Rethinking Marxian Investment Theory: Keynes-Minsky Instability, Competitive Regime Shifts and Coerced Investment

Abstract

This paper reformulates Marxian investment theory so that it can provide an explanation of key "stylized" facts describing capital accumulation in U.S. goods producing industries in the past fifteen years. This requires two theoretical innovations: a demonstration that Keynesian-Minskian ideas about uncertainty and financial fragility flow logically from Marx's core assumptions; and a reconceptualization of the contradictory relation between competition and investment in the accumulation process.