On Simon Patten

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As one of my most respected intellectuals, this piece by Trey Popp from the Prophet of Prosperity reveals some needed detail on the importance of Simon Patten's thinking. For that reason it is worth re-posting. Simon Patten, who led the Wharton School during the Progressive Era, was a pioneer of the economics of abundance, theorist of the second industrial revolution, and intellectual godfather of the New Deal. His descent into obscurity poses provocative questions about how the field has evolved. One century ago this year, the Wharton School dismissed the most esteemed and innovative theoretical economist who had ever passed through its doors. Simon Patten, who was appointed Wharton’s first professor of economics in 1888 and directed the school during its formative years from 1896 to 1912, was a public intellectual whose ...

Alluring Infrastructure Income

'J is for Junk Economics': Michael Hudson on TRNN (2/5), February 28, 2017. Trump's infrastructure plan will privatize all the benefits for the financiers and make sure that the population at large gets zero benefit from it while paying the costs, says economist Michael Hudson SHARMINI PERIES: Welcome back to The Real News Network. I'm speaking with Michael Hudson, the author of, J is for Junk Economics, a Guide to Reality in the Age of Deception. Don't miss it. We're going to be talking about this book, and some of the misleading concepts that are out there, in terms of economics, and understanding economics. Being able to talk about economic concepts with a bit more knowledge than we have, requires reading this book. So, thank you for joining us, Michael. MICHAEL HUDSON: It's good ...

Veblen’s Institutionalist Elaboration of Rent Theory

Michael Hudson's new book The Bubble and Beyond has just been released and can be purchased here. Speech given at the Veblen, Capitalism and Possibilities for a Rational Economic Order Conference, Istanbul, Turkey, June 6th, 2012 Simon Patten recalled in 1912 that his generation of American economists – most of whom studied in Germany in the 1870s – were taught that John Stuart Mill’s 1848 Principles of Political Economy was the high-water mark of classical thought. However, Mill’s reformist philosophy turned out to be “not a goal but a half-way house” toward the Progressive Era’s reforms. Mill was “a thinker becoming a socialist without seeing what the change really meant,” Patten concluded. “The Nineteenth Century epoch ends not with the theories of Mill but with the more logical systems of Karl Marx ...