542782
research-article2014
RRPXXX10.1177/0486613414542782Review of Radical Political EconomicsO’Hara
Capital, Economic Crises,
Institutions and History: Book
Plans for Heterodox Political
Economy “Principles and
Applications”
Review of Radical Political Economics
1­–14
© 2014 Union for Radical
Political Economics
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DOI: 10.1177/0486613414542782
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Phillip Anthony O’Hara1
Abstract
This article examines different ways of “doing” heterodox political economy by way of “book
plans” for “principles and practices” volumes (and articles). First, the Uno Japanese School
method is scrutinized, as utilized by Robert Albritton and John Bell; starting with [a] the pure
theory of “capital”; followed by [b] stages of evolution including institutions; and concluding with
[c] political economy history. Second, this is compared with the methods of Michael Lebowitz
and David Harvey, who both seek to interpenetrate within discourse the [i] the principles of
“capital,” with more concrete issues such as [ii] wage labor, [iii] landed property, [iv] state, and
[v] the uneven world economy and crises. Third, the Japanese School, Lebowitz, and Harvey
methods are compared vis-à-vis both Karl Marx’s “Book Plans” and explanations of the 200814 crises of capitalism (deep recessions, debt crises). Fourth, I introduce other plans, such as
those developed by Samuel Bowles, Howard Sherman, and Danny Mackinnon (and coauthors),
respectively. One of these such plans starts with [1] history and institutions; followed by [2]
capitalism and the surplus; linking this with [3] social structures of accumulation, community,
and state; and last adding [4] policy/governance plus alternative systems and institutions. The
significance of these various book plans for the future of heterodox political economy is then
outlined.
JEL classification: B50, P16, Y30
Keywords
principles, heterodox political economy, pure theory, applications, book plans
1. Introduction
The ideas of Marxian and other forms of heterodox political economy undergo phases of evolution and analysis. They even sometimes become fashionable in certain circles, especially when
1Global
Political Economy Research Unit (GPERU), Perth, Australia. This paper is dedicated to the
inspiration and friendship provided by Allen Oakley, Bill Dugger, Howard Sherman, and Ron Stanfield
over many decades.
Corresponding Author:
Phillip Anthony O’Hara, GPERU, PO Box 383, Bentley. WA. Australia. 6982
Email: [email protected]
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Review of Radical Political Economics 
there are crises of capitalism. The ongoing current structural and cyclical crises, that commenced
in the U.S. subprime market and spread especially into Europe and to a much lesser extent Latin
America, Asia, and Africa, is a case in point. David Harvey and Richard Wolff, for instance, have
found the current crises to be a great boon to their political activity as Marxist political economists (broadly defined), based in New York City, especially in demand for commentary, analysis,
and prognoses on the problems facing modern capitalist economies. No doubt several other innovative Marxists and heterodox scholars have a similar story.
The core deep inspiration for the most recent revival and reconstruction of Marxian and heterodox political economy was the 1960s, when various social movements and instabilities
impacted/afflicted capitalist economies, which stimulated renewal and linkages to the main problems of society. These movements evolved and metamorphosed during the 1970s through to the
2010s; becoming more explicable every decade when financial instability and deep recession (re)
emerged. This crisis tendency was especially pronounced—in uneven ways in numerous nations/
regions—during 1974-75, 1980-82, 1987-91, 1997-98, 2001-03, and 2008-2014ff. The Union for
Radical Political Economics (URPE) emerged from these reform movements, as neo-Marxist,
radical institutionalist, feminist, and Post-Keynesian political economies were (re)constructed
during this time.
This paper scrutinizes four recent books that are part of the revival of heterodox political
economy, and then introduces other books which supplement these, in scrutinizing the way in
which heterodoxy can develop “principles and practices” book plans for volumes (and papers)
that are deemed suitable for general and specialist readers.2
The first two books, Robert Albritton’s (2010) Economics Transformed and John Bell’s (2010)
Capitalism and the Dialectic, link to the “reconstruction” of Marx’s work by the Uno-SekineAlbritton school of political economy (“Uno School” or “Japanese School” for short). They
especially take Marx to task in Capital for trying to mix up the pure theory of “capital” with its
institutional and historical evolution and transformation through time. A core thesis of this school,
enunciated in these books, is that there is a difference between the core theory of capital and the
more practical work of institutional analysis, policy, and history.
The third book, by Michael Lebowitz (2010), called Following Marx, derives directly from
his membership in URPE and associated scholarly and political networks and processes (especially in Canada, but also elsewhere), where he has sought also to “reconstruct” Marx’s works
based on deepening the analysis of “wage-labor,” and developing a dynamic and evolutionary
stance on the core principles of political economy. Lebowitz seeks to link Marxian political
economy (MPE) principles to an evolutionary and more concrete investigation of capitalism.
The fourth book by David Harvey (2010a), A Companion to Marx’s Capital, is an introduction
to volume one of Capital, linked to his innovative deepening of the spatial and geographical
forces affecting capitalism. Somewhat like Lebowitz, Harvey seeks to interpenetrate the principles of Marx with the concrete worlds of space and time, in order to bring MPE to life as a study
of the world system with several uneven patterns.
