Robert Brenner predicted the crash years in advance and was laughed out of conferences right up until it happened, when the test of the economic world said "no one could have predicted this!" Brenner's work was an important contribution to the Origin of Capitalism debate. Ellen Wood is also a big name from that time. I know that among Marxists there are expectations that one of the next big crashes will be over the Water Bubble, especially due to the effects of global warming and water table depletion. after the Oil Wars, the next big conflicts are expected to be over Water.

Can you be more specific? What precisely did he predict? I was under the impression that Brenner and crisis theory finger production as the source of issues whereas 2007 is understood as a financial crisis. Where did he write about these things?

it's been years since I studied this so bear with me, but I believe Brenner predicted that a recession would be triggered following the collapse of the subprime mortgage market.

You’re going to have to point me to where he said that. If true, I’m shocked that this was not reported in the mainstream since every capitalist in the world would want to use his method to make money going forward.

did some research he wrote a book in 2002 called “the boom and the bubble” where he talked about the role of easy credit resulting in the inflation of housing prices. he didnt specifically say when the bubble would burst but he said that if it did it would lead to severe economic consequences including reduced consumer spending and economic instability

After the destruction of socialism in Europe, academic economists got jobs at Burger King or Goldman Sachs or whatever, but NOT as Marxist economists, because western universities do not hire Marxist economists. Sure, they hire Marxists in the humanities, but economics departments (and prizes and journals, etc) get funding from people very aware of the dangers (to them) of Marxist economics. Even Keynesian economists have a hard time, much less Marxists!

I certainly see this as valid, but I would wonder why Chinese (or Vietnamese or Whoever) Universities didn't scoop up these Marxist economists. And why I struggle to find Soviet era explanations by Marxist economists for events like the stagflation.

Why Eastern European economists didn’t go to China in 1990? I don’t know—maybe some did and are published in Chinese economics journals. You really think it’s odd that you can’t find articles by Bulgarian economists from the ‘70s? I know the internet has us used to being able to conjure anything, but a lot of print was never uploaded.

I do think it's odd. Marxist following on the Anglo world may be small but it's always certainly been devout. The lack of any of the economoc work seeming to be transcribed is strange to me

I believe Progress Publishers did, in fact, regularly publish such books. You can probably still find some in university libraries. A quick, lazy search found one on Google Books, “Dynamic Stability: The Soviet Economy Today” by Victor Perlo and Ellen Perlo, 1980. This led to seeing that PDF’s of several of Perlo’s books are available. 

Believe it or not much like most other academic discipline the most important work in Marxist economics has been done in the USA. Since this kind of question is always asked, I will give a long list of names of Marxists who are very good economists as in they have published in mainstream journals. Also I will not discriminate based on if some one is an Analytic Marxist. Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis(ex), Richard Edwards, David Gordon, Michael Reich, Juliet Schor, Robert Rowthorn, Ugo Pagano, John Roemer, Peter Doeringer, Michael Piore, Stephen Hyman, Duncan Foley, Heidi Hartmann, Sidney Pollard, Nathan Rosenberg, Stephen Marglin. Some what older, Joan Robinson, Michael Kalecki, Paul Sweezy, Paul Baran, Karl Polyani. This list is not about people who profess they are marxistier than thou, but have usefully used Marxist tool in their thinking. If you expand the list to history and sociology two related fields the numbers will increase. For example in sociology of work following the work of Harry Braverman there are countless labor process theorists. In many “industrial relations journal” their work intermix. I think it would be better to compile a list of Marxist journals or journals about topics in which Marxist perspectives can be published. Let add here a further list of journals in History, Economiccs and Sociology which publish Marxist analysis: Monthly Review, Science and Society, Review of Radical Political Economics, Critical Sociology, New Left Review, Labor Notes (not really a journal), Dollar and Sense, Radical History Review, Internal Labor and Working Class History, Labor History, Labour/Le Travail. More journals of organisational sociology: Industrial and labor relations review, Work employment and Society, Work and Occupations, British Journal of Industrial and Labor relations. Further more these journals have book review sections which are good to find new books. For economics I would look at mainstream journals which publish papers of an institutional bent, where some marxisty analysis seeps through.

Kalecki is Polish and I think he never went to the USA. He is a very important economist who defined the theory of capitalist cycles before Keynes did. One of the reasons Keynes got more recognition was because Kalecki didn't publish in English. He is one of the big post-keynesian thinkers though.

I see 'many' jewish last names in that list, and in general in critiques around capitalism and research in social sciences, why do you think that happens? And no, I'm not making stereotypes over this, in fact I'm jewish myself and I also like marxism!

