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Open Access
A CasP Model of the Stock Market
(2016) Bichler, Shimshon; Nitzan, Jonathan
Most explanations of stock market booms and busts are based on contrasting the underlying 'fundamental' logic of the economy with the exogenous, non-economic factors that presumably distort it. Our paper offers a radically different model, examining the stock market not from the mechanical viewpoint of a distorted economy, but from the dialectical perspective of capitalized power. The model demonstrates that (1) the valuation of equities represents capitalized power; (2) capitalized power is dialectically intertwined with systemic fear; and (3) systemic fear and capitalized power are mediated through strategic sabotage. This triangular model, we posit, can offer a basis for examining the asymptotes, or limits, of capitalized power and the ways in which these asymptotes relate to the historical and ongoing transformation of the capitalist mode of power.
Open Access
A CasP Model of the Stock Market
(2016) Bichler, Shimshon; Nitzan, Jonathan
Most explanations of stock market booms and busts are based on contrasting the underlying ‘fundamental’ logic of the economy with the exogenous, non-economic factors that presumably distort it. Our paper offers a radically different model, examining the stock market not from the mechanical viewpoint of a distorted economy, but from the dialectical perspective of capitalized power. The model demonstrates that (1) the valuation of equities represents capitalized power; (2) capitalized power is dialectically intertwined with systemic fear; and (3) systemic fear and capitalized power are mediated through strategic sabotage. This triangular model, we posit, can offer a basis for examining the asymptotes, or limits, of capitalized power and the ways in which these asymptotes relate to the historical and ongoing transformation of the capitalist mode of power.
Open Access
A CasP Model of the Stock Market -- Video and Chartbook
(2016) Bichler, Shimshon; Nitzan, Jonathan
Most explanations of stock market booms and busts are based on contrasting the underlying, ‘fundamental’ logic of the economy with the exogenous, non-economic factors that presumably distort it. Our paper offers a radically different model, examining the stock market not from the mechanical viewpoint of a distorted economy, but from the dialectical perspective of capitalized power. The model demonstrates that (1) the valuation of equities represents capitalized power; (2) capitalized power is dialectically intertwined with systemic fear; and (3) the connection between capitalized power and systemic fear is mediated by strategic sabotage. This triangular model, we posit, can offer a basis for examining the asymptotes, or limits, of capitalized power and the ways in which these asymptotes relate to the historical and ongoing transformation of the capitalist mode of power. Video duration: 1:53 hours WHERE: Room 280N in York Lanes, Keele Campus, York University WHEN: Thursday, September 29, 2016, 2:15-4:00 pm
Open Access
A Portrait of Esther Alexander and Her Time (דיוקן לאסתר אלכסנדר ולתקופתה)
(2005) Bichler, Shimshon
אסתר אלכסנדר הייתה אחת הבודדות בישראל שניסתה להתמודד, ברצינות ובאופן מקורי, עם תופעת הסטגפלציה. היא עשתה זאת תוך שימוש מרבי בכלים המסורתיים של המתודה הקיינסיאנית, כשהיא משלבת זאת בגירסת ינקותה המרקסיסטית.
Open Access
Acumulación de capital: ficción y realidad
(2015) Bichler, Shimshon; Nitzan, Jonathan
¿Qué quieren decir los economistas cuando hablan de “acumulación de capital'? La respuesta es todo, menos clara. La opinión convencional es que hay dos tipos de capital: real y financiero, que deben guardar correspondencia y que, infortunadamente, la mayoría de las veces no se corresponden, pues el crecimiento del capital financiero tiende a desajustarse y a distorsionar la acumulación de capital real. El artículo muestra que esta “tesis del desajuste” y, por tanto, la capacidad de los economistas para explicar la acumulación, se construyó sobre bases deleznables. Argumenta que no pueden medir el capital real y que las proxies que elaboran con ese propósito los enreda en circularidades lógicas e imposibilidades empíricas.
Open Access
Aki and Friends
(2013) Bichler, Shimshon; Nitzan, Jonathan
Aki, a man enamoured with life and enchanted by animals – including humans of different varieties – pays a visit to his friend, the veterinarian. The vet tells him of two seniors who suffer from depression, and Aki is quick to raise their spirits and warm up their aching bodies. He hangs the boa constrictor on his neck and places the hairy tarantula on his head. There is no need to worry, he assures us. After all, why would two elderly creatures hurt an empathetic being so eager to help them? This view was typical of Aki. That is how he viewed the world, its history and conflicts – as well as the solutions for those conflicts. 'Just think about it logically', he says. 'Why would a Palestinian suddenly turn into a "terrorist"? What reason does he have to oppose "peace"? Why should he be eager to fight the "only democracy in the Middle East"? Is it his culture, religion or race? Is it "in his nature", as the Zionist propaganda machine reiterates?' Of course not, he answers. For more than a century, the Palestinians have confronted a Zionist movement whose colonial policies have gradually deprived them of their life, land and autonomy. As often happens with occupiers, the Israelis have preferred to blame their victim. Their fancy academic theories, spiced up with ideologies of culture, religion and race, prove, at least to themselves, that there can be no 'political solution'. The 'Arabs', they say, cannot be trusted. Like the boa constrictor and tarantula, it is 'their nature' to bite and strangle. Nowadays, these explanations have no traction. Most sensible observers around the world have come to accept Aki’s logic and reject the official Israeli line as self-serving, if not ludicrous. But that wasn’t always the case. Half a century ago, when Aki and his friends started their hazardous journey to explore the underlying logic of the conflict, they were considered illogical, if not weird, and branded as 'traitors' (although it was never clear exactly what or who they had 'betrayed').
