ska invita
back on the other side
to me Marx was an economist and Das Kapital is a book on economics. To disagree on that would be a point of semantics I think. I always imagined economics students doing a class on Kapital, but I guess that was naive of me.I think you have to step outside of economics to adopt an anti-capitalist ideology that talks about economic relationships/actions. Probably getting a bit semantic at this point tbh.
In any case, as you say the real world economics both in academia and elsewhere is so entirely capitalist (and not just that, but dominated by the kind of neo-classical nonsense I was talking about in the rest of my post) that even if there is the possibility of anti-capitalist economics ideologies they aren't really relevant.
I think the reason marx maintains his importance is precisely because Kapital got down to the 'science' of capitalist economics and was written from what i would consider an economics methodology. Likewise Piketty has made a noise because its a proper economics book.
I think this is exactly "whats wrong with economics", there needs to be more left critique of capitalism from within economics. The best writer Ive read on modern economics is Harry Shutt, particularly The Trouble with Capitalism -he's a economist with a working history in dealing with African development money amongst other things IRC, and his critique is one firmly made in economic language and terminology (broadly he says that perpetual growth is impossible without inevitable boom and bust and an economic model that doesnt rely on perpetual growth needs to be formulated)
so called Cultural Marxists have done a lot in academia, i cant see why left economists cant do the same.
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i do wish the theory forum would be moved up the top with P&P.
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