Books to read/ study
i) Sperber’s Marx biog: plus a short review: by end of April 2013
Main Currents of Marxism, broken down into manageable bits
> Simple summary of pre-Marx dialects from Plotinus to the Young Hegelians by May
Old Greek philosophy
Capitalism and Modern Social Theory
The Violence of Abstraction
KMTH
On the Jewish Question, Paris Manuscripts
The German Ideology, 18th Brumaire
The Grundrisse, Capital I
Varieties of Social Explanation
Modern Marxism and international relations
Marxist theories of imperialism
ii) Class in Britain read and summary by end of June
Labour party pamphlet on "One Nation"
Belarus, a perpetual borderland
Aslund’s book on Ukrainian economy
Economic history of a) world in 20th C b) UK in 20th century
iii) Emerging market economies: read more on May hol
Langdana A week off in May: what’s practically useful
Evolution of Macroeconomics
LSE undergrad text
Penguin History of Economic Thought: read on May hol
iv) Statistics with Excel
Maths: textbook plus winecon
Manual on Excel, Word, Power Point
v) Russian & French
vi) Shakespeare, poetry, novels
vii) broad history, esp of europe
Topics/question/ subjects to look into
Is there anything still useful in dialectics, except in helping to understand Marx? What is useful? Outline on own words by end July
Is there anything still useful in Marx’s political economy? The approach? Any content?
Is there anything still politically useful in historical materialism?
Is the pay of chief execs etc justified by the small pool of management "talent", or is it ideological rent seeking, linked to social connections?
What is the relationship between the institution of private productive property and workplace arbitrary power structures, "workplace tyranny"?
Is there a tendency of the rate of profit to fall long term and how might this tie in with the current ongoing global economic crisis ala Brenner’s "consumption Keynesianism"/ endless monetary boosts/phases of QE either stuck in liquidity traps or leading to new phases of SAP bubbles??
In lieu of the labour theory of value not holding, does any other theory of value hold? What implications for the justice or otherwise of social distribution of the economic surplus? Eg does the "intellectual propery" argument hold if the "mixing my labour" argument doesn’t? What is the justification for my making an eternal living from a single invention, because my intellectual labour is being continually "mixed" with material, eg is certain kinds of micro chips or pharmaceutical; from the past (but still going/): "cats eyes"?
Practical criticism assessment, but constructive, of "One Nation" Labour; a more positive, less defensive but practical/sellable left programme than tired 70s Old Labour nostalgists like, say, Owen Jones; one that gives away less to the "neo-liberal" hegemony (why should we/ there’s no need to since it’s more or less intellectually damaged/defeated, if not in practice)
Work related
Main tipics for each country, to keep coverage focused
A list of issues/ arguments/ main theoretical connections/mechanisms by:
econ pol,
fiscal [govt spend and tax changes],
monetary [change growth of Ms],
GDP [G, C (related to disposable income, IRs, employment, wages, economic/jobs/labour market outlook) I (related to IRs, econ growth/firm profitability, econ outlook for product sales and profitability) and net exports (related to foreign and domestic income, real exchange rate)
inflation (cost push, demand pull, SAP bubbles, price administration)
exchange rate (related to demand for foreign elative to domestic currency, which is related to policy regime, domestic relative to international IRs, the outlook for the economy, the size of key financial variables (budget deficit, current account), credibility of govt policy, which is influenced by international backing, size of reserves,
Work out: who is audience? Why would they read it? Work out this and more detailed outline/ proposal. By July 2013.
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