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The Greek turmoil commenced as a balance of payments, or "sudden stop," crisis induced by large current account and primary government deficits. It became an economic and social disturbance of historic proportions. Its proximate cause was loss of competitiveness within the Eurozone due in large part to domestic German wage policies. The bailout policies, imposed by the lenders primarily for reasons of Eurozone stability and adopted by Greece, have had disastrous effects on both economy and society. The "historical bloc" that dominates Greek society willingly submitted to the bailout strategy, losing sovereignty, for reasons including fear and identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new interpretation (NI) offers a particular understanding of important problems in value theory, especially the value of money and labor power and the structure and dynamics of capitalist accumulation. The NI is to be welcomed for raising these issues but not for the way in which it has dealt with them. Above all, the NI falsely assumes that value is directly and immediately represented by money. The authors propose alternatives that emphasize the processes (mediations) through which value is expressed as price. They draw on an alternative methodology and understanding of money, the value of labor power, and production and circulation of capital in the context of accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monetary theory based on commodity money possesses sound foundations for analysis of capitalist monetary phenomena. "Valueless" forms of money (fiat and credit) have their roots in the nature and functions of commodity money. The evolution of the form of money is explained by the adequacy of each particular form for the functions which money is called to perform in capitalist exchange. Performing these functions encourages the development of money's form, leading to the emergence of several types of non-commodity ("valueless") money. This paper considers especially the adequacy of commodity, fiat, and credit money as means of exchange; adequacy is fully specified by examining determination of the exchange value of these forms of money. The process of determination is different for each: spontaneous hoarding for the first, arbitrary specification of quantity for the second, credit advance and repayment for the third. In this context, it is shown that the intrinsic value of commodity money can play an anchoring role for money's exchange value. The quantity theory of money has explanatory power with regard to the exchange value of fiat money and, under certain conditions, of credit money. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews Robert Brenner's 'The Economics of Global Turbulence', New Left Review, May/June, 1998. Several decisive weaknesses of Brenner's contribution are identified. First, Brenner's theoretical treatment of capitalist competition and accumulation is in the spirit of Adam Smith and mainstream economics rather than Marx. Second, Brenner ignores the significance of credit for capitalist crisis. Third, he leaves entirely out of account the internationalisation of production and finance, phenomena which constitute the most salient feature of the contemporary global economy. Fourth, in short, Brenner's approach is not at all value-theoretic, a weakness that can also be found in some of his earlier historical work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses various issues related to the transition and crisis in the Japanese financial system. The Japanese financial system has been in prolonged crisis throughout the 1990s. There is no single reason for these phenomena. Financial crises typically are complex events that express a variety of underlying contradictions and antagonisms of capitalist production and exchange. Important explanatory elements of the emergence of the Japanese financial "bubble" and of the especial difficulties of post-"bubble" restructuring, are to be found in the very process of financial deregulation attempted throughout the 1980s. This process arose spontaneously and it was not imposed from abroad. Still, deregulation began to influence the character of the Japanese financial system changing it from a bank-based, state-controlled structure aiming at the financing of industrial investment to a market-based, less-state-controlled structure characterized by the competitive profit maximization of financial institutions. In other words, from being a paradigmatic model of 'late developer' long-term industrial lending, the Japanese system began to move toward the market-based short-term lending Anglo-Saxon model.

A preface for the March 1999 issue of the journal "Capital & Class" is presented.