Open Access
Aki and Friends (עקי וחברים)
(2013) Bichler, Shimshon; Nitzan, Jonathan
On Akiva (Aki) Orr, 1931-2013 על עקיבא (עקי) אור, 2013-1931
Open Access
Arms and Oil in the Middle East: A Biography of Research
(2018) Bichler, Shimshon; Nitzan, Jonathan
This essay interweaves two stories—one theoretical and empirical, the other autobiographical. The first story embeds the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the broader political economy of the Middle East and the global accumulation of “capital as power.” The second story narrates the authors’ personal journey to uncover, theorize, and research this enfoldment. The essay explores and contextualizes the misleading duality of politics and economics; the link between military spending, finance, and stagflation; the concepts of “dominant capital” and “differential accumulation” and their evolution through “breadth” and “depth”; the manner in which these concepts and processes inform the political economy of Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; and the ways in which they help identify the key role of the Weapondollar-Petrodollar Coalition and predict the periodic eruption of Middle East “energy conflicts.” In their explorations, the authors have encountered numerous gatekeepers who tried to derail their research as well as a few open-minded editors who sought to promote it, and it is probably fair to say that, dialectically, they have benefited from both. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/08935696.2018.1534436
Open Access
Arms and Oil in the Middle East: A Biography of Research
(2017) Bichler, Shimshon; Nitzan, Jonathan
FROM THE ARTICLE: 'During the late 1980s, we printed a series of working papers, offering a new approach to the political economy of Israel and wars in the Middle East. Our approach in these papers rested on three new concepts. It started by identifying the Weapondollar-Petrodollar Coalition – an alliance of armament firms, oil companies and financial institutions based mostly in the United States – whose interests, we posited, converged in the Middle East. It continued by arguing that the interests of this coalition were best measured by its differential accumulation – i.e., by its performance relative to other large firms. And it concluded by showing that variations in differential accumulation predicted subsequent Middle East energy conflicts (our term). At the time, the papers seemed unpublishable. They were politically unaligned (neither neoclassical nor Marxist). They were non-disciplinary (belonging to neither economics nor politics – or any other social science, for that matter). And they were written in non-academic language (i.e., simply, clearly and to the point). But they made a scientific prediction: the Middle East, they argued, was ripe for another round of military hostilities and oil crisis. And when the 1990-91 Gulf War broke out, their theoretical frame-work suddenly sounded very relevant’.
Open Access
Back to Conflict and Crisis (חזרה לעידן הקונפליקטים והמשברים)
(2002) Bichler, Shimshon; Nitzan, Jonathan
The terror attacks, the invasion of Afghanistan, the re-occupation of the Palestinian territories, the tensions in central Asian, the threats against the “axis of evil” and the planned attack on Iraq, together herald the coming of a new era, an era of capital accumulation through conflict and crisis.
Open Access
Back to Conflict and Crisis (חזרה לעידן הקונפליקטים והמשברים)
(2003) Bichler, Shimshon; Nitzan, Jonathan
מאז ה-11 בספטמבר 2001, נעלם 'הסדר העולמי החדש' של שנות התשעים ואיתו נעלמים זן שלם של מושגים והסברים 'פוסט-מודרניסטיים ורב תרבותיים. 'הביטחון הלאומי' מזמן המלחמה הקרה חוזר לשלוט בכיפת השיח הבינלאומי. האם מדובר בהערכות מדינית של המעצמות שנועדה לפלס דרך להמשך התהליך של 'הגלובליזציה' הכלכלית? ואולי מדובר בשינוי מהותי ביחסי הכוח שמניעים את המשטר הקפיטליסטי, כלומר בתוך הקבוצות הדומיננטיות ששולטות בעולם?
Open Access
Back to the Stagflation Era (חזרה אל עידן הסטגפלציה)
(2002) Bichler, Shimshon; Nitzan, Jonathan
הסטגפלציה היא צירוף של שתי מחלות: סטגנציה (מיתון) ואינפלציה (עליית מחירים). המילה נטבעה בתחילת שנות השבעים בארה"ב, שם התגלו לראשונה הסימפטומים של המחלה. כך מכל מקום, טענו כוהני הדת של 'מדע הכלכלה' וכך גם כתוב בכל ספרי הפולחן .כל אדם שעיניו פקוחות, יודע שבישראל שוררת סטגפלציה.
