IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/eujhet/v20y2013i4p603-624.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The specificity of manufacturing in Marx's economic thought

Author

Listed:
  • Fiona Tregenna

Abstract

This article examines Marx's approach to manufacturing and the extent to which manufacturing could be considered to have a special place in Marx's economic thought, especially in relation to accumulation and growth. The important ‘progressive’ features of manufacturing that can be found in Marx's writings and which are discussed here include: division of labour; socialisation of labour; mechanisation; increasing returns to scale; learning-by-doing; technological advancement; and overall, superior potential for cumulative productivity increases. These insights anticipate some of the thinking around the specificity of manufacturing found in twentieth-century structuralist development economics and some heterodox schools of thought such as Kaldorian approaches. This article suggests an interpretation of Marx as having a two-dimensional conceptualisation of activity specificity, with not only sectoral but also ‘technological–organisational’ dimensions, where these two dimensions are not fully independent of each other.

Suggested Citation

  • Fiona Tregenna, 2013. "The specificity of manufacturing in Marx's economic thought," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(4), pages 603-624, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:eujhet:v:20:y:2013:i:4:p:603-624
    DOI: 10.1080/09672567.2011.592848
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09672567.2011.592848
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09672567.2011.592848?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marx, Karl, 1867. "Capital: A Critique of Political Economy (I): The Process of Capitalist Production," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, volume 1, number marx1867.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Liu, Laihui & An, Suxia, 2023. "Deindustrialization and the incidence of poverty: Empirical evidence from developing countries," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jhorland Ayala García, 2015. "Movilidad social en el Pacífico colombiano," Documentos de Trabajo Sobre Economía Regional y Urbana 13872, Banco de la República, Economía Regional.
    2. Cristiano Antonelli, 2011. "The Economic Complexity of Technological Change: Knowledge Interaction and Path Dependence," Chapters, in: Cristiano Antonelli (ed.), Handbook on the Economic Complexity of Technological Change, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Egorov, Aleksei V. (Егоров, Алексей В.) & Borzykh, Olga A. (Борзых, Ольга А.), 2018. "Asymmetric Interest Rate Pass-Through in Russia [Асимметрия Процентного Канала Денежной Трансмиссии В России]," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 1, pages 92-121, February.
    4. Jocelyn Poirel, 2014. "Beveridge's analysis of unemployment in 1909: the reserve of labour," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(3), pages 448-466, June.
    5. Spilimbergo, Antonio & Giuliano, Paola, 2009. "Growing Up in a Recession: Beliefs and the Macroeconomy," CEPR Discussion Papers 7399, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Nenovsky, Nikolay & Karpouzanov, Momtchil, 2010. "Value, Prices and Money. Comparing Marx and Menger," MPRA Paper 62040, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2012.
    7. Jiří Štekláč & Vladimír Štípek, 2017. "Smoothing Out The Credit Cycle Under The Conditions Of Current Credit Economy," Economy & Business Journal, International Scientific Publications, Bulgaria, vol. 11(1), pages 526-546.
    8. Riccardo Bellofiore & Marco Veronese Passarella, 2016. "Introduction: the theoretical legacy of Augusto Graziani," Review of Keynesian Economics, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 4(3), pages 243-249, July.
    9. Francesco Macheda & Roberto Nadalini, 2019. "The Danger of a “Geyser Disease” Effect: Structural Fragility of the Tourism-Led Recovery in Iceland," Working Papers 0038, ASTRIL - Associazione Studi e Ricerche Interdisciplinari sul Lavoro.
    10. Emrah Sofuoğlu & Oktay Kızılkaya & Emrah Koçak, 2022. "Assessing the Impact of High-Technology Exports on the Growth of the Turkish Economy," Journal of Economic Policy Researches, Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 9(1), pages 205-229, January.
    11. Pier-Paolo Saviotti & Andreas Pyka¤ & Bogang Jun, 2020. "Diversification, structural change, and economic development," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 30(5), pages 1301-1335, November.
    12. Marco Veronese Passarella, 2016. "A Marx 'crises' model: The reproduction schemes revisited," Working Papers PKWP1610, Post Keynesian Economics Society (PKES).
    13. Lefteris Tsoulfidis & Constantinos Alexiou & Persefoni Tsaliki, 2016. "The Greek economic crisis: causes and alternative policies," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(3), pages 380-396, July.
    14. Sripad Motiram & Nayantara Sarma, 2011. "Polarization, inequality and growth: The Indian experience," Working Papers 225, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    15. Xu, Cheng-Gang, 2017. "Capitalism and Socialism: Review of Kornai’s Dynamism, Rivalry, and the Surplus Economy," CEPR Discussion Papers 11866, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. David Ellerman, 2015. "On the Renting of Persons: The Neo-Abolitionist Case Against Today's Peculiar Institution," Economic Thought, World Economics Association, vol. 4(1), pages 1-20, March.
    17. Sripad Motiram & Nayantara Sarma, 2011. "Polarization, inequality and growth: The Indian experience," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2011-011, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    18. John Smithin, 2012. "Interest and Profit," Chapters, in: Thomas Cate (ed.), Keynes’s General Theory, chapter 14, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Chatzarakis, Nikolaos & Tsaliki, Persefoni, 2022. "Harrodian Instability: A Marxian Perspective," MPRA Paper 113852, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Steffen Roth & Vladislav Valentinov & Markus Heidingsfelder & Miguel Pérez-Valls, 2020. "CSR Beyond Economy and Society: A Post-capitalist Approach," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 165(3), pages 411-423, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • B14 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Socialist; Marxist
    • B24 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Socialist; Marxist; Scraffian
    • B31 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought: Individuals - - - Individuals
    • B51 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Socialist; Marxian; Sraffian
    • L60 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - General
    • O14 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:eujhet:v:20:y:2013:i:4:p:603-624. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/REJH20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.