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Welcome, everybody!

Welcome!

This blog is my private blog. In this blog, Hopefully I will discuss a wide range of economic topics, including (but not only) Marxian Economics and Post-Keynesian Economics.
As I'm Chinese and I'm living and studying in Liverpool, UK now. Maybe I'll also discuss something about UK or China economy.
This blog is provided by platform 'Blogger'. I will write articles in English first, since this blog is designed to let me communicate with other people who are non-Chinese. However, once I am available I will translate these English articles into Chinese and publish them in my Zhihu（知乎，which means 'do you know it', a Chinese Q&A platform like Quora'） private Column 'MarxianEconomics'. So my Chinese friends don't need to worry about to cannot understand my articles.
Also, this blog is also designed for helping me practice my English writing ability. So if you find some errors about spelling or grammar or inappropriate words, please tell me. I would highly appreciate if you could kindly point out my mistake.

About Marxian Economics and PK Economics

I am a student who studies BSc Economics in University of Liverpool now. But when I was in China and was studying in high school, I began to learn about Marxian Economics. It is not very strange, cause every Chinese student should learn something about Marxian Economics in their high schools' Politics course. After all, nominally China is still a 'socialist state' nowadays.
So I spent some time in reading Marx's Capital from Volume I to III. And after I finished the reading I believe Marxian Economics is meaningful and helpful to understand our real world. Due to this reason (also I have some other reasons, too), I tend to support Marxian Economics even I have learned Mainstream and PK Economics now.
During the study I found that Chinese Marxists, from professional Marxian economists to amateur Marxist hobbyists, tend to use the conclusions drew from Capital directly which I think this practice is wrong. Let me explain it: In Marx's Capital, Marx took a special analytical framework: he started his analysis from a very abstract point and then developed his own analysis from the abstract level to the more concrete level. Since Marx passed away before he finished his work eventually, Capital 's analysis is still stay at a relatively abstract level which cannot be viewed as a direct analysis to the real world. Thus, the real range of application of conclusions drew from Capital are limited. That's why I argue that usually we cannot apply these conclusions to real world directly.
When I became a freshman of University, I found that some emerging analysis method of Marxian Economics in China, such as Mathematical analysis of Marxian Economics, highly depend on Sraffa's analytical framework. At the same time, I occasionally found that foreign (non-Chinese, especially European and North American) Marxian economists both study Marxian Economics and another school, that is, 'Post-Keynesian Economics'. Since I knew Sraffa is a member of PK school, I began to be interested in PKE. The first book I've read is Introduction to Post-Keynesian Economics which is written by Dr. Marc Lavoie. After reading, I have to admit that this book is a revolution for me. PKE's methodology and theory about real economic world are something I was looking for for a long time. To some extent, Dr. Marc Lavoie is my enlightment teacher on PK Economics.
After I learned about PKE, I was surprised that Marxian Economics is compatible with PK Economics on some topics. So I began to develop Marxian Economics to make it more concrete by absorbing PKE into Marxian Economics.

Mr. Anwar Shaikh's 'Real Competition Theory'

But when I was doing my work, again, I occasionally found Mr. Shaikh's 2016 book Capitalism: Competition, Conflict and Crises. In this book, Shaikh put forward a new theory: Real Competition Theory (RCT), which I think its thought is more closer to Marx's himself than traditional Marxian Monopoly Theory and better than PKE. RCT argues a series of convincing points, which makes me believe that RCT is the Marxian Economics theory that exists in the concrete level. In other words, RCT is the Marxian Economics theory which can be directly used to interpret our real world. So for me, RCT is the second ideological revolution. That's why I am a 'RCTer' and still a Marxist.

RCT, Consumers' Demand/Wants, Welfare Economics and Monopoly

RCT is fantastic, but still has some shortage. For example, Mr. Shaikh didn't discuss too much about consumer's demand or wants. But I think demand and wants theory is quiet important, as long as we want to replace Mainstream Economics by Marxian Economics. Also, seems that there is no discussion about Welfare Economics from Marxian prospective, not to mention establish Marxian Welfare Economics to analyse and compare Capitalist economy and Socialist economy at the normative level.
Besides, in RCT Mr. Shaikh emphasizes (real) competition isn't destroyed by monopoly. He wrote a lot to prove this argument. But then other questions arise: In RCT, what is monopoly? What is monopoly power? What is the real effect of monopoly and monopoly power? Since Mr. Shaikh's main duty is 'destroy traditional 'perfect-imperfect competition' analytical framework (which be applied by both Neoclassical and PK economists)' and establish RCT, he really didn't talk too much on monopoly issue itself.

My Goals and Dreams

So far, I have reviewed the history of my thought evolution. There are some goals and dreams I want to achieve in the future.
1. Develop Marxian Consumer's Demand/Wants Theory. Therefore, first of all I need to develop Marxian Consumer Choice Theory. Hopefully I need to utilized the Kelvin Lancaster's framework. In this framework Lancaster argued consumers choose goods by choosing their characteristics. I believe Lancaster's term 'characteristics of goods' is the same as Marx's term 'use value of commodity'. Thus, it is possible for us to develop Marxian Consumer Choice Theory based on Lancaster's approach.
2. Reconsider and clear the definition of monopoly and monopoly power and their effects on real competition under the RCT framework. To do this work, PK theory of firm should be seriously considered by Marxian economists, especially its parts of monopoly and monopoly power.
3. Develop Marxian Welfare Economics. Nevertheless, I still have no ideas on how to develop it. Maybe the conception 'surplus value' and 'surplus goods' are needed.
4. Develop Reproduction Theory and Economic Growth Theory under the RCT framework. Current Marxian Reproduction Theory and Economic Growth Theory are come from Marx's Reproduction Theory and highly depend on Sraffian mathematical framework. However, current Marxian theory cannot be used to interpret real world directly. Some assumptions are not realistic, for example, uniform profit rate across all industries and absent of competition, etc. Therefore, develop a new theory is very important now.

OK. That's all. If you are interested in these goals (maybe dreams, haha) , please contact with me. You have three methods to find me:
Facebook: T'an Shu-Chün
Twitter: @sean10249889
E-mail: S.Tan6@student.liverpool.ac.uk

Wish to talk with you!

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