Robin Eric Hahnel (born March 25, 1946) is an American economist and professor emeritus of
economics
Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.
Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analy ...
at
American University
The American University (AU or American) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Its main campus spans 90 acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, mostly in the Spring Valley neighborhood of Northwest D.C. AU was ch ...
. He was a professor at
American University
The American University (AU or American) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Its main campus spans 90 acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, mostly in the Spring Valley neighborhood of Northwest D.C. AU was ch ...
for many years and traveled extensively advising on economic matters all over the world. He is best known for his work on
participatory economics with ''
Z Magazine'' editor
Michael Albert.
Politically, Hahnel considers himself a product of the
New Left
The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, g ...
and is sympathetic to
libertarian socialism. He has been active in many
social movement
A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a social or political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to resist or undo one. It is a type of group action and may ...
s and organizations for forty years, notably as a participant in student movements opposed to the
American invasion of South Vietnam, more recently with the Southern Maryland Greens, a local chapter of the
Maryland Green Party, and the
Green Party of the United States. Hahnel's work in economic theory and analysis is informed by the work of
Marx,
Keynes,
Piero Sraffa
Piero Sraffa (5 August 1898 – 3 September 1983) was an influential Italian economist who served as lecturer of economics at the University of Cambridge. His book ''Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities'' is taken as founding the neo- ...
,
Michał Kalecki, and
Joan Robinson, among others. He has served as a visiting professor or economist in
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
,
Peru, and
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
.
Early critiques: Orthodox Marxism and welfare economics
Hahnel was an undergraduate at
Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of hig ...
when he met Albert, who was studying at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Over the course of roughly three decades the duo would produce seven books together. Among the early writings was "Marxism and Socialist Theory" an evaluation of
Marxist
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
and
Marxist–Leninist theory that emphasized what they believed were serious flaws. Albert and Hahnel argued that while those aspects of Marxist theory rejecting the institutions of
private property
Private property is a legal designation for the ownership of property by non-governmental legal entities. Private property is distinguishable from public property and personal property, which is owned by a state entity, and from collective or ...
and markets were well-founded, other aspects of Marxist and Marxist–Leninist doctrine, including its economistic bias, dialectical methodology,
historical materialism, class concepts,
labour theory of value, crises theory and rejection of visionary thinking, and
authoritarian
Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic votin ...
values and tendencies, were either partially or wholly flawed; and often constituted obstacles in the struggle for
social justice. Subsequently, they produced "Socialism, Today and Tomorrow", which was an analysis of
socialism in the
Soviet Union,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
and
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
, as well as a sketch of an alternative theoretical framework for socialism.
Their technical study of mainstream welfare economics, "A Quiet Revolution in Welfare Economics", was originally published by Princeton, but did not receive wide distribution. The underground interest in the book prompted its being made available on-line. They argued that traditional welfare economic theory was in an intractable crisis. The core approach that competitive markets produce social efficiency was yielding diminishing returns and "has thwarted, rather than facilitated, advances in analyses of the labour process,
externalities, public goods, preference development and institutional structures." The traditional socialist solution of public enterprise combined with centrally planned allocation was found equally lacking. In conclusion they argued that in clarifying the reasons why traditional models were deficient they had cleared a path that suggested probable directions for an alternative paradigm. The significant social and ecological inefficiencies of private enterprise
market economies, public enterprise centrally
planned economies, and related variants, necessitated both the re-organization of production and consumption institutions and the search for compatible "allocative mechanisms that allow informed individual rationality to be fully consistent with social rationality." Their next step, the formulation of a relatively detailed "full" vision of an economy based upon participatory democratic planning was their attempt to provide an answer to this challenge.
Participatory economics
In 1991, as the
Soviet bloc
The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
crumbled and
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...
emerged triumphant Albert and Hahnel published "The Political Economy of Participatory Economics", a model of an economy based upon allocation by
participatory democracy within an integrated framework of nested production and consumption councils that was proposed as an alternative to contemporary capitalism, centralized
state socialism and
market socialism. In ensuing years Hahnel and Albert fleshed out the gaps in their vision, discussed possible complementary political and cultural institutions, and replied to many of their critics.
Ecological economics
Throughout much of this time Hahnel had been teaching advanced courses in
ecological economics at American University. His ecological economic vision seeks to incorporate the ecological and social costs entailed in production, consumption, and distribution in the
price signals for each good. Because of the widely recognized difficulties of quantifying ecological and social costs, Hahnel emphasized the necessity of utilizing qualitative data in addition to quantitative data to ensure accurate price signals. Qualitative data can best be elucidated through the mechanisms of an inclusive and participatory democratic informational framework.
