Paul Sweezy

Paul Marlor Sweezy (1910 -) is a founding editor of the magazine Monthly Review and is an economist in the Marxian tradition.

Sweezy was born in New York City, the son of a bank executive. He went to Harvard, and was editor of the Harvard Crimson. He graduated in 1931. He spent a year at the London School of Economics where he was first exposed to Marxian economic ideas. He returned to Harvard and in 1937 received his doctorate, after which he began teaching economics at Harvard. In 1942 he published The Theory of Capitalist Development (ISBN 085345079X) , a book which summarized economic ideas of Marx and his followers. It was the first book in English that dealt with certain questions thoroughly such as the transformation problem. From 1942 to 1945 he worked for the research and analysis division of the Office of Strategic Services. He returned to teaching at Harvard in 1945, but realized he would not gain tenure there, so he left in 1946.

Three years later, in 1949, he founded Monthly Review with Leo Huberman. It was a socialist magazine founded in the midst of the American Red Scare. In 1954, the New Hampshire Attorney General subpoenaed Sweezy and made inquiries into his political beliefs and associations, demanding to know the names of his political associates. Sweezy refused to comply, citing his First amendment right of freedom of expression. He was cited for contempt of court, but the US Supreme Court overturned that citation in 1957.

In 1966, Sweezy published Monopoly Capital (ISBN 0853450730) with Paul Baran. The book set forth the idea of stagnation theory, that capitalism had changed since Marx's time and that the law of the tendency of profit to fall was no longer applicable. This book is the cornerstone of Sweezy's contribution to Marxian economics.