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The End of Prosperity: The American Economy in the 1970s by Harry Magdoff and Paul M. Sweezy (Pol Svizi - Teorija kapitalističkog razvitka)

Paul Marlor Sweezy (April 10, 1910 – February 27, 2004) was a Marxian economist, political activist, publisher, and founding editor of the long-running magazine Monthly Review. He is best remembered for his contributions to economic theory as one of the leading Marxian economists of the second half of the 20th century.
Activism[edit]
In 1954 New Hampshire Attorney General Louis C. Wyman subpoenaed Sweezy and made inquiries into the contents of a guest lecture at the University of New Hampshire and his political beliefs and associations, demanding to know the names of his political associates. Sweezy refused to comply, citing his First Amendment right of freedom of expression. He was cited for contempt of court and briefly imprisoned, but the US Supreme Court overturned the citation in a landmark case for academic freedom. Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U.S. 234 (1957).
Sweezy was active in a wide range of progressive causes, including the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, the National Lawyers Guild, the National Council of the Arts, Sciences and Professions, and the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.[6] He was the chairman of the Committee in Defense of Carl Marzani and was particularly active fighting against the prosecution of members of the Communist Party under the Smith Act.[6]
An outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War, Sweezy was a prominent supporter of Bertrand Russell`s International War Crimes Tribunal.[6]
Contributions to economics[edit]
Main article: Monopoly Capital
Sweezy’s work in economics focused on applying Marxist analysis to what he identified as three dominant trends in modern capitalism: monopolization, stagnation, and financialization.
Sweezy`s first formally published paper on economics was a 1934 article entitled `Professor Pigou’s Theory of Unemployment,` published in the Journal of Political Economy in 1934.[2] Over the rest of the decade Sweezy wrote prolifically on economics-related topics, publishing some 25 articles and reviews.[2] Sweezy did pioneering work in the fields of expectations and oligopoly in these years, introducing for the first time the concept of the kinked demand curve in the determination of oligopoly pricing.[2]
Harvard published Sweezy’s dissertation, Monopoly and Competition in the English Coal Trade, 1550–1850, in 1938. With the 1942 publication of The Theory of Capitalist Development Sweezy established himself as the “dean of American Marxists” and laid foundations for later Marxist work on these themes. In addition to presenting the first major discussion of the “transformation problem” in English, the book also emphasized the “qualitative” as well as “quantitative” aspect of Marx’s theory of value, distinguishing Marx’s approach from those of his predecessors in political economy.[4]
In 1966, Sweezy published Monopoly Capital: An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order with Paul Baran. The book elaborated evidence for and implications of Sweezy’s stagnation theory, also called secular stagnation. The main dilemma modern capitalism would face, they argued, would be how to find profitable investment outlets for the economic surpluses created by capital accumulation. Because of the increase in oligopoly this took the form of stagnation as monopolistic firms reduced output rather than prices in response to overcapacity.
Oligopoly meant there was a tendency for the rate of surplus to rise, but this surplus did not necessarily register in statistical records as profits. It also takes the form of waste and excess production capacity.
Increases in marketing, defense spending and various forms of debt could alleviate the problem of overaccumulation. However, they believed that these remedies to capital`s difficulties were inherently limited and tend to decrease in effectiveness over time so that monopoly capital would tend toward economic stagnation.
This book is regarded as the cornerstone of Sweezy`s contribution to Marxian economics.
Sweezy had dealt with the rise and fall of finance capital in the early 21st century identifying monopoly as the more essential trend. This formed the context in which he would analyze the resurgence of finance capital in the post-war era. Because Sweezy’s approach combined and integrated the micro effects of monopoly with the macro level insights of Keynesian theory it proved superior for understanding the stagflation of the 1970s. Sweezy’s later work with Harry Magdoff examined the importance of “financial explosion” as a response to stagnation.[4]
Death and legacy[edit]
Paul Sweezy died February 27, 2004. He was 93 years old at the time of his death.
Sweezy was lauded by economist and public intellectual John Kenneth Galbraith as `the most noted American Marxist scholar` of the late 20th Century.[7] He was also called `the best that Exeter and Harvard can produce` and regarded as `among the most promising economists of his generation` by Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Samuelson.[8]

marksizam, ekonomija, marksistička ekonomija, politička ekonomija, sociologija, Jozef Šumpeter - Kapitalizam, socijalizam i demokratija, Kejnzijanci, kejnzijanizam