"Economics has always been partly a vehicle" for the ruling ideology of each period as well as partly a method of scientific investigation. It limps along with one foot in untested hypotheses and the other in untestable slogans. Here our task is to sort out as best we may this mixture of ideology and science."With these provocative words, Joan Robinson introduces this lively and iconoclastic book. "In what follows," she says, "this theme is illustrated by reference to one or two of the leading ideas of the economists from Adam Smith onwards, not in a learned manner, tracing the development of thought, nor historically, to show how ideas arose out of the problems of each age, but rather an attempt to puzzle out the mysterious way that metaphysical propositions, without any logical content, can yet be a powerful influence on thought and action."Robinson is responsible for some of the most austerely professional contributions to economic theory, but here in effect she takes the reader behind the scenes and cheerfully exposes the dogmatic content of economic orthodoxy. In its place, she offers the possibility that with obsolete metaphysics cleared out of the way economics can make a substantial advance toward science. .

One of the most original and prolific economists of the twentieth century, Joan Robinson (1903–83) is widely regarded as the most important woman in the history of economic thought. Robinson studied economics at Cambridge University, where she made a career that lasted some fifty years. She was an unlikely candidate for success at Cambridge. A young woman in 1930 in a university dominated by men, she succeeded despite not having a remarkable academic record, a college fellowship, significant publications, or a powerful patron. In The Provocative Joan Robinson, Nahid Aslanbeigui and Guy Oakes trace the strategies and tactics Robinson used to create her professional identity as a Cambridge economist in the 1930s, examining how she recruited mentors and advocates, carefully defined her objectives, and deftly pursued and exploited opportunities. Aslanbeigui and Oakes demonstrate that Robinson’s professional identity was thoroughly embedded in a local scientific culture in which the Cambridge economists A. C. Pigou, John Maynard Keynes, Dennis Robertson, Piero Sraffa, Richard Kahn (Robinson’s closest friend on the Cambridge faculty), and her husband Austin Robinson were important figures. Although the economists Joan Robinson most admired—Pigou, Keynes, and their mentor Alfred Marshall—had discovered ideas of singular greatness, she was convinced that each had failed to grasp the essential theoretical significance of his own work. She made it her mission to recast their work both to illuminate their major contributions and to redefine a Cambridge tradition of economic thought. Based on the extensive correspondence of Robinson and her colleagues, The Provocative Joan Robinson is the story of a remarkable woman, the intellectual and social world of a legendary group of economists, and the interplay between ideas, ambitions, and disciplinary communities.

This and its companion volume, "The Economics of Imperfect Competition and Employment", are about Joan Robinson, her impact on modern economics, her challenges and critiques and the advances made in the science and art of economics.

Contributions to Modern Economics includes contributions to two great intellectual upheavals in economic theory: the Keynesian Revolution and the revival of the classical theory of profits led by Piero Sraffa. The formation of prices in capitalist and socialist economies and of international trade is also discussed. The evolution of these ideas is linked to the personal and historical events that influenced them. Comprised of 24 chapters, this book begins by describing the second crisis of economic theory, which is related to the first crisis — the great slump of the 1930s. The reader is then introduced to the theory of money and the analysis of output; obstacles to full employment; and the concept of hoarding. Subsequent chapters explore capital, profits, and prices, with emphasis on the theory of capital, imperfect competition, and the theory of value. International trade, capitalism, and beggar-my-neighbor remedies for unemployment are also examined. This monograph should be of interest to economists.

Piero Sraffa and Joan Robinson, both iconic Cambridge economists, were highly influenced by the economic theory of Karl Marx, and integrated important elements of Marx’s economic system into their theories. This book argues, based on published and unpublished documents, that the work of Sraffa and Robinson can in fact be considered as essentially post-Keynesian neo-Marxist. The first part of the book reviews the intellectual development of several key thinkers to this neo-Marxist current in economic thought: Kalecki, Steindl, Baran and Sweezy. Part One and Part Two separately examine Robinson and Sraffa’s works and questions how they fit into this specific neo-Marxist current, either building on it (in Robinson’s case), or following another direction (in Sraffa’s case). Part Three observes Robinson’s theory of economic growth and its relationship to the views of Marx and Kalecki. Overall, Cuyvers demonstrates how their thought processes share characteristics with neo-Marxist key ideological ideas, such as stating or implying the labour theory of value as either redundant or wrong, emphasising the role of class struggle in the distribution of income and rejecting Marx’s falling rate of profits. Following on from ideas briefly introduced in Cuyvers’s Economic Ideas of Marx’s Capital (2017), this book will particularly appeal to readers interested in the history of economic thought, the work of Sraffa, Robinson and Marx, post-Keynesian economics and neo-Marxism.