The Brilliance of Anwar Shaikh
Recently I found the work of Anwar Shaikh. His views on economics are the most insightful and thorough I have ever seen. He is questioning and re-formulating economic theories through history. He is arriving at conclusions that are more realistic and integrative.
He should lead the way to how economics should be taught in the future. His free-thinking path is somewhat similar to that of Samuel Bowles and Joseph Stiglitz, but I think Shaikh goes beyond them to greater understanding of macroeconomics.
Here is a playlist from youtube for his 30-video lecture series. Each video is about 1.5 hours long. So there is a lot of brilliant material to go through.
link to playlist for Anwar Shaikh lectures
Here is an interview with INET that gives just small taste of his views. The video lectures present so much more.
Here is a link to get his 2016 book, Capitalism: Competition, Conflict & Crises
Why do I like his work?
- He says profit drives the business cycle.
- He says firms set prices.
- He does not believe in monopoly power, but rather the dynamics of capital intensity. Brilliant.
- He understands the labor struggle.
- He has great knowledge of economists through history and their work.
- He has seeks to explain Keynes’ Effective Demand with his theory of Real Competition and aggregate profitability. He is on the right path. Effective Demand is the area of my research. So I study his work to gain insights into my own work.
- He presents a view of firms trying to survive by either cutting prices or cutting capacity utilization depending on ease of entry/exit from an industry.
- And so much more…
I highly recommend the work Anwar Shaikh.
His lecture #8 might be a good place to start.
Firms trying to survive by cutting waste and cost it should have said. Capacity cutting is more a growth or lack of growth related undesirable cost cutting measure…For an complementary view of capitalism, competition, crisis and conflict be sure to look at the Economic Policy Institute.com site. Josh Bivens and Mark Price give excellent research into the inequality of pay and opportunity cost most Americans lost since 1980 and why that is much easier to understand…
Hi William,
Thanks for your comments… The best thing about Anwar’s work is that he puts profitability and real competition as the driving forces behind most economics. That is so truth… Easy to get rid of utility, preference, endowments, edgeworth boxes, representative agents and all that…
Ed there are 1.6M families in the top 1% that earned 21 times more income than what the 99% earns. That is the national level of today’s wage inequality in America according to the EPI. The income captured for the middle class has been reversed since 1980. Since 1980 the 1% has captured 80% od all income growth or since the rise of corporate globalism. There are many theories of income redistribution but no theories of capital redistribution. We need a much more democratic economy that gives the Treasury the tools it needs to be able to push back on mercantilist currency manipulation and ISDS loss of sovereignty. While globalization know of no borders. Most people today still want borders…
Closer to 1.2 million http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/model-estimates/distribution-individual-income-tax-expenditures-2015-model-version-0515/tax-28 ; but, yours will work too.
Great find!