2I
define heterodox political economy as comprising two threads. The first thread includes all the
specific schools of political economy, such as Marxian, radical institutional, Post-Keynesian, feminist,
Schumpeterian, and social political economy (broadly most of the schools which RRPE lists as part of
“radical political economy” inside the front cover of the RRPE). The second thread is more fundamental,
where heterodox political economy is seen as a mutation or variation of these combined schools, which
gradually emerged through the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s as a relatively unified, yet inclusive and opensystems, approach to social and economy problems, combining crucial concepts and themes from all these
schools into a general frame of reference. This hybrid science of heterodox political economy is always in
search of new, innovative methods, principles, and processes to help explain current problems in the world
and ways in which these problems can be rectified through policy and social change (see O’Hara 2008,
2012, forthcoming).
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All four recent books develop an original approach to MPE. The first two books are part of the
same, Japanese School. The works of Lebowitz and Harvey have considerable similarities in
terms of principles and practices linked together and being evolutionary and transformative
through time. I examine the arguments of these four books as they relate to the writing of principles and practices book plans (and papers), and then compare them with alternative plans.
These alternative book plans include those developed by Karl Marx, both his 6-book plan as well
as the later “capital” plan of production, circulation, (dis)unity of production and circulation, and
critical history. Other book plans within heterodox political economy scrutinized include the
5-book plan of Samuel Bowles, Richard Edwards, and Frank Roosevelt (2005); Howard
Sherman’s (1987) 4-book plan; and the 4-book plan of Danny Mackinnon and Andrew Cumbers
(2011). I critically review these plans and outline my own preferences, concluding that the issue
of book plans is crucial to the future of political economy, and encouraging further debate on the
issue, since it affects the way political economy is presented to the world, and therefore will
influence its success or otherwise into the future.
2. The Uno-Sekine-Albritton School: Three Levels of Analysis
The two books on the Uno School, by Albritton (2010) and Bell (2010), raise one major methodological question which also links to empirical questions and policy analysis. Here the Unoists
argue for undertaking political economy sequentially through three different levels of inquiry (or
three sets of entry points using Resnick-Wolff terminology). They want to start the method of
presentation—the first book/volume—through the first level of the pure model of capital with the
emphasis on the entirely commodity economy and value-form. Then they seek to present a second volume/book, which involves the second, mid-level type historico-institutional analysis,
developing various phases of evolution for actually existing capitalism. Last they propose completing a third book/volume, involving the third level, of historical political economy, as part of
an even more realistic scrutiny of capitalism and its alternatives.
As part of the first level principles of political economy, the Uno School utilizes the theory of the
purely commodity economy involving its laws of motion. Here the activities of productive labor in
a capitalist production system variously involves the tendency for the introduction of technological
change which leads to a burst of accumulation, the production of relative surplus value, and the
formation of labor values and prices of production. This competitive system of commodity production includes various purely market-exchange relationships associated with quid pro quo and equal
exchange. No power relationships operate in the pure theory of equilibrium as competition and
average rates of profit have a tendency to equate supply with demand and values with prices.
Analytically, a core process in motion is towards equilibrium–over the cycle–as the value of
labor power is in balance with its price at neighborhoods of equilibrium; rates of profit tend
towards equality in the major industries; and the rate of profit declines to average levels. This is
the methodological foundation of the pure theory of the completely commodity economy.3 Out
of this emerges the dominant contradiction, between the production of exchange values and the
production of use-values. Capitalism forever depends on its ability to turn use-values into
exchange values; yet it continually has difficulties in undergoing these changes from use-values
to exchange values.
Labor power is especially difficult to extract use-values from by the capitalist as exchange
values (sales and profit), which links to periodic crises. Albritton (1986: ch. 3) explains the Uno
3The ideas of (a) innovations rising more during the depression phase of the cycle and (b) movements
around equilibrium over the business cycle sound very much like Schumpeter in his discussion of short
cycles, Juglar cycles, and long waves, plus his general approach to political economy. His general short
cycle is discussed in Schumpeter (1911) and multiple cycles and four phases in Schumpeter (1939).
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approach to periodic crises in the pure theory as involving dynamics linked to the law of population and the law of value. Starting during depression, the reserve army of labor (the law of population) tends to be higher than average while wages are lower than average, leading through time
to more employment as there is higher demand for labor power. Also during depression, competitive pressures lead to higher rates of innovation (capital deepening), leading through time to
expanding relative surplus value (law of value); and there are low levels of demand for money so
interest rates tend to fall. These forces generate higher rates of profit, investment, and growth as
recovery follows. Recovery leads to booms in the cycle during which the reserve army declines,
accumulation expands (capital widening), while interest rates and rents are modest. But through
time due to low rates of unemployment real wages usually rise; accumulation expands which
increases the organic composition of capital; and expansionary forces put upward pressure on
interest rates and usually rents. These forces lead to lower rates of profit, accumulation, and
growth as recession starts, which cumulatively tend often to lead to depression.
