Intellectual Versatility and Influence
Dobb’s students were attracted to his critique of mainstream theory and his unorthodox commitment to, and emphasis of, the historical and institutional context of economic activity and human behavior. Dobb inspired a new approach to history and a new approach to economic theory. His list of Cambridge students included Ronald Meek, Joan Robinson, Victor Kiernan, Eric Hobsbawm, and Nobel Prize Laureate Amartya Sen.
Sen would claim that Dobb was ‘the closest to a guru that I’ve ever had’ (Sen quoted in Shenk 2013a: 172). Sen would recount in his 1998 Nobel Address that in the tradition of Dobb’s mentor, A.C. Pigou, Dobb himself taught a generation of Cambridge economists (neoclassic) welfare economics: ‘The Marxist Maurice Dobb and the conservative neo-classist Dennis Robinson did joint seminars’. Dobb was ‘one of the few [Cambridge economists, a department caught in an internal battle over Keynesian economics] who, to my delight, took welfare economics seriously’. Victor Kiernan (1987) would remember Dobb for his knowledge and expertise of Marxian economics. Likewise, Ronald Meek (1979: 61-62) would claim that PEC would for ‘future historians and economic thought.. .date the emergence of Marxist economics as a really serious economic discipline’.
Indeed, one of Dobb’s greatest strengths as a theorist was his penetrating knowledge of both neoclassical economics and Marxian political economy. He employed his knowledge of neoclassical economics to development incisive immanent critiques (e.g. Dobb 1949, 1969 [1955]: 104-117). He employed his knowledge of Marxian historical materialism to understand the historical emergence of capitalism (Dobb 1946: 33-221) and historical evolution of capitalism and its ‘stages of development’ (ibid.: 1-32, 222-393). He employed his knowledge of Marxian political economy to the economics of development in order to better understand modern society and the crisis tendencies of capitalism.
Dobb’s contributions have a wide versatility, demonstrating his substantial breadth of knowledge in an impressive number of areas. Not only was he arguably the foremost scholar of his generation in Marxian political economy, but also his studies and knowledge of the political economy of the Soviet Union were the most renowned of any English-speaking economist. His Russian Economic Development Since the Revolution (Dobb 1928), and his Soviet Economic Development Since 1917 (Dobb 1948), introduced generations of English-speaking economists to the history of the Soviet system.[1]
Dobb further participated in the so-called calculation debate concerning the political economy of socialism (Dobb 1933, 1935, 1939b). His defense of socialism was inspired by his work in the economics of development. Dobb contended that capitalism was not the best system for a developing country. In fact, he argued that the primary tendency of capitalism is to prohibit and undermine economic growth (Dobb 1967: 89-107). Dobb also held a deep passion, interest, and knowledge of the history of economic thought. The last book that he would publish was his highly celebrated Theories of Value and Distribution since Adam Smith (Dobb 1973). Above all else Dobb is most well known for his Studies in the Development of Capitalism (Dobb 1946) (hereafter Studies). The basis of Studies grew out of his PhD dissertation, supervised by Edwin Cannan, concerning the history and theory of the capitalist ‘undertaker’ or entrepreneurship. His dissertation itself was the basis of his first book Capitalist Enterprise and Social Progress (Dobb 1925) (hereafter CESP). He later complained that CESP was ‘an unsuccessful and jejune attempt to combine the notion of [Marxian] exploitation with the theory of Marshall’ (Dobb 1978: 117).
Regardless of his own overly severe criticism, the historical sections of CESP would provide Dobb with the core historical insights of Studies. Moreover, it was CESP where he first emphasized the importance of methodology and philosophy of science, and the necessity for an institutional approach to the study of political economy. These three themes or theoretical motifs of history, methodology and philosophy of science, and institutional analysis, would become the theoretical pillars for all of Dobb’s future studies in political economy.
- [1] Dobb received great acclaim for both these books, from both the right and left. They were remarkableaccomplishments.
