Capital as Power

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Are We Measuring Inequality the Wrong Way?
by Blair Fix on December 9, 2019 at 1:57 PM
Originally published on Economics from the Top Down. In a recent blog post called “How Not to Measure Inequality”, the anthropologist Jason Hickel argues that economists measure inequality the wrong way. Hickel thinks that standard measures of inequality (such as the Gini index), […]
Call For Papers: Energy, Institutions and Society
by Blair Fix on November 29, 2019 at 5:19 PM
Originally published on Economics from the Top Down. I’ve been asked to create panels for the upcoming International Conference on Thermodynamics 2.0. The conference aims to bring natural and social sciences closer. It will take place at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Massachusetts, USA […]
The Allure of Marxism … And Why It’s a Mistake
by Blair Fix on November 26, 2019 at 5:00 PM
Originally published on Economics from the Top Down. Karl Marx is probably the most important social scientist in history. But while his influence is beyond compare, Marx’s legacy is, in many ways, disastrous. Few thinkers have inspired so many people to commit crimes against humanity. Think […]

Bichler and Nitzan, ‘Making America Great Again’
by Blair Fix on December 11, 2019 at 4:49 PM
ABSTRACT Trump has promised to Make America Great Again. As a self-proclaimed expert on everything of import, he knows exactly how to increase domestic investment and consumption, boost exports, reduce the country’s trade deficit, expand employment and bolster wages. And as America’s […]
Fix, ‘An Evolutionary Theory of Resource Distribution’
by Blair Fix on December 9, 2019 at 7:07 PM
ABSTRACT This paper explores how the evolution of human sociality can help us understand how we distribute resources. Using ideas from sociobiology, I argue that resource distribution is marked by a tension between two levels of natural selection. At the group level, selfless behavior is […]
Fix, ‘Personal Income and Hierarchical Power’
by Blair Fix on December 9, 2019 at 2:34 PM
ABSTRACT This article examines the relation between personal income and hierarchical power. In the context of a firm hierarchy, I define hierarchical power as the number of subordinates under an individual’s control. Using the available case-study evidence, I find that relative income within […]

2019/02.1: Fix, ‘How the Rich are Different: Hierarchical Power as the Basis of Income Size and Class’
by Sandy Hager on November 29, 2019 at 12:16 PM
This paper investigates a new approach to understanding personal and functional income distribution. I propose that hierarchical power — the command of subordinates in a hierarchy — is what distinguishes the rich from the poor and capitalists from workers. Specifically, I hypothesize […]
2019/04: Hager and Baines, ‘Jurisdictional Tax Rates: How the Corporate Tax System Fuels Concentration and Inequality’
by Sandy Hager on November 14, 2019 at 3:37 PM
ABSTRACT Corporate concentration in the United States has been on the rise in recent years, sparking a heated debate about its causes, consequences, and potential remedies. In this study, we examine a facet of public policy that has been largely neglected in current debates about concentration: […]
2019/03: McMahon, ‘Selling Hollywood to China’
by James McMahon on April 15, 2019 at 4:23 PM
ABSTRACT From the 1980s to the present, Hollywood’s major distributors have been able to redistribute U.S. theatrical attendance to the advantage of their biggest blockbusters and franchises. At the global scale and during the same period, Hollywood has been leveraging U.S. foreign power to […]

Personal Income and Hierarchical Power
on December 13, 2019 at 7:41 AM
Personal Income and Hierarchical Power Fix, Blair. (2019). Journal of Economic Issues. Vol. 53. No. 4. December. pp. 928-945. (Article - Journal; English). […]
An Evolutionary Theory of Resource Distribution
on December 11, 2019 at 11:45 PM
An Evolutionary Theory of Resource Distribution Fix, Blair. (2019). Real-World Economics Review. No. 90. 9 December. pp. 65-97. (Article - Journal; English). […]
Making America Great Again
on December 10, 2019 at 1:48 AM
Making America Great Again Bichler, Shimshon and Nitzan, Jonathan. (2019). Real-World Economics Review. No. 90. 9 December. pp. 2-12. (Article - Journal; English). […]

Political Economy • The Service Transition
by Ikonoclast on November 16, 2019 at 11:20 PM
Blair Fix writes: "The evidence is overwhelming. A service transition is a recipe for using more energy."I agree, with two possible caveats. Firstly, a service transition in the current capitalist and growth system is a recipe for using more energy. In other words, if we ditched capitalism and […]
Political Economy • What are "useful" goods or services?
by wayburn on November 10, 2019 at 8:42 AM
Ah, but what is "useful"? That's one more problem that I hope can be solved (or finessed) theoretically.Statistics: Posted by wayburn — Sun Nov 10, 2019 3:42 am […]
Political Economy • Re: Non-inequality
by wayburn on November 10, 2019 at 8:31 AM
So I wrote: "On the other hand, the rent on land can be established by computing the total incidence of sunlight upon it measured in the fundamental units of any reasonable currency, emjoules say (or emquads, whichever is convenient.) One pays rent to nature whose natural advocate on Earth is part […]

The Autocatalytic Sprawl of Pseudorational Mastery
Posted by Ulf Martin Vol. 1, No. 4 2019
According to Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler (2009), capital is not an economic quantity, but a mode of power. […]
Propertization: The Process by which Financial Corporate Power has Risen and Collapsed
Posted by Jongchul Kim Vol. 1, No. 3 2018
The paper argues that a main way of structuring financial corporate power, especially money market funds (MMFs), is a propertization of contractual claims. […]
Theory and Praxis, Theory and Practice, Practical Theory
Posted by Corentin DeBailleul, Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan Vol. 1, No. 3 2018
In their most recent contribution to the Working Papers on Capital as Power, ‘ The CasP Project: Past, Present and Future’ (2015 now published in Vol. 1, No. 3 in this journal), Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan invite readers to engage critically with their theoretical framework […]