Apart from labor power, the other two fictitious commodities that are especially difficult to
valorize into exchange values include money and land. The Japanese School recognizes this
contradiction between exchange value and use value as precisely the one raised by Karl Polanyi
(1944) in The Great Transformation (see Stanfield 1984). This situates capital as being in varying
degrees of opposition not only with other firms (through competition), but also with wage laborers, rentiers, and finance capitalists. Hence changes in the rate of profit, s/(c+v)—surplus value
(s) divided by constant (c) and variable (v) capitals—are affected by the “laws” associated with
changes in the organic composition of capital, absolute and relative surplus value, and the
breakup of surplus value into profit (p), interest (i), and rent (r): (s=p+i+r). The pure theory of
capital therefore posits an unstable endogenous growth path of accumulation through business
cycles, with movements around systems of equilibrium.
According to the Japanese School, the first level of the pure theory needs modification at the
second level to comprehend the evolutionary changes from one phase of capitalism to another. It
especially needs to take into account various institutions and historical movements in the broader
political economy of capitalism. A detailed analysis is presented by Albritton (1991), and John
Bell in his book mostly follows this in his summary of the various phases of economic transformation of core nations. The stage theory [1] starts with mercantilism in the sixteenth through to
the eighteenth centuries; followed by [ii] industrial capitalism in the nineteenth century; then [iii]
largescale industry and imperialism in the late 1800s and early 1900s; followed by [iv] the inward
movement from the First to the Second World War; [v] the evolution to the Fordist/Keynesian
system of the 1950s-1980s; and then [vi] post-Fordism (flexible system/neo-Taylorism) and neoliberalism during the 1980s to the 2000s (chs. 8, 9).4 Robert Albritton in his volume argues that
the “regulation” and “social structure of accumulation” approaches have “made the most headway” in comprehending these mid-level analyses of the historical and institutional movement of
capitalism5 (137); and the last two chapters of Bell’s book move along these lines.
4Members of the Uno School usually argue that when the three fictitious commodities have become
subject to state or community control, or when the commodity economy is no longer entirely dominant, then
the system is no longer capitalist. Hence the nature of “the system,” which since sometime in the 1800s is
no longer capitalist in the sense of not being subject to the laws of the purely commodity economy, and the
law of value is affected or modified by other institutions and relationships.
5He does add that “although in both cases their theorization of the levels, and their interconnection
remains weak” (Albritton 2010: 37, footnote), regarding SSA and regulation approaches. I doubt that this
is the case since SSA and regulation scholars mostly agree with Lebowitz and Harvey that it is to the midrange historic-institutional range that political economy should commence at the level of presentation. Most
SSA and regulation scholars would likely agree on the needs of a theoretical edifice that is workably linked
to the concrete concerns of space, time, and relationships (3-dimensional political economy). This is likely
one of the main contributions of the Union for Radical Political Economics (URPE) to discourse and solutions to the world’s complex problems.
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Some fragments are provided for how the Uno School may deal with the third level of analysis, political economy history, including the work of Albritton (1986: ch. 5, 2010: ch. 5) and
Makoto Itoh (1980: part 6). Most of the examples given are at the micro level, such as the evolution of variable wage levels in the computer industry. We get few glimpses of how macro history
would proceed at this level. It may, however, encompass the type of material examined by Eric
Hobsbawm (1962, 1975, 1987, 1994, 1999), in his multi-volume political economy history of
capitalism from the late 18th century through to the onset of the 21st century. Here the analysis
provides more details, greater uneven developments, and numerous case studies embedded in a
more concrete analysis of capitalism and its alternatives. The core theory and stages become
intertwined in a wider tapestry of processes including class, gender, ethnic relations, geographic
uneven development, plus ideology and evolutionary transformation. There is, unfortunately,
currently no explicitly developed and thorough application of the Uno approach to political economy history, so much work lies ahead in this respect.6
3. Michael Lebowitz’s Dialectics of “Growth-Barrier-Growth”
Michael Lebowitz’s Following Marx (2010) is a compendium of many of his best essays, mostly
from journals, including the masterly article on crisis and instability in the Grundrisse (Canadian
Journal of Economics 1976), his critical analysis of the Uno School (History of Economic Ideas
1984), and his critique of rational choice Marxism (Cambridge Journal of Economics 1994).
It helps to comprehend Lebowitz’s work by recognizing that Marx espoused the need for a
6-book plan during 1858 to 1862, commencing with [1] “capital,” then linking it with [2] “landed
property,” followed by [3] “wage labor” (the three main classes of capitalism), then integrating it
with [4] the “state,” [5] “international trade,” and finally (the most concrete book) [6] “world
market and crises.” This 6-book plan was likely the “desired plan” of Marx. Beginning around
1863-66, Marx developed a “capital plan,” what he “likely thought he could finish in his lifetime,” which became Capital [i] volume one (production); [ii] volume 2 (circulation); [iii] volume 3 (dis)unity of production and circulation: competition, breakup of surplus value, and money
and credit; plus [iv] volume 4 (critical history). With the “capital plan,” some aspects of “wage
labor” were included in “production” (volume 1) while some aspects of landed property were
inserted into the (dis)unity of production and circulation (volume 3); but not much was said about
the state, foreign trade, or the world market and crises.
