Anwar Shaikh (1945 - 2026)

Anwar Shaikh has died. Those who knew him or are more familiar with his work will have more to say. I know a few elements of his work:

• His development of the humbug production function (Shaikh 1974). The apparent good empirical fit of aggregate production functions is an accounting data when functional income distribution is stable.
• His reading of Marx's solution to the transformation problem as the first step in an iterative algorithm converging to prices of production (Shaikh 1977).
• Criticisms of neoricardian economics (Shaikh 1981, 1984).
• Empirical application of the labor theory of value with Leontief input-output matrices (e.g., Shaikh and Tonak 1996). That book goes into depth in distingusihing productive and unproductive labor.

I still have not read his comprehensive book 2016 book emphasizing 'turblent regulation' and 'real competition'. Currently, his archives are available on-line.

Shaik was born in 1945 in Pakistan, before the partition from India. He lived as a child in various cities in various countries. His undergraduate degree was from Princeton, in 1965. He spent a couple of years as an engineer and in Kuwait teaching physics, math, and social science. His doctorate is from Columbia in 1973. He lived in Harlem, and participated in various protests at Columbia. He joined the New School in 1972.

I like this story:

"While at Columbia I wrote to Joan Robinson and brashly asked her if she would be willing to speak at the Economics Department. On receiving an affirmative response, I excitedly rushed to tell the Department Chair. To my astonishment, the department originally declined to invite her but, after some pressure from students, finally acceded. When the time came, she strode into the room, resplendent in a coat given to her by Mao, having just come from conversations with Fidel. She proceeded to say sharply critical things about aggregate production functions and the marginal productivity theory of distribution. The hall was full of students. But a mandatory department meeting just happened to have been scheduled at the same time, and only two faculty members from the Economics Department attended her talk. They spent their time during the discussion period attempting to defend standard theory." -- Anwar Shaikh

Somewhere else, I think, he says he did not realize graduate students were not supposed to invite guest speakers.

Very Selective References

• Shaikh, Anwar. 1974. Laws of algebra and laws of production: the humbug production function, Review of Economics and Statistics 61(1).
• Shaikh, Anwar. 1977. Marx's theory of value and the 'transformation problem', in Jesse Schwartz (ed.), The Subtle Anatomy of Capitalism Goodyear Publishing Co.
• Shaikh, Anwar. 1981. The Poverty of algebra: critical notes on Neo-Ricardian economics. In The Value Controversy. New Left Books.
• Shaikh, Anwar. 1984. The transformation from Marx to Sraffa: prelude to a critique of the neo-Ricardians’. In E. Mandel (ed.), Marx, Ricardo, Sraffa. Verso
• Shaikh, Anwar and E. Ahmet Tonak. 1996. Measuring the Wealth of Nations: The Political Economy of National Accounts. Cambridge University Press.
• Shaikh, Anwar. 2001. Anwar M. Shaikh. In: Philip Arestis and Malcolm Sawyer (ed.), A Biographical Dictionary of Dissenting Economists, 2nd edition. Edward Elgar.
• Shaikh, Anwar. 2016. Capitalism: Competition, Conflict, Crises. Oxford University Press.