DOC TAYROC'S [UNSOLICITED] ECONOMICS HOT THOUGHT

Marx and the Death of the Author VIII: The Marxist Mathematician

One of my listed specialities, and a topic that I've spent no small amount of time thinking about is computational statistics. That is, the ways in which computers do maths. As such, I've taught modules on statistics, coding, econometrics (ugh), and calculus. When some of my colleagues find out I teach, and even (God-forbid) enjoy these topics (albeit not econometrics per...

DOC TAYROC'S [UNSOLICTED, BONUS] ECONOMICS HOT THOUGHT

The Case for Cautious Optimism in Britain

You might have noticed, and if you're British you've hopefully certainly noticed we just recently had a series of English Council elections, as well as Scottish and Welsh parliamentary elections here. As you've no doubt heard, it was an absolute embarrassment for Starmer's Labour Party, an alleged victory for Reform, and a good showing for Green, Plaid Cymru, and the Scottish National Party....

DOC TAYROC'S [UNSOLICITED] BOOK REVIEW - BUTLER TO THE WORLD by Oliver Bullough

Yeah, I mentioned this book in the Tax Haven Ireland review, and so it was only a matter of time before it got its own entry.

Time for me to be a cliche, I do like my panel shows, they're my 'remember to resurface and breathe' brain-off telly. Even then, I'll admit I'm a bit picky, and so the usual suspects for me are 'Would I Lie To...

DOC TAYROC'S [UNSOLICTED] ECONOMICS HOT THOUGHT

Marx and the Death of the Author VII: And How Does One Primitively Accumulate?

My PhD says it is in 'development economics', and the focus of my professional work to date has been on 'developing' countries, namely Nigeria, Mozambique, Kenya, South Africa, India, and Sri Lanka. Having spend over a decade in 'development economics' one begins to question some of the core tenements of the discipline. For example, what constitutes a 'developing'...

This week's Marx and the Death of the Author was due to be posted today, but due to other obligations it will be delayed until either tomorrow or Friday

DOC TAYROC'S [UNSOLICITED] BOOK RECOMMENDATION - TAX HAVEN IRELAND by Brian O'Boyle and Kieran Allen

In a previous post I touched on the odd character that is Irish identity. Indeed, recently I was talking to a colleague about how one of my least favourite geographic groupings is 'Sub-Saharan Africa', as it covers roughly three-quarters of one of the largest continents, and seems to be based entirely on the 19th century racialised concept of...

Presented without comment. https://tribunemag.co.uk/2026/05/mark-rowleys-right-wing-crusade

DOC TAYROC'S [UNSOLICITED] ECONOMICS HOT THOUGHT

Marx and the Death of the Author VI: Can we make a mountain out of a molehill?

It's been mentioned before in previous posts by me, and by other Marxists but if you had asked Marx himself which European country would be the backwards, ethno-nationalistic genocidal dictatorship and which would be the vanguard of the global socialist revolution, he would have likely guessed Russia (or France) and Germany, in that order. Instead, we got the...

DOC TAYROC'S [UNSOLICITED] BOOK REVIEW - HOW THE IRISH BECAME WHITE by Noel Ignatiev

Happy belated May day! Solidarity forever!

I know in a fairly recent post I 'came out' as British, but that's not the end all be all of my identity. To be fair, identity is rarely so easy. My grandmother, you see, came from Cork in Ireland. My grandmother and my father, God rest their souls, were both...

DOC TAYROC'S [UNSOLICITED] ECONOMICS HOT THOUGHT

Marx and the Death of the Author, Part V: Thinking above your station

As you may have gathered from a myriad of context clues and even out-right omissions in my previous posts, I'm British. Some of Britain's most notable cultural exports are based around the comedy or drama inherent in Britain's historically hyper-classist society. From the dramatic works of the Bronte sisters, Jane Austen, or E.M. Forster*, to the comedies of Oscar Wilde and P.G.*...

