NM's blog

By Michael Roberts Anwar Shaikh has died at the age of 80 after a period of illness. Born in Karachi, Pakistan, Anwar was THE figure in classical and Marxist economics of the last 40 years or more. He was an educator of many radical economists over decades as Professor of Economics at the New School for Social Research in New York. He wrote many seminal and important works, which were eventually compiled and added to in his magisterial book (always on my bookshelf ready to consult): Capitalism: competition, conflict, crises. Please read this article on Anwar's work that I wrote for the New School Economic Review in 2023, a special issue to celebrate his work and that of Duncan Foley. "Anwar Shaikh’s contribution to the economics of reality—i.e. the political economy of capitalism— is immeasurable." "Shaikh has covered just about every area of the macro (and the micro) and has delivered new theoretical insights backed up by empirical evidence—a combination sadly lac...

The talk these days in Britain is again about the possible break up of the UK. Writing in 1977, during a decade marked by severe economic stagnation, IMF bailouts, and the initial emergence of the SNP, Tom Nairn famously predicted the "slow foundering" of the United Kingdom.  His core argument was that the UK is not a modern democratic nation-state, but an archaic, imperial relic whose structural flaws make its collapse inevitable.  Because Britain was the world's first industrial power, its rising capitalist bourgeoisie made a pact with the old agrarian aristocracy rather than overthrowing them. It never had a true democratic revolution The UK retained a fundamentally "pre-modern," centralized constitutional framework based on the absolute sovereignty of the  "Queen in Parliament"  rather than the sovereignty of the people. Nairn mockingly dubbed this encrusted, uncodified political system  "Ukania". According to Nairn, this archaic state st...

Keynes, civilisation, and the long run

Book review: The Long Depression by Michael Roberts   (a pdf file)

" Turning and turning in the widening gyre   The falcon cannot hear the falconer;   Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;   Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,   The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   The ceremony of innocence is drowned;   The best lack all conviction, while the worst   Are full of passionate intensity." W. B. Yeats No, the Centre can still hold. The economic and political order since the 1980s, a form capitalism, has been accepted and supported by centre-right and centre-left governments of the same regime. The two movements which has opposed that order are now stigmatised as "populism". The revolutionary left is weak and divided.  Despite the crises (economic, social, theoretical, and political), Brexit, Trump, refugees, etc. there is no real threat to the established order to compel the Centre to resort to the fascist or semi-fascist forces. No, the general crisis can still be managed by the Libera...

A talk in London Anwar Shaikh talk on Capitalism: Competition, Conflict, Crises and in New York Marx and Capital: The Concept, the Book, the History