A Matter of Influence

The works of Frank and Magdoff particularly inserted a specifically Marxist set of theorizations offering answers to the big question of why the U.S. found itself involved in increasingly costly global imperialist operations. The third current began outside the U.S. and had its impact more narrowly contained within the circles of students and teachers of economics. Its originator was Piero Sraffa in Cambridge, England, whose 1960 Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities shook some basic theoretical foundations of the Samuelson-type neo-classical synthesis in economics while also lending itself to a reformulation of Marxist economics whose mathematical rigors and apparent direct applicability to current economic discussions generally gained it wide attention. It began to seem that Marxist theory had made quantum leaps toward respectability in economics just as neo-classical economics was in theoretical trouble and under heavy fire for having nothing interesting to say about poverty, imperialism and other burning social issues of the day. Out of these three intertwined and mutually effective currents emerged some key developments of importance within economics by the end of the 60s. Young economists-mostly graduate students and junior facultyformed a successful counter organization to the dominant American Economic Association. Called the Union for Radical Political Econom-