IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/pal/palchp/978-0-230-28748-8_12.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

The Public Sector

In: Marxian Political Economy

Author

Listed:
  • Bob Milward

    (University of Central Lancashire)

Abstract

The role of the public sector has obviously changed considerably over the past century and the relationship between the state and private capital is one which can define the historical episodes in the development of capitalism to the present day. Marx had little to say in Capital about the role of the state and did not fully develop his theory of the state, dealing only with the state in terms of intervention through the Factory Acts and the role of the state in the process of primitive accumulation. However, the size of the public sector has grown inordinately during the twentieth century to match the ever changing requirements of the capitalist class and the economic environment. This has included not only the expansion in the size and scope of the public sector, but also concerted attempts at its reduction in both aspects, particularly since the mid-1970s. The dramatic increase in the level of state intervention after the Second World War has, in the past twenty years, undergone an equally dramatic revision in the form of deregulation. The emphasis has been in terms of the requirements of the capitalist class given the dynamics of the system as a whole such that, the size and function of the public sector is a reflection of the economic conditions that prevail.

Suggested Citation

  • Bob Milward, 2000. "The Public Sector," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Marxian Political Economy, chapter 12, pages 154-166, Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-28748-8_12
    DOI: 10.1057/9780230287488_12
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    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:pal:palchp:978-0-230-28748-8_12. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave.com .

    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.