Sraffa And Althusser Reconsidered; Neoliberalism Advancing In South Africa, England, And Greece

[Part I] Archival evidence is extensively elaborated from Piero Sraffa’s papers establishing that his concept of surplus and deficit industries in Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities is quite indebted to Marx’s theory of exploitation. A simple analytical model is also developed. This chapter is followed by utilization of conceptual work in the Sraffian tradition to present an empirical application for China. [Part II] The advance of neoliberalism in recent decades has many facets and three current instances are elaborated here, as disparate as they might otherwise seem. Suggesting uneven development as in Rosa Luxemburg, South African multi-billion dollar investments in two fossil-fuel industrial projects have recently cemented debtor relations to the World Bank and the Chinese Development Bank, while generating activist opposition in this century of climate crisis. Secondary school teachers in England face work that is increasingly commodified, and then judged similarly, a development that represents the penetration of abstract labor and alienation, as in Marx. Our third representation benefitting neoliberalism is the substantial expansion of the credit system in Greece after it adopted the euro, while the social relations of production there remained unchanged since the fall of the junta. [Part III] A critique of Louis Althusser’s interpretation of the Marxist philosophy of science is carefully developed, pointing to the problem of circularity therein, yet arguing that Roy Bhaskar’s work in critical realism is particularly important for recuperating Althusser’s project. Finally, the volume continues the discussion of the relevance of the concept of a labor aristocracy by engaging the work of Zak Cope, a proponent of its importance that was published previously.