Paul A. Baran
Encyclopedia
Paul Alexander Baran was an American economist
known for his Marxist views. In 1951 Baran was promoted to full professor at Stanford University
and Baran was the only tenured Marxist economist in the United States until his death in 1964. Baran wrote The Political Economy of Growth in 1957 and co-authored Monopoly Capital with Paul Sweezy
.
. His father, a Menshevik
, left the USSR for Vilna, (then Poland
) in 1917. From Vilna the Baran family moved to Berlin
, and then, in 1915 back to Moscow
, but Paul stayed in Germany
to finish his secondary school. In 1926 he attended the Plekhanov Institute in Moscow. He left again for Germany to be an assistant on agricultural research with his advisor. Baran remained in German associated with the Frankfurt School
Institute for Social Research. He next wrote a dissertation under Emile Lederer on economic planning. He met Rudolf Hilferding
, author of Finance Capital and wrote under the pen name of Alexander Gabriel for the German Social Democratic Party journal "Die Gesellschaft."
After the Nazi regime took power, Baran fled to Paris and then back to the USSR, and then to Vilna, (then in Poland
). With the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
and just before the Nazi invasion of Poland he emigrated to the US, where he enrolled at Harvard and received a Masters degree. Short of funds, he left the PhD program and worked for the Brookings Institution
and then for the Office of Price Administration
and then the Office of Strategic Services
. He worked under John Kenneth Galbraith
at the Strategic Bombing Survey
traveling to post-war Germany and Japan. Baran then worked for the United States Department of Commerce
and lectured at George Washington University
. He then worked for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York
before resigning to join academia. He married Elena Djatschenko, had a son Nicholas, but soon divorced. Baran had his academic career in the United States
, teaching at Stanford University
from 1949. From 1949 he was an active participant in the formulation of editorial ideas and opinions in Monthly Review
magazine edited by Paul Sweezy
and Leo Huberman
. Baran visited Cuba
in 1960 along with Sweezy and Huberman, and was greatly inspired. In 1962 he revisited Moscow, Iran
, and Yugoslavia. In his last years he worked on Monopoly Capital with Sweezy. He died before it was completed by Sweezy. Baran died from a heart attack in 1964. He is sometimes associated with the Neo-Marxian school of thought.
Paul Baran's most significant analytical innovation in economics is his critical use of the concept of the "economic surplus
." With the critique of the labor theory of value
by Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
and other early-twentieth-century economists, the literal use of Marx's own notion of surplus value
became problematical, dependent as it is on the labor theory of value. Baran, influenced by Maynard Keynes introduced a concept of economic surplus not tied to labor theory. The actual surplus is the difference between what the society produces and its actual current consumption. The potential surplus is the difference between a society's actual output and what could be produced, given an improved social organization. Even the actual surplus is hard to measure, given that most econometrics
is oriented toward capitalist goals. The potential surplus, as Baran admits, is even more speculative, given its dependence on a model of a non-existent (say genuinely socialist in the Marxian sense) production system. Baran used the surplus concept to analyze underdeveloped economies (or what are now more optimistically called "developing economies") in his The Political Economy of Growth. Baran with Paul M. Sweezy applied the surplus concept to the contemporary US economy in Monopoly Capital.
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
known for his Marxist views. In 1951 Baran was promoted to full professor at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
and Baran was the only tenured Marxist economist in the United States until his death in 1964. Baran wrote The Political Economy of Growth in 1957 and co-authored Monopoly Capital with Paul Sweezy
Paul Sweezy
Paul Marlor Sweezy was a Marxist economist, political activist, publisher, and founding editor of the long-running magazine Monthly Review...
.
Life and work
Baran was born in RussiaRussia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. His father, a Menshevik
Menshevik
The Mensheviks were a faction of the Russian revolutionary movement that emerged in 1904 after a dispute between Vladimir Lenin and Julius Martov, both members of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. The dispute originated at the Second Congress of that party, ostensibly over minor issues...
