition of the Japanese Uno approach to Marxism, and supported by Bhaskar’s development of critical realism as underlaborer for science, the book defends Marx’s writing in his monumental Capital as founding an economic science adequate to its ontological object of study. It then elaborates upon how Marxian economic theory exposes the hidden scourges of capitalism
and what is required to unleash the potential of this theory for comprehensive analysis of capitalist vicissitudes, the study of economic life in precapitalist societies and the design of a desperately needed postcapitalist social order.
Broadening its appeal as it sets out to reclaim Marx’s revolutionary legacy, this original volume critically traverses writings in mainstream and heterodox economics, cutting edge philosophy of science and Marxian political economy and introduces readers to a reconstruction of Marx’s Capital engineered in Japan. This provocative book is essential reading for everyone interested in heterodox economics, critical realism, Marxian economics and critiques of capitalism.
Table of Contents:
Preface
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. From Socialism as Idea to Twentieth Century Experiment
Chapter 3. Socialist Failure and Rethinking
Chapter 4. Socialists Confront a Changed World
Chapter 5. Ecosocialism and New Democratic Designs
Chapter 6. We are All Socialists Now
Chapter 7. Conclusion
false or not fully-realised alternatives, to focus on what can
be termed "practical utopias". The contributors to this book
outline a range of practical proposals for constructing
pathways out of the global economic, ecological and social
crisis. Varieties of Alternative Economic Systems eschews a
single blueprint but insists on dealing directly with the
deep structural problems and contradictions of
contemporary global capitalism. It provides a diverse array
of complementary proposals and perspectives that can
inform both theoretical thinking and practical action.
The book provides useful insights into international capitalism and how past patterns of uneven development are now changing; the role of international finance in affecting both national and international growth and employment patterns; an analysis of recent growth patterns in Asia; and the specific issue emerging within the Asian region and the implications for economics, social change and geopolitics.
The book reexamines the historical record to show how activities of antediluvian money lending brought Western civilization to the brink of collapse. Usury corrupted princes and kings by indulging their conspicuous consumption. It forced them to bleed their populations to fuel their possessive lust. And it fomented vicious cycles of indebtedness in the wars it compelled. Money lending to merchants spread the commercial economy that intervened between producers and consumers driving populations into debt and dispossessing them of their land.
What saved Western civilization was the rise of capitalism. Capitalism tamed the activities of money lending, and endowed them with socially redeeming value. The cost of borrowing was rationally set in money markets. Bank credit was offered in anticipation of incomes generated by its determinate use. All in all, capitalism tethered finance to expanding production of material goods and increased social wealth.
But, as the 20th century drew to a close, with capital no longer scarce as exemplified by the aimless bloating of varying categories of funds, finance again turned to its dark side. With the disarticulating of production through globalization, there existed no possibility for bloating funds to ever be converted into real capital with determinate, socially redeeming use. Instead, systemic rule changes empowered big banks, big investment firms and finance wings of giant corporations to unleash vast oceans of funds in a global orgy of money games.
However, the global financial system of casino play can only operate akin to ancient usury. Wealth for the few is expanded by expropriation and Himalayan levels of debt befalling the many! Like usurers of old the new Merchants of Venice are indifferent to how lent funds are used. And loan repayment is set arbitrarily, often exacting such a high cost that the borrower is ruined or forced to strive for the ruin of others. Big government becomes the handmaiden sweeping as much debt under the public rug as it can. Yet there is only so much in pounds of flesh left on the bones of humanity. Greece is really just the hors d'oeuvre.
Westra discards at the outset views that the root of current economic ills is the old devil we know, capitalism. Rather, he maintains the neoliberal decades spawned a "Merchant of Venice" economic excrescence bent upon expropriation and rent seeking which will scrape all the flesh from the bones of humanity if not stopped dead in its tracks. En route to providing a viable design for the human future in line with transformatory demands of socialists and Greens, Westra exorcizes both Soviet demons and ghosts of neoliberal ideologues past which lent support to the position that there is no alternative to "the market".
