Jan Toporowski: Debt, Class and Asset Inflation

The mainstream view of household consumption and saving is based on the idea of a ‘representative’ household endowed with more or less perfect foresight, according to whether the theory is New Classical or New Keynesian. The traditional Keynesian view had household saving and consumption determined by income, with Post-Keynesian innovations in the form of differentiated propensities to consume on the part of workers or capitalists and, following Minsky, increasing indebtedness of firms. More

Jan Toporowski: Sweezy and the Monthly Review on Capitalism and Finance

The New York Monthly Review established by Paul Sweezy and Leo Huberman in 1949 represents a unique venture in disseminating Marxist ideas in a way that has been informed by serious economic analysis. In particular it has benefited from the close relationship that Paul Sweezy had with his PhD supervisor at Harvard, Joseph Schumpeter; Sweezy’s own personal knowledge of finance through his father, who was one of five vice-presidents of the New York-based First National Bank (which eventually became Citibank); More