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Seven Theses on American Politics

Bidenism analysed as the outcome of a bipartisan lurch towards growthless Keynesianism, in a new stage of capitalist accumulation emerging from the long downturn. Classes—and class politics—redefined in a strikingly original intervention.

Escalating Plunder

In the US, amid soaring unemployment, loss of health insurance and rising poverty, a $4 trillion hand-out to capital, with Biden’s party and Trump’s shoulder to shoulder. Robert Brenner analyses the Covid-19 bailout in the broader context of a faltering productive economy and growing elite predation.

Structure vs Conjuncture

Robert Brenner reads the US mid-term results against deeper structural shifts in the American polity. The rise of the Republican right seen in the context of the long downturn and dismantling of the liberal compact: from New Deal and Great Society to the capitalist offensive under Reagan, Clinton and Bush.

New Boom or New Bubble?

The shape of the US economy as it emerges from recession, in election year. With the giant manufacturing sector still crippled by over-capacity, can the take-off be sustained by bubble-driven finance, retail and construction booms?

The Boom and the Bubble

In the last four years, the US economy has posted its best performance since the sixties. What is the connexion between the formidable boom in the real economy and the historically unprecedented bubble on the stock market? Could the inflation of asset values far beyond the rise in corporate earnings be preparing a Japanese-style nemesis?

The Economics of Global Turbulence (Special Issue)

“A commanding survey of the world economy from 1950 to the present, from the author of the acclaimed The Boom and the Bubble. Originally published as NLR I/229, this is now a Verso book:” read more

The Regulation Approach: Theory and History

“In the past two decades the French (or Paris) School of Economic Regulation has developed an ambitious historical-economic theory which has already had a major impact on efforts to understand the current malaise of the capitalist system and the accompanying economic transformations. On the face of it, the . . .” read more

Why is the United States at War with Iraq?

“Why is the United States at war with Iraq? It is a lot easier to say what are not the reasons for us intervention in the Gulf than to provide a fully satisfactory account of its presence there. According to the Bush administration, the usa is . . .” read more

Reply to Sweezy

“Readers will have to judge for themselves whether or not I have mischaracterized Paul Sweezy’s arguments. I do not think my understanding of his case is idiosyncratic. Other writers, most recently John Merrington in his ‘Town and Country in the Development of Capitalism’ (nlr 93, September–October 1975, . . .” read more

The Origins of Capitalist Development: A Critique of Neo-Smithian Marxism

“The appearance of systematic barriers to economic advance in the course of capitalist expansion—the ‘development of underdevelopment’—has posed difficult problems for Marxist theory. There has arisen, in response, a strong tendency sharply to revise Marx’s conceptions regarding economic development. In part, this has been a healthy reaction to . . .” read more