‘Adaptive accumulation’ and US political economy

Rodney Loeppky

New Political Economy, 2017, vol. 22, issue 5, 541-556

Abstract: According to popular and academic understandings of political economy, the United States is characterised by the most open forms of free market production. From Marxist to institutionalist to liberal analyses, the US is said to exhibits a governance model in which state structures are minimally intrusive to capitalist civil society. There is a need for political economy that re-positions the US state as more than just a willing facilitator, lender-of-last-resort or minimal regulator of capitalist dynamics. This paper argues that ‘adaptive accumulation’ has normalised in the US context, wherein capital actively allies itself with public state objectives (and mechanisms) to seek new or enhanced profit streams, by transforming or rerouting public revenues, such that they afford private accumulation. The robust entry of capital in areas such as health, education and incarceration are highly notable, inasmuch as they harness public objectives for private but not-so-competitive ends. By shedding light on such domains, the paper contributes to our understanding of capital and its ongoing efforts to stay ahead of investment crises by actively shaping its operative environment – in this case, maintaining both the credibility and regularity of publicly inspired (and often financed) revenue streams while, ultimately, transforming their utilisation and purpose.

Date: 2017
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13563467.2017.1259296 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:cnpexx:v:22:y:2017:i:5:p:541-556

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/cnpe20

DOI: 10.1080/13563467.2017.1259296

Access Statistics for this article

New Political Economy is currently edited by Professor Colin Hay

More articles in New Political Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().