29 Facts About Maurice Dobb

Maurice Herbert Dobb was an English economist at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Maurice Dobb is remembered as one of the pre-eminent Marxist economists of the 20th century.

Maurice Dobb was born on 24 July 1900 in London, the son of Walter Herbert Maurice Dobb and the former Elsie Annie Moir.

Maurice Dobb was educated at Charterhouse School in Surrey, an elite British public school.

Maurice Dobb began writing after the death of his mother in his early teens.

Maurice Dobb's introversion hindered him from building a network of friends.

Much like his father, Maurice Dobb initiated practice in Christian Science after his mother's death; the family had previously belonged to the Presbyterian Church.

Maurice Dobb gained firsts in both parts of the economics tripos in 1921 and 1922 and was admitted to the London School of Economics for graduate studies under Edwin Cannan and Hugh Dalton.

Maurice Dobb joined the Communist Party of Great Britain while in London in 1922.

Maurice Dobb was a highly placed communist revolutionary in Britain at the time.

Maurice Dobb was politically very active and spent much time organizing rallies and presenting lectures on a consistent basis.

Maurice Dobb was elected a fellow in 1948, at which time he began joint work with Piero Sraffa assembling the selected works and letters of David Ricardo.

Maurice Dobb did not receive a university readership until 1959.

Maurice Dobb often wrote on political economy, drawing a connection between the social context and problems in society and how that influences market exchange.

Maurice Dobb believed the capitalist system created classes and with class came class warfare.

Maurice Dobb encountered differing opinions within the party, pushing that intellect and political activity are not mutually exclusive.

In 1931, Maurice Dobb married Barbara Marian Nixon as a second wife for the rest of his life.

Maurice Dobb never claimed to be a communist, but was active in the Labour Party and held a seat on London County Council while pursuing a career in acting.

Maurice Dobb responded with an article in The Times claiming no connection with the Soviet Union.

Maurice Dobb believed intellectual exchange was the same as economical exchange in material form; Dobb's publications were both intellectual exchange through introduction and defense of Marxism and pieces of work that could be sold.

Maurice Dobb commented on the Soviet economy, politics, industry, and culture in what became a strong seller in the 1930s.

Maurice Dobb had two notable students, Amartya Sen and Eric Hobsbawm.

Maurice Dobb was an economist primarily involved in interpreting neoclassical economic theory from a Marxist point of view.

Maurice Dobb was critical of the marginalist thought within neoclassical economics.

Since Marx's death, this had become popular within the field, with Maurice Dobb arguing on behalf of Marx.

Maurice Dobb saw a person's preferences and level of satisfaction as heavily dependent on individual wealth, so that marginal utility is determined by spending power.

This, according to Maurice Dobb, was the distribution of wealth that could alone change prices, as price depended on how much someone would spend.

Maurice Dobb identified three major advantages of planned economies: antecedent co-ordination, external effects and variables in planning.

Maurice Dobb was an early theorist to recognise the relevance of external effects to market exchanges.