Some passages of Marx’s realized “capital plan” books indicate that he thought more work
was needed on wage labor, landed property, plus the state and world market; so he likely also had
the 6-book plan in mind to some degree after 1862 (perhaps for others to embrace). This is relevant to Lebowitz and others who think that his “capital plan” (the 3/4 volumes of Capital) needs
to be extended further, at least to include “wage labor,” and likely also landed property, the state,
and the world market and crises, to adequately situate the historical and institutional dynamics of
capital’s motion. Understanding the reproduction of capitalism thus requires us to scrutinize the
6One might have thought the work of Immanuel Wallerstein (1974, 1980, 1989, 2010) and the worldsystem (plus “world system,” without the hyphen) schools, might also have provided good examples of the
method of historical political economy, scrutinizing the details of the evolutionary transformation of the
system in more complexity. However, Albritton (2010: ch. 5) provides a critique of Wallerstein in terms
of the well-known point that he over-emphasizes circulation at the expense of production. I would have
thought this criticism has become outdated, especially in view of the work of the two journals, Review and
Journal of World Systems Research, and the work of Wallerstein over the past 30 years. (See, for instance,
the popular introduction to world-systems perspectives by Stephen K. Sanderson 1991.)
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double movement of capital and labor, plus the other classes and institutions, in dialectical opposition/linkage through time.7
This is seemingly in opposition to that of the Uno School, since Lebowitz argues that this school
analyzes only one aspect of capitalism (“capital”) in the pure theory and ignores the more complex
oppositions posed by labor power through working class organizations and processes (see Lebowitz
2003). Lebowitz is also against the “pure” theory of the Uno School which uses equilibrium analysis, pure competition, and commodity production and is thus said to ignore the more complex
interactions between capital and wage labor (at least). In a similar way, he is also against rational
choice Marxism because it is said to be inadequately cognizant of the social dimensions of capitalism, the holistic method of analysis, and the historic-institutional perspective. Using Uno’s terminology, then, Lebowitz would prefer a more historical and institutional approach to capitalism as
the point of departure of discourse; a more concrete method. Lebowitz also likely accepts the validity of “Marx’s 6-book plan,” so long as every book takes a broader view even within the confines
of the limits of successive approximation (from one “book” to the next).
Lebowitz’s most brilliant essay in this volume is his 1976 one on crisis and instability in the
Grundrisse (Marx 1857-58). This masterly essay scrutinizes Marx’s analysis of the revolutionary
movement of capitalism as it constantly changes the methods and modes of production, and
requires expansions of the world market, greater wants and needs, higher levels of demand, and
qualitative transformations of transportation and communication in order to temporarily surmount the limits of production. Production is limited, according to Marx in the Grundrisse, by
the fact that exchange values are bounded by possible use-values; surplus values are limited by
variable capitals; additions to surplus value are limited by declining margins; while supply is
limited by demand. Special emphasis is given by Lebowitz to Marx’s dialectical analysis of capital, especially the notions of holism, contradiction, and transformation. Production, distribution,
exchange, and reproduction form a complex interplay of contradictory unity and disunity through
the circuit of capital over historical time.8
Here for the first time, Marx in the Grundrisse recognizes that there are contradictions within
the sphere of production, including that between capital and labor, and declining marginal surplus labor time. The sphere of circulation also impacts through contradictions, especially those
concerning anomalous rates of turnover of capital, the need for constant expansion of wants and
7Much
of the interest in these “6-book” and “capital” plans came from the publication of Marx’s (185758) Grundrisse (first published in German in 1939; 21 other languages; English in 1973), within which he
develops numerous versions of the 6-book plan. He develops similar plans in his letters, plus in the preface
to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (Marx 1859), which was the last known reference
to the extended plan. When Marx began drafting the Economic Manuscript of 1861-63 (Marx 1861-63), of
which Theories of Surplus Value [TSV] (Marx 1862-63) is merely a (large) part, as Oakley (1983: 105) says,
“in 1861 he intended to work towards a 6-Book presentation,” but “[f]rom 1963 onwards, all references to
the critical theory, … were to Capital.” A hint was given about a change in plan by Marx in a letter to Engels
dated 2 August 1862, where he stated that “I now intend, precisely in this volume [capital] to introduce a
new chapter on the theory of rent” (Marx 1862: 74; see also Oakley 1983: 111). It is possible, and I think
very likely, that Marx still had this 6-book plan in mind (perhaps for others to complete). Crucial to the
arguments about the two plans, including the idea that the two plans are complimentary, is the core book by
Roman Rosdolsky (1968), the work of Allen Oakley (1983, 2007), plus numerous other authors, including
for instance, Keith Tribe (1974), Vitali Vygodski (1974), and Maximilien Rubel (1981).
