Available online
Description
This programme looks at the different ways which Marx and Keynes explained economic crises.
This programme looks at the different ways which Marx and Keynes explained economic crises.
| Module code and title: | D101, Making sense of society |
|---|---|
| Item code: | D101; 14; 1980 |
| First transmission date: | 18-05-1980 |
| Published: | 1980 |
| Rights Statement: | |
| Restrictions on use: | |
| Duration: | 00:24:00 |
| + Show more... | |
| Producer: | Eleanor Morris |
| Contributors: | L Harris; Susan Himmelweit |
| Publisher: | BBC Open University |
| Keyword(s): | Consumption; Demand; Investment; Output |
| Footage description: | This programme opens with still photographs of people demonstrating against unemployment. Laurence Harris introduces the programme highlighting the desolation of the depression with a poem by W H Auden. He then discusses the achievements of economists in developing explanations of why crises occur. Sue Himmelweit discusses the abstraction process involved in economics and then explains that the programme is goint to look at the thories of Marx and Keynes to see how they differ in their explanations of crises. Laurence Harris talks briefly about Keynes' theories of demand deficiency. There then follows a short compilation film of archive material, showing the economic and social consequences of the depression. The soundtrack with this film explains the events in Keynesian terms. Laurence Harris takes the ideas mentioned in the film and presents them in a more formal manner, equating consumption and investment demand with output and explaining the inter-dependency of the three variables. Sue Himmelweit now introduces the same piece of archive film only this time the events portrayed are explained in a Marxist fashion, blaming the depression upon falling rates of profit and low productivity in many industries. Sue Himmelweit now examines the underlying differences between the two theories stressing Marx's emphasis upon the class divisions in society, low rates of profit, low demand for investment goods by the capitalist class and the growth of new more productive industries out of the collapse of the old. She then discusses some of the wider social implications of Marx's theories if the working class refused to accept their lot during a depression. Laurence Harris points out that Marx thought crises would either regenerate capitalism or lead to its collapse. He would not have accepted that crises can be avoided by demand management introduced by government. Finally Sue and Laurence put three questions for students to consider, about the nature of crises and the different answers Marx and Keynes would have given to these problems. Credits. |
| Production number: | FOUD154E |
| Videofinder number: | 1672 |
| Available to public: | no |