, left the USSR for Vilna, (then Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
) in 1917. From Vilna the Baran family moved to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, and then, in 1915 back to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, but Paul stayed in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
to finish his secondary school. In 1926 he attended the Plekhanov Institute in Moscow. He left again for Germany to be an assistant on agricultural research with his advisor. Baran remained in German associated with the Frankfurt School
Frankfurt School
The Frankfurt School refers to a school of neo-Marxist interdisciplinary social theory, particularly associated with the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt am Main...
Institute for Social Research. He next wrote a dissertation under Emile Lederer on economic planning. He met Rudolf Hilferding
Rudolf Hilferding
Rudolf Hilferding was an Austrian-born Marxist economist, leading socialist theorist, politician and chief theoretician for the Social Democratic Party of Germany during the Weimar Republic, almost universally recognized as the SPD's foremost theoretician of his century, and a...
, author of Finance Capital and wrote under the pen name of Alexander Gabriel for the German Social Democratic Party journal "Die Gesellschaft."
After the Nazi regime took power, Baran fled to Paris and then back to the USSR, and then to Vilna, (then in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
). With the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939...
and just before the Nazi invasion of Poland he emigrated to the US, where he enrolled at Harvard and received a Masters degree. Short of funds, he left the PhD program and worked for the Brookings Institution
Brookings Institution
The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C., in the United States. One of Washington's oldest think tanks, Brookings conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics, metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, and...
and then for the Office of Price Administration
Office of Price Administration
The Office of Price Administration was established within the Office for Emergency Management of the United States government by Executive Order 8875 on August 28, 1941. The functions of the OPA was originally to control money and rents after the outbreak of World War II.President Franklin D...
and then the Office of Strategic Services
Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency, and it was a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency...
. He worked under John Kenneth Galbraith
John Kenneth Galbraith
John Kenneth "Ken" Galbraith , OC was a Canadian-American economist. He was a Keynesian and an institutionalist, a leading proponent of 20th-century American liberalism...
at the Strategic Bombing Survey
Strategic bombing survey
The United States Strategic Bombing Survey was a board tasked with examination and analysis of the United States' involvement in the World War II. Its primary purpose was to determine the effectiveness of Allied, and more specifically American, strategic bombing campaigns in Europe and in Asia...
traveling to post-war Germany and Japan. Baran then worked for the United States Department of Commerce
United States Department of Commerce
The United States Department of Commerce is the Cabinet department of the United States government concerned with promoting economic growth. It was originally created as the United States Department of Commerce and Labor on February 14, 1903...
and lectured at George Washington University
George Washington University
The George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...
. He then worked for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Federal Reserve Bank of New York
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is one of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks of the United States. It is located at 33 Liberty Street, New York, NY. It is responsible for the Second District of the Federal Reserve System, which encompasses New York state, the 12 northern counties of New Jersey,...
before resigning to join academia. He married Elena Djatschenko, had a son Nicholas, but soon divorced. Baran had his academic career in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, teaching at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
from 1949. From 1949 he was an active participant in the formulation of editorial ideas and opinions in Monthly Review
Monthly Review
Monthly Review is an independent Marxist journal published 11 times per year in New York City.-History:The publication was founded by Harvard University economics instructor Paul Sweezy, who became the first editor...
magazine edited by Paul Sweezy
Paul Sweezy
Paul Marlor Sweezy was a Marxist economist, political activist, publisher, and founding editor of the long-running magazine Monthly Review...
and Leo Huberman
Leo Huberman
Leo Huberman was an American socialist writer. In 1949 he founded and co-edited Monthly Review with Paul Sweezy.-Works:* Cuba: A revolution revisited* Vietnam: The Endless War* Socialism in Cuba...
