Marxist Political Economy

Essays in Retrieval: Selected Works of Geoff Pilling

Geoff Pilling, Doria Pilling

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781138241114
• eBook ISBN: 9781136261275
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Geoff Pilling's work shows that Marxist theory is relevant to those struggling to understand the problems of capitalist society today, and that the work not only of Marx and Engels but that of later Marxist theorists, including Lenin is worth studying. It also shows that to understand the problems of today's society needs more than narrow specialist economic analysis, but a deep awareness of current developments in society.

1 Recollections

DOI: 10.4324/9780203107232-1

Doria Pilling writes:

Geoff was planning a publication of a collection of his academic work before his untimely death in August 1997. The title of the present volume, the major part of its content, and the order of the chapters are as he planned. Chapter 5, ‘A “third industrial revolution”? Marxism and the productive forces’ is published here for the first time. Chapter 8, ‘A very peculiar capitalism’ appeared originally in Thames Papers in Political Economy, but the version included here was considerably re-worked by Geoff. Chapter 7, ‘On disinterring Karl Marx’ was also extensively re-written by Geoff since it appeared as a book review in Workers International Press in 1997. The other chapters consist of previously published articles and chapters from his books.

Geoff was born in 1940 in Ashton-under-Lyne in Greater Manchester, formerly a thriving cotton mill town, famous for its market. His parents were working-class, his father being a self-employed window cleaner for many years, and then working in the market. His mother worked as a secretary for a firm of carpet-fitters. Both parents encouraged him educationally and he went to Audenshaw Grammar School and then Leeds University to study economics. He obtained his BA in 1961 narrowly missing getting a first-class degree. He held posts as a lecturer in economics at Sheffield and Bradford universities, and joined Middlesex Polytechnic (later Middlesex University) in 1969, where he eventually obtained a readership. In 1983 he obtained a PhD from Kingston Polytechnic entitled The Nature and Significance of Marx’s Critique of Classical Political Economy.

The originality and impact of Geoff’s academic work are detailed in the speech that Ben Fine made at his Memorial Meeting at Middlesex University in November 1997, which is included in the Foreword to this book, and in Keith Gibbard’s Introduction to the book. His ideas reached across the world, as is made clear in the specially written contribution by the Japanese economist, Kazuto Iida, translator into Japanese of Geoff’s The Crisis of Keynesian Economics: A Marxist View. ¹

Geoff’s penetrating and painstaking critiques of orthodox British Marxist political economists and of Keynesianism were never made in the pursuit of academic recognition. As Cliff Slaughter, lecturer at Leeds and Bradford Universities and Marxist scholar, wrote to me, after Geoff died:

Everybody knows that he had great talent, but most important of all, about Geoff, was that he never had a single thought of directing that talent to any other purpose than the cause of the working class from which he came. He had no thought of personal ‘success’ or self advancement, but proceeded always with great intellectual courage to defend the cause of working class emancipation and the theory necessary to achieve that emancipation, against every enemy of the working class and socialism, and against all those who falsified those theories and ideals…. He gave his whole life to what he passionately believed in, and no more can be said of any man.

That he could have had such recognition was obvious in the comments of his academic referees when he was eventually persuaded to apply for a readership at Middlesex University because it would give him more time for writing and research. They could not understand why he had not applied for a readership, or a professorship, years earlier.

Geoff was an inspiring teacher. His colleague, John Lea, said at the funeral

his attitude, his meticulous thoroughness, the depth of his knowledge of the classics in his field and his healthy scepticism toward the temporary fads and fashions which come and go in the social sciences…. This, combined with his engagement with what was happening in the world today and with the need to understand it and his unfaltering optimism that things could be different, made him one of the best teachers that it has been our privilege to work with.

Geoff set up and ran an MA in Political Economy, and also taught some modules on it. One of the students on the course, Andy Denis, now Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Economics at City University London wrote to me

It was a great course, and was absolutely critical for my own development. In opposition to the formalist technocracy of the neoclassical mainstream, the course located controversy in economics in its historical and philosophical context. Again, instead of presenting economics as a monolith, space was made for dissenting points of view such as Austrianism, Marxism and all the various shades of Keynesianism.

Geoff was deeply worried for his young grandsons, Dylan and Travis, and all future generations about what would happen if capitalist society were not replaced by socialism. He would be even more convinced of this need today. He would be alarmed at the ever-present threat of terrorism and the prospect of a prolonged European – and even a global – recession. He would be saddened by continuing conflicts in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere and appalled that a world with abundant food resources could still produce so much hunger and malnutrition. In the United States, he would see signs of rising class tension and even talk of American secular decline as evidence of an existential crisis at the heart of western capitalism. If his lifetime views are anything to go by, he would doubtless be watching such momentous developments with a mixture of anxiety and optimism. The socialist society Geoff envisaged bore no relationship to the so-called communism of the Soviet bloc. Indeed, he saw the collapse of that bloc, and of Communist parties, as providing a tremendous opportunity to build a new political party which would be a step towards creating a socialist society.