Exit from Globalization shows in a clear and compelling fashion that while debates over the possibility of another, potentially socialist, world swirl around this or that grand society-wide scheme, the fact is that creative future directed thinking has at its disposal several economic principles that transformatory actors may choose from and combine in various ways to remake human economic life. The book concludes with an examination of the various social constituencies currently supporting radical change and explores the narrowing pathways to bring change about.
Karl Marx’s revolutionary economic thought by his own disciples.
The book draws in particular on two key intellectual traditions in making its arguments: critical realism and Marxism. From the refounding of critical realist philosophy of science in the hands of Roy Bhaskar, emphasis is placed upon the position that the ontological nature of the object of study determines the form of its possible science. However, in their theoretical constructions, neither orthodox economics nor heterodox economics problematizes the unique ontology of capitalism to the detriment of knowledge about the social world. The book maintains that a century of misthinking over Marx’s corpus has resulted in a missed opportunity to construct a paradigmatic alternative to orthodox economics. Drawing upon the tradition of the Japanese Uno approach to Marxism, and supported by Bhaskar’s development of critical realism as underlaborer for science, the book defends Marx’s writing in his monumental Capital as founding an economic science adequate to its ontological object of study. It then elaborates upon how Marxian economic theory exposes the hidden scourges of capitalism
and what is required to unleash the potential of this theory for comprehensive analysis of capitalist vicissitudes, the study of economic life in precapitalist societies and the design of a desperately needed postcapitalist social order.
Broadening its appeal as it sets out to reclaim Marx’s revolutionary legacy, this original volume critically traverses writings in mainstream and heterodox economics, cutting edge philosophy of science and Marxian political economy and introduces readers to a reconstruction of Marx’s Capital engineered in Japan. This provocative book is essential reading for everyone interested in heterodox economics, critical realism, Marxian economics and critiques of capitalism.
Table of Contents:
Preface
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. From Socialism as Idea to Twentieth Century Experiment
Chapter 3. Socialist Failure and Rethinking
Chapter 4. Socialists Confront a Changed World
Chapter 5. Ecosocialism and New Democratic Designs
Chapter 6. We are All Socialists Now
Chapter 7. Conclusion
false or not fully-realised alternatives, to focus on what can
be termed "practical utopias". The contributors to this book
outline a range of practical proposals for constructing
pathways out of the global economic, ecological and social
crisis. Varieties of Alternative Economic Systems eschews a
single blueprint but insists on dealing directly with the
deep structural problems and contradictions of
contemporary global capitalism. It provides a diverse array
of complementary proposals and perspectives that can
inform both theoretical thinking and practical action.
The book provides useful insights into international capitalism and how past patterns of uneven development are now changing; the role of international finance in affecting both national and international growth and employment patterns; an analysis of recent growth patterns in Asia; and the specific issue emerging within the Asian region and the implications for economics, social change and geopolitics.
The book reexamines the historical record to show how activities of antediluvian money lending brought Western civilization to the brink of collapse. Usury corrupted princes and kings by indulging their conspicuous consumption. It forced them to bleed their populations to fuel their possessive lust. And it fomented vicious cycles of indebtedness in the wars it compelled. Money lending to merchants spread the commercial economy that intervened between producers and consumers driving populations into debt and dispossessing them of their land.
What saved Western civilization was the rise of capitalism. Capitalism tamed the activities of money lending, and endowed them with socially redeeming value. The cost of borrowing was rationally set in money markets. Bank credit was offered in anticipation of incomes generated by its determinate use. All in all, capitalism tethered finance to expanding production of material goods and increased social wealth.
But, as the 20th century drew to a close, with capital no longer scarce as exemplified by the aimless bloating of varying categories of funds, finance again turned to its dark side. With the disarticulating of production through globalization, there existed no possibility for bloating funds to ever be converted into real capital with determinate, socially redeeming use. Instead, systemic rule changes empowered big banks, big investment firms and finance wings of giant corporations to unleash vast oceans of funds in a global orgy of money games.
