Stephen Marglin

Stephen Alan Marglin is an American economist . He researched and published in various economic areas. In recent years he has made a name for himself as a critic of unreflective submission to economics and especially to neoclassical theory .

Life

Marglin was appointed professor at Harvard University in 1968 as one of the youngest economists , where he previously held a Ph.D. graduated. In the following years he examined large parts of economics. His publications include essays and books on cost-benefit analysis , the organization of work and production, increase and distribution of welfare, and economic interventions.

Marglin is married to the anthropologist Frédérique Apffel-Marglin (* 1951). Together they published about the position of the individual in the economy. He followed this up with his criticism of economics, as it focused too much on the individual and too little on communities. As early as 1974, with the essay What Do Bosses Do? criticized modern capitalism and a controversy - also with his faculty colleague David Landes - triggered by his thesis that capitalist development is not, as with Adam Smith and his successors, for reasons of efficiency, but rather from the rent-seeking activity of the To be explained to capitalists.

Marglin worked in development cooperation. Before being appointed professor, he supported the Indian government in the 1960s . He later advised the United Nations . He is a council member in the World Future Council .

Works

The following list shows a selection of books published by Marglin, and he has also written numerous magazine articles and working papers.

• Guidelines for Project Evaluation with Partha Dasgupta and Amartya Sen , 1972
• Value and Price in the Labor-Surplus Economy , 1976
• Growth, Distribution, and Prices , 1984
• The Golden Age of Capitalism: Reinterpreting the Postwar Experience Editor with Juliet Schor , 1990
• Dominating Knowledge: Development, Culture, and Resistance with Frédérique Apffel-Marglin, 1990
• The dismal science: how thinking like an economist undermines community , 2008

Its central essay is

• "What Do Bosses Do? The Origins and Functions of Hierarchy in Capitalist Production. Part I ”, in: Review of Radical Political Economics 6 (1974), 60–112, German:“ What do the superiors. The origins and functions of the hierarchy in capitalist production ”, in: Technologie und Politik 8 (1977), 148ff.
• "What Do Bosses Do? The Origins and Functions of Hierarchy in Capitalist Production. Part II ", in: Review of Radical Political Economics 7 (1975), 20-37

Web links

• Stephen Marglin on his private website
• Stephen Marglin at Harvard University