. Baran visited Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
in 1960 along with Sweezy and Huberman, and was greatly inspired. In 1962 he revisited Moscow, Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, and Yugoslavia. In his last years he worked on Monopoly Capital with Sweezy. He died before it was completed by Sweezy. Baran died from a heart attack in 1964. He is sometimes associated with the Neo-Marxian school of thought.
Paul Baran's most significant analytical innovation in economics is his critical use of the concept of the "economic surplus
Economic surplus
In mainstream economics, economic surplus refers to two related quantities. Consumer surplus or consumers' surplus is the monetary gain obtained by consumers because they are able to purchase a product for a price that is less than the highest price that they would be willing to pay...
." With the critique of the labor theory of value
Labor theory of value
The labor theories of value are heterodox economic theories of value which argue that the value of a commodity is related to the labor needed to produce or obtain that commodity. The concept is most often associated with Marxian economics...
by Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
Eugen Ritter von Böhm-Bawerk was an Austrian economist who made important contributions to the development of the Austrian School of economics.-Biography:...
and other early-twentieth-century economists, the literal use of Marx's own notion of surplus value
Surplus value
Surplus value is a concept used famously by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. Although Marx did not himself invent the term, he developed the concept...
became problematical, dependent as it is on the labor theory of value. Baran, influenced by Maynard Keynes introduced a concept of economic surplus not tied to labor theory. The actual surplus is the difference between what the society produces and its actual current consumption. The potential surplus is the difference between a society's actual output and what could be produced, given an improved social organization. Even the actual surplus is hard to measure, given that most econometrics
Econometrics
Econometrics has been defined as "the application of mathematics and statistical methods to economic data" and described as the branch of economics "that aims to give empirical content to economic relations." More precisely, it is "the quantitative analysis of actual economic phenomena based on...
is oriented toward capitalist goals. The potential surplus, as Baran admits, is even more speculative, given its dependence on a model of a non-existent (say genuinely socialist in the Marxian sense) production system. Baran used the surplus concept to analyze underdeveloped economies (or what are now more optimistically called "developing economies") in his The Political Economy of Growth. Baran with Paul M. Sweezy applied the surplus concept to the contemporary US economy in Monopoly Capital.
Selected bibliography
- "The Political Economy of Underdevelopment" (1952),Manchester School
- The Political Economy of Growth (1957) Monthly Review Press, New York. Review extrract.
- "Marxism and Psychoanalysis" (1960)[ pamphlet] Monthly Review Press
- "The Commitment of the Intellectual" (1961), [pamphlet] Monthly Review Press
- "Reflections on the Cuban Revolution" (1961) [pamphlet] Monthly Review Press
- Monopoly CapitalMonopoly CapitalMonopoly Capital: An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order is an essay from 1966 by Paul Sweezy and Paul A. Baran. It made a major contribution to Marxist theory by shifting attention from the assumption of a competitive economy to monopolistic aspects of giant corporations that dominate...
: An essay on the American economic and social order (1966), with Paul SweezyPaul SweezyPaul Marlor Sweezy was a Marxist economist, political activist, publisher, and founding editor of the long-running magazine Monthly Review...
Monthly Review Press, New York - The Longer View: Essays toward a critique of political economy (1970)
- The Political Economy of Neo-Colonialism (1975)
About Paul Baran
- Bellod Redondo, J. F. (2008); "Monopolio e Irracionalidad: Microfundamentos de la Teoría Baran - Sweezy"; revista Principios - Estudios de Economía Política, pp 65 - 84, nº 10, Fundación Sistema, Madrid.
- Paul Sweezy and Leo Huberman, eds, (1965); Paul A. Baran (1910-1964): A Collective Portrait, Monthly Review Press, New York.
External links
- The Neo-Marxian Schools
- Economic Development
- The Commitment of the Intellectual, Paul Baran, Monthly ReviewMonthly ReviewMonthly Review is an independent Marxist journal published 11 times per year in New York City.-History:The publication was founded by Harvard University economics instructor Paul Sweezy, who became the first editor...
, May 1961