Description
Book SynopsisThis book examines the significance of technological, organisational and institutional change as crucial factors in the analysis of the turnover time of capital. It also studies the related set of theoretical questions that concern the relationship between power, knowledge and time, in the context of capital accumulation and distribution.
Michele Javary presents a creative and novel analysis of the ways in which these relationships can be analysed both conceptually and historically. She explores current issues relating to the dynamics of technical change, innovation, learning and institutional change by reviving and re-exploring one of the most penetrating contributions to economic thought: Marx's Capital. The author also combines historical and comparative perspectives to analyse the interplay between technology and organisations, based on the analysis of political governance in the United Kingdom and the rapid shift from coal to gas technologies at the time of the privatisation of the electricity supply industry. The analysis presented in the book elucidates many of the debates surrounding the economics of technological change and offers important new insights into both evolutionary and institutional economics.
Students and scholars of industrial dynamics and technological change will find great value in the innovative analysis of the social and political factors that impact upon the selection, implementation and deployment of a new technology. Political economists and political scientists wishing to explore the significance of technology, organisations and institutions for capital accumulation and distribution will also be rewarded by this challenging book.
Trade Review'Michele Javary takes on a major challenge in this book - the systematic analysis of the micro-foundations of capital and technological innovation in a way that takes into account the dynamics of the relationships between knowledge and time, power and knowledge, and power and time. Javary treats capital as a socio-economic phenomenon; one that is intimately linked to knowledge and to the scope of the options available for future economic development. She highlights the essential role of money-capital circulation time in forging the character of socio-economic institutions and their consequences for the selection of new technologies and for labour. Technological change in the electricity industry in the United Kingdom provides the historical material for a very insightful reinterpretation of the insights of Commons, Marx, Veblen, and others and of the implications of market liberalization. This book offers a new and much-needed understanding of the political-economy of technological change in modern times. This book should be required reading for all those with an interest in technological change, the management of innovation, and the organisation of the economy.' -- Robin Mansell, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK
'This is a remarkable and highly original book. Not since Shackle has anyone made such an interesting study of the role of time in economics, and not since Marx has anyone tackled the question of the turnover time of capital in the context of political power, and the role of knowledge in relation to that power. Many books in economics are marginal in both senses of the word - they are in the marginalist neo-classical tradition, and they add little to the body of knowledge. This book is not marginal in either sense: it tackles some of the most fundamental questions in economic theory and it adds a great deal to our knowledge about them.' -- From the foreword by Christopher Freeman, SPRU - Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Sussex, UK and Maastricht University, The Netherlands
Table of ContentsContents: Foreword 1. Introduction 2. Power, Technology and Institutions in the Process of Capital Formation 3. A Critique of the Marxian Framework for the Analysis of Technology and Organization 4. Technology, Organization and the Turnover Time of Capital: The Transformational and Distributive Capacities of Socio-economic and Technical Systems 5. States and Markets Transformational and Distributive Capacity: Political Governance in the United Kingdom 6. Political Governance, Technology Selection and Endogenous Money: The Making of State-of-the-Art Technology in Electricity Generation 7. Conclusion Bibliography Index
