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VOLUME 68, NUMBER 1, SPRING 2004
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| Editorial Perspectives:
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The Present as Theory
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| ARTICLES |
| Leftist Goals and the Debate over Anti-Neoliberal Strategy in Latin America |
| Steve Ellner |
ABSTRACT: Three strategies emerged in the 1990s in Latin America in the struggle
against neoliberalism: Jorge Castañeda's approach which assigns centrists a key
role; the strategy associated with Marta Harnecker in which the left prioritizes anti-neoliberalism; and the strategy defended by James Petras in which anti-neoliberal
demands do not overshadow anti-imperialism or anti-capitalist struggles. The
experiences in Venezuela (Rafael Caldera), Argentina (Fernando de la Rua), Chile
(Ricardo Lagos) and Mexico (Vicente Fox), where Castañeda's strategy was put to
practice, demonstrate that anti-neoliberal goals are blurred when centrists dominate
the governing coalition. The cases of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and "Lula" in Brazil
put in evidence the influence of the "national bourgeoisie, organized labor and the
marginalized sectors on the directions that anti-neoliberal governments take.
Contrary to Petras's thinking, non-leftist leaders and organizations were essential in
the rise to power of Chávez and Lula and in their responses to initial challenges.
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| Commodities and Gifts: Why Commodities
Represent More than Market Relations |
| Costas Lapavitsas |
ABSTRACT: In social science commodities frequently stand for economic rationality
and commercial gain, while gifts are presumed to be bearers of moral obligation and
social concerns. "Commodity versus gift" often acts as metaphor for "market versus
non-market." From the perspective of Marxist political economy, the binary
opposition between commodities and gifts is unwarranted. Analysis of the neglected
role of use value in commodity exchange as well as of the relationship between
substance and form of commodity value shows that commodities are not pure
representatives of market relations. Rather, commodities rest on, and give rise to,
non-market relations. Capitalist markets are sites of rational economic give-and-take, but also provide new terrain for trust, commitment, custom, and power among
exchange participants. Non-market relations do not shrink inexorably in the
capitalist mode of production, but are mobilized to sustain accumulation, especially
through the credit system.
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| Capitalist Exploitation and the Law of Value |
| Kiyoshi Nagatani |
ABSTRACT: Marx's value-theoretic account of capitalist exploitation and his
historical account of exploitation by merchant and usurer's capital in Capital appear
different. The theoretical and the historical accounts, however, belong to different
levels of analysis: the first to the Principles of political economy and the second to
the Stage theory of capitalist development. The historical, as distinct from the
theoretical, significance of the law of value pertains to the nature of exploitation.
There are certain problems in Capital with regard to the manner in which Marx
derived the law of value, and to the part entitled "The Transformation of Money into
Capital." Reformulation of these sections helps resolve the issues surrounding
Marx's concept of "capitalist exploitation without the capitalist mode of production."
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COMMUNICATIONS |
| Early Modern Economic History in the
Long Run |
| R. Bin Wong |
| Celebrating Twenty Volumes of Research in Political Economy |
| Ajit Sinha |
REVIEW ARTICLE |
| A Future for Marxism or a Retreat from
Marxism? |
| Richard Wolff |
BOOK REVIEWS |
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Robert Albritton, Makoto Itoh, Richard Westra
and Alan Zuege, eds., Phases of Capitalist
Development |
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Stavros Mavroudeas |
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Hugh Roberts, The Battlefield Algeria, 1988-2002:
Studies in a Broken Polity |
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Melani Cammett |
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Annette Rubinstein, ed., I Vote My Conscience:
Debates, Speeches and Writings of Vito
Marcantonio
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Paul Buhle |
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Marc Linder, "Moments are the Elements of Profit":
Overtime and the Deregulation of Working
Hours Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
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Paul Burkett |
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Bruno S. Frey, Inspiring Economics: Human Motivation in Political Economy
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James G. Devine |
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Bertell Ollman, How 2 Take an Exam. . . & Remake
the World
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James L. Marsh |
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Andrew Cunningham and Ole Peter Grell, The Four
Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Religion, War,
Famine and Death in Reformation Europe
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| Robert Young |
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Linda Gordon, The Moral Property of Women: A
History of Birth Control Politics in America |
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Rosemary Hennessy |
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Raya Dunayevskaya, The Power of Negativity:
Selected Writings on the Dialectic in
Hegel and Marx |
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Eli Messinger |
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