11 quotes
It is the rate of investment which governs the rate of saving, and not vice versa.
An Essay on Marxian Economics (Second Edition) (1966)
If there is any law governing the distribution of income between classes, it still remains to be discovered.
An Essay on Marxian Economics (Second Edition) (1966)
If a rise in wages does not raise prices, a fall will not reduce them.
An Essay on Marxian Economics (Second Edition) (1966)
Their attitude to Marx, as the leading critic of capitalism, is therefore much less cocksure than it used to be. In my belief, they have much to learn from him.
An Essay on Marxian Economics (Second Edition) (1966)
If knowledge develops as capital accumulates, there need be no tendency to diminishing returns, and with constant returns there can be no tendency for the rate of profit to fall (always assuming that the problem of effective demand as ruled out).
An Essay on Marxian Economics (Second Edition) (1966)
I began to read Capital, just as one reads any book, to see what was in it; I found a great deal that neither its followers nor its opponents had prepared me to expect.
An Essay on Marxian Economics (Second Edition) (1966)
Marx, however imperfectly he worked out the details, set himself the task of discovering the law of motion of capitalism, and if there is any hope of progress in economics at all, it must be in using academic methods to solve the problems posed by Marx.
An Essay on Marxian Economics (Second Edition) (1966)
Modern technique, as Marx pointed out, fosters the concentration of capital, and the levels of profits is supported by a scarcity of enterprise which is not due to the real cost of risk-bearing, but to the scarcity of individuals who have anything to risk.
An Essay on Marxian Economics (Second Edition) (1966)
In general, the nightmare quality of Marx's thought gives it, in this bedevilled age, an air of greater reality than the gentle complacency of the orthodox academics. Yet he, at the same time, is more encouraging than they, for he releases hope as well as terror from Pandora's box, while they preach only the gloomy doctrine that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.
An Essay on Marxian Economics (Second Edition) (1966)
The fundamental differences between Marxian and traditional orthodox economics are, first, that the orthodox economists accept the capitalist system as part of the eternal order of Nature, while Marx regards it as a passing phase in the transition from the feudal economy of the past to the socialist economy of the future.
An Essay on Marxian Economics (Second Edition) (1966)
Voltaire remarked that it is possible to kill a flock of sheep by witchcraft if you give them plenty of arsenic at the same time. The sheep, in this figure, may well stand for the complacent apologists of capitalism; Marx's penetrating insight and bitter hatred of oppression supply the arsenic, while the labour theory of value provides the incantations.
An Essay on Marxian Economics (Second Edition) (1966)