2017 Political Economy Seminar Series

Bill Dunn (University of Sydney), ‘Marx, Keynes, and the classics: Towards a theory of unemployment that is both general and specific’

Date: Thursday 23 March 2017

Time: 4pm-5.30pm

Location: Darlington Centre Boardroom

Abstract: The paper argues that Marxism lacks an adequate theory of unemployment and can move closer to this through the critical appropriation of Keynesian insights. Both traditions recognise the reality and importance of unemployment but what Keynes sees as pathological is for Marx a normal, even healthy part of capitalism. Very different social ontologies militate against an easy synthesis. However, it is argued, downgrading the conceptual claims of the General Theory, seeing it as less general and more specific than Keynes claimed, allows its insights to be re-worked and embedded into a more general Marxist framework.

About the speaker: Bill Dunn is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Economy at the University of Sydney. He is the author of Global Restructuring and the Power of Labour (Palgrave MacMillan 2004), Global Political Economy: a Marxist Critique (Pluto 2009), The Political Economy of Global Capitalism and Crisis (Routledge 2014) and Neither Free Trade nor Protection (Edward Elgar 2015).

Contact: Gareth Bryant, gareth.bryant@sydney.edu.au

All welcome!