English

The Business-to-Industry Index and the Geography of Global Capitalism

A defining feature of neoclassical economics is that it treats ‘business’ and ‘industry’ as synonyms. As such, mainstream economists assume that a firm’s business income reveals its industrial output To arrive at this convenient equivalence, economists pretend that in a competitive market, commodity prices reveal the production of consumer ‘utility’. So when economists speak of ‘output’, they mean the creation of paid-for satisfaction. But since this ‘utility’ goes perpetually unmeasured, the whole operation represents an act of faith — no different than the imagined equivalence between the father, the son, and the holy ghost. Looking at this act of ideological faith, Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler find little reason to believe. Instead, they take the heretical view, first articulated by Thorstein Veblen, that ‘industry’ and ‘business’ are opposing activities. Let me explain their thinking. In the Veblenian sense, the human capacity to be ‘industrious’ predates capitalism; indeed, it predates humanity. All living things are ‘industrious’ in the sense that they pursue activities that help them survive and reproduce in the natural world. So when humans farm corn, we are manifes

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