The demise of apartheid has accelerated the emergence of the African middle class. This group's expenditure pattern has recently received public scrutiny, leading to empirical research on their consumption patterns leaning on the theory of conspicuous consumption. It has also been reported that African middle-class households are becoming more reliant on the use of credit and are becoming overindebted. This study explores the composition of the middle class and the factors that lead African middle-class households to becoming over indebted. The methodology is both quantitative and qualitative. Drawing on the National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) data, the study examines varying definitions of the middle class in developing country contexts, through comparisons of alternative approaches. This research paper ultimately makes use of the vulnerability approach to define the South African middle class. The empirical results show that the middle class as a whole has grown at a slow rate between 2008 and 2017. However, the African middle class has experienced the most rapid growth, outpacing its white counterpart by a significant margin. The dissertation then uses two waves of (NIDS) data, relating to the periods 2008 and 2017 to present a descriptive analysis of household overindebtedness, which is driven by life-cycle consumption needs. The results show that middle-class households hold a proportionately large amount of debt. Within the middle class, Africans hold the most debt, when compared to other races. To adequately understand the nuances of the indebted African middle class, in-depth interviews were conducted. The results indicate that pertinent issues for this group, such as black tax, contribute to households becoming over-indebted, as this mostly affects the African population group.

This dissertation analyzes the logical structure of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and David Ricardo's Principles of Political Economy and Taxation as two of the most important texts of Classical Political Economy. The thesis is that the central concept around which these texts are organized is the concept of "wealth." We analyze how the Classicals' development of the economic categories of money, capital, productive labor, etc. can be understood by reference to this concept of wealth. The analysis is conducted within the perspective of the Althusserian concept of "theoretical practice." This concept of theoretical practice questions the validity of empiricist and/or rationalist understandings of science. It argues that the referents for scientific discourses are to be constructed as a process (processes) of confrontation of knowledges, with political conditions and effects. Accordingly, the analysis of Smith and Ricardo not only investigates the internal logic of their texts but also, and most important, constructs that logic as a political stance. The concept of wealth, around which the logic of the Classicals' texts revolves, is understood below as having political effects. It has such effects because the construction of capitalism as a system of production of wealth provides a condition for the political reproduction of private property relations. Moreover, the internal logic of the classical texts, because of the primacy of the concept of wealth, rests upon and theoretically reconstructs a simultaneously humanist and economistic conception of social relation (this is true not only for Smith but also for Ricardo). It is this combination of humanism and economism that allows the Classicals to theoretically construct capitalism as a socially cohesive system. Smith and Ricardo understood social cohesion to be the tendential result of the system of private property and exchange. Their analysis of market relations reduced money to a mere medium of circulation and the distributional relations of capitalism to the reproduction of the social and material conditions necessitated by the division of labor and the production of social wealth. While Smith's and Ricardo's principal political problem remained the defense of private property, they nevertheless operated in different historical conjunctures. They therefore understood the determinants of social cohesion differently. While Smith's perspective was closer to that of the Age of Enlightenment, Ricardo's partook of the reaction to the Age of Enlightenment represented by the spread of Malthusianism. It is for this reason that Smith and Ricardo adopted two different objects of analysis: the division of labor and the laws of distribution, respectively. It is for this reason that Smith's and Ricardo's analysis of value differed, without however producing a break insofar as the primacy of the concept of wealth and the political defense of private property are concerned. The break with Classical Political Economy is produced by Marx. This break is inaugurated by the primacy of the concept of surplus-value in Marx, and by the subsumption of the concept of wealth to this concept of surplus-value. Marx's different object of analysis is produced by a different articulation of the various economic categories, and implies a structure of the labor theory of value different from the classical labor theory of value. This "break" between Marx and the Classicals is analyzed through the use of Marx's criticisms of the Classicals' development of the categories of analysis as well as of their overall perspective.

