Cotton and Slavery in Antebellum America

Originally published at joefrancis.info Joe Francis The dominant view among economic historians is that American slavery was an unnecessary evil: nothing good came of it for the development of the United States after independence. Even if some reluctantly accept that the boom in cotton production may have had some benefits for Antebellum America, they argue […]

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2020/05: Fix, ‘Can the World Get Along Without Natural Resources?’

Abstract Neoclassical economists fundamentally misunderstand the role of natural resources in the economy. I discuss here the source of this misunderstanding, and the ways we can better understand the role of energy to human societies. Citation Can the World Get Along Without Natural Resources? Fix, Blair. (2020). Working Papers on Capital as Power. No. 2020/05. […]

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No. 2017/03: Fix, ‘Evidence for a Power Theory of Personal Income Distribution’

Abstract This paper proposes a new ‘power theory’ of personal income distribution. Contrary to the standard assumption that income is proportional to productivity, I hypothesize that income is most strongly determined by social power, as indicated by one’s position within an institutional hierarchy. While many theorists have proposed a connection between personal income and power, […]

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No. 2015/02: McMahon, ‘Marxism, Culture and the Measurement of Value’

Abstract Various studies of mass culture use the Marxist labour theory of value to conceptualize how capital is being accumulated from cultural production and its broader social and immaterial dimensions. However, there is a significant methodological problem that lingers. The issue stems from the concept of economics and, more technically, the definition of capital. If […]

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