IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/fosoec/v40y2011i1p99-117.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Economic Surplus as a Fund for Social Change and Postneoliberal Governance

Author

Listed:
  • Mary Wrenn

Abstract

The central problem in capitalism today is not one of scarce resources clashing against innate, insatiable wants. Rather, the modern problem of monopoly capitalism is one of abundance of production clashing against scarcity of consumers. Indeed, sustaining growth while fighting against excess capacity proves to be the biggest battle in business today, fought by the capitalist power structure with the tools of neoliberalism and globalization. The economic surplus, roughly sketched, represents that gap between productive resources and consumption, and thus represents the abundance that is possible given current technology. The argument set forth is that the economic surplus remains a powerful tool in describing economic relationships and social justice issues within the context of the Great Capitalist Restoration, but more importantly, that the economic surplus represents a tool for social change. The potential for socially just amelioration and change within post-neoliberal governance is explored with explicit reference to the qualitative and instrumental framework proposed by Ron Stanfield in his somewhat overlooked but incredibly important piece, “The Fund for Social Change” (1992).

Suggested Citation

  • Mary Wrenn, 2011. "The Economic Surplus as a Fund for Social Change and Postneoliberal Governance," Forum for Social Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(1), pages 99-117, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:fosoec:v:40:y:2011:i:1:p:99-117
    DOI: 10.1007/s12143-010-9071-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s12143-010-9071-8
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s12143-010-9071-8?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. James Ronald Stanfield & Mary Wrenn, 2005. "John Kenneth Galbraith and original institutional economics," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(1), pages 26-45.
    2. J. Ron Stanfield, 1977. "Limited Capitalism, Institutionalism, and Marxism," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(1), pages 61-71, March.
    3. Ron Stanfield, 1974. "A Revision of the Economic Surplus Concept," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 6(3), pages 69-74, October.
    4. Rapp, Richard T., 1976. "The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. By Immanuel Wallerstein. Studies in Social Discontinuity. New York: Academic Pre," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 36(3), pages 801-803, September.
    5. Victor D. Lippit, 1985. "The Concept of the Surplus in Economic Development," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 17(1-2), pages 1-19, March.
    6. John B. Davis (ed.), 1992. "The Economic Surplus In Advanced Economies," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 126.
    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. Anna Klimina, 2013. "Placing the Analysis of Contemporary State Capitalism within an Evolutionary Discourse," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(2), pages 545-554.

    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. Phillip O’Hara, 2011. "Economic Surplus, Social Reproduction, Nurturance and Love," Forum for Social Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(1), pages 19-40, January.
    2. Phillip O’Hara, 2011. "Economic Surplus, Social Reproduction, Nurturance and Love," Forum for Social Economics, Springer;The Association for Social Economics, vol. 40(1), pages 19-40, April.
    3. Anna Klimina, 2013. "Placing the Analysis of Contemporary State Capitalism within an Evolutionary Discourse," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(2), pages 545-554.
    4. Tae-Hee Jo, 2013. "Saving Private Business Enterprises," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(2), pages 447-467, April.
    5. Jan Toporowski, 1999. "Kalecki and the Declining Rate of Profit," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(3), pages 355-371.
    6. Paul M. Sweezy, 1999. "The Veblen-Commons Award," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(2), pages 219-221, June.
    7. Frederic Lee & Tae-Hee Jo, 2011. "Social Surplus Approach and Heterodox Economics," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(4), pages 857-876.
    8. Freeman, Alan, 1998. "What happens in crashes? a non-equilibrium, value-theoretic approach to liquidity preference," MPRA Paper 2303, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Chilosi, Alberto, 2000. "Kalecki's Theory of Income Determination and Modern Macroeconomics," MPRA Paper 54853, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 29 Mar 2014.
    10. Adem LEVENT, 2016. "Power, Market and Techno-Structure in John Kenneth Galbraith’s Thought," Journal of Social and Administrative Sciences, KSP Journals, vol. 3(2), pages 214-218, June.
    11. Phillip Anthony O’Hara & Howard Jay Sherman, 2004. "Veblen and Sweezy on Monopoly Capital, Crises, Conflict, and the State," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(4), pages 969-987, December.
    12. Adil H. Mouhammed, 2000. "Veblen's Economic Theory: A Radical Analysis," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 32(2), pages 197-221, June.
    13. Leandro Marcelo Bona, 2018. "El excedente económico en Argentina: la etapa neoliberal (1991-2001) versus la neodesarrollista (2002-2015)," Apuntes del Cenes, Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia, vol. 37(66), pages 99-134, June.
    14. M. C. Howard & J. E. King, 2004. "The economic contributions of Paul Sweezy," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(4), pages 411-456.
    15. John B. Davis & Wilfred Dolfsma (ed.), 2015. "The Elgar Companion to Social Economics, Second Edition," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 15954.
    16. Alexandre Chirat & Charlotte Le Chapelain, 2017. "Some “unexpected proximities” between Schultz and Galbraith on human capital," Working Papers of BETA 2017-18, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    17. Clifford Poirot & Samuel Pavel, 2008. "The State, Public Policy and Heterodox Economics: An Introduction," Forum for Social Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(1), pages 1-12, January.
    18. Bruce E. Kaufman, 2013. "Sidney and Beatrice Webb's Institutional Theory of Labor Markets and Wage Determination," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(3), pages 765-791, July.
    19. Alexandre Chirat & Charlotte Le Chapelain, 2017. "Some “unexpected proximities” between Schultz and Galbraith on human capital," Working Papers 08-17, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC).
    20. Clifford Poirot & Samuel Pavel, 2008. "The State, Public Policy and Heterodox Economics: An Introduction," Forum for Social Economics, Springer;The Association for Social Economics, vol. 37(1), pages 1-12, May.

    More about this item

    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:fosoec:v:40:y:2011:i:1:p:99-117. 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/RFSE20 .

    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.