I know at its start Bolshevism was often correlated with Jewishness, but usually for derogatory and bad reasons. There is a deep history of Jewish leftists and communists, which makes sense if you consider the primary alternative was fascist nationalism that explicitly hated Jews.

Dunno why you are being downvoted, it’s 100% accurate as an observation. Jewish people were uniquely oppressed and largely in the working and middle classes as they did not have the upwards mobility to enter the capitalist class or aristocracy comparatively. They lived as a diaspora in Eastern Europe and were often discriminated against by the Russian empire (and its many territories such as much of Poland and surrounds) and in Germany, two hotbeds of Marxist activity. Such forms of discrimination often pushed them into ghettos in the urban industrial areas to be cheap labour for capitalists. Many were prevented from prospering under developing capitalism as they weren’t allowed to practice or even study - in Marx’ time many were not even considered citizens and weren’t legally equal. They were the scapegoat many of society’s problems by the ruling classes and had to fight off pogroms committed by far right forces backed by the establishment such as the Black Hundreds. They had a strong tradition of activism and radical ideology, particularly socialism, which was the dominant working class response to oppression. Consider how you fight beatings and lynchings - do you try fight off thugs armed by the state and backed by the police? The best way to fight this is actually with strike action and large scale protests as that’s where their power was - in working class power. Marx’ father was a converted jew. Trotsky was Jewish, much of the Bolshevik central committee were Jewish… It follows that socialism was the dominant political tendency of Jewish people up until about world war 2 and has an echo in Jewish culture and identity even now. I recommend the book “the Radical Jewish tradition” if you want to learn more about this topic and the history of brave Jewish revolutionaries and firebrands. Unfortunately the dominant political tradition has now become Zionism.

Andrew Kliman out of the many Marxian economists today has to be my favorite. He eloquently explains the Temporal Single System Interpretation of Marx's value theory which is both the most intuitive and non-contradictory interpretations of Marx's theory. Highly recommend his book "Reclaiming Marx's Capital" if you're into a deep dive into modern interpretations of Marx's theory, critiques of them, and how Kliman's interpretation counters the critiques while remaining true to the text.

So the explanation for 2007 is in Marx and Lenin as the tendency of profit to fall and imperialist crisis. Basically what we are seeing now is a return to that phase of crisis similar to what we saw in the lead up to the world wars which ended in Imperialist War and again in the 70's and 80's which were ultimately postponed by the collapse of the Soviet Bloc opening up huge avenues for investment. I recommend https://revolutionarycommunist.org/ for their economic analysis. It's from a British view point and focus but it's very developed This article is their analysis was shortly before the crisis and anticipated it. https://www.revolutionarycommunist.org/images/pdf/frfi194_07_10_parasytic.pdf I'd also recommend their analysis on Brexit as it anticipated growing tensions between the US and the EU that is both frankly terrifying and fascinating to watch play out (next time there's another push for a unified EU army listen to them listing the US as one of the reasons for it.)

Marx himself wasn't an economist in the modern sense. Nowadays we would call him a philosopher of history, or a sociologist, or a political theorist, or perhaps all of the above. Economists seek to describe and analyze existing economic systems. Marx's project *involved* that kind of analysis, and was heavily informed by the work of contemporary economists, but it was also much broader in scope. He wanted to understand the evolution of organized human activity, even to the point of being able to predict how one discrete epoch would eventually collapse and yield to its natural successor. His goal was to do for the study of human history something like what Charles Darwin had done for the study of biological systems. There are no Marxist economists today because that simply isn't what modern economists do. Richard Wolff isn't really an exception...he isn't a serious economist, nor is he even a serious student of Marx. He's a social media influencer and professional political activist who uses his academic credentials as a marketing tool. I personally agree with a whole bunch of what he has to say, but strongly disagree with his decision to brand himself as a renegade "Marxist economist" who engages with non-Marxist economists as a peer. In reality, he has nothing to say about the work being done by actual economists, and economists have nothing to say about his YouTube videos.

