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      The Sphere of Political Economy and the Ruling Class

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            Abstract

            The article argues that political economy is the sphere and theory through which the dominant class becomes the ruling class and when the ruling class position is acquired, it loses its function and is replaced by economics by leaving it to socialists and Marxists among others. It also suggests that the totality of capitalist socialist relations can be understood through a cubic model of representation that clarifies the borders and territories of economy, political economy and political ideology in the main, an argument grounded upon two recent books by the writer.

            Content

            Author and article information

            Journal
            10.13169
            worlrevipoliecon
            World Review of Political Economy
            Pluto Journals
            2042891X
            20428928
            Summer 2013
            : 4
            : 2
            : 158-177
            Article
            worlrevipoliecon.4.2.0158
            10.13169/worlrevipoliecon.4.2.0158
            899ca57c-8777-41fa-85ad-7c106931680c
            Copyright 2013 World Association for Political Economy

            All content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission of the publisher or the author. Articles published in the journal are distributed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

            History
            Categories
            Articles

            Political economics
            dominant class,ruling class,structuralist Marxist theory,political ideology,political economy

            Notes

            1. For a summary of all old and current theoretical discussions on the nature of the capitalist state in mainly European Marxist theory, see Simon Clarke (ed.), The State Debate , http://libcom.org/files/statedebate.pdf (retrieved March 12, 2012).

            2. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01b.htm (retrieved March 12, 2012).

            3. Definition of “Political party” at http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/p/o.htm (retrieved March 12, 2012).

            4. Ibid.

            5. Ibid.

            6. Ibid.

            7. http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/d/i.htm (retrieved March 12, 2012).

            8. http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch01.htm (retrieved March 12, 2012).

            9. Ibid.

            10. Ibid.

            11. William I. Robinson and Jerry Harris, “Towards a Global Ruling Class? Globalization and the Transnational Capitalist Class,” Science & Society 64, 1 (Spring 2000): 11–5411; http://net4dem.org/mayglobal/Papers/RobinsonHarris7_16.pdf (retrieved March 12, 2012).

            12. John Milios, “Social Classes in Classical and Marxist Political Economy,” Issue: April, 2000: https://www.google.com.tr/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCkQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fusers.ntua.gr%2Fjmilios%2FSocial%2520Classes%2520(Final).doc&ei=HImFT6GwOMSUOqHcxcUI&usg=AFQjCNFVa-thJL3Lz3yS-D8_IaMMvd0bsg&sig2=CKW8jPT00YLpUCTEidJ-fA (retrieved March 12, 2012).

            13. Ibid.

            14. Ibid.

            15. Ibid.

            16. Ibid.

            17. Ibid.

            18. Ibid.

            19. Ibid.

            20. Dimitris Milonakis and Ben Fine, http://pauladaunt.com/books/From_Political_Economy_to_Freakonomics.pdf (retrieved March 12, 2012). Actually, as the writers state, the turning point of how political economy was reduced to economics is accepted as “the marginalist revolution” of the 1870s. Also, let us recall that utilitarian philosophy as the intellectual base of marginalism was already inherent in the bourgeois social theory, tracking back to Claude Adrien Helvetius (1715–1771) and Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832).

            21. Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics , http://library.isb.edu/digital_collection/Principles_of_Economics_by_Marshall.pdf

            22. Milonakis and Fine, http://pauladaunt.com/books/From_Political_Economy_to_Freakonomics.pdf

            23. Ibid.

            24. Ibid.

            25. http://users.ntua.gr/jmilios/Milios-Marx-and-the-classics.pdf (retrieved March 12, 2012).

            26. Ibid.

            27. Ibid.

            28. James Anderson, “Towards a Theory of Borders: States, Political Economy and Democracy,” Annales Ser. Hist. Sociol. 11 2001 2(26), http://www.zrs.upr.si/media/uploads/files/andersen.pdf (retrieved March 12, 2012).

            29. Ibid.

            30. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm (retrieved March 12, 2012).

            31. Ercan Gündoǧan, Stream of Connections Through Power, Time, Space and Value (VDM Verlag, 2011) (second revised and extended edition: Lap Lambert, 2012); A Theory of Capitalist Society and Social Dialectics (Lap Lambert, 2011).

            32. Gündoǧan, A Theory of Capitalist Society , p. 144.

            33. Ibid.

            34. “Ruling” and “dominating” refers to interrelated but different unequal relations as the former requires “ruled” while the latter is combined by “dominated.”

            35. These definitions are a summary of the related quotations in Marx's Capital and political writings in Ercan Gündoǧan, Marxian Theory and Socialism in Turkey (VDM Verlag, 2009), pp. 91, 183, 188–189 (in Asia, rent and tax coincides); pp. 418–419 (for modern taxation system); p. 420 (for transition to industrial system); p. 425 (relation between property owners, state, taxes and state debts); p. 448 (public servants and services and tax, and capitalists may pay tax for public services and definition of tax as stated: Taxes, “the price for government services,” “belong to the faux frais de production”); p. 583 (Under the Stuart line, between 1603 and 1714, “the landed proprietors” realized the “act of usurpation” through “legal means” and also abolished the feudal rights over land. They compensated the loss of the state that was the result of this abolishment by charging the taxes on the peasantry and the rest of the people); p. 606 (taxation as a state's measure to maintain exchange between city and rural areas). Taxes have to be paid by working masses as if it is the rent that has to paid to the landlord or to the state as in Asiatic feudalisms. When capitalists pay tax, this occurs only when they are citizens or consumers rather than being capitalists who accumulate capital.

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