8The material in the Grundrisse, on the interaction between production, distribution, exchange, and
reproduction (the holistic interaction of the parts/processes of the economy), comes from the famous (and
tentative) “Introduction” to “this” work (Marx 1857-58: 83-111); while the work on the revolutionary nature
of capitalism and the multiple contradictions within and between production, circulation, and the (disunity)
of the two, comes from the similarly exciting (other) parts of the book (Marx 1857-58: 333-358, 401-423,
450-479, 618-673, 758-771). See also O’Hara (2000, 2004).
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needs, and geographical limits of expansion. The unity or disunity of production and circulation
as a whole is affected by competitive pressures that influence rates of profit; the system of credit
and finance; plus rentier income from residential housing, commercial real estate, farms, and
mining. The rate of profit is thus affected by a myriad of factors from production and circulation
and the (dis)unity of the two.
This movement of what Lebowitz calls “Growth-Barrier-Growth”—to conceptualize Marx’s
analysis of the complex motion of capitalism, including crises—has no finality but is ongoing and
subject to various movements and counter-movements that historically have pressured capitalism
through cycles and waves of motion. In my view, Lebowitz’s article on the Grundrisse is the
most interesting and brilliant article on Marx’s political economy, as it scrutinized the dialectical
movement of capital versus labor in the complex movement of a socioeconomic system (well
beyond the pure model of Uno).
4. David Harvey’s Analysis of Capital, Uneven Development, and
Primary Accumulation
David Harvey’s A Companion to Marx’s ‘Capital’ (2010a), is based on a course of lectures and
workshops given by Harvey in various places (especially New York City) over the past four
decades on Marx’s Capital volume one. Here, Harvey examines the commodity, money, capital
and labor power, the working day, surplus value, large scale production, technology, accumulation, and primitive accumulation. Harvey’s work is much more like that of Lebowitz than the
Japanese School, since he presents no pure theory of general equilibrium, competition, and commodity production. Rather, Harvey seeks to understand Marx’s Capital as a more concrete mode
of inquiry capable of comprehending conceptually a more realistic movement of capitalism
through time.
Harvey has two main innovations that enhance the realistic motion of capitalism. The first is
to deepen the space-time relationship and geography into the analysis, at/near the start of discourse. Harvey and others have of course transformed economic geography into a realistic science of MPE (see e.g. the journal Antipode). Deepening the role of space and time generates
more complex motion than some other versions of MPE. Production can thus spread to new
areas, while circulation can be both enhanced and limited by this new spatial dimension. Linking
space with time provides a complex theory of capital’s motion, thus making more realistic capitalism’s reproduction process. The role of transportation, communications, and the world market,
including commodity chains, production networks, and new organizational arrangements, are
core components of this space-time uneven dynamic.
Harvey also provides a second innovation, an interpretation of primitive (or primary) accumulation that is very relevant to the present. Uneven development is an important part of the motion
of the world-system as capitalist and pre-capitalist systems interact via the exploitation of labor
power and natural resources. Primitive accumulation is not only relevant to the prehistory of
capitalism, but also its history as well as current motion. For instance, the contemporary workings of capitalism are inextricably linked to [a] the enclosure of the commons/privatization; [b]
the workings of slavery through the trafficking of people (including women and children); [c] the
use of the state to reallocate wealth to capitalists; and [d] the dispossession of rural and peasant
populations in the cause of profit (see also Harvey 2003). Harvey thus treats Capital volume one
as a realistic study of capitalism that can be applied to the present without the need for different
levels of analysis (as against the Uno School).
Questions remain, however, as to why Harvey would teach a course centering on volume one
of Capital, since surely at the least one needs to link production and circulation via the (dis)unity
of the two through the three volumes of Capital; or better still go further and include more on
landed property, wage labor, the state, foreign trade, plus the world market and crisis. A scrutiny
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of Harvey’s main works, The Limits to Capital (Harvey 1982) and Spaces of Capital (Harvey
2001), reveal that Harvey requires the full context of the 3 volumes of Capital to adequately situate his innovations of space-time, geography and uneven development.9 Much of his current
book on Capital volume one also addresses itself to issues dealt with in the other volumes of
Capital, as well in situating the geography of space-time motion through history. All this becomes
explicable, however, as Harvey has also been giving lectures on volumes two and three of
Capital, and possibly we are likely to see special books published by Harvey on these volumes
as well (and/or one large volume on all three) (see, e.g., Harvey 2013 on Capital volume two).
5. “Uno,” Lebowitz, and Harvey Book Plans Applied to
Economic Crises
These four books reveal the existence of a lively edifice of analysis currently operating in MPE.