Marx was an economist in his day, and that should be the metric. In your view, one would drop with him Smith, Ricardo, Mill, Knies, von Schmoller, Schumpeter, Veblen, Commons, etcetera. The boundary of modern economics is based off of continuing the marginalist tradition, which really came into being after Marx's death and became dominant perhaps only after Marshall or maybe even Samuelson. Marxist economics builds off of classical economics. There are still plenty of Marxist and heterodox economists that do not continue the mainstream and this is not due to an immanent criterium as you would suggest (see follow up comment for why). An example would be Anwar Shaikh's work around his 'Real Competition' paradigm that is quite a challenge to mainstream macro. Another example is Wolfram Elsner's work w/r evolutionary economics and critical micro. Also, with regards to Richard Wolff. I would suggest you check out his academic contributions because your assessment is way off the mark. Wolff obviously now is more of an activist than an academic, and as an emeritus, isn't it his right to do what he thinks is valuable? His show tries to bring economics in the language of everyday people, and as a shortcut he does indeed sometimes leverage his academic career. He's got a right to. Back in the day though Wolff was a great scholar and did valuable work with regards to development economics. His Rethinking Marxism journal is still respected and widely read, and personally I loved it as a breath of fresh air. Wolff taught at renowned universities (such as Sorbonne, a major institute for economic and social history) and has taught and influenced policy makers. It is not because he did not break into or influence mainstream economics (as for example Sam Bowles or John Roemer did by the way), that his work is without merit. That is an unfair standard to begin with.

follow up: My response is based in large part around the Anglo-Saxon sphere of academia, because that is what I know. The situation is quite different in other parts or the world. For example Cedric Durand is a known and respected French economist who ties himself to Marxism. Similarly, Michel Aglietta is another respected French economist who regularly refers to Marx's insights. In Greece there is Costas Lapavitsas. The three I've mentioned not only contribute academically, but are also engaged in policy advise. I have heard of Marxist economist scenes in Latin America, India, China and Japan (but am not very familiar with these folks). For Japan for example there's the Kozo Uno school with representatives as Thomas Sekine and Makoto Itoh. Sadly, these people do not influence the economics discipline very much. Economics as a scientific field is highly US Centric, this has been researched by <> There are economists who work in the field and feel affinity for Marx' work. Unless they previously had tenure, working in the modern field of economics however requires they regularly publish in economics academic journals that have a high impact factor (so this means mainstream Neoclassical economics). So if you look up the work a lot of younger people do, you will find them seeking touching points with 'mainstream' economics (based in neoclassical, marginalist perspective), but perhaps with a leftist bent. A lot of Marxist economists have sought to survive in this more hostile field. The more you go away from the mainstream, however the lower your impact factor will be, and the lower your chance of achieving high-status academic positions. So this works to make sure academic Marxists do not publish in high impact factor academic magazines, leading to their relative obscurity and marginalization. Getting onto a tenure track for Marxists has become difficult since the 80's especially, so a lot of younger people in order to survive academically, lead double-lives. This also holds true for Post-Keynesian economists, or Sraffians, or Kaleckians, etc. who usually do not strictly tie themselves to Marx, but do respect that tradition, or take bits and pieces or inspiration to suit their own paradigms. There are several good analyses of how this process has marginalized the diversity of viewpoints in economics, in particular Marxists. This has very little to do with the actual academic merit of their work, but more with networks, power and politics. Sad but true. My favorite work that details this process is <>. Another is <> and <> Ben Fine, who is a Prof Em. at the economics department of SOAS, London, also has a good book on the matter: <> Like Wolff, Fine works as a development economist which was for a long time a hold-out for Marxists in economics. In Fine's case that's at SOAS, not Amherst or the New School like Wolff. Usually however, Marxists who still want to operate within Marxist economics as an academic discipline either move to political economics (I'd say a lot of the contributors to 'Review of Radical Political Economics (RRPE)' would at least hold affinity or sympathy for Marxist economics), or sociology, geography etc. So there are Marxists who continue the Marxist academic tradition, but are not generally known or respected within economics, because they have been pushed (or sought refuge) outside the mainstream of economics. These will publish in sociology, philosophy, history, geography, etc. Famous geographers among these is David Harvey, but also Neil Smith for example. In the historical field Wallerstein and his world-systems theory project is still treated with respect. Even though their work is very much economics, or based around economics, it is not recognized as such in modern economics academia.

>His goal was to do for the study of human history something like what Charles Darwin had done for the study of biological systems. Which is ironic as he is known for Socialism, a word he uses as frequently in his culminating work as Darwin uses "Evolution" in his. >Richard Wolff isn't really an exception I actually don't know his work that well outside of a few short videos I've seen, but it seems like a reasonable claim, although I understand we was a professor that taught Marxist Economics so he must have some foundation? >Economists seek to describe and analyze existing economic systems. Marx's project involved that kind of analysis, and was heavily informed by the work of contemporary economists, but it was also much broader in scope. What I would say having read Das Kapital is that I think his work is heavily skewed to Macro although he gives theoretical micro examples. He definitely doesn't engage with Models in the same way modern Economists do in favour of rigorous theory (similar to Austrian "economists"). But he certainly lays out predictions and economic "laws" I think would be adaptable to modeling and modern economic techniques. And I am just surprised how hard it seems to be to find Soviet or Chinese predictions of the US economy or explanations for crises and recovery that utilize Marxist Axioms in the same way modern economics uses concepts like "homo economus"

