A long period in which rates of inflation tended to stay low in the advanced capitalist countries appears to have ended since the bout of price increases after the Covid-19 lockdowns. More recently, the war on Iran and lack of refinery capacity to process crude oil have revived worries about inflation. Marxist political economists have yet to reach any kind of consensus on how inflation should be theorised, despite some important interventions by figures such as Anwar Shaikh, Alfredo Saad-Filho and, more recently, Guglielmo Carchedi and Michael Roberts.
The latter two Marxist economists have been working for years to develop such a theory and now Roberts has produced a four-part essay on inflation for his blog, outlining their latest version, which is due eventually to be published in full form in a journal (the four parts can be found on https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com). Roberts points to the problems mainstream economics, whether Keynesian or monetarist, and many heterodox approaches have in theorising inflation. He instead offers what he calls a “value theory of inflation”, which he acknowledges is quite similar to an approach tentatively outlined in this journal a few years ago (see, for instance, https://isj.org.uk/the-gathering-storm). Broadly, Roberts argues that inflation is a result of disparities between the money circulating through the economy (once factors such as hoarding have been accounted for) and the value produced. Inflation is a fiendishly complex phenomenon, and it is open to question whether Roberts and Carchedi have successfully integrated all the different elements at the right level of abstraction. Nonetheless, it is a welcome effort at applying Marxist value theory to a real-world problem, and we await the published version of the paper with anticipation.
One other issue faced by the global economy at present is the mass of investment piling into AI-related technologies and the construction of data centres. Frédéric Lordon has an interesting piece in Sidecar, New Left Review’s blog, entitled “Warning signs” (https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/warning-signs). He echoes the warnings expressed in this journal about the potential for this investment to go far beyond what the industry’s potential short-term profits can realistically sustain, as well as the irrational exuberance of finance regarding the AI boom.
Substack has become an important online publishing platform for many left-wing authors. Several International Socialism board members already operate on the platform, including Alex Callinicos (https://alexcallinicos.substack.com), Richard Donnelly (https://theunrecoveredcountry1.substack.com) and Charlie Kimber (https://tigerofwrath.substack.com). Beyond our ranks, other left-wing authors, such as Tariq Ali (https://tariqali1943.substack.com), Naomi Klein (https://naomiklein.substack.com), Branko Milanovic (https://branko2f7.substack.com) and Adam Tooze (https://adamtooze.substack.com), also run substacks that are well worth a look.
Strikes in the public sector, particularly in the education sector, have become commonplace in Britain. A recent paper by a group of academics, published in Economic and Industrial Democracy with the title “Whose side are you on?”, asks how much public support education strikes enjoy (https://doi.org/10.1177/0143831X261464376). This is a factor that often weighs heavier on the minds of those in the public sector than it once did in traditional private sector strikes.
The authors find support for school strikes is usually substantially higher than that for those in universities, with the former often seeing support run at a little over 50 percent, and the latter typically in the 35-40 percent range, although the research was conducted before the current wave of redundancies hitting universities. Interestingly, there is little evidence of a systematic fall in public support in either case when strikes actually occur. Not terribly surprisingly, a key determinant of whether people support strikes is political orientation, with those on the left more likely to back them. This outweighs other considerations, such as whether people themselves have children and other demographic factors. It should, of course, be noted that even unpopular strikes can and do win, but the research should give us slightly greater confidence of being able to win wider support for such struggles.
JC