Reflections on 50 Years of Radical Political Economy

Abstract

This article was originally delivered at the annual meeting of the Union for Radical Political Economics (URPE), in the form of a lecturehonoring a distinguished American radical political economist — the late David M. Gordon. The author examines how radical political economy has evolved since URPE was founded in the 1960s, as an organization of economists who dissented from mainstream economics and formed part of the “New Left” movement for a fundamental transformation of the American capitalist system. Over the following five decades the overall political climate in the United States shifted increasingly to the Right and the prospect of a radical transformation of American capitalism has become increasingly remote. Over the same period there have been some developments within mainstream economics that tend to converge with the work of radical political economists. The author explores the ways in which these changes have altered the focus of much of radical political economy as well as the activities of many of its practitioners; and headdresses what radical political economists have actually accomplished over the 50-year period since the founding of URPE. Finally, he offers suggestions for the orientation of radical political economy and the work of its practitioners both in the immediate future and in the more distant future. Refs 18.

Keywords:

radical economics, political economy, capitalism, economic thought, political change, activism