Thursday, December 24, 2020

One of the Top Working Marxist Economists

Michael Roberts

This blog will rest for a week.  In the meantime, please sign up with Michael Robert's blog, or purchase his book from May Day as a gift:

Robert's focus is on the rate of profit...
“The Long Depression – Marxism and the Global Crisis of Capitalism” by Michael Roberts, 2016. 

It was reviewed on this blog in 2016 at:  https://maydaybookstore.blogspot.com/search?q=michael+roberts 

Michael Robert's Blog is at:  https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/

Robert's focuses on the essence of capitalism - the rate of profit from labor. He gathers national and world-wide data to update his figures, using models and methods from other political economists as well.  His conclusion?  The trend of the profit rate has gone down over the years, as Marx hypothesized. This speaks basic trouble for the capital system. 

BREXIT

For those clueless leftists who supported Brexit or ignored Brexit or waffled (I'm looking at you Jeremy Corbin) here is Michael Robert's initial thoughts on the damage Brexit will do to labour and to the British economy.  

https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2020/12/29/the-brexit-deal/

HUDSON & CHINA

Roberts recently attended the American Economic Association conference.  In his newest post, he eviscerates Michael Hudson's theory that financial capital is dominant and we now have 'neo-feudalism.'  This is similar to the positions of Harvey and Minsky, but he argues it is reformist and not Marxist.  

He also describes four papers that explain China is not imperialist but still think it's capitalist.  Hudson presented a paper in 2019 that also agreed with this thesis of 'non-imperialism.' But he went on to question how a capitalist economy the size of China could not be imperialist and yet why it performed so well -unlike clearly capitalist economies suffering greatly.  So the class character of China is still up in the air for him.

Red Frog

December 24, 2020

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