Working Models of the Capitalist Economic System: v.1

Our lives are governed by numbered pieces of paper called money. We are all linked to each other by these numbered notes which fix everybody's standard of living. Yet we are buried in ignorance and lies about how this distribution system works. Meanwhile the rich get richer and large populations throughout the world are condemned to starvation and disease. Grasping how this system works seems to be a complicated task but it isn't. Of course some effort is needed at the beginning to disentangle the relationships that govern the price network in a simple economy. There are only three concepts to master, the bulk price, the bulk supply and the unit price. Once these basic concepts are clearly visualised in dynamic relation to each other, the main obstacles and confusions in economic theory are removed, and the ignorant rigmaroles in textbooks can be recognised for what they are. The method of presentation is based on realistic models, not mathematical abstractions, and not logical deductions from commonplace assumptions. The entire argument is laid out in fully functional diagrams which are demonstrably either right or wrong. The ordinary reader can see at once whether the models 'work' or whether they don't, and he or she can trace the way forward from one model to the next in a sequential chain. The workforce, the wages bill, the commodity prices, the costs, the profit and so on, are never treated as generalised concepts. They are always individually itemised. Firms are shown in concrete relation to each other, whether factorial or as producers of finished goods. Marketing services and transport are similarly specified, operating in a closed market economy where all relationships can be seen at a glance, with banking services and inflation present as in a real-life setting. The exposition consists of a series of such models, linked progressively from one to the next. Every model updates the previous version and the reader can check the continuity both backwards and forwards. Politicians, the press and the academic textbooks all combine to maintain a fog of dedicated ignorance about the workings of the economic system. In the profession itself there is plenty of disquiet about the status of economics as a scientific discipline. Leading academics admit that modern neo-classical doctrines based on marginalism does not provide a satisfactory theoretical foundation. This book establishes the theoretical core on a secure basis, using a realistic market community as a kind of living proof for the progressive unfolding of each logical step. No exposition is as strict or as transparent as this one.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: the neo-classical fraud. Part 1: the transition from barter to money; the goods exchange interface; paper money; modelling a simple economy; the wage/labour contract; the wage/price/profit relation; the capitalist wages system; the banking system - part 1; the banking system - part 2; the banking system - part 3; summary. Part 2: factor costs - part 1; factor costs - part 2; commercial costs - part 1; commercial costs - part 2; the circular flow of incomes, wages and costs; interest - part 1; interest - part 2; modelling the exploitation process - part 1; modelling the exploitation process - part 2; summary; 20th century economists. Appendices: the graphical representation of demand, suppply and price; the loop in figure 15-6.

About the Author :
Derek O'Neill