Paul Sweezy

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Paul Marlor Sweezy (born April 10, 1910 in New York City , † February 27, 2004 ) was an American economist , Marxist author and editor of the monthly Review .

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Paul Marlor Sweezy was the youngest son of Everett B., Vice President of the First National Bank of New York and Caroline Sweezy. His eldest brother Everett was born in 1901 and Alan followed in 1907.

He graduated from Harvard in 1931 , having previously studied at Phillips Exeter Academy . His major was economics . In 1932 Sweezy spent a year at the London School of Economics . In England he approached Marxism. He took part in Harold Laski's university events . Upon his return, he completed a graduate degree at Harvard University. Here he attended a seminar by Joseph Schumpeter . Sweezy was Schumpeter's teaching assistant for the theory of economics for two years. Sweezy received his PhD in 1937, and his dissertation entitled Monopoly and Competition in the English Coal Industry, 1550-1850 was published by Harvard University Press the following year . His work was awarded the David A. Wells Prize.

In the following period he was offered a five-year contract as assistant professor, which Sweezy accepted. He worked at Harvard for the first three years of that time, but left Harvard in the fall of 1942 to join the US Army in the fight against fascism. Before that, he and his first wife Maxine Yaple Sweezy divorced. Sweezy became an employee of the OSS Office of Strategic Services in the course of his tenure . In this context he went to London, where he met his future second wife, Nancy Adams, in 1944. They had three children together. In 1960 the two divorced. The following year, Sweezy married Zirel Druskin Dowd for a third time.

After the end of his secret service activities and his return to the USA, he decided not to start the remaining two years of his contract. Instead of pursuing a university career, he decided to start a magazine with Leo Huberman . The two had known each other since the 1930s. With the money of a friend close to Sweezy, the literary scholar FO Matthiessen , the two were able to achieve their goal. The two founded Monthly Review in 1949, a socialist magazine whose publication fell in the middle of the McCarthy hysteria. Sweezy and Hubermann also wrote numerous articles for the magazine. They criticized the Vietnam War in a joint series of articles .

Sweezy published The Theory of Capitalist Development as early as 1942 . Published in German under the name Theory of Capitalist Development , it is an introduction to the work of Karl Marx .

In 1952, Sweezy and Huberman decided to set up their own publishing house, the Monthly Review Press. In 1966 another well-known work was published in the context of this, the book Monopolkapital , which was co-authored with Paul A. Baran . Other authors whose works have been printed have included a. Ernest Mandel and Louis Althusser .

Sweezy repeatedly held lectures at various universities. In 1971 there was one at the University of Cambridge entitled On the Theory of Monopoly Capitalism .

From 1974 to 1976 he served in the administration of the American Economic Association .

As a so-called visiting professor, Sweezy later taught at universities such as Cornell University , Stanford University and at the University of Manchester .

Well-known personalities who studied at Sweezy at Harvard included a. Robert Heilbroner and Paul A. Samuelson . John Kenneth Galbraith was a colleague of Sweezy's at the university in the 1930s.

Works (selection)

  • The theory of capitalist development , Oxford University Press, New York 1942
    • German: theory of capitalist development. An analytical study on the principles of Marx's social economy , translated by Gertrud Rittig-Baumhaus, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / M. 1988, ISBN 3-518-10433-0 .
  • together with Leo Huberman , Socialism in Cuba , New York, Monthly Review Press 1970
    • German: Socialism in Cuba , translated by Hans-Werner Sass, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / M. 1969
  • with Paul A. Baran , Monopoly Capital
  • Religion and the Left . In: Monthly Review Special , July / August 1984, vol. 36, no. 3 (together with Harry Magdoff ). Here the MR took a very sympathetic standpoint towards liberation theology .

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Sweezy, Paul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sweezy, Paul Marlor (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American economist, Marxist author, and editor of the Monthly Review
DATE OF BIRTH April 10, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH February 27, 2004