The main areas of contention in these four books under review here link to issues of (a) whether
to have a threefold level of analysis such as with the Japanese School; or some alternative, such
as (b) Marx’s method of successively linking capital with landed property, followed by wage
labor; then the state, foreign trade, and the world market and crises; or (c) Harvey’s and Lebowitz’s
methods of linking (some or all of) these more complex books into (Marx’s) framework of “capital” to some degree; or (d) going further by starting with history and institutions, and then adding
capital and classes, followed by the state and policy, and lastly capitalism and its alternatives (see
further below).
The Uno books propose a method of successive approximation, starting with [i] the pure theory of capitalism; then taking [ii] a broader approach of stages and social structures of accumulation; followed by [iii] a more realistic/concrete historical inquiry into the political economy of
capitalism. The book by Lebowitz eschews the pure theory and instead posits capital against
labor and production against circulation in dialectical unity and contradiction, as part of a wider
6-book plan enunciated by Marx. The book by Harvey also eschews the pure theory in situating
commodities, money, capital, and labor in a wider environment of space and time through uneven
development. A fertile environment exists within MPE for further debate and advances.
How do the Uno, Lebowitz, and Harvey methods or book plans link to analyzing real political
economy issues in books or articles? I examine here how the three authors scrutinize the anatomy
of the great international crises of economy and finance, which started before these books were
published (2008) and continue into the present (2014). For instance, the Uno School says that the
current crises in the world economy can be seen from the perspective of the three levels of analysis. At the first level of pure theory of capitalism, the current crises are due to the competitive
process of innovation, the spread of industry, and average rates of profit being activated through
rising organic compositions of capital, plus expansion of unproductive labor and fictitious capital
income, through the falling rate of profit. At the second level of institutional operation, they
would likely scrutinize the decline of social structures of accumulation (SSA) and uneven global
and regional movements of capital currently seeing the West in decline; while the East and some
specific nations elsewhere undergo rapid capitalist SSA expansion of use values that become
9Special
mention should be given here to Harvey’s analysis of the principal of internal contradiction
(PIC) in all of his work, especially in The Limits to Capital, but also his two volumes so far dealing with
the first two volumes of Marx’s Capital (Harvey 2010a, 2013). Harvey’s understanding of Marx’s PIC is
outstanding. His further analysis of PIC in Harvey (2014) is also innovative, although his emphasis here
is on contradictions of “capital” (rather than “capitalism”), and he applies in detail the “contradictions of
capital” to the potential for socialism more than capitalism’s tendency to periodic and structural crises. He
also ignores most previous work on the subject, which may have assisted his task of developing the PIC
(e.g. Diesing 1999; O’Hara 2007; see also Lippit 2014).
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exchangeable in great magnitude. I can only speculate on how they might see the crises linked to
the third level—historical political economy—which would require more complexity about specific regions, nations, and local areas, including case studies and detailed policy issues.
Both Lebowitz and Harvey present a more concrete and “holistic” set of entry points into the
dominant factors leading to economic crises in the 2008-14 period, their explanations having
many commonalities, perhaps being similar to Marx’s proposed sixth book on “world economy
and crises.” Harvey (2010b; see also Harvey 2010a, 2013), for instance, specifically situates the
crisis within a circuit of social capital that has uneven spatial and temporal elements. The circuit
of capital is illustrated below (in its bare essentials):10
M↔C...P...C+c↔M+m (ρ + i + r)
Central to Harvey’s analysis is his argument that all aspects of this circuit include multiple
forms of time and space. This circuit has complex linkages to local, state, national, regional, and
global forms of money, production, exchange, and reproduction. Money (M) is usually endogenously generated by interactive links between public and private networks; and during the crises
of 2008-14 its circulation generally declined, in direct proportion to the sophisticated networks
of finance in the respective regions (especially in the “core”). The purchase (i.e. exchange=↔)
of commodities (C) for money, including labor power and means of production, occurs at multiple sites and through several runs of time; and during the crisis it led to inadequate purchase and
varying degrees of unemployment between areas. The resulting production (P) of commodity (C)
and surplus product (c) (measured in labor-time), the exchange of money for commodities
(C+c↔M+m), and the realization of surplus value (m) (in money terms) were adversely affected
in the crisis by the slowdown in monetary purchase of labor power and means of production,
especially in the aging industrial nations and areas. Industrial profit (ρ), especially in the core,
was adversely affected by rising shares allocated to fictitious capitals (i) (shadow banking system, securitization, equities) and higher rents (r) from speculative real estate interests. Overall,
then, the turnover of capital, and the desire of capitalists to invest, underwent declining propensity, especially in the regions adversely affected by creative destruction. However, the uneven
destructive elements (e.g. original accumulation, “accumulation by dispossession”) are often not
included in the statistics, thus underplaying the magnitude of the crisis in many assessments.
Lebowitz (2012) sees the crisis as both a cyclical crisis as well as a structural crisis of capitalism, as a world-system (Marx’s book 6), manifesting in a slowdown in the production and turnover of capital especially in the core areas. In this context, special reference is given, first, to the
role of fictitious capitals of both speculative money and real estate in reducing the power of
production capital, especially in the core. A second element is the rising degree of competition
between regions, sectors, and corporations, which reduces the rate of profit for many individual
capitals. The third main element is the uneven process of restructuring of capitals between the
declining sectors, especially in the core, and the rising areas, especially in the semi-periphery.