In terms of the current day ecological problems Hahnel acknowledges that green and pollution taxes are likely to be more effective than alternative schemes such as the marketization of natural resources using permit systems or regulatory "command and control" methods. An optimally efficient green tax requires taxing polluters an amount equal to external costs. Corporations can be expected to try to pass the extra costs on to consumers by raising prices; however, Hahnel notes that "part of the reason pollution taxes improve efficiency in a market economy is that they discourage consumption of goods whose production requires pollution precisely by making those products more expensive for consumers." He recommends linking tax increases related to "bads" such as pollution to tax decreases on "goods" related to productive work, as exemplified by social security taxes. (The ABC's of Political Economy, 272)
From an international strategic perspective however, he has thrown his support behind a
cap and trade system. He argues that progress has been made toward a cap and trade system and should not be discarded, that such a system would foreground scientific and climatological expertise rather than economic expertise, and that such a system is much more achievable on an international level.
Corporate-sponsored globalization, criticism and activism
As the nineties wore on, Hahnel became increasingly immersed in analysis of corporate-sponsored globalization, and actively participated in movements opposed to it. As disparate oppositional groups planned and unified for what were to be momentous demonstrations against the
World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle in 1999, Hahnel was among the leading economic analysts educating popular movements.
[Robin Hahnel]
Fighting Corporate Sponsored Globalization
(September 22, 1999) (retrieved 13-04-2010)
His first major book authored without
Michael Albert was "Panic Rules". The book features concise analysis of crises due to financial liberalization in the era of globalization, a critique of the ideology and practices of global institutions such as the WTO, IMF and World Bank, and a tightly argued explanation of the conditional insights and much overlooked limitations of international trade theory based upon Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage.
Hahnel acknowledged core insights within comparative advantage theory, noting that "if opportunity costs of producing goods are different in different countries there are potential gains from specialization and trade." However, he explained that the potential gains are realized only under specific conditions, and expounded on the many real world factors that can account for significant efficiency losses. Among the most significant factors for efficiency losses from trade are ''inaccurate prices'' due to significant externalities that cause misidentification of comparative advantages, unstable international markets that create macro inefficiencies, and adjustment costs of moving people in and out of industries that can be considerable. Moreover, in spite of Ricardo's theory, international trade usually aggravates global inequality because terms of trade are set inequitably as a result of the dominant bargaining positions of northern countries, and thanks to class structures that ensure the costs and benefits of trade are distributed unfairly within countries. (see ABC's of Political Economy, 176–207)
Theory and practice of economic justice and democracy
In recent years Hahnel has stopped publishing books with
Michael Albert on participatory economics. He has done much work in academic oriented political economic theory. Notably, he wrote an essay analysing the works of
Amartya Sen that was published in the anthology "Understanding Capitalism: Critical Analysis from
Karl Marx to
Amartya Sen". There is a noticeable turn in his recent work towards consideration of mid-term strategies such as global
Keynesianism and living wage reforms while maintaining his long-term sights on a
libertarian socialist economy based on equitable cooperation. He has also written extensively on environmental economic issues, such as carbon trade and the formal Coase theorem. Links between his work on participatory economics and his research of economic justice and democracy, as well as environmental issues, are prevalent in the books ''Economic Justice and Democracy: From Competition to Cooperation'' (2005) and ''Of the people, By the people – The Case for a Participatory Economy'' (2012)''.''
Bibliography
* ''Unorthodox Marxism'' with M. Albert (1978)
* ''Socialism Today and Tomorrow'' with M. Albert (1981)
* ''Marxism and Socialist Theory'' with M. Albert (1981)
* ''Liberating Theory'' with M. Albert, Holly Sklar, Lydia Sargent, Noam Chomsky, Mel King, and Leslie Kagan (1986)
*
Quiet Revolution in Welfare Economics' with M. Albert (1990)
*
Looking Forward – Participatory Economics for the Twenty First Century' with M. Albert (1991)
*
The Political Economy of Participatory Economics' with M. Albert (1991)
* ''Panic Rules'' (1999)
* ''ABC's of Political Economy'' (2003)
* ''Economic Justice and Democracy: From Competition to Cooperation'' (2005)
* ''Green Economics'' (2011)
* ''Of the people, By the people – The Case for a Participatory Economy'' (2012)
* ''Radical Political Economy: Sraffa versus Marx (2017)''
* ''Democratic Economic Planning (2021)''
See also
*
Direct democracy
Direct democracy or pure democracy is a form of democracy in which the electorate decides on policy initiatives without elected representatives as proxies. This differs from the majority of currently established democracies, which are repre ...
*
Inclusive Democracy
*
Industrial Workers of the World
*
Parecon
*
Socialist economies
*
Market abolitionism
*
Complementary holism
*
Workplace democracy
Notes
External links
American University page on Robin HahnelA Guide through the Economic CrisisAnarchist Planning Interview with Chris Spannos
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hahnel, Robin
1946 births
Living people
21st-century American economists
American anarchists
American anti-capitalists
American anti-globalization writers
American male non-fiction writers
American University faculty and staff
Collectivist anarchists
Ecological economists
Harvard University alumni
Libertarian socialists
Portland State University faculty
Socialist economists
Writers about direct democracy