Stephen A. Marglin

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Stephen Alan Marglin is a professor of economics and holds the Walter S. Barker Chair in the Department of Economics at Harvard University. Marglin became a tenured professor at Harvard in 1968, one of the youngest in the history of the university. His tenure was largely based on research that attempted to combine a Marxian approach with Keynesian demand theory.^{[citations needed]} Marglin is married to cultural anthropologist Professor Frédérique Apffel-Marglin and the couple has four children.

Marglin writes from a socialist/communitarian point of view. He attempts to undermine basic assumptions of neoclassical orthodoxy, such as rational expectations and the evolutionary process of economic growth.

Marglin wrote the much cited 1974 article What do bosses do?^[1] as a critque of neoclassical economics. This article came at the peak of his argument with Harvard economist David Landes who wrote a reply, What do bosses really do? The two articles explain the opposing views of socialist and neoclassical analysis.

His current research focuses on the foundational assumptions of economics, concentrating on whether they represent universal human values or merely reflect western culture and history. Marglin has attempted to show that during the Industrial Revolution, the division of labor was not created to improve the efficiency of the production, but rather to limit the variety of workers' labour in order that the power and indispensibility of management increase.

Marglin recently had another book published on economics called The Dismal Science. In the book, he "dissects the ways in which the foundational assumptions of economics justify a world in which individuals are isolated from one another and social connections are impoverished as people define themselves in terms of how much they can afford to consume."^[2]

[edit] Notes

1. ^ What do bosses do?, 1974. The paper is available for free on Marglin's page on Harvard's website via the link.
2. ^ The Dismal Science, from the book's page on the Harvard University Press website.

[edit] Facts