When a student at Leeds University, Geoff was introduced by Cliff Slaughter to the ideas of Leon Trotsky, and became convinced that Trotsky’s analysis of the degeneration of the 1917 October revolution in Russia as due to Stalin’s theory of ‘Socialism in One Country’ was correct. Geoff subsequently joined the Socialist Labour League (SLL) (which later became the Workers’ Revolutionary Party (WRP)), to which Cliff Slaughter had been attracted when he left the Communist party because of Khrushchev’s revelations about Stalinism and the Soviet Union’s crushing of the 1956 Hungarian revolution. Another of these ex-Communist Party scholars, Tom Kemp, lecturer in economic history at Hull University, also had a profound influence on Geoff, introducing him to Marx’s Capital.

Having joined the SLL, Geoff immediately became involved in lecturing at a summer camp. He became a frequent contributor on economic and historical questions to the party’s daily newspaper, Workers’ Press after its launch in 1969. He took numerous classes on Marxism, and lectured regularly at the Derbyshire College of Marxist Education after its establishment. He never wavered in his conviction of the correctness of Trotsky’s analysis or the need to overthrow capitalism but he made several attempts to leave the party, having grave misgivings about the way theoretical differences within the party were treated. Lack of an alternative movement to which he could commit himself always drew him back. Whatever difficulties he was having within the party, though, he never allowed these to divert him from his intensive study of Marx’s Capital, of political economy and of philosophy.

A revolt in 1985 led to the end of the old leadership of Gerry Healey in the WRP and gave Geoff new political energy. He was at the forefront in activities which brought the party closer to working class struggles. He edited for a time the now weekly Workers’ Press, opening it to wider theoretical debate. He took part in the discussions and demonstrations of migrant workers and refugees. He was an enthusiastic initiator and organiser of ‘Workers’ Aid for Bosnia’, our small study becoming deluged with faxes from Zagreb, as the first convoy taking food struggled to find a way of reaching its destination, the besieged multi-ethnic city of Tuzla. Faruk Ibrahimović, unable to return home to Tuzla because of the war and working at the Tuzla Logistic Society in Zagreb, which was trying to organise supplies to the city, became a leading member of Workers’ Aid. He writes about Geoff’s role in this Recollections chapter. In the summer of 1995 a 24-hour Whitehall picket was organised, demanding a lifting of the one-sided arms embargo, and an end to genocide in Bosnia, and Geoff regularly got a very early tube train into London to take part. He also forged a close relationship with the leaders of the Liverpool dockers, fighting for reinstatement of 500 dockers dismissed for ‘being in breach of their contract of employment’, for refusing to cross a picket line. In the paper published by the Liverpool Dock Shop Stewards Committee, the Dockers’ Charter, Geoff wrote about how the dockers’ demand for ‘The People’s Charter for Social Justice’ was in the tradition of the People’s Charter 160 years earlier, Chartism being a movement which he had studied closely and for which he had great sympathy.

Geoff had a biting wit, and could hold an audience spellbound, in the local pub as much as in the lecture theatre or on a political platform. His interests were wide. He loved classical music, and could provide a detailed commentary on Beethoven’s symphonies or Haydn’s. He was particularly fond of opera, Verdi’s Rigoletto, Mozart’s Magic Flute and Bizet’s Carmen being among his favourites. But he’d also often listen to Tony Bennett, Neil Diamond or Elkie Brooks. He loved Shakespeare, read French rather than English nineteenth-century novels, liked crime novels and humorous books, including those of P.G. Wode-house and Tom Sharp. He loved comedy, from Chaplin and the Marx Brothers to ‘Sergeant Bilko’, ‘Hancock’s Half Hour’ and ‘Yes Minister’. ‘Inspector Morse’ was a favoured means of relaxation. He was an excellent cook, inventing rather than following recipes, and enjoyed showing off his skills to guests. He was fascinated by technology, and we possessed an infuriating (as it was always breaking down) word processor he’d asked a friend to make before the Amstrad came on the scene. Coming from Ashton-under-Lyne in Greater Manchester, Geoff was a devoted Manchester United supporter, but after moving to London he also became a strong supporter of our local football club, Brentford, and when he had time we’d spend Saturday afternoons there. He was proud of his son’s table tennis talent, and was as well known at our local club as at the university. Geoff had an interest in, and could make almost everything, interesting.

This interest included that in the cancer that indirectly killed him. He bore this distressing illness with immense fortitude. He seemed to be on the road to a good recovery, and was planning much future work, so it was a tremendous shock when he died unexpectedly from a thrombosis which was probably an effect of the surgery he had undergone.

Geoff’s death was devastating not only to me and our son David, and his parents, but to many of his friends, colleagues and political comrades. Now, almost 15 years later, friends often ask me what Geoff would have thought about the current political situation, or some particular issue. It is hoped that the present book will inspire others to carry out meticulous analyses of capitalist society, as he did, in the pursuit of changing it for a better society.

