Witty, and charismatic, Sweezy had a wide circle of friends, colleagues, and comrades,
and an energetic social life. He was married three times and is survived by his second
wife, Nancy, his third, Zyrel, and three children, Samuel, Lybess, and Martha.
In the 1970s and 80s Sweezy lectured in Japan, India, Europe and the Americas.
Increasingly interested in environmental issues, he wrote a classic article on cities
and cars and the dangers of "automobilisation". He also had a lively exchange in the
1970s with the British Communist economist Maurice Dobb on the transition from feudalism
to capitalism. And he and Magdoff published a sympathetic special issue of MR on
liberation theology.
Brad DeLong says, however:
I would like Paul Sweezy to be remembered for the following passage:
I just came across a reference to a Supreme Court case which I guessed might be him,
since, with his slavish devotion to Stalin, he was one of the people caught up in
McCarthyism. I haven't read it, but the cite is
Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U.S. 234 (1957) and the Guardian says
"The publication in 1952 of Stalin�s Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR would
make possible today a more satisfactory reply....In the light of [Stalin�s]
explanation...I would like to amend the statement which Mr. Kazahaya criticizes....[The
amended statement] conveys my meaning more accurately than the original wording and is,
I think entirely in accord with Stalin�s view." (Paul Sweezy (1953), The Present as
History (New York: Monthly Review Press), p. 352.)
Paul Sweezy called himself an intellectual. Paul Sweezy publicly revised his opinion on
an analytical issue in order to agree with the position taken by a genocidal tyrant.
Fill in the blank: Paul Sweezy was a ________.
Then in 1954, Sweezy himself was ensnared in the McCarthyite maelstrom. Convicted for
refusing to turn over notes for a lecture he had given at the University of New
Hampshire, he received a jail sentence for "contempt", later overturned by the US
Supreme Court. That decision, in 1957, was one of several that led to the gradual end of
the anti-left witch hunts.
The Guardian makes no mention of his devotion to Soviet Russia, which presumably
extended to sharing the party line that the democratic government of the United States
should be overthrown by force.
All this attracted my attention because I was just reading an article of Sweezy's recently, "Demand Under Conditions of Oligopoly," Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 47, No. 4. (August 1939), pp. 568-573. This is the Kinked Demand Curve article that Stigler demolished in 1947. I applaud Professor DeLong for bringing up Sweezy's intellectual dishonesty, for that is perhaps even more important to remember than his mistaken theories. But mistaken theories are worth thinking about too.
The kinked demand curve theory says that in an oligopoly, the demand facing a particular firm will have a kink like this:... Oops. I'm going to let this trail off into notes. Tonight, maybe, I'll finish, as a separate entry. Or maybe five months from now...
A better model than Tirole, p. 256. There are 2 firms, differentiated products. 1. Firms pick P1 and P2. 2. If Firm 1 wants to switch P1, he can. 3. If Firm 2 wants to switch P2, he can. 4. If neither firm has switched in (2) and (3), go to 5. Otehrwise, go back to 2. 5. Consumers buy at the final prices. Does this generate a kinked or concave demand? Probably concave demand. I'll have to work it out. Stigler, George J. "The Kinky Oligopoly Demand Curve and Rigid Prices," Journal of Political Economy, vol. 55 (October 1947), pp. 432-49.Stigler, George, "The Literature of Economics: The Case of the Kinked Oligopoly Demand Curve," 16 (1978) 2 (April) 185-204. Economic Inquiry. Also in The Economist as Preacher.
[in full at 04.03.06a.htm . Erasmusen@yahoo.com. ]
To return to Eric Rasmusen's weblog, click http://php.indiana.edu/~erasmuse/w/0.rasmusen.htm.