In class, CM asked (with respect to the Marxist/radical/heterodox/post-Keyensian views in the thread about J.W. Mason's post):
When am I going to learn why modern economists have rejected Marx's conceptions of macroeconomics? The labor theory of value, falling rate of profit, and reserve army of labor especially stand out as interesting and important macroeconomic ideas--Do we cover these things in Senior Seminar?
The easy answer to this is your mostly not going to learn about them at all. As I remarked in this post about the implications of J.W. Mason's post, most departments are neo-classical (including yours) and are simply uninterested in covering that stuff.†
I would not say that there is any suppression of views going on here. This is not really about flavors of economics that all students should be exposed to. It's really about completely different fields that ought to have their own departments. Noting that the neo-classical economists at SUU don't cover Marxist/radical/heterodox/post-Keynesian thought is akin to noting that they don't cover accounting. It's sufficiently different that it's just not what we do.
I am not sure about this, but I've gotten a pretty good exposure through the years, and I might be the best equipped to point you in the right direction. Having said that, these are neo-classical criticisms.
Labor Theory of Value: check out Steven Horwitz's "We're Still Haunted by the Labor Theory of Value". I really like his point that to Marxists, the value of output is determined by what we put in to get it, but to neo-classicals the value of what we put in is determined by what we get out. For example, in the first one, a meal is good because someone put a lot of time into it, while in the second one the people we like to cook for us are the ones who produce meals we like. This is part of a bigger discussion about marginalism, the diamonds vs water paradox, and the contributions of Menger, Jevons, Walras, Marshall, and Clark (although people are trying to cancel him).
Falling Rate of Profit: does it suffice to say this prediction is 150 years old, and this hasn't happened yet? To me, Marx sounds like he's describing free entry and perfect or monopolist competition. He doesn't spend much time discussing economies of scale and monopoly in the context of increasing rates of profit. He also seems unaware of the idea of a firm working in multiple product lines, and accepting zero profit in most of them, while always looking for one that will temporarily deliver monopoly profits.
Reserve Army of [unemployed] Labor: I indicated in class that this is part of Marxist (but maybe not really Marx') theories that I tend to like. But that's not the same thing as seeing that all around me. Historical perspective on this is important: during Marx' lifetimes unemployment went from non-existent to a common thing. This was new in human history, and Marx attempted to explain why it would happen. Through the lens of 175 years of experience with how unemployment works, I tend to view it as a coordination problem: the potential worker is here and now, and the potential job is over there and then, and perhaps they don't match up well. I also tend to think the JOLTS data points to this idea not being very important: for example, while quits dropped a lot in 2008-9, this is the period in the data when a worker would be most concerned about that reserve army, and they just weren't.
Having pointed you in some directions, I would say that the way to learn Marxist economics is definitely not to go and learn it from someone who is not an economist at all. The issue here would be that they might be unlikely to know any neo-classical economics at all. And yet the whole thing is about an entire profession trying Marxism on for size, and finding it lacking.
And I would object to a word used in CM's question. This is not a rejection by "modern" economists. This is a wholesale rejection by just about everyone in the field going back for about 125 years. It's not modern in the scheme of a field that's coming up on 250 years old.
And if you want to be autodidactic, I know of no better source than my old buddy Ajit Sinha.
† The closest you will come in our department is some of Dave Berri's non-sports, non-required, classes. Recommended.
Cute story: what do Marxists and neo-classicals talk about over dinner? Ajit and 2 radical friends were in New Orleans at a conference when I worked at UNO and Tulane. I offered to take them out to dinner. They wanted to try alligator. The conversation worked its way around to how unusual it is for humans to eat carnivores. That evolved into, if the alligator ate a dog, and the dog had bitten a human, would we four be guilty of indirect cannibalism? We resolved that the alligator was very good, so we would worry about that some other day.
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