Open Access
Blood and Oil in the Orient, Redux
(2017) Bichler, Shimshon; Nitzan, Jonathan
This research note updates selected charts from three previous papers. The new data present a rather startling picture, suggesting that the Middle East – and the global political economy more generally – might face an important crossroads. Our assessment here rests on the analysis of capital as power, or CasP. Beginning in the late 1980s, we suggested that, since the late 1960s, the Middle East was greatly influenced by the capitalized power of a Weapondollar-Petrodollar Coalition – a loose coalition comprising the leading oil companies, the OPEC cartel, armament contractors, engineering firms and large financial institutions – whose differential accumulation benefitted from and in turn helped fuel and sustain Middle East ‘energy conflicts’. These conflicts, we argued, reverberated far beyond the region: they affected the ups and downs of global growth, the gyrations of inflation and, in some important respects, the very evolution of the capitalist mode of power. And this impact, it seems to us, is now being called into question.
Open Access
Call for papers on the subject of "Capital as Power"
(2009) Nitzan, Jonathan; Bichler, Shimshon
A call for papers for the "Capital as Power" section of the Rethinking Marxism Conference (New Marxian Times), UMASS Amherst, November 5-8, 2009. Internal deadline for abstract submission: JUNE 30, 2009.
Open Access
Call for papers on the subject of "Capital as Power"
(2013) Nitzan, Jonathan; Bichler, Shimshon; Muzio, Tim Di
A call for papers for the "Capital as Power" section of the Eighth Rethinking Marxism Conference, UMASS Amherst, September 19-22, 2013. Internal deadline for abstract submission: May 15, 2013
Open Access
Can Capitalists Afford a Trumped Recovery?
(2017) Bichler, Shimshon; Nitzan, Jonathan
The presidential election of Donald Trump has rekindled hopes for a U.S. recovery. The new president promises to ‘make America great again’, partly by creating many millions of new jobs for U.S. workers, and judging by the rising stock market, capitalists seem to love his narrative. But if Trump actually delivers on his promise, their attitude is likely to change radically. In our 2016 paper, ‘A CasP Model of the Stock Market’, we developed the concept of a ‘CasP policy cycle’, the idea that government policy, insofar as it caters to the imperative of capitalized power, favours low employment growth in order to enable low rates of interest and sustain the capitalist share of income. Should Trump proceeds with and succeeds in reversing this CasP policy cycle, his authoritarianism may end up undermining rather than boosting capitalized power. In this sense, his regime could well mark the beginning of the next major bear market.
Open Access
Can Capitalists Afford Recovery? A 2018 Update
(2018) Bichler, Shimshon; Nitzan, Jonathan
. . . Looking forward, the prognosis for capitalists seems negative. Over the last few years, unemployment has fallen sharply, and if the predictive power of our chart remains intact, the capitalist income-share-read-power is bound to contract further, raising the ante for a prolonged accumulation crisis. Eventually, though, capitalists are likely the resolve their CasP crisis, as they have done repeatedly for nearly a century, by offloading it onto the underlying population in the form of rising unemployment.
Open Access
Can Capitalists Afford Recovery? A 2018 Update
(2018) Bichler, Shimshon; Nitzan, Jonathan
. . . Looking forward, the prognosis for capitalists seems negative. Over the last few years, unemployment has fallen sharply, and if the predictive power of our chart remains intact, the capitalist income-share-read-power is bound to contract further, raising the ante for a prolonged accumulation crisis. Eventually, though, capitalists are likely the resolve their CasP crisis, as they have done repeatedly for nearly a century, by offloading it onto the underlying population in the form of rising unemployment.
Open Access
Can Capitalists Afford Recovery? A 2018 Update and a Closer Look
(2018) Bichler, Shimshon; Nitzan, Jonathan
This research note starts by showing that, for much of the postwar period, U.S. unemployment to has been a highly reliable leading indicator for the capitalist share of domestic income three years later, and then assesses whether this relationship still holds.
Open Access
Can Capitalists Afford Recovery? A Closer Look
(2018) Bichler, Shimshon; Nitzan, Jonathan
Our RWER blog post, ‘Can capitalists afford recovery: A 2018 update’, showed U.S. unemployment to be a highly reliable leading indicator for the capitalist share of domestic income three years later. An observant commentator, though, suggested otherwise (first comment by jayarava). Although true for much of the postwar period, this association no longer holds, s/he argued. ‘Something changed after the global financial crisis to decouple unemployment from income shares’, s/he posited, pointing to the ‘new power of globalized capital to force down wages even in times of [low] unemployment’ (or rather, that during an expansion, capitalists can raise prices faster than wages, thereby augmenting their income share, which is the conventional view. This post assesses this claim more closely, by examining the correlation between (1) absolute levels of unemployment and the capitalist share of income, and (2) their respective rates of change.