Welcome to MIME

Paris, June 2013

These pages offer introductory articles on the modern Marxian perception of Political Economy, in particular the labour theory of value. Contrary to common belief the labour theory of value has not been abandoned with the event of the Marginal Revolution in Economics in the 1870s coinciding with the Commune de Paris. Quite the opposite is true but this truth has been disguised by orthodox economists either out of ignorance of the majority in the profession or for ideological reasons on the part of the ‘great economists’.

Once the origins of modern economics are properly understood the findings lend themselves almost immediately to the design of revolutionary economic policies with the introduction of reforms with a truly transforming impact on the capitalistic mode of production. Europe, haunted by a devastating past and a political division extending far beyond the control over the territories but penetrating into the minds of its people is particularly touched by the infamy of the ideological betrayal.

With great satisfaction we can establish the proper foundations of Political Economy building upon the works of those economists who have been always on the side of the people and for social progress and peace. There reaches a straight line of thought from the Classics of the times of FRANCOIS QUESNAY, ADAM SMITH, DAVID RICARDO and KARL MARX over the modern Soviet mathematical economists, e.g. LEONID KANTOROVICH, VICTOR V. NOVOZHILOV, and others to the Yugoslav economists like BRANKO HORVAT and Western Marxists e.g. RICHARD GOODWIN and the Conference of Socialist Economists.

At the core of this struggle for peace and social progress there is the attempt to construct a society build upon political and economic democracy. It is the failure of the reforms after the Great War which had brought the backdrop into the barbarie of the Nazies. But significant attempts had been made towards economic democracy and one of the important works of the MIME Project is the propagation of the works of the true social-democrats, like FRITZ NAPHTALI’s and his comrades, on Economic Democracy (1928), a work which has not been properly taken account of by the international labour movement (there is no English translation yet!).

If change is really wanted, than it is time to take notice of this red thread in the history of economic thought and to introduce the economic reforms which, as their principle characteristics, assure the democratic control over capital by the working population. The time has come to face the challenge which JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES had considered in his General Theory: “I conceive, therefore, that a somewhat comprehensive socialisation of investment will prove the only means of securing an approximation to full employment “.

We show on these pages that it is the socialisation of investment the core element of the control over capital which has to be put into practice by the labour movement, its trade unions and their political representatives, the left governments. The introduction of investment contributions and collective investment funds is an absolute indispensable element of any socialist economic policy strategy in order to overcome the economic crisis and to assure a peaceful sustainable balanced economic development of the European Union.

The people of Europe should not be too deceived when here also the path has been paved in the North. We shall take up again the struggles of the Swedish socialists around OLOF PALME who have been most advanced in practicing economic democracy.

I hope you will benefit from studying these pages

Best regards

Klaus Hagendorf

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