Stephen Resnick - Biography

Biography

Resnick earned a B.S. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1960. He received his Ph.D. in 1964 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His dissertation was an econometric analysis of the European Common Market. His early work (during his tenure at Yale University between 1965–1971) was with Stephen Hymer and focused on issues of economic development and international political economy.

After a brief period of service at the City College of New York (1971–1973), Resnick began teaching at the Economics Department of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1973. He began working with Richard D. Wolff in this period and since then together they published numerous articles and books formulating a nondeterminist, class analytical approach. Topics have included Marxian theory and value analysis, overdetermination, radical economics, international trade, business cycles, social formations, the Soviet Union, and comparing and contrasting Marxian and non-Marxian economic theories.

Resnick's work with Wolff took Louis Althusser and Étienne Balibar's Reading Capital as its point of departure and developed a very subtle reading of Karl Marx's Capital Volumes II and III in their influential Knowledge and Class. In Resnick's work, Marxian class analysis entails the detailed study of the conditions of existences of concrete forms of performance, appropriation, and distribution of surplus labor. While there could be an infinite number of forms of surplus appropriation, the Marxist canon refers to ancient (independent), slave, feudal, capitalist, and communist class processes.

In 1989, Resnick joined efforts with a group of colleagues, ex- and then current students to launch Rethinking Marxism, an academic journal that aims to create a platform for rethinking and developing Marxian concepts and theories within economics as well as other fields of social inquiry. He remained a member of the editorial board of the journal until 1994, and continued thereafter to serve as a member of the advisory board of the journal.

Resnick continued to teach graduate seminars and undergraduate courses and direct dissertation research in economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He received multiple teaching awards and has primary teaching interests in economic theory, economic development, and economic history. Resnick listed his primary research interests as Marxian theory and economic history and development.

Resnick died on January 2, 2013, as a result of leukemia.