The understructure of market production

Tom Malleson

Review of Social Economy, 2025, vol. 83, issue 1, 23-53

Abstract: This paper argues that the mainstream economics view of production based on the conventional factors of production is socially and empirically inaccurate, giving a distorted view of the nature of the production process and the agents responsible for it. Although the factors of production are essential, just as important are the various social, cultural, and political enabling conditions, or what is termed the ‘understructure’ of market production (the complex of infrastructures which underlie and enable market production). We gain an enriched understanding of what the economy truly is by studying the functioning of the understructure and the ancestral labour and care encompassed in it. If this revised view is correct, it has radical ethical implications. In particular, it implies that individuals do not morally deserve the bulk of the income (90% or more) that they receive in the market. High levels of redistributive taxation may therefore be legitimatea.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/00346764.2024.2310829

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