This thesis studies identification and testability for three models of choice under uncertainty. Identification is concerned with whether the parameters of a specified model are uniquely recoverable from observable behavior. Testability is concerned with how to test the consistency between the model’s predictions and choice data. All models considered deviate from classic models in one of two ways: either randomness in preference varies with decision problems, or preferences violate expected utility theory. Chapter 1 studies a model of rational inattention. An agent can acquire costly information about uncertain states of the world before choosing an action from a menu. The choice of information depends on the menu of actions and is assumed unobservable. Due to the unobservability of private information, the choice of action appears random from an outside analyst’s perspective. I show that, given only stochastic choice from menus of actions, an analyst can identify the agent’s risk attitude, prior belief, and information cost function. Chapter 2 studies an instance of the classic question of whether preference can be identified from the choice behavior it implies. Specifically, the question is whether the distribution of risk preferences is identifiable from random choice of lotteries. It is known that the answer is affirmative under random expected utility. I show that such uniqueness fails if risk preferences are not restricted a priori to conform to expected utility, for instance, if they are assumed to conform only to weighted utility. I discuss the reason for such non-uniqueness and argue that uniqueness may be restored if data includes the joint distributions of choice across a limited number of feasible sets. Chapter 3 studies how to test non-expected utility theory given that data contain only finitely many observations on choice of lottery. While consistency of data with expected utility has been thoroughly studied in the literature, I derive conditions on data that are both necessary and sufficient for consistency with maximization of a betweenness preference. The conditions employ novel geometric arguments and provide a more stringent test than what is used in the experimental literature, which is to check for direct violations of the key axiom.

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Abstract not available

This dissertation analyzes the Wolof social formation of West Africa prior to the 15th century historical conjuncture of European merchant penetration. The framework is that of a reformulation of Marxian theory which builds upon the work of Louis Althusser. Using the concepts of fundamental and subsumed class processes, the study shows the existence of a complex class structure within an apparent no-class, primitive communist society. Using the related concepts of overdetermination and contradiction, it then shows the eruption of a variety of class and non-class conflicts as part of the uneven development of that society. While the approach of this dissertation represents a new and different way to study the development of a primitive communist society, it is also able to propose a solution to a dilemma that has long existed within the historical tradition of Marxism. The dilemma has been to square Marx's basic notion that class struggles provide an indispensible key to understanding social change and social transitions with the transition from primitive communism where, presumably, there are no classes and hence no class struggles. The present study of the Wolof permits a distinctively Marxian analysis of the transition out of primitive communism, an analysis able to pinpoint the contributions of class struggles to that transition.

The purpose of this dissertation is twofold. First, an alternative microfoundation for mark-up pricing over the business cycle is developed. Second, the macroeconomic implications of this microfoundation are examined and an alternative theory of the relationship between mark-up pricing and accumulation is advanced. Three major hypotheses are considered. It is hypothesized that an optimal cyclical pricing policy for an oligopolistic price leader faced with dynamic cost and demand behavior and international competition is a variable mark-up. That is, the mark-up rises from initial trough until the midexpansion of the typical business cycle and then declines from that point until the terminal trough. Secondly, it is hypothesized that increases in the degree of competition increase the cyclical flexibility of the optimal mark-up policy. That is, the absolute value of mark-up expansion and contraction amplitudes increase as competition intensifies. Thirdly, it is hypothesized that the relationship between mark-up pricing and accumulation is a contradictory one. That is, the variable mark-up solution serves as the microfoundation for a profit squeeze theory of the business cycle. A critical evaluation of the post-Keynesian pricing and accumulation literatures serves as the basis for the alternative micro model developed. The model effectively integrates the interaction between a dynamic cost structure and competitive constraints on pricing by considering the trade-off between the mark-up and market share that occurs in the maximization of present value. In an extension of the model, the linkage between the firm's investment and mark-up decisions is considered. The model shows that such behavior is responsible for a business cycle. Support for the hypotheses is obtained from simulation results and empirical evidence on profit margins and international competition compiled for five business cycles between 1949 and 1975.