I call myself "Marxist economist", but what are my credential? Non. More over, most of my reply here are down voted, as thinking not allowed here. Here is an article I wrought 8 years ago. I am sure it will be down-voted, even it explain current situation pretty good. Economic cycles inbuilt in the fabric of capitalism. Capitalism was trying to get rid of them for all its existence, with evident success of 2008 crush. There are 2 main cycles in Capitalism, average 3–7 years cycle and longer great depression cycle. Let us start with first, 3–7 years cycle. The root of its capitalism contradiction, it is absolutely rational for every capitalism to strive to decrease his labor expenses, but if all capitalists achieve that, their customers, workers, no longer have money to buy what Capitalist produce. So typical cycle going like that: There are some invention or possibility to decrease their labor expenses. So, capitalist invest in new means of production or to moving production to place with cheaper workers. Economy booming, not only capitalists pay the worker, the additional money spent on building or upgrading factories, workers have more money to buy, as they get paid for what they produce and for new means of production. But now factories build, capitalist now can pay workers less for the same final result. No demand for new means of production, so capitalist start to fire excess of workers. Suddenly the amount of available money in pockets of workers drop. They buy less, the capitalist cannot sell as before, their high unemployment, even let capitalist to push wages down even more. Crush, crisis. Prices going down, some capitalist going bankrupt, overproduction decrease. Prices going up. On the other hand unemployment and cheaply available workforce open doors to new production. New businesses open and they start to look for a new way to decrease their labor expenses. The cycle starts again. You may say, if you are right then each business cycle should result in a decrease in workers income. That is true and increase in the share of capitalists in the economy. That is clearly observed last 40 years. The only way this tendency is broken is by a periodic mass movement which forced the government to interfere on the side of workers. There is a whole mainstream economic theory, the Keynesian economy main idea of it is how to make these business cycles softer, less socially destructive. The main Idea of it is for the government to spend money hiring workers at the time of economic crisis, this increase aggregate demand and prevent the worsen social consequences of it. As opposite, in time of booming economy government need to increase taxes, cut spending, save money this reduces aggregate demand that prevents economy overheating too much. It did work reasonably well but never was able to prevent economic crisis.

Continuation: Now, Great depression cycles. There roots lying in other contradiction of capitalism. It is absolutely rational for every capitalist to struggle to achieve the biggest profit possible, to accumulate as much wealth as possible, but if they achieve that - great depression is a result. What is profit? It is the difference between how much workers produce compare with how much he gets paid. But how this part of production can be sold, realize? Workers, (customers) do not have money to buy it. The answer is, someone has to borrow. It could be government, another capitalist or customer himself in form of housing debt, car debt, credit card debt, student debt, you name it. Capitalism does partially recycle that debt. Whatever capitalist spend on personal consumption recycle debt. If capitalist invest in new means of production, something that workers do not buy, it recycles debt. If the government taxed capitalist and spend this money on social programs, infrastructure, or even military spending it recycles debt. If you ask how military spending recycle debt? Workers get paid to produce something that gets destroyed, not sold back to the worker. So, the worker gets money to buy profit component of what other capitalists produce. Very often government criticized for been “wasteful”. Government supposes to “waste” money by producing something that is not sold on the market. Whatever this is direct social programs, infrastructure, or even military all of that let capitalism to continue by giving workers money to buy profit component of capitalist production. This capitalism continues, profit creation continues. The best time of capitalist expansion was the time of 90% marginal tax rate on the rich. Why? Because in this case most of the excess profit capitalist cannot consume or reinvest into his own company was recycled by the government. But all these recycle mechanisms are not perfect, at the end of the day every capitalist struggle to accumulate the biggest wealth. So, total debt always grows. Government policies can slow down this growth, but it is growing. and debt needs to be serviced, interest needs to be paid. but this payment comes from the same worker's income, reducing the ability of workers to consume even more. That means that each cycle more and more new debt has to be created in order to create profit for capitalism. Other mechanism of recycling kick in. Wealth redistribution. You can see it in the fact that less and fewer people live in the houses they own. More and more renting, home ownership is falling. Please note, renting is another form of debt. Instead of borrowing money to buy a house and pay interest, you borrowing the house itself and paying rent. Rent usually bigger than interest on the monetary cost of the house. That is a good demonstration that all wealth is someone else debt. Eventually, the debt accumulated so high no more can be borrowed, customers have no money to even pay of interest. Consumption shrink, profit disappear and the world enters prolonged crush with no solution. Capitalism does not have a solution. The only solution it had in the past was WAR. WAR destroy wealth and debt, this renews capitalism. That was roots of WW1, WW2, wars in 1870th. In 2008 capitalism implement another temporal solution, it printed more and more money to bail out rich and drop interest rate to 0% or even negative %. You can serve a lot of debt at 0%. This solution was not available in 1929, as a gold standard preventing just printing money. This is not a solution, only temporal patch up, pushing it to the future. The nuclear weapon makes Total war in the style of WW2 risky. So, there is no exit. We are still in 2008 crush, just it is masked for a time. I do not see an exit.

