In contrast to Marx, Ricardo, and others, economist Louis Kelso proposed a binary theory of economics which identified both labor and capital as the sources of added value, extending this idea to the claim that if labor owned enterprises, the result would be greater efficiency and productivity and worker-owners would have incentives to expand both profits and wages, thus increasing social justice and welfare.
And here is where the Kelso financial proposal for broadening the capital ownership base of the economy becomes appealing and applicable-but without the unnecessary trappings of a paradigm shift to the new binary theory. The Kelso proposal to allow a broadening of the capital ownership base is relevant because there are economic rents to be captured, largely because there is not perfect competition but rather a concerted effort by owners of capital to limit competition.
The point is that the use of the term "productiveness" when referring to the contribution of capital is not only superfluous on the grounds that the contribution is already accounted for in conventional practice but that the contribution seems vastly overestimated in value terms in the "binary theory" as result of completely overlooking the role of competition in a market economy.
It is equally clear that, given its "growth and distributive justice" orientation, dedicated scholars - especially those inclined toward interdisciplinary discourse - "should not dismiss binary theory without giving it a careful, vigorous, paradigm-neutral consideration" (Ashford, p.
the special growth predicted by binary theory will be directly traceable to the broader acquisition of productive assets (see Ashford, 1996, p.
As previously stated, binary theory holds that capital has both a productive and an independent (and very potent) distributive relationship to growth.
It is what makes some people who are familiar with traditional economic theory highly skeptical of binary theory. To some people, it seems to rely on some impossible free lunch; it seems to contradict the significance of productivity, the meaning of savings, and the rules for predicting growth and inflation.
In the minds of some economists, the analysis supporting binary growth is seen as a repetition of underconsumption arguments advanced in the nineteenth century and reflected in the analysis of Keynes and others, but binary theory is not merely a repetition of that analysis.
If binary theory is correct, the CDRC will be able to serve this function effectively and profitably (see Note 25).
For its real power, then the binary theory of productiveness requires both effects, although it is workable as a "pure" distributional theory too (primary effect only).
Binary theory, then is a mirror-image of colonialism: but they are similar only in the sense that day and night are part of the same revolution of the world on its axis.
The binary theory may be confirmed or disproved, light may be shed on the star's fundamental structure and instability, and other things may happen that we haven't anticipated.
