Abstract
In the late 1970s a slim book was published containing the essays by Harry Magdoff and Paul Sweezy (1977) in the Monthly Review. The authors argued that US capitalism was characterised by stagnation and indebtedness, the latter overwhelmingly on the private side. The central issue was that banks were skating on thin ice and there was a connection running from monopoly capitalism to indebtedness. In a nutshell, the regime of oligopolistic capitalism generates a built in tendency towards unused capacity. The ensuing deficiency in effective demand relatively to the productive potential compels the private sector to rely on a growing debt. The central piece of that collection was a paper on the economics of banking which appears now remarkably far-sighted.
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Bellofiore, R., Halevi, J. (2010). Magdoff-Sweezy, Minsky and the Real Subsumption of Labour to Finance. In: Tavasci, D., Toporowski, J. (eds) Minsky, Crisis and Development. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230292321_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230292321_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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