The first thing that should be noted is that while Duncan is indubitably one of the leading living theorists of Marxist economics, he does not consider himself to be a "Marxist," but rather a student of Marx, if a deeply sympathetic one. This is a sensitive matter as he was turned down for tenure at Stanford largely because he was accused of being a "Marxist economist" when he started publishing papers and books on Marxist economics. He has always sais that his true ideology is his religion, Quakerism, the Friends, with him agreeing with their pacifism, which is not an idea inherent in Marxism, indeed, with many Marxists supporting violent revolution. Nevertheless, there is probably no living economist who is clearly more important as a deep analyst of Mars's economics, with some of his closest rivals in attendance at this latest conference, such as Anwar Shaikh.
How he got into Marxist economics followed on from his earlier work on general equilibrium theory, which was what got him hired at Stanford in the first place (and he still writes on GET). Indeed, he had been hired at MIT from Yale to teach general equilibrium theory to grad students a la Arrow-Debreu-McKenzie, as this was not Paul Samuelson's cup of tea. The motive for moving to Marx was the problem posed by fitting money into general equilibrium theory, which is generally done in a purely barter form. This is also a cover for the problem of how to link micro to macro. He was especially intrigued by Marx's writings on money in the Grundrisse and in Vol. III of Capital, which became the basis for his later interpretations and studies of this....Econospeak
Duncan Foley On Socialist Alternatives to Capitalism
J. Barkley Rosser | Professor of Economics and Business Administration James Madison University
