Word: marglin
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...Marglin, however, says he is a Marxist "only in the sense of not being anti-Marx." He believes the abolition of capitalism is "necessary but not sufficient," adding that a "revolution in people's perceptions" is necessary to combat the individualism that he believes is at the root of most disorders in contemporary America. Attitudes must change so that families no longer put old people into nursing homes and young people no longer need to seek surrogate families by joining cults, Marglin says, to cite two modern examples of the negative effects of individualism. "Compare how our society treats...
Whatever his views now, while an undergraduate Marglin had accepted the standard line of the Harvard Economics Department along with what he today sees as its subconscious message--"that the world is a complicated place and that taking a moral position is somehow suspicious in its over-simplification...
...Marglin came to Harvard from Los Angeles in 1955. "I wanted to make it in terms of the preppy image. At that time those were the only terms in which making it counted," he explains. And make it he did; he played football, married a Wellesley graduate, and was hailed even while an undergraduate as the jewel of the Economics Department. Arthur Maass, Thompson professor of Government, remembers Marglin as a "remarkable young man who, when he was just a senior, wrote two of the best chapters in a book published by a team of graduate students and professors." Although...
...early opponent of the Vietnam War, Marglin then saw nothing inconsistent in teaching neoclassical economics Monday through Friday and protesting the war on weekends. Beginning in 1966, when he started to teach graduate economic theory at Harvard, Marglin came to believe neoclassical theory contained an ideological defense of capitalism and not merely an explanation of how the system functions. Marglin's faith in traditional theories deteriorated further when he went to India the following year and "experienced increasing difficulty in relating these theories to the problems of Indian society. Indian students viewed these theories as not even remotely connected...
...Today Marglin still does not have a blueprint for a new way to reorganize the economy. He compares our situation today to "the position of people in the Middle Ages who were wondering if there was some better way to organize agricultural production." The change could occur in a violent way if society breaks down, Marglin says, but admits that he has hopes it might occur more gradually because, "although some have the notion that a purge or blood-letting is necessary, violence creates a certain terror of its own." Marglin points to current government technical assistance and funding...