Overall these threefold structural changes in the organization of capitalism are said to have (re)
produced the “greatest crises” since the Great Depression.
All three explanations of the great international crises sound convincing and have a good deal
in common, while the Uno explanation is more formalist by interlinking the explanation with
three different levels of analysis.
10Marx
developed the circuit of social capital models in Capital volume 2, and they have been used and
transformed by numerous authors since. For a summary of these uses and innovations see O’Hara (2001).
For a recent circuit model, see Basu (2014).
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6. Book Plans for Heterodox Political Economy Principles and
Practices Volumes
These four volumes and their various plans relate to three ways of “doing heterodox political
economy principles and practices” as presented to the public, scholars, and practitioners. But
these three plans do not exhaust the possibilities. Scrutinizing dozens of heterodox political economy books reveals some interesting plans, some well-developed and others less so. The welldeveloped ones seem to either accord with the three main plans or represent a fourth plan which
has more of an institutionalist influence at the introduction of discourse (rather than institutions
being introduced later as with the Uno-style books). These four plans are summarized in Table 1
below of how capitalism and its alternatives and historical antecedents can be presented:11
Table 1. Four Heterodox Political Economy Book Plans
BOOK PLAN 1: UNO-JAPANESE SCHOOL: 3 BOOK PLAN
1. Pure Model of Capital
2. Capitalism: States & SSAs
3. Political Economy History
BOOK PLAN 2A: MARX (e.g., 1857-58, 1859) 6-BOOK, ‘DESIRED’ PLAN
1. Capital
4. State [3+4]
2. Landed Property [1+2]
3. Wage Labor [2+3]
5. Foreign Trade [4+5]
6. World Market & Crises [5+6]
Successive Approximations between books. Modest Interdependencies.
BOOK PLAN 2B: MARX’S (e.g., 1866) CAPITAL, ‘LIFETIME’: 4-BOOK PLAN
1. Production
2. Circulation
3. (Dis)Unity Production & Circulation
4. Critical History
BOOK PLAN 3: LEBOWITZ & HARVEY: ‘MAJOR LINKS’ BOOK PLAN
1. Capital
2. Wage Labor
4. State
3. Landed Property
5. Uneven World Economy & Crises [1+2+3+4+5]
Major linkages between books. Emphasis on integrated 5th book.
BOOK PLAN 4A: BOWLES, EDWARDS & ROOSEVELT (2005): 5 BOOK PLAN
Understanding Capitalism: Competition, Command and Change.
1. Capitalism
2. People, Cooperation & Competition
4. Macro & Policy
5. Future of Capitalism
3. Surplus, Classes & SSAs
BOOK PLAN 4B: HOWARD SHERMAN (1987): 4-BOOK PLAN
Foundations of Radical Political Economy.
1. Philosophy, history & society
2. Capitalism (exploitation, inequality, instability,
imperialism)
3. State
4. Socialism
BOOK PLAN 4C: MACKINNON & CUMBERS (2011): 4-BOOK PLAN
Introduction to Economic Geography: Globalization, Uneven Development and Place.
1. Uneven development (space, institutions, history) 2. Institutions (state, corporation, work, society)
3. Networks (finance, production, knowledge)
4. Alternatives to Capitalism (e.g., socialism, fascism)
11Some very innovative political economy “principles and practices” volumes seem difficult to fit into
the following plan schemas for various reasons, including, for instance, the work of Ernest Mandel (1977),
James O’Connor (1984), Stephen Resnick and Richard Wolff (1987), and Daniel Fusfeld (1988)
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O’Hara
One can see from this list of heterodox political economy principles and practices “book
plans” that there are various ways of “doing heterodox political economy” in terms of its “method
of presentation” to the public and scholars. These range from the pure model of Uno to Marx’s
“6-book” and “capital” plans to Lebowitz’s and Harvey’s more concrete approaches and other
plans such as those by Bowles et al., Sherman, and MacKinnon and Cumbers. This is a continuum of various degrees of concreteness from a model that starts with a pure economy to another
that starts with history and institutions. In the middle linking both sides are the works of Lebowitz
and Harvey, which try and fuse the analysis of the commodity economy with more practical subjects such as geography, wage labor, institutions, and history. So while one side of the continuum
finishes with institutions and then history the other side starts with history and institutions.
