Hello, Professor Wolff, I've been interested in getting "into" Marxian economics for awhile, but have struggled due to a couple of reasons, primarily issues of time and frustration over the seemingly intentionally confusing wording of books on the subject. I.I. Rubin's Essays seems to be okay so far, but I still find myself finding issues in its presentation. I am really looking and hoping for a structured, systematic introduction to the ideas of Marx, the developments of Kalecki, Sweezy, Cockshott, etc who followed in his intellectual tradition, rebuttals of the accusations levied against Marxian economics, etc. Essentially, I am looking for a textbook. The closest I can seem to find actually comes from you, your Contending Economic Theories from a few years back *seems* to be what I'm looking for, however, it also came out before Shaikh's Capitalism and would seem to have been written too early to take into account much in the way of the post-recession developments in Marxism. So, what would you recommend? I quite like your writing style, so I probably will buy Contending Economic Theories, so what would you recommend then to read in order to "catch up" to more recent theory? I want to seriously thank you for your willingness to accept questions and for taking the time to answer them
Thanks for your kind words. I would strongly recommend the Contending Economic Theories book from MIT Press because its chapter on Marxian economics (as well as its comparative analysis of the 3 major paradigms in the field) is a summary overview that does, I think, get you into most of the essentials. I have since written two other books that try to use and apply Marxian economics (as presented in Contending....) to the 2008 crash and what has happened since: Democracy at Work: Cure for Capitalism and Capitalism's Deepening Crisis, both published by Haymarket in 2012 and 2016 respectively. These books were written to do pretty much what you request, so that is why I recommend them.
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