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ABSTRACT
This article conducts groundwork for a discussion of Marx’s influence through examining the boundaries of the specifically Marxian school of economics. This Marxian school extends well beyond the bounds of the self-identified Marxian school. Marx’s influence, Marxian themes and effectively Marxian theory can be found in several important heterodox traditions of economics, though this is often unacknowledged. A consideration of the proper boundaries of the Marxian school of economics is essential for a full understanding of Marx’s legacy and could contribute to the emergence of a more unified heterodoxy in economics.
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Notes
1 It is often pointed out that some ‘heterodox’ traditions have been welcomed into orthodox economics. An example might be behavioural economics. These traditions are, however, selected based on the trappings of science, for instance classroom experiments, rather than on their concrete arguments or observations. These concrete propositions are encysted and then ignored when presenting the basics of the neoclassical paradigm.
2 Marc Lavoie (Citation2014, p. 30) goes further, considering the Austrian school to be ‘orthodox dissenters’, who do not fundamentally break with neoclassical orthodoxy. On this issue, see also Martins (Citation2014, p. 233).
4 It is hard so see how this is, in itself, controversial in a Marxist context. In Marx’s reproduction schemes (M – C … P … C’ – M’), C’ includes the physical surplus product prior to its monetization through sale.
5 Is this straightforward? Hardly. See Howard and King (Citation1992, pp. 227–310) for the first 30 years of this discussion.
6 This tendency within Marxism has lately been characterized as ‘physicalism’ by its opponents among strict value theoretic Marxists. This illustrates, however, that the debate is taking place within Marxism, even if one side of the debate views the Sraffian contribution as unconstructive.
7 Keen (Citation2011, p. 218) suggests that, in later substituting ‘his own convoluted reasoning for Marx’s … [Keynes] probably made a political judgement, at a time when Stalin’s power was rising and communism had great political appeal, not to acknowledge the “father of communism” in his critique of conventional economics’.
8 For a similar and more extensive round-up of post-Keynesian comments on Kalecki’s influence, see Lavoie (Citation2014, p. 46).
9 The financial instability hypothesis can be found in Minsky (Citation1976, Citation1977)
10 Hein (Citation2006) makes many of the same observations about Marx from a post-Keynesian viewpoint.
11 The foregoing quotations are cited in Crotty (Citation1985), which makes a more extended case.
12 Minsky, though not an originator, is also an important figure in the intellectual history of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). MMT claims that taxes drive money, making modern money a phenomenon of the state. Interestingly, William Mitchell, one of MMT’s leading modern proponents, traces strong influences back to Marx and Kalecki:
I am currently working on an introductory chapter to a collection I have prepared for my publisher (Edward Elgar) which describes the evolution of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). The task might appear to be straightforward but in fact is rather vexed. There is considerable dispute as to where the roots lie. A specific debate is the importance of the work of John Maynard Keynes … My own view is that many of the important insights in Keynes were already sketched out in some detail in Marx. Further, the work of the Polish economist Michał Kalecki was much deeper in insight than the work of his contemporary, Keynes.
13 Ross concludes this passage with, ‘Veblen was the American Gramsci drawn by the problem of false consciousness and training in idealist philosophy into a revision of Marx’s theory of history’. This is perhaps overstating the case.
14 An earlier review of another Italian Marxist, Enrico Ferri, has Veblen (Citation1896, p. 99) summarizing one of Ferri’s arguments:
the struggle for existence, as applied within the field of social evolution, is a struggle between groups and institutions rather than a competition a outrance between the individuals of the group, and that this struggle can lead to socially desirable results only as it is carried on the basis of a large measure of group solidarity and co-operation between the individuals of the group.
15 See also Kotz, McDonough, and Reich (Citation1994) and McDonough, Reich, and Kotz (Citation2010, Citation2014).
16 For references, see Himmelweit (Citation1999).
17 ‘The “marriage” of Marxism and feminism has been like the marriage of husband and wife depicted in English common law: Marxism and feminism are one, and that one is Marxism’ (Hartmann Citation1979, p. 1).
18 Marx was working from the writings of the agricultural chemist, Justus von Liebig.
19 We recognize that it is at least formally possible to conduct a similar argument starting with one or more other important figures such as Keynes or Veblen and tracing their influence through heterodox schools other than their own specific tradition. These other schools could include the Marxian tradition. That said, the Marxian school has a chronological priority, especially if seen as the culmination of the classical tradition. Historical materialism also provides a broader historical and social scientific context for the Marxian school, which is not enjoyed by the other heterodox traditions.