Leverage: Borrowing to magnify the buying power of small cash payments for shares, property and other assets.
Liquidity: Having cash in hand (or assets that can be easily turned into cash) to meet claims that fall due or, in the case of a bank, meet withdrawal requests.
Luxemburg, Rosa: Polish-German Marxist, leader of revolutionary opposition in Germany to First World War, murdered by counter- revolutionaries in January 1919.
Macroeconomic: Referring to economy as whole, as opposed to "microeconomic" relations between individual elements within it. "Macroeconomics" is a branch of mainstream economics concerned with trying to guide national economies.
Marginalism: Another name for neoclassical economics.
Marshall, Alfred: British economist of late 1 9th and early 20th centuries and a key figure in neoclassical economics.
Menger, Carl: Austrian economist, one of the founders of neoclassical economics.
Mercantile or merchant capital: Investment aimed at making a profit without engaging in production, for instance in the buying and selling of goods.
Mercosur: A regional trade agreement between some Southern American states (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay).
Microeconomic: see macroeconomic.
"Military Keynesianism": Term used for economic impact of rising military expenditure paid for out of government debt during Ronald Reagan presidency in 1980s US.
Minsky, Hyman: Non-orthodox mainstream economist of mid-20th century who recognised inevitability of speculative booms and busts for capitalism.
Mm: Ministry of lnternation Trade and Industry, powerful Japanese government agency.
Monetarism: Doctrine which holds crises cannot be solved by governments increasing their spending to more than their tax income. Increasing the supply of money, this holds, will simply lead to higher prices. Under the name the quantity theory of money, this was the orthodoxy in bourgeois economics before the rise of Keynesianism in the 1 930s, and became fashionable again in the mid-1970s.
"Monetary measures": Attempt to regulate economy, preventing inflation and countering recessions by government contraction or expansion of amount of money that is circulating.
Money capital: Money held with the intention of increasing its value, either as part of the process of productive investment, or through lending to others.
Moral depreciation of capital: Loss of value of plant and capitals as it becomes obsolescent in the face of rapid technological advance.
NAIRU: Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment, see Natural Rate of Unemployment.
Natural Rate of Unemployment: Level which free market economists decided was necessary for capitalism to avoid accelerating inflation. Also called NAIRU-Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment.
Neoclassical economics: Dominant school in bourgeois economics since the end of the 19th century. Believes value depends on the "marginal" satisfaction people get from goods, and justifies profit as a result of the "marginal productivity of capital". Also known as "marginalism".
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