This dissertation examines the major causes of the unstable capital accumulation process in the trunk airline industry in the U.S. during the period 1946 to 1975. The study first traces the evolution of the multi-dimensional aspects of airline regulation, the role of existing airlines in shaping the regulation by the Civil Aeronautics Board to suit their interests best, the market relations among airlines, and the growth record of airline operations. What follows is an integrated examination of three factors considered to be primary sources of investment instability: aircraft technology, the airlines' market behavior, and their particular method of financing. The timing, size, and duration of each investment wave were influenced by the adoption of new aircraft technologies and their specific characteristics. Aircraft technologies that induced most of the industry's growth were essentially molded by the U.S. government which generally financed their development and rendered them commercially exploitable. The industry's rigid oligopolistic structure, as was fashioned by its regulator, precluded price competition entirely and elevated the competitive importance of the frequency of flights and of investment in modern flying equipment. Under competitive pressure, airlines usually attempted to acquire competitively superior aircraft simultaneously with little regard to their individual financial positions. The result was cumulative overcapacity, production inefficiencies, and recurring financial crises. Formal cartel agreements in the industry were effective in reducing waste. The airlines relied heavily on long-term debt and capital leases to finance investment. These funds were provided by a relatively few very large life insurance companies and commercial banks which were also holders of large blocks of airline stock. The extensive use of debt funds and the power of the large financial institutions involved alternatively accelerated and stifled capital formation in the industry. The dissertation concludes that the conditions that produced the boom-bust cycles in airline investment reduced the industry from a growth sector to a stagnant sector of the U.S. economy.

This dissertation explores the rationale behind legislative limitation of the work day for women in factories. The issue of protective labor legislation for women is analyzed through a case study of the Massachusetts ten hour law. This was the first enforceable legislation limiting the length of the work day for women in the U.S. Passed in 1874 and strengthened in 1879, this act served as a model for subsequent protective labor laws limiting the work day for women. Conclusions drawn from the case study reject the idea that this legislation was intended to limit or eliminate employment of women in the regulated industry. The study establishes, rather, that the subordinate social and economic status of women was used as justification for obtaining universal regulation. However, maintenance of gender based familial responsibilities was among the desired effects of the law. Legislation limiting the length of the work day and weekly hours in textile factories had broad based support. Initially demanded by mill workers and class conscious labor organizations as an aspect of social restructuring, the ten hour demand evolved into a single issue campaign. Labor leaders continued to assert the right of factory workers to a ten hour work day whereas philanthropists, clergy, and progressive business interests focused on cultural assimilation of the operative population. This latter view prevailed. The legislators enacted the ten hour law as a means of integrating the (mainly) immigrant factory workers into the New England traditions. Long hours of factory labor were seen as inimical to preservation of widespread literacy, a well developed common school system, democratic political institutions and the characteristic "Yankee" society. The state is shown to have intervened in the economy to promote social stability. In limiting the rights of capital and the economic exploitation of labor, the state acted to preserve traditional social characteristics, a social goal that individual firms could not pursue.

This dissertation analyzes and critiques Marxist and non-Marxist economic history, in which primitive societies are treated as devoid of history and development. The dissertation argues that in both Marxist and non-Marxist historical writing, the treatment of primitive societies as lacking an historical dynamic is linked to the use of various kinds of essentialist and teleological discourses. Chapter I is a critical presentation of the forms of writing, such as historical narrative and realism, employed by historians and social scientists who produce these discourses. This chapter begins to present the concepts of an anti-essentialist Marxist discourse, as developed by Althusser, Hindess and Hirst, and Resnick and Wolff, in contradistinction to essentialist and teleological discourses. Chapter I argues that an anti-essentialist Marxism, with the concepts of class and over-determination as its entry point, can produce concepts of primitive history and development. Chapter II continues the presentation of basic concepts, such as necessary and surplus labor, fundamental and subsumed class processes and positions, social formation, overdetermination, transition, and development, that comprise an anti-essentialist Marxist discourse. Chapter III reviews and critiques the Marxist concept of primitive communism frequently used to analyze the socio-economic structure of primitive societies. Chapter III shows how most writing on primitive communism treats primitive communism as a signifier for the absence of history and development, as a discursive representation of the concept of historical origins and/or ends, and as a social scientific type in which "primitivism" is the central defining characteristic. These treatments, exemplified in the works of Anderson, Godelier, Hindess and Hirst, Leacock, Rey, and others, make problematic the theorization of primitive history and development. By contrast, Marx's treatment of "pre-capitalist forms of the commune" in the Grundrisse provides the basis for an alternative formulation of primitive communism produced with the concepts primitive communal fundamental and subsumed class processes and non-class processes and overdetermination. Through the use of these concepts, Marx's presentation in the Grundrisse can be read as a demonstration of how an anti-essentialist Marxism theorizes history and socio-economic development in primitive societies.