Frederic Lee - Radical Economics and Labour: Essays inspired by the IWW Centennial

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Radical Economics and Labor

To celebrate the centenary of the most radical union in North America The Industrial Workers of the World this collection examines radical economics and the labor movement in the twentieth century. The union advocates direct action to raise wages and increase job control, and it envisions the eventual abolition of capitalism and the wage system through the general strike.

The contributors to this volume speak both to economists and to those in the labor movement, and point to fruitful ways in which these radical heterodox traditions have engaged and continue to engage with each other and with the labor movement. In view of the current crisis of organized labor and the beleaguered state of the working class phenomena which are global in scope the book is both timely and important. Representing a significant contribution to the non-mainstream literature on labor economics, the book reactivates a marginalized analytical tradition which can shed a great deal of light on the origins and evolution of the difficulties confronting workers throughout the world.

This volume will be of most interest to students and scholars of heterodox economics, those involved with or researching the Industrial Workers of the World, as well as anyone interested in the more radical side of unions, anarchism and labor organizations in an economic context.

Frederic S. Lee is Professor of Economics at University of Missouri-Kansas City, USA and Jon Bekken is Associate Professor of Communications at Albright College, USA and former General Secretary-Treasurer of the Industrial Workers of the World.

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Edited by Frederic S. Lee
University of Missouri-Kansas City

Over the past two decades, the intellectual agendas of heterodox economists have taken a decidedly pluralist turn. Leading thinkers have begun to move beyond the established paradigms of Austrian, feminist Institutional-evolutionary, Marxian, Post Keynesian, radical, social, and Sraffian economics opening up new lines of analysis, criticism, and dialogue among dissenting schools of thought. This cross-fertilization of ideas is creating a new generation of scholarship in which novel combinations of heterodox ideas are being brought to bear on important contemporary and historical problems.

Routledge Advances in Heterodox Economics aims to promote this new scholarship by publishing innovative books in heterodox economic theory, policy, philosophy, intellectual history, institutional history, and pedagogy. Syntheses or critical engagement of two or more heterodox traditions are especially encouraged.

1. Ontology and Economics:

Tony Lawson and his critics

Edited by Edward Fullbrook

2. Currencies, Capital Flows and Crises

A post Keynesian analysis of exchange rate determination

John T. Harvey

3. Radical Economics and Labor

Essays inspired by the IWW Centennial

Frederic Lee and Jon Bekken

This series was previously published by The University of Michigan Press and the following books are available (please contact UMP for more information):

Economics in Real Time

A theoretical reconstruction

John McDermott

Socialism After Hayek

Theodore A. Burczak

Liberating Economics Feminist perspectives on families, work, and globalization

Drucilla K. Barker and Susan F. Feiner

Future Directors for Heterodox Economics

Edited by John T. Harvey and Robert F. Garnett, Jr.

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Essays inspired by the IWW Centennial

Edited by

Frederic S. Lee and Jon Bekken

LONDON AND NEW YORK

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First published 2009
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009.

To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledges collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.

2009 Frederic S. Lee and Jon Bekken

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Radical economics and labor/[edited by] Frederic S. Lee and Jon Bekken.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Labor movementHistory. 2. Radical economicsHistory.
I. Lee, Frederic S., 1949 II. Bekken, Jon, 1960
HD4851.R27 2009
331.88dc22 2008033870

ISBN 0-203-88255-5 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0-415-77723-2 (hbk)

ISBN10: 0-203-88255-5 (ebk)

ISBN13: 978-0-415-77723-0 (hbk)

ISBN13: 978-0-203-88255-9 (ebk)

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