DOC TAYROC'S [UNSOLICITED] BOOK REVIEW - CRUCIBLE OF RESISTANCE by Christos Laskos and Euclid Tsakalotos

My CV suggests, accurately, that I am not an Eastern Europe specialist, rather a specialist in South Asia and 'Sub Sahara Africa'. I'm not overly fond of the phrase 'Sub-Saharan Africa', since it's a full 3/4s of the continent, but it's how most people split Africa. Fun. Always more fun with discrete variables and the arbitrary ways in...

DOC TAYROC'S [UNSOLICITED] ECONOMICS HOT THOUGHT

Marx and the Death of the Author, Part IV: Big Macs and iPads, part 2

In the last entry, which still went over 1,000 words north of my self-imposed limit, I began the story of Britain's industrial revolution, its connection to India, West Africa, and the southern present-day United States. By the time we finished, the slaves had been freed, their former owners compensated, but not the slaves,...

DOC TAYROC'S [UNSOLICITED] ECONOMICS HOT THOUGHT

Marx and the Death of the Author, Part IVa: Ordering Big Macs from iPads

Author's note: This got really long, so I divided it into two parts, part two will be published later this week. Enjoy.

You live in a big city, the landlord class in your city is largely unregulated (we'll come back to them in a future post), and so you live a not insignificant distance from your place of employment, so you spend 'only' half your income on shelter...

DOC TAYROC'S [UNSOLICITED] BOOK REVIEW: PLUNDER OF THE COMMONS by Guy Standing

This one is hitting a little close to home, since I personally know Guy Standing, and have been to several of his recent book launches. But, I mentioned it pretty heavily last week, so feel the need to do it this week.

Gratuitous name drop over, this book is one of the books that shaped in no small part my dissertation, and still...

DOC TAYROC'S [UNSOLICITED] ECONOMICS HOT THOUGHT

Marx and the Death of the Author III: Your Boss Doesn't Hate You, They're Just Entirely Indifferent

I'm a Millennial. A friend of mine who works for the World Bank once told me that their demographic data would put me as a 'geriatric Millennial' since I was born in the 1980s. Just another reason for me to dislike the World Bank I guess. Also another reason to distrust discrete variables since the boundaries are assigned by people, usually...

*DOC TAYROC'S [UNSOLICITED] BOOK REVIEW - THE ENTREPRENEURIAL STATE* by Marianna Mazzucato

On this blog, you may have noticed that I frequently like to rag on Thatcher and Reagan, and discuss how they put into motion the mechanisms that would destroy the high standard of living and threshold for optimistic advancements in science and technology in the West that we had all come to expect after the Second World War,...

DOC TAYROC'S [UNSOLICITED] ECONOMIC HOT THOUGHT

Marx and the Death of the Author, Part II: Who Owns the benefits of your Labour?

Last week, we discussed the concept of historical materialism, which, if you recall is the idea that we can study the material conditions that lead to the economic outcomes that dictate so much of our lives. This may seem self-evident, but in Marx's day, there was an assumption that there was a certain amount of ahistoricity to all economic behaviour, and this was coupled...

**DOC TAYROC'S [UNSOLICITED] BOOK REVIEW - *GLOBALISTS* by Quinn Slobodian**

It strikes me that many of the people reading this aren't economists, and so they've seen me toss around some economics terms, perhaps without fully understanding them, so let me quickly remedy that, especially for some that might seem misleading in the current political climate in the English speaking world. Namely, the term 'liberal', used by some to discuss everything left of...

DOC TAYROC'S [UNSOLICITED] ECONOMIC HOT THOUGHT

Marx and the Death of the Author, part I: Historical Materialism

Before I start this series, I should say that there isn't, strictly speaking, a rhyme or reason as to why I'm doing them in the order that I am. One 'needn't' lead to the other, however, to get the rest, I do think it best to start with the big HM, historical materialism. As a heterodox economist myself, Lord knows I've gone to more than my fair share of a conferences that have the words...

DOC TAYROC'S [UNSOLICITED] BOOK RECOMMENDATION

This week's recommendation is Post Colonial Theory and the Spectre of Capitalism by Vivek Chibber, available DRM free here.

This is easily the most technical of the books I've ever covered here. Whilst the title implies that Chibber will be taking on the whole of post-colonial theory, in reality his crosshairs are aimed at one particular branch of...