In this context, Lebowitz and Harvey have an advantage of linking the theory closely with
institutions and history throughout discourse. The Bowles et al. volume has insufficient material
on “history” and “alternatives to capitalism,” but is otherwise good. My own preference, a 5-book
plan, is similar in many respects to that of Sherman and MacKinnon et al., starting with [a] world
history, institutions, uneven development; then going on to study [b] the circuit of capital, profit,
institutions, classes, etc.; followed by [c] cycles, waves, and phases of evolution; then [d] the
state, policy, and eco-community; and finally [e] alternative policies and institutions (alternatives
to neoliberal capitalism) (O’Hara 2000, forthcoming).12 This method reminds us that heterodox
political economy (or radical political economy) has engaged in innovation since the 1960s by,
in this context, going beyond the pure model by the inclusion of institutional, spatial, and historical elements reproduced into the basic apparatus of capital. The influences of (among others)
Paul Sweezy, Paul Baran, Ernest Mandel, David Gordon, Immanuel Wallerstein, Thorstein
Veblen, John Maynard Keynes, feminists such as Heidi Hartmann and Nancy Folbre, Karl
Polanyi, and Joseph Schumpeter (along with their followers) were core elements in the development of modern heterodox political economy. Lebowitz and Harvey have also been influenced
by some of these advances in theory and empirics, which likely led them to take a more institutional, historical, and environmental direction (especially Harvey’s followers, such as Mackinnon
and Cumbers 2011).
All this serves to show that heterodox political economy has combinations of at least four
options methodologically. It can, first, start with something like the Uno School pure model of
capitalism; making it more realistic as the analyses move forward through stages of capitalism
within social structures of accumulation or modes of regulation; and then going further into the
realm of political economy history, including case studies and detailed analysis.13 Second, it can
follow the “6-book plan” of Marx by starting with “capital” and going forward to link this with
landed property, wage labor, state, foreign trade, plus the world market and crises; or the “capital” plan of production, circulation, the linkage of the two, and critical history. Third, the methods
of Lebowitz and Harvey can be used where capital is linked, at the start of discourse, with landed
12My plan includes the added innovation that the plans are scrutinized through the prism of the core
general principles of heterodox political economy, including the main principles of (a) historical specificity and institutions, (b) economic surplus, (c) contradictions, (d) circular and cumulative causation, (e) risk
and uncertainty, (f) heterogeneous agents, and (f) uneven development. I have applied these principles (and
others) to current world problems such as climate change, subprime crisis, corruption, AIDS, terrorism,
growth, policy, development, heterodox political economy, and music (among others) (first published in
refereed journals then published as a research monograph as O’Hara forthcoming).
13Angelo Reati (2011) presents an interesting paper where he argues in favor of, first, having the “pure
theory,” and second, supplementing this with important “new conceptual tools at the level of institutional
analysis.” But for Reati the pure theory is not Uno’s but rather Luigi Pasinetti’s. Reati comes to the issue
from Post-Keynesian analysis. It would be interesting to compare the Uno and Pasinetti approaches to the
issue, and then to see how their approaches differ when institutions and history are presented first before the
theory and empirics are detailed.
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Review of Radical Political Economics 
property/space, wage labor, state, plus the world market and crises; which leads to the institutional and historical method at the inception of presentation.
Fourth, heterodox political economy can commence with [a] the historical and institutional as
well as global situating of the system; followed by [b] the empirical/theoretical details of how the
surplus is produced, distributed, exchanged, and reproduced; interlinking this with [c] markets,
corporations, states, communities, groups, networks, families, and individuals (including SSAs);
then [d] analyzing various cycles, waves, and evolutionary metamorphoses; followed by [e] an
analysis of progressive institutions and policies of the past, present, and future. I prefer this historical and institutional method as a point of departure (see Dugger and Sherman 2000; O’Hara
2000, 2009, forthcoming), but I can understand where the other approaches are coming from, and
have sympathy/empathy with them in this context and possibly others.
7. Conclusion
Examining the nature and validity of these various “book plans” of “how to do heterodox political economy,” in terms of “principles and practices,” is a critical field of analysis. Stimulating
further debate and analysis on the plans, in this journal and elsewhere, is a necessary element in
the further development of political economy. Such debates should assist in comprehending the
methods of presentation and inquiry. These debates should also provide insights into alternative
institutional and policy measures required to advance provisioning, quality of life, ecological
sustainability, and socioeconomic progress on planet Earth into the future.
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank David Barkin, Christopher Gunn, Hazel Dayton Gunn, and Paddy Quick for comments on a
previous version of this paper.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received financial support for this research in the context of the general organization of the
Global Political Economy Research Unit (GPERU) from his own personal funds.
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Author Biography
Phillip Anthony O’Hara, Director of the Global Political Economy Research Unit (GPERU), Perth,
Australia; President of the Association for Evolutionary Economics (AFEE) (2013-14). He has published
around 100 articles and books, including two multi-volume encyclopedias (on political economy and policy), and received the Myrdal Prize and the Kapp Prize from the European Association for Evolutionary
Political Economy (EAEPE) for book and article of the year, respectively. He specializes in developing
relatively unified core general principles of political economy synthesized from the various schools of heterodoxy (Marxian, institutional, Post-Keynesian, feminist, Schumpeterian, social) and applying them to
world problems such as climate change, subprime crisis, corruption, growth, policy, development, terrorism, AIDS, love, music, etc. He also works on social structure of accumulation, modes of regulation, policy,
and academic biography.
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