However, the global financial system of casino play can only operate akin to ancient usury. Wealth for the few is expanded by expropriation and Himalayan levels of debt befalling the many! Like usurers of old the new Merchants of Venice are indifferent to how lent funds are used. And loan repayment is set arbitrarily, often exacting such a high cost that the borrower is ruined or forced to strive for the ruin of others. Big government becomes the handmaiden sweeping as much debt under the public rug as it can. Yet there is only so much in pounds of flesh left on the bones of humanity. Greece is really just the hors d'oeuvre.
Westra discards at the outset views that the root of current economic ills is the old devil we know, capitalism. Rather, he maintains the neoliberal decades spawned a "Merchant of Venice" economic excrescence bent upon expropriation and rent seeking which will scrape all the flesh from the bones of humanity if not stopped dead in its tracks. En route to providing a viable design for the human future in line with transformatory demands of socialists and Greens, Westra exorcizes both Soviet demons and ghosts of neoliberal ideologues past which lent support to the position that there is no alternative to "the market".
Exit from Globalization shows in a clear and compelling fashion that while debates over the possibility of another, potentially socialist, world swirl around this or that grand society-wide scheme, the fact is that creative future directed thinking has at its disposal several economic principles that transformatory actors may choose from and combine in various ways to remake human economic life. The book concludes with an examination of the various social constituencies currently supporting radical change and explores the narrowing pathways to bring change about.
science, what he is adverting to is the fact of his science uncovering
a unique ontological object in the social world with peculiar
causal properties which demand a specific set of epistemological
and methodological resources to capture in theory and, on that
basis, to explain how that object operates and what it does in
open systems of the world. Over the history of Marxism, as a
body of thought claiming lineage to Marx, Marx’s profound scientific
insights have been systematically distorted, even parodied, in
ways that blunt the revolutionary potential of Marx’s most fundamental
and important writing. This article reviews a major contribution
by Thomas Sekine, in his two-volume Dialectic of Capital
(2020), to rectify this for Marxian economics and political economy.
Sekine has been the foremost exponent of the effort to
reconstruct Marx’s Capital, initially undertaken by Japanese
Marxian economist Kozo Uno.
Third, it then exposes three interrelated anti-democratic tendencies secreted by contemporary neoliberal polities in advanced economies. ‘Legalisation of politics’ entails systemic overriding of electoral efficacy and political decision-making in major democracies by courts and judges, leaving a wasteland of depoliticised mass publics in its wake. What is dubbed the ‘new constitutionalism’ captures the ensnaring of national polities in webs of rules crafted by, or at the behest of, major corporations. This endows them with extraordinary powers which effectively subordinate national polities irrespective of political orientation – social democratic, liberal and so forth. Finally, the ‘state of exception’ devolves from a provision embedded in most democratic constitutions granting unlimited authority to executive branches in times of emergency. As protests to the neoliberal excrescence mount, it is increasingly wielded as a truncheon against them. Particularly insidious here is that, rather than overt impositions of authoritarianism such as dictatorship or fascism, these tendencies envelop neoliberal society under the guise of constitutionality and the rule of law.
of so-called unfree labor through the prism of two
contending approaches to Marxist theory. In highlighting the
limitations of the received approach, the conceptual infrastructure
of which is pushed to the limit in the face of seismic
shifts in the world economy, the article draws on the Uno
approach to Marxist theory to examine the case Marx makes
for the role of agrarian change in capitalism and sketches out
the implications of that for understanding labor relations in
nondeveloped economies at the current conjuncture.
Operationalizing theoretical insights arrived at in this discussion
the article turns to evidence on agrarian change and the
commodification of labor power in China.
the nature of financialization — its causal roots, defining contours, modalities of operation and impact on current economies.