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Recent transformations within modern economies have often been discussed under the concept of “restructuring”. However this term, despite its widespread use in sociology, has little explanatory power. What is needed instead is a consideration of how restructuring has taken place. Three major theoretical positions which attempt to provide this understanding are Marxist monopoly captialism, post-fordism and post-industrialism. Each of these paradigms provides a different understanding of the nature and operation of contemporary capitalist formations. My purpose in this thesis is to determine which of these different viewpoints is most applicable to the Canadian situation. I will do so through an examination of changes in the self-employed sector of the Canadian economy since 1960. The self-employed sector, besides being of intrinsic interest because of its recent attention by politicians and the popular media, is an important testing ground for the relative validity of the above theories in the Canadian context. Each framework is consistent with a set of well-defined and contrasting predictions about what should happen to the overall size of the self-employed sector, as well as expectations about the direction of ascriptive inequality, both within the sector and in the larger society. Using time series regression procedures, declines and increases in the size of the entrepreneurial sector over the last thirty or so years are documented. In addition, the importance of increases in the sector is examined by modelling the effect of unemployment on self-employment. Predictions about ascriptive inequalities are tested through an investigation of earnings functions within the self-employed and employed populations. The results of these analyses suggest that a post-fordist understanding of the contemporary Canadian economy is most appropriate. Self-employment has clearly increased since 1960, and ascriptive inequalities, particularly by gender, have persisted throughout much ofthe latter half of this period. The implication of this is that in order to understand the larger processes shaping our economy, as well as the nature of work beyond self-employment, we are most likely to find answers in discussions about post-fordism.

This thesis represents the first attempt at the empirical estimation of Marxian categories in the Canadian economy for the 1961-76 period. The thesis also addresses the question of the relevance of Marxian economics for an understanding of contemporary capitalism. The first part of the thesis presents an overview of Marxian economics, more particularly a summary of Marx's Capital, Michio Morishima's Marx's Economics, and Ernest Mandel's Late Capitalism. The second part of the thesis reviews the conventional economic statistics in Canada over the 1961-76 period, elaborates the Marxian input-output frame-work as applied to the Canadian economy and estimates the basic Marxian categories such as variable capital, surplus value, and constant capital and the relationships between categories as expressed by the organic composition of capital, the rate of surplus value and the rate of profit. The final chapters of the thesis appraise the strengths and weaknesses of Capital and Late Capitalism and present an agenda for future research in empirical Marxian economics.

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Recent transformations within modern economies have often been discussed under the concept of “restructuring”. However this term, despite its widespread use in sociology, has little explanatory power. What is needed instead is a consideration of how restructuring has taken place. Three major theoretical positions which attempt to provide this understanding are Marxist monopoly captialism, post-fordism and post-industrialism. Each of these paradigms provides a different understanding of the nature and operation of contemporary capitalist formations. My purpose in this thesis is to determine which of these different viewpoints is most applicable to the Canadian situation. I will do so through an examination of changes in the self-employed sector of the Canadian economy since 1960. The self-employed sector, besides being of intrinsic interest because of its recent attention by politicians and the popular media, is an important testing ground for the relative validity of the above theories in the Canadian context. Each framework is consistent with a set of well-defined and contrasting predictions about what should happen to the overall size of the self-employed sector, as well as expectations about the direction of ascriptive inequality, both within the sector and in the larger society. Using time series regression procedures, declines and increases in the size of the entrepreneurial sector over the last thirty or so years are documented. In addition, the importance of increases in the sector is examined by modelling the effect of unemployment on self-employment. Predictions about ascriptive inequalities are tested through an investigation of earnings functions within the self-employed and employed populations. The results of these analyses suggest that a post-fordist understanding of the contemporary Canadian economy is most appropriate. Self-employment has clearly increased since 1960, and ascriptive inequalities, particularly by gender, have persisted throughout much ofthe latter half of this period. The implication of this is that in order to understand the larger processes shaping our economy, as well as the nature of work beyond self-employment, we are most likely to find answers in discussions about post-fordism. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

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Three Monetarist models--the Netherlands Bank Model, the Polak Model and the St. Louis Model--are critically examined in this study. A structural model has been set up for the St. Louis Model, showing some missing links and variables. The reduced-form approach should not be applied recklessly, i.e. without constructing its theoretical structural equations. Furthermore, in empirical studies, the concepts of stock and flow, and time references and time dimensions should be properly specified; failure to do so can lead to difficulties in interpretation. / The Netherlands Bank Model and the St. Louis Model have been applied to the Canadian economy from 1957 to 1974. The findings from this empirical study are, in general, favourable to the Monetarist hypothesis. The application of the Netherlands Bank Model to the Canadian economy demonstrates that the monetary impulses induce greater changes in nominal income and price level than in real income. The empirical results derived from the application of the St. Louis Model on a short-term basis support a middle ground position between Monetarists and Fiscalists: the monetary and fiscal impulses exert about the same magnitude effect (about 1.5) on economic activity in a year. On a medium-term basis, however, monetary impulses have a more lasting effect on nominal income, while the effects from the fiscal impulses disappear mainly because of the crowding-out effects.

In this thesis a theory of monopoly capitalism, and particularly of the recuperative functions of the monopoly state, is presented. It is suggested that this theory throws significant light on the marked transformations which occurred in the Canadian Civil Service between 1939 and 1957. It is hypothesized that the Canadian state undertook what has been defined as 'monopoly functions' during this period. The argument is supported by an analysis of the institutional structure of the wartime and postwar Civil Service - examining the administrative hierarchy, the range of institutional contradictions, and the radically altered relation of the state to the private economy. The theory of monopoly capital employed in this thesis follows from a tradition of Marxist debate, but places peculiar emphasis on the distinction between the production of means of production (DI) and the production of means of consumption (DII). The production of the means of production would include particularly the capital goods sector and the large infrastructural networks supportive of national industry. The production of the means of consumption would include the 'necessaries of life' required to support the direct producers - both durable and non-durable consumer goods. It is argued that the relationship of the state to each of these two sectors is of a different character and significance - a position not generally held. Another important concept highlighted is that of the "work of coordination and unity," which is used to weld the theory of the monopoly economy to a few central hypotheses concerning the monopoly state itself and forms of monopoly state intervention. It is suggested that the particular structural ambivalences, institutional rivalries, and patterns of institutional growth which are characteristic of the postwar Canadian state can be explained, in their mutual relation, by the principal hypotheses of the theory of the monopoly role of the state. The connections which have been brought to light in this research are most revealing. Not only do individual circumstances "measure" against precepts of the theory, but main lines of development which occurred simultaneously in different parts of the Civil Service are seen to stand in a highly suggestive relation to one another when viewed from this perspective. Pivotal to the development of this argument is a review of the historical bases of the wartime/postwar state, and the establishment of a measure of comparison by which to gauge the extent and direction of institutional change between 1939 and 1957. / Arts, Faculty of / Sociology, Department of / Graduate

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