In writing this introductory section I have drawn heavily on the obituary written for the Guardian by Terry Brotherstone and on that written by Bob Archer in the Workers International Press, 11, 97.

Kazuto Iida, Professor of Political Economy, Meiji University, Tokyo, writes:

It was in 1988 that I met Dr. Pilling for the first time. Of course, I had known of him and read some of his works before then. They were ‘The law of value in Ricardo and Marx’, 1972, ² Marx’s Capital: Philosophy and Political Economy, 1980, ³ and The Crisis of Keynesian Economics: A Marxist View, 1986. ⁴

His treatise of 1972 is well-known amongst Marxist economists in Japan. It was translated into Japanese and included in the book, New Development of Western Marxist Economics (in Japanese) published in 1979, which gathered the works of famous authors, including for example, Maurice Dobb ‘The Sraffa system and critique of the neo-classical theory of distribution’, 1979; Ronald L. Meek ‘Marginalism and Marxism’, 1972 and Bob Rowthorn ‘Neo-classicism, neo-Ricardianism and Marxism’, 1974. This was the first work of Dr. Pilling’s that I read.

When I read his book published in 1980, I wanted to meet him and ask him about his views on Marx’s economics directly. In this book he emphasised the significance of the notion of fetishism as the critical idea for understanding Marx’s critique of political economy. Studying Marx’s Capital from such a viewpoint would be uncommon among western Marxist economists. However, this kind of study has been very popular in Japanese academic circles. He has been highly estimated in Japan as a unique economist amongst western Marxists. In this book he examined the opening chapters of Capital in detail, to define Marx’s method of philosophy and political economy. Through this examination, he demonstrated that the opening chapters of Capital have a decisive significance for the work as a whole and that fetishism is a key concept for Marx’s system. I agree with his understanding on the Marx’s method.

Moreover, he applied the same method as in Marx’s critique of political economy in his second book, The Crisis of Keynesian Economics: A Marxist View, published in 1986. After reading this book I decided to translate it into Japanese, because it would be very useful for Japanese Marxist economists to know about his theoretical standpoint in criticising Keynesian economics.

Fortunately I was given sabbatical leave by the university in 1988. So I planned to visit London for this period and to translate his book after discussing it with him. It was in April of 1988 that I was able to go to London and meet him.

Dr. Pilling wrote this book conscious of J. Hicks’ work, The Crisis in Keynesian Economics. ⁵ We can easily see this from the title of his book, The Crisis of Keynesian Economics: A Marxist View. However, the purpose of Hicks’ work was to realise the reconciliation of Keynesian economics with neo classical economics, that is, the neo-classical synthesis. In contrast Dr. Pilling’s book was so critical of the Keynesian economics in itself that the validity of the ‘Keynesian revolution’ in the received popular view of the history of economics was denied.

He strongly advocated in this book that it was necessary for the Marxist economist to go back to the origin of Marx’s method, the critique of political economy. He demonstrated that a superior framework for the analysis of modern capitalism could only be posed in this way, as he showed in his book. He believed, I think, that Marxist economics should be developed in this direction. He advocated this to the Marxist economist in the English-speaking area, and it also applies to the Marxist economist in Japan.

My sabbatical year in London was successful. I could talk over, while translating his book into Japanese, the various matters of modern economics with him. We used to drink and discuss with each other in a pub in the university. It is my precious memory in London.

The Japanese version of his book was published in March of 1991. It was one and half years after I came back to Japan. Through this publication, he became more widely known among Japanese Marxist economists. They discovered again that Dr. Pilling was a unique theorist, as his treatise of 1972 had shown.

After that, he told me in a letter about his plan for his next publication. The theme was, as far as I remember, a study of the history of currency controversy since the nineteenth century. Thereby he would aim to open up a new field in the study of money. He would apply the same method in this book too, that is the critique of political economy.

Now I am very sorry that he was not able to realise it. If this book had been published, the name of Geoffrey Pilling would be unassailable as an excellent economist. Then, of course, I would have been the first candidate for the translator of the Japanese version of the book.

Presentation at the Memorial Meeting for Geoff organised by the Workers International to Rebu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontmatter
• Halftitle Page
• Routledge Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Note on references
• Introduction
• 1 Recollections
• 2 ‘Globalisation’ and the British working class: an essay in economic analysis and political prognosis
• 3 The law of value in Ricardo and Marx
• 4 Imperialism, trade and ‘unequal exchange’: the work of Arghiri Emmanuel
• 5 A ‘third industrial revolution’? Marxism and the productive forces
• 6 The foundation of Keynes’s economics
• 7 On disinterring Karl Marx: Cyril Smith, Marx at the Millennium, Pluto Press, 1996
• 8 A very peculiar capitalism: some reflections on the ‘decline of Britain’
• 9 Engels and the industrial revolution
• Index