Capitalism Since 1945 by Philip Armstrong

It was like walking through a workshop where people were slamming hammers and axes, and finding someone in a corner quietly operating precision tools. He was untypical of the political culture of that “old” WSL, which was still (though decreasingly: otherwise the merger would never have been on the cards) dominated by declamations round the words “crisis” and “alternative leadership”. I remember him advising me on the best sources for international economic statistics.īob came into the “new” Workers’ Socialist League from the “old” Workers’ Socialist League of Alan Thornett, which had then, in 1981, merged with the group I’d been in, known for the publications Workers’ Fight, Workers’ Action, and Socialist Organiser.

I was trying to pull myself up by my bootstraps into economics - just finishing a evening-class economics course at Birkbeck, which then had a cluster of Marxists in its economics department.īob, however, had none of the airs of the Great Marxist. The first issue of the magazine of the “new” Workers’ Socialist League was a special on the world economy written by Bob (later republished by Pluto under the title Hard Times. Educated at Oxford and Harvard, he had been a big figure in Marxist economic debate since at least 1972, when he published British Capitalism, Workers, and the Profit Squeeze (with Andrew Glyn) and Studies in the Theory of Imperialism (with Roger Owen). When I first met Bob, in 1981, I was overawed. He was then, and had been for some years, working as a university teacher in the Basque country of Spain. Bob explained that his health was bad, and he couldn’t contribute, but he was, as ever, friendly, helping me with introductions to other economists. I last talked with Bob about 10 years ago, when I was seeking interviews and discussions with Marxist economists about the 2007-8 crisis and its aftermath. Bob Sutcliffe, a well-known Marxist economist for over fifty years, and at one time a comrade of ours in the Workers’ Socialist League of 1981-84, died on 23 December 2019, aged 80.

Capitalism Since 1945 by Philip Armstrong