The Longer View: Essays Toward a Critique of Political Economy

These essays by the author of The Political Economy of Growth and co-author of Monopoly Capital cover the working range of a strong and original mind. They are as diverse as his well-known discussion of Marxism and psychoanalysis, and his expert handling of the politics and economics of development. The five parts of the book contain six articles on Marxism, three on economic planning, five on monopoly capitalism, and four on the political economy of growth. Among them are included his “Reflections on Underconsumption,” “The Theory of the Leisure Class,” “Reflections on the Cuban Revolution,” the “Theses on Advertising” he wrote with Paul Sweezy, and the important analysis of W. W. Rostow’s The Stages of Economic Growth written with E. J. Hobsbawm.

The themes of Baran’s major works were expressed in these shorter essays with a vigor and personal style that preserves much of the flavor of Baran’s day-to-day reflections. They display, as John O’Neill says in his introduction, “a breadth of sociological and economic analysis which represents a unique conquest of mind in its ability to situate itself in an environment where disorientation and abdication threaten many social thinkers.”

Paul A. Baran (1909-1964) was Professor of Economics at Stanford University. Born in the Ukraine, he was educated in Germany and the Soviet Union, and moved to the United States on the eve of the Second World War. After wartime military service, he joined the staff of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, leaving to become a member of the Stanford economics faculty in 1949. He was a frequent contributor to Monthly Review, co-author (with Paul M. Sweezy) of Monopoly Capital, and author of The Political Economy of Growth and The Longer View.