British Marxist economist and blogger who reads today's long depression through the falling rate of profit
Michael Roberts worked in the City of London as an economist for over forty years, observing global capitalism from within, and was for decades a political activist in the labour movement. Since retiring he has written The Great Recession: A Marxist View (2009), The Long Depression (2016) and Marx 200 (2018), and edited World in Crisis (2018) with Guglielmo Carchedi. On his blog, The Next Recession, he analyses the world economy through data on the rate of profit. He argues that the global economy has been in a depression since the Great Recession because the profitability of capital is too low and the debt built up before it too high, and that the depression will last until profitability is restored through another slump.
Activities and affiliations
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2009–
Scholarship and theory
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Economy, finance and planning
Career Timeline
- 2009The Great Recession: A Marxist View
- 2016The Long Depression
- 2018Marx 200; World in Crisis (edited with Guglielmo Carchedi)
- 2020Engels 200
Related historical events
- 2007.08.09–2009.06The 2008 Global Financial CrisisEconomistArgued that the fall in the rate of profit triggered the credit crunch of 2007 once credit could no longer support profits, and wrote The Great Recession: A Marxist View (2009).
- 2020.02.20–2023.10.30The COVID-19 Economic Crisis and the 2021–23 InflationMarxist economistArgued that the inflation spike came mainly from supply-side factors rather than excessive money, demand or wages, and called the fall in real wages the largest and longest for at least fifty years.