Archive

Ewald Walterskirchen:
Mehr Beschäftigung durch Arbeitszeitverlängerung? (in German)

Elke Muchlinski:
Kontroversen in der internationalen Währungspolitik. Retrospektive zu Keynes-White-Boughton und IMF

Th is paper provides textual evidence that Boughton's interpretation of Keynes's proposals for shaping the international monetary system of the post-war period misses the point. I want to investigate two points which contradict Boughton's interpretation published by the International Monetary Fund. Boughton states that White won the battle against Keynes because White was determined to create a multilateral system whereas Keynes favoured bilateral . nancial support to Britain by the U.S.A. I submit that Keynes's view on the function of the International Clearing Union (I.C.U.) was first of all to encourage both creditor and debtor countries to avoid trade imbalances. Second, as Keynes mentioned, the I.C.U. was not to be implemented as a 'multiplicity of bilateral arrangements'. Here we find the thrust of his view of the post-war period -- avoiding bilateral arrangements because he believed that bilateralism could cause a new war.

JEL classifications: B 22, B 25, E 12, F 32, F 33

Harald Bauder:
Institutional Capital and Labour Devaluation: Th e Non-Recognition of Foreign Credentials in Germany

The non-recognition of foreign credentials channels many international migrants into occupations below their skill levels. I examine processes of credential devaluation among so-called Spätaussiedler who migrated from Eastern Europe to Germany. An empirical study, involving an interview survey of NGO administrators, government bureaucrats, and employers in Berlin, suggests that institutional processes of credential recognition are intertwined with cultural processes of distinction. The study illustrates how institutional labour market regulation links with forces of social reproduction and the cultural exclusion of migrants.

JEL classifications: J 31, J 61

Heinz-J. Bontrup:
Gewinn- und /oder Kapitalbeteiligungen -- ökonomische Utopie oder Notwendigkeit?

The article deals with profit and gain sharing and employee capital sharing plans. Non-material forms of participation are mainly concerned with shop floor participation. Material participation, on the other hand, focuses on wage and salary earners who share in their company's profits and /or in other firm capital. Under such a scheme, the profit is divided between shareholders and employees, thereby enabling the latter to earn a higher income and to accumulate wealth. The paper begins with a description of the complex rationale for prodit and gain sharing and capital sharing plans. It will also look at problems resulting from a microeconomic perspective. Furthermore, the article deals with the requirements for genuine profit and gain and capital sharing plans, as they exist in practice. Finally the consequences of such a scheme for the economy as a whole will be discussed in detail.

JEL classifications: D 33, E 25, L 20

Michael Marder:
Failed Translations: Textuality of Capital against Walter Benjamin's 'Th e Task of the Translator'

In order to stage a sustained encounter between literary theory and Marxian political economy, this paper initiates a dialogue between Walter Benjamin's 'The Task of the Translator'on one hand, and Marx's Capital, on the other. I will theorize the two-fold transition from the language of labor to value to price in the latter work as an exercise in economic translation haunted by and predicated upon the untranslatability of use-value, or pure difference. In light of this initial outline, I will contend that the specific intentionality of capital, the predominance of the 'pure language'of value, and the discursive construction of mainstream economics violate the immanent grounding of economic and non-economic systems of signification.

JEL classifications: B 14, B 31, B 51