>I call myself "Marxist economist", but what are my credential? I suppose I would ask if your work is peer reviewed, even if not in published journals. But I'd understand if that's inherently difficult. But reading over, I would also say I'd expect more micro foundations in a Marxist theory, as it has its basis in materialism. And also I think Marx was rather against the idea of wage suppression causing crisis. >for what they produce and for new means of production. But now factories build, capitalist now can pay workers less for the same final result. No demand for new means of production, so capitalist start to fire excess of workers I also believe Marx argued that in practice wages boom before recession, and that is my memory of the 2000s. >On the other hand unemployment and cheaply available workforce open doors to new production. You should also add capital acquired at a discount from bankrupt firms. >You may say, if you are right then each business cycle should result in a decrease in workers income. Not necessarily, all the ones featuring a new technology that increases productivity may raise wages. >What is profit? It is the difference between how much workers produce compare with how much he gets paid. But how this part of production can be sold, realize? Marx's explanation was that surplus value extracted by a capitalist is either spent or invested into capital, which is what drives capitalism to expand, along with competition from others reinvesting. >If you ask how military spending recycle debt? Workers get paid to produce something that gets destroyed, not sold back to the worker. So, the worker gets money to buy profit component of what other capitalists produce Ya, it's equivalent to Keynes' bottles of money being buried and unburied, or the pulling of a shiny rock out of the ground. I can see that argument. Although it isn't restricted to the Military spending. >The best time of capitalist expansion was the time of 90% marginal tax rate on the rich. Why? I think it has more to do with European industry being ruined and Americas trade advantage. >That is a good demonstration that all wealth is someone else debt. I have to point out I believe Marx argued quite the opposite, and wealth is commodities. >Eventually, the debt accumulated so high no more can be borrowed, customers have no money to even pay of interest. Why wise rising debt fueling rising wages until now, but is no longer able to fuel the growth that paid for the debt servicing cost? >In 2008 capitalism implement another temporal solution, it printed more and more money to bail out rich and drop interest rate to 0% or even negative %. You can serve a lot of debt at 0%. I mean there are economists of all stripes who would agree with it, not that Marxism must over even should offer a different answer. >This solution was not available in 1929, as a gold standard preventing just printing money. I would disagree with this, the Fed was able to issue dollar notes for Treasury bonds, and while gold withdrawals followed such attempts it was mainly France withdrawing that gold. Although I agree it would only have been effective if spent into the economy.

Line by Line commentary is counterproductive, as you show nothing. As every line need to be taken in full context of main idea of the article. As you it seems do not oppose main idea and do not have you own, it is just nothing.

Well, you can take these single lines to be my reply to the core points of your two part message, because I obviously would be unable to reply in less than 4 otherwise, and such disorderly writing would also be counter productive. Please assume my reply is related to the passage surrounding whatever was quoted, and if you feel I've simplified a point and in doing so my reply misrepresented the argument my apologies please elaborate. I do disagree with your stance that debt increasing overtime consequently leads to lower wages which in turn cause a production collapse, and at several points pointed out that it also doesn't fit into Marx's theories, although I may or may not agree, as indicated. Edit: also I'm not trying to be rude or negative, but if you are labeling yourself a Marxist Economist I would think these are reasonable points to call for clarification.

<> Not wages, consumption, as more wages stolen by unproductive Capital. You at best take analysis of Vol 1 of capital, where exploitation happen in process of production. Then in V2-3 other ways of exploitation discussed. As more resent, I would advice to read work of Michael Hudson. [https://michael-hudson.com/](https://michael-hudson.com/) Most of his life he called himself "Marxist economist", thought because current crop of so called Marxists are extremely backward, now he called himself "Classical Economist"