by Michael Roberts comments briefly on Richard D. Wolff's two new book, Understanding Marxism and Understanding Socialism. Probably the salient point: "As Wolff has said: 'If you want to understand an economy, not only from the point of view of people who love it, but also from the point of view of people who are critical and think we can do better, then you need to study Marxian economics as part of any serious attempt to understand what’s going on. Not to do it is to exclude yourself from the critical tradition.'” I would add, at the very least. Marx and Engels, and subsequent Marxists and those influenced by Marx are still highly relevant and they are becoming more so as capitalism is more and more in crisis owing to neoliberalism, neoliberal globalization and the challenge of climate
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Mike Norman considers the following as important: Marxism, Richard D. Wolff, socialism
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Probably the salient point: "As Wolff has said: 'If you want to understand an economy, not only from the point of view of people who love it, but also from the point of view of people who are critical and think we can do better, then you need to study Marxian economics as part of any serious attempt to understand what’s going on. Not to do it is to exclude yourself from the critical tradition.'”I would add, at the very least. Marx and Engels, and subsequent Marxists and those influenced by Marx are still highly relevant and they are becoming more so as capitalism is more and more in crisis owing to neoliberalism, neoliberal globalization and the challenge of climate change. Change is coming.
Michael Roberts Blog — blogging from a marxist economist
Understanding socialism
Michael Roberts
The difficultly with approaching Marx today is twofold. First, he is lightening rod, so most things written are either by proponents or opponents.
Secondly, Marx was a philosopher in his own right and a public intellectual in this time as a journalist and writer of political tracts in the context of the contemporary debates. It would be a mistake to consider him either only from the point of view of economic or even as "an economist."
Marx lived before economics had become a separate academic discipline comparable to the present day. He was a philosopher, social and political activist, political theorist, historian, and one of the founders the disciplines that later became sociology and economics. In fact, when I was grad student in philosophy, I studied the aspects of Marx's contribution other than to economics.
This type of broad thinking falls largely to the philosophers that preceded him. Subsequent to Marx, the fields of knowledge became highly specialized and silos began to form.