Thesis
The global value chain of electronic gaming machines: An application of Marxian value theory (Citation and Abstract only)
Southern Cross University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Southern Cross University
2024
Appears in Recent Southern Cross PhD Theses
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Abstract
Gambling-related harm from poker machines, also termed electronic gaming machines (EGMs), imposes a significant social and economic burden on gamblers, their families, communities and broader society. This study investigated the social class relations involved in the production of EGM gambling in Australia. Previous research has argued that the EGM industry extracts an ‘addiction surplus’, that is, a surplus economic value above non-addictive commodities, that flows from EGM over-consumers to the gambling industry and the state. This type of consumption has been termed ‘akratic’ because individuals intentionally and knowingly act in a way that is contrary to their own well-being.
This thesis used Marxian value theory (MVT) as an analytical and empirical framework to answer the important, yet overlooked, research question of where surplus profits come from, how they arise, and how they are distributed throughout the EGM production network. The research design constituted an in-depth case study of the global value chain (GVC) for a single EGM operating at a club venue in Sydney, Australia. The GVC provided an architectural framework for tracing and analysing how economic value is added and distributed through each ‘link’ in the ‘chain’ that connects all phases of a commodity’s production to its distribution and final consumption.
The study found that a distinctive political economy falls out of the value relations between the different classes in the EGM value chain. Akratic GVCs are characterised by their capacity to extract surplus profits outside of the production process. These surplus profits are derived from two sources: 1) akratic consumption and 2) monopoly protection. These two forms of surplus profit are then distributed within and outside the EGM value chain in the form of taxes to various levels of state government, interest to finance capital, rents to landowners, and revenues to merchant capital and various community organisations.
The MVT analysis reveals that powerful transnational capitalist class (TCC) gambling companies produce akratic EGM technologies for consumption in Australia’s poorest communities and that this leads to surplus profits. If addictive technological EGM features are effectively regulated, it would have the inevitable flow-on effect of a reduction in gambling-related harm as the value chain would be reduced to an average rate of profit economy-wide, similar to non-akratic chains. This would also remove the need for state monopoly control and the fiscal incentives of ‘harm maximisation’ policies because of the its dependency on EGM surplus profits.
Details
- Title
- The global value chain of electronic gaming machines: An application of Marxian value theory (Citation and Abstract only)
- Creators
- Barbara Kinder
- Contributors
- Martin Young (Supervisor) - Southern Cross UniversityMichael B Charles (Supervisor) - Southern Cross UniversityRobyn Keast (Supervisor) - Southern Cross University
- Awarding Institution
- Southern Cross University; Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Theses
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Southern Cross University
- Publisher
- Southern Cross University
- Identifiers
- 991013213013602368
- Copyright
- © Barbara Kinder 2024
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Business, Law and Arts
- Resource Type
- Thesis