Free to Lose: An Introduction to Marxist Economic Philosophy (Civilization of the American Indian (Paperback)) - Softcover

Roemer, John E.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674318765 ISBN 13: 9780674318762

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 1988

Synopsis

Attacking the usefulness of such central Marxian concepts as the labor theory of value and surplus value, John Roemer reconstructs Marxian economic philosophy from the concepts of exploitation and class, showing that exploitation can be derived from a system of property relations. He then looks at the causes of the unequal distribution of wealth, including robbery and plunder, willingness to take risks, differential rates of time preference, luck, and entrepreneurship. He further examines the evolution of property systems―slave, feudal, capitalist, socialist―from the perspective of the theory of historical materialism, and ends by analyzing the properties of a social system in which ownership of productive assets in the external world is public, while ownership of internal productive assets―skills and talents―is private.

About this title

About the Author

John E. Roemer is Elizabeth S. and A. Varick Stout Professor of Political Science and Economics at Yale University.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674318765
• ISBN 13: 9780674318762
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 216