Joan Violet Robinson

Robinson, Joan Violet

 

Born Oct. 31, 1903, in Camber-ley. English economist.

Educated at Cambridge University, Robinson was a professor there from 1965 to 1971. She borrowed her general approach to the analysis of macroeconomic processes from J. M. Keynes and her approach to the basic categories of analysis (profits, wages, interest, and capital) from A. Marshall and D. Ricardo. Her theoretical views show traces of Marxist influence. Recognizing the scientific merit of K. Marx’ study of the capitalist mode of production, she devoted a great deal of attention to Marxism.

In the early 1930’s, Robinson proposed the theory of imperfect competition, and in the 1950’s, her own theory of the growth of the capitalist economy. She favors the revival of bourgeois political economy, which, in her opinion, will be able to promote the transformation of capitalism. In her economic views, Robinson is an ideologist of bourgeois reformism. Although she recognizes the contradictions of capitalism, she believes that they can only be alleviated through the implementation of Utopian projects for “perfecting” capitalism.

WORKS

Essay on Marxian Economics. London, 1942.
The Accumulation of Capital. London, 1956.
Economics of Imperfect Competition. London, 1961.
Economic Heresies. New York, 1971.
In Russian translation:
“Vtoroi krizis ekonomicheskoi teorii.” Mirovaia ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1973, no. 6.

REFERENCE

Osadchaia, I. M. Kritika sovremennykh burzhuaznykh teorii ekonomicheskogo rosta. Moscow, 1963.

I. M. OSADCHAIA