Maurice Dobb

Maurice Herbert Dobb ( born July 24, 1900 in London, † August 17, 1976 ) was a British Marxist economist. He worked as a Lecturer from 1924 to 1959 and as a Reader 1959-1976 at Cambridge University and was a Fellow of Trinity College ( Cambridge ) By 1948 until 1976.

Life

Born in London, he attended Pembroke College (Cambridge) in 1919 with a scholarship and studied History. However, after a year he changed the subject and studied economics now. In the years 1921 and 1922, he graduated from the Classical tripos honors ( a Cambridge - specific three-year study of classical literature). After two years, a job held at the London School of Economics as a researcher and had attained the degree of PhD, he returned to Cambridge, where he got a job as a lecturer in 1924. In this role, he also taught at his old college.

After divorcing his first wife, Phyllis, and the turn to Marxism him the permit was revoked to participate in the common meal, and his students turned away from him. However Dobb soon found a place at Trinity College, with whom he was associated for 50 years, although it was not until 1948 Fellow and in 1959 was appointed Reader.

Dobb, who had joined the Communist Party in 1920, the center was located in the 1930s burgeoning communist movement at the university. One of those he campaigned for the party, was Kim Philby, later a highly resettled "mole" in the British secret service. One says Dobb after he had recruited many capable employees for the Comintern.

The theoretical work

Dobb was an economist whose main concern was the interpretation of the neoclassical theory from a Marxist point of view. He took part in the debate on economic calculation under socialism, in particular, he criticized market models based on capitalist- market economy, sozialistsch - planned economy or market- socialist ideas based on a neoclassical equilibrium. Dobb criticized Oskar Lange and his market socialist model and the contributions of "neo- classical " socialists because of their " narrowing the focus to exchange relations " ( Economists and the Economics of Socialism, 1939. )

Many of his works have been translated into other languages. His brief Introduction to Economics has been translated into Spanish by Mexican intellectuals Antonio Castro Leal for the important Mexican publishing house Fondo de Cultura Economica, and experienced more than ten editions.

The key economic challenges for socialism exist for Dobb is to control the dynamics of production and investment correctly. He made three main advantages of a planned economy: previous coordination, consideration of externalities and the possibility of planning variables.

Previous coordination

A planned economy requires a prior coordination of economic sectors. In contrast, a market economy deals with the actors as atoms whose decisions no reliable information was based. There is a lack of information, which often leads to an imbalance, which in turn can only be corrected by the ex post market, resulting in waste of resources with them. One advantage of previous planning is to eliminate this uncertainty - at least to a certain degree - by coordinated and unified collection of information and decision-making that precedes the use of resources.

Externalities

Dobb was one of the first scientists to recognize the importance of external effects for a market economy. In a market economy, each actor makes decisions based on limited information, with more far-reaching social impacts of production and consumption are ignored. If there are external effects to a significant extent, those information are ineffective, contain statements about market prices, so that these prices do not reflect the true social opportunity costs. Contrary to popular assumptions of mainstream economists are significant externalities in modern market economies everywhere effectively. A planning, coordinating interrelated decisions before they are put into practice, can take into account a greater number of social impacts. This has important implications for effective industrial planning, including decisions in relation to the external effects of uneven development of various economic sectors in terms of externalities in public works and in the development of infant industries. Then there are the much-publicized negative effects on the environment.

Variables of the planning

Taking into account the whole complex of factors taken into account, it becomes clear that only a plan, including a previous coordination, allows for a smooth allocation of resources, because many things that appear as data in a static model, can be used in a planning process variables are handled. Be cited as examples: the investment rate, the distribution of investment capital and consumption, the choice of appropriate production technology, the geographical distribution of investments, determining the relative growth rates of the sectors transport, fuel, energy and agriculture in relation to the growth of the industry, the pace of introduction of new products, the selection of which new products are introduced, the degree of standardization of production and diversity depending on the level at which the economy is.

Writings

• Capitalist Enterprise and Social Progress, 1925
• Russian Economic Development since the Revolution, 1928
• Wages, 1928
• " Economic Theory and the Problems of a Socialist Economy ", 1933, EJ.
• Political Economy and Capitalism: Some essays in economic tradition, 1937
• Marx as to Economist, 1943
• Studies in the Development of Capitalism, 1946 German: The development of capitalism from the late feudalism to the present, translated by Franz Becker, Kiepenheuer & Petrovich, Cologne 1970.

• German: Wages, EVA, Frankfurt q.s. 1970

• German: Economic Growth and Planning, translated by Erwin Weissel, European publishing house, Frankfurt 1960.

• German: value and distribution theories since Adam Smith: a national economic history of dogma, translated by Cora Stephan, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt aM 1977, ISBN 3-518-10765-8

• Essay in the anthology An Outline of Modern Knowledge, edited by William Rose and published by Victor Gollancz, 1931, along with other scientific authorities of that time such as Roger Fry, CG Seligman, FJC Hearnshaw, and GDH Cole.