ABSTRACT
The investigation of the process of accumulation of capital forms a rich and distinctive terrain of heterodox economic analysis. The models of economic growth in classical, Marxian, and Post Keynesian approaches differ from the orthodox neoclassical tradition of savings-driven, supply-side models derived from the Solow-Swan growth model (Taylor 2004; Foley & Michl 2010). Apart from the distinctive analysis of economic growth that is centered on the re-investment of profits in production, these traditions share a common conception of the accumulation of capital as an irreversible historical process, taking place in the context of capitalist institutions. The abstract models of steady-state growth represented by Marx’s expanded reproduction scheme or the Cambridge growth equation are only the starting point for the analysis of the process of accumulation. In order to comprehend the complex dynamics of capitalist accumulation, “economic analysis requires to be supplemented by comparative historical anthropology” (Robinson 1956: 59).
