Honouring Heterodoxy: Geoff Harcourt, Critical Traditions, and the Power of Pluralist Economics (HEN Editorial 355)

A tri­bute to Geoff Har­court high­lights com­mu­nity, intellec­tual breadth, and new hete­ro­dox work on power, ine­qua­lity, and eco­no­mic education.

Among the many cool things that can be found in this issue of the Hete­ro­dox Eco­no­mics News­let­ter, the „Sym­po­sium on Honor of Geoff Har­court“, which is part of the most recent issue of the Review of Poli­ti­cal Eco­nomy, shi­nes out a little. This is so, not only because Geoff was an immensely ver­sa­tile, per­cep­tive and inspi­ring eco­no­mist with an impres­si­ve­o­eu­vre and a sizeable por­tion of humor, but also because he was deeply com­mit­ted to con­tri­bu­ting to the hete­ro­dox com­mu­nity. For many years right up to his untimely pas­sing he regu­larly sent emails to the Newsletter’s edi­to­rial office with important hints for books and events, insightful com­men­ta­ries or an occa­sio­nal „thanks“ cou­pled with the fri­endly remin­der „to keep up the good work“.

While he is best known for his work on capi­tal theory and the Cam­bridge con­tro­ver­sies (see here or here), Geoff has actually a much broa­der oeu­vre in topi­cal terms – a fea­ture also high­ligh­ted by the con­tri­bu­ti­ons coll­ec­ted in said Sym­po­sium. A good and early exam­ple for the breadth of his work is his short article on ‚The Pay­ment of Pri­soners’, which shows a keen under­stan­ding of the intri­ca­cies of social policy. It high­lights how indi­vi­dual eco­no­mic pro­s­pects are a pre­con­di­tion for social inclu­sion by app­ly­ing the intui­tion of cumu­la­tive cau­sa­tion to indi­vi­dual life-cour­ses. Some­what reg­rett­ably, the poli­ti­cal sug­ges­ti­ons coming from this 65 year old paper are still of high con­tem­po­rary rele­vance – espe­ci­ally for count­ries like the US, who use pri­sons, in part, as a sub­sti­tute for social policy.

Moreo­ver, you will also find two other inte­res­t­ing Spe­cial Issues below – one on „Gen­der in Eco­no­mic History“ and ano­ther one on „Frantz Fanon at 100: Class Struggle and the Future of Afri­can Libe­ra­tion“. Both have been published a little off the bea­ten hete­ro­dox paths, namely in Eco­no­mic History Rese­arch and the Review of Afri­can Poli­ti­cal Eco­nomy. The, admit­tedly some­what irre­gu­lar, inclu­sion of such con­tri­bu­ti­ons is repre­sen­ta­tive of our effort to broadly reflect deve­lo­p­ments in fields close to hete­ro­dox eco­no­mics, like poli­ti­cal eco­nomy, eco­no­mic socio­logy, deve­lo­p­ment stu­dies or eco­no­mic history. The two Spe­cial Issues ther­eby not only address this gene­ral inte­rest to faci­li­tate exch­ange with rela­ted fields, but, due to their spe­ci­fic the­ma­tic ori­en­ta­tion, are also per­ti­nent to an exhaus­tive under­stan­ding of per­sis­tent eco­no­mic stra­ti­fi­ca­tion, which mani­fests its­elf across seve­ral struc­tu­ral dimen­si­ons (with race, class and gen­der as the most pro­mi­nent ones).

Finally, other inte­res­t­ing reads are surely found in Moh­sen Havdani’s and Ha-Joon Chang’s report on “Manu­fac­tu­ring ‘Eco­no­mists’ Minds: Ideo­logy, Aut­ho­rity and Eco­no­mics Edu­ca­tion”, which expe­ri­men­tally inves­ti­ga­tes the per­va­si­ve­ness of groupt­hink in main­stream eco­no­mics (edu­ca­tion), and in the Hand­book of Alter­na­tive Theo­ries of Eco­no­mic Growth. The lat­ter has become a close to indis­pensable resource for tea­ching hete­ro­dox macroe­co­no­mics on various level and is now available in a second, fun­da­men­tally revi­sed edition.

All the best,