Word: marglin
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...Marglin followed the lead of Weisskopf. Bowles, Gintis, and MacEwan--non-tenured economists who abandoned the mainstream in the late '60s, and began developing a radical perspective on capitalism. In 1970, he offered a course with Gintis. "Alternatives to Neoclassical Theory." "I shudder when I think of the primitive nature of that course." Marglin says, recalling how eight or nine students came to hear them talk about their work Now, Marglin thinks that his classes are more systematic--"They're real courses," he says...
...Marglin's metamorphosis developed, his relations with the rest of the department soured. In 1972, he proposed Bowles's promotion at an executive meeting of the department--and was soundly defeated. At a student-faculty meeting shortly after, Marglin read his notes from the debate over Bowles's election, without attributing quotes. "There were so many half-truths being uttered by my colleagues that I wanted to say what my recollection of the meeting was." Marglin explains. The rest of the faculty was incensed, and the controversy over radical economists took on a new bitterness. At the next executive meeting...
Since then, the hostility has died down as the campus has become de politicized and the non-tenured radicals have left, one by one. Marglin talks with many of his colleagues, but some don't speak to him at all. "I rather doubt that if I were a candidate today I would get tenure," he says...
...difference remains that mainstream economists--as demonstrated in the April debate when Otto Fekstein bluntly asserted. "I believe in capitalism"--are still committed to the system: It's not that they are unable to reconcile their politics with their work, as was the radicalized Marglin in the late '60s. He thinks mainstream economists are inextricably bound to capitalism. "Their politics are quite consistent with their economics." Marglin say. Marglin doesn't think many economists were radicalized by the debate last month--"I didn't really expect to shake Otto's faith in capitalism," he laughs. But he does believe that...
...Marglin feels the best aspect of the debate was that "a lot of people were exposed for the first time to the idea that there were alternative ways of looking at American capitalism that are worthy of consideration...