Maurice Dobb

Maurice Herbert Dobb (24 July 1900 – 17 August 1976) was an English economist at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

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

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

He and his family lived in the London suburb of Willesden.

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

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

His introversion hindered him from building a network of friends.

His earliest novels were fictional fantasies.

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

Saved from military conscription by the Armistice of November 1918, Dobb was admitted to Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 1919 as an exhibitioner to read economics.

In 1920, after Dobb's first year at Pembroke College, John Maynard Keynes invited him to join the Political Economy Club, and after graduation Keynes helped him secure his Cambridge position.

Dobb was open with students about his communist beliefs.

One of them, Victor Kiernan, later reported, "We had no time then to assimilate Marxist theory more than very roughly; it was only beginning to take root in England, although it had one remarkable expounder at Cambridge in Maurice Dobb."

Dobb's house, "St Andrews" in Chesterton Lane, was a frequent meeting place for Cambridge communists, known locally as "The Red House".

He 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.

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

After gaining a PhD in 1924, Dobb returned to Cambridge as university lecturer.

Dobb's position at Trinity connected him to it for more than 50 years.

After a 1925 trip to Russia with Keynes, Dobb refrained slightly from his interests in political conflict.

Other positions held by Dobb around 1928 include teaching in a summer school, acting as Chairman of the Faculty of Economics of the Communist Party of Great Britain, and helping to launch the party's own film company.

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

Dobb was highly influential outside of economics, having helped to establish the Communist Party Historians Group which developed social history and attracted future members of the Cambridge Five to Marxism in the 1930s.

In the 1930s he was central to the development of the Communist Party at the university.

One recruit was Kim Philby, who later became a high-placed mole within British intelligence.

It has been suggested that Dobb was a "talent-spotter" for Comintern.

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

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

As an economist commonly focused on vulnerability to economic crisis and pointed to the United States as a case of capitalist money assisting military agendas instead of public works.

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

She 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.

Dobb's personal life was of particular interest to his colleagues, and due to the controversy Pembroke College dropped Dobb as a Director of Studies and withdrew his dining rights.

In the same year he gave a lecture on his recent trip to Russia, which prompted some to call him a "paid official of the Russian government", again causing a small scandal at Cambridge.

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

He 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.

The results were eventually published in eleven volumes.

He did not receive a university readership until 1959.

Over his career he published twelve academic books, more than 24 pamphlets and numerous articles for general audiences.

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

"Economic relations of men determine social associations of men," he said in his Marxian economics class.

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