Maurice Herbert Dobb (1900-1976)
Hans G. Despain
Introduction
Maurice Herbert Dobb arrived in Cambridge as a 19-year-old in 1919. Originally he intended to study history, but just before leaving London, he encountered several unorthodox writers in Karl Marx, John A. Hobson, George Bernard Shaw, and William Morris. These readings inspired him to pursue political economy. Maynard Keynes encouraged Dobb to join his Political Economy Club, ‘an invitation-only’ (Shenk 2013a: 26), ‘markedly elitist’ (Marcuzzo et al. 2008: 573), ‘all-male gathering’ (Skidelsky 1994: 5)1 society. As a member of ‘Keynes’ Club’ (ibid.: 287), Dobb would read a paper on Marx.[1] [2]
While at Cambridge as an undergraduate, Dobb was involved with several students and political organizations including the University Socialist Society.[3] Dobb’s political activity throughout his life provided him with an ‘order to his existence and meaning to his life’ (Shenk 2013a: 35). His political activity,
- 1 Thus, excluding in particular, Joan Maurice (later Robinson) from participating.
- 2 Dobb reports Keynes approved of the paper. Dobb (1978: 117) proclaimed that Keynes liked ‘unorthodoxy in the young, up to a point’.
- 3 For an impressive, and inspiring, account of Dobb’s early political activity see Shenk (2013a), especially Chapters 2 and 3.
however, did tend to alienate him from his fellow undergraduate students at Cambridge. On one occasion students disrupted a meeting of the Union of Democratic Control and tossed the young pacifist socialist Dobb into the River Cam (ibid.: 24). Nonetheless, following his graduation, he was able to obtain a Studentship for Research at the London School of Economics (LSE). In 1922, while in London, he became a member of the British Communist Party and remained a member all his life.[4]
Dobb was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1944, the University of London and the LSE attempted to lure Dobb away from Cambridge. In the end, his communism was too worrisome for the LSE (ibid.: 127). Thus, Dobb stayed on at Cambridge. He was elected to a University Readership in economics in 1959. He taught at Cambridge until his retirement in 1967. He received honorary degrees from Charles University of Prague, the University of Budapest, and Leicester University. After his retirement from Cambridge Dobb lived in the village of Fulbourn with his wife, Barbara, until he died on 17 August 1976 (Sen 1990).
Dobb’s contributions to political economy were extraordinary. He was one of the most influential economists of his generation. He was a member of the Faculty of Economics at Cambridge from 1924 to 1967. Although many of his colleagues, such as Keynes, Joan Robinson, Michal Kalecki, Piero Sraffa, and Nicolas Kaldor, have many volumes written on their economic ideas and contributions, Dobb’s work has been comparatively neglected.[5] This neglect is all the more remarkable when the impact of his work is taken into account. Dobb’s 12 published academic books range from economic theory, to economic history, development economics, studies of the Soviet political economy, critique of neoclassical theory and (neo)liberal policy, welfare economics, labor and wage theory, and history of economic thought. He published hundreds of articles, many academic and even more articles and pamphlets intended to bring political economy to the eyes, minds, and actions of a general audience. Dobb was impressively successful, balancing an academic career with political activism.
- [1] H.G. Despain (*) Department Chair, Economics, Nichols College, USAe-mail: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 623
- [2] R.A. Cord (ed.), The Palgrave Companion to Cambridge Economics,
- [3] DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-41233-1_28
- [4] In an early defense of his commitment to the Communist Party, Dobb stated that his party membershipgave him ‘a sense of participating in a world movement, and thinking of world events in realistic andup-to-date terms’ in the necessary ‘struggle against capitalism’ (Dobb 1940a: 445).
- [5] Dobb was the subject of Despain’s PhD dissertation (Despain 2011). More recently, Timothy Shenk(2013a) has written a highly impressive intellectual biography of Dobb. Despain reviewed Shenks booktwice: from a Marxian perspective (Despain 2014a) and from the perspective of the history of economicideas (Despain 2014b). In the author’s opinion, Despain (2011) and Shenk (2013a) provide very different, but complementary, approaches to Dobb’s legacy. Despain’s focus is an institutionalist reading ofDobb’s political economy, especially Dobb’s theories on crisis and unstable capitalist development, and anattempt to model Dobb’s philosophical approach to social science. Shenk’s focus is an intellectual biography, and the dialectic between Dobb’s political activity, intellectual output, history, and current events.
