Douglas Fitzgerald Dowd

Douglas Fitzgerald Dowd (born December 7, 1919)^[1] is an American political economist, economic historian and political activist.

Academic career

From the late 1940s to the late 1990s, he taught at Cornell University, UC Berkeley and other universities. He has authored books that criticize capitalism in general, and US capitalism in particular.

Now in his eighties and semiretired, he continues to publish and has, for many years, offered a free class in San Francisco, where he used to live for half of the year. Now he lives full-time in Bologna. He teaches at the nearby University of Modena.

Many of his writings and audio transcripts are available on his website.

Family

He is the son of a Jewish mother and a Catholic father. The strong dislike for each side of the family for the other side lead him to embrace an antireligious attitude during his youth.

He claims to be "non-religious" without saying if he is an agnostic or atheist. He was a young man during the US Depression years, and lived through and participated in most of the major social and political events over the decades. He was a pilot for the United States during World War II. His teaching and writings are peppered with colorful anecdotes and language, adding a very personal touch to his teaching. (Also, his comprehensive knowledge of history and historical events provides an excellent background to his "I was there" and "I did this" adventures.)

Electoral candidate

Dowd was one of the nominees of the Peace and Freedom Party for Vice President in the 1968 US presidential election. He agreed to be on the ticket in New York in order to prevent the selection of Jerry Rubin.^[2] The party's presidential candidate that year was Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver, who finished a distant fifth in the election.

Bibliography

• Modern Economic Problems in Historical Perspective (1965)
• Thorstein Veblen: A Critical Reappraisal; Lectures and Essays Commemorating the Hundredth Anniversary of Veblen's Birth (1965)
• America's role in the world economy:the challenge to orthodoxy (1966)
• The Twisted Dream: Capitalist Development in the United States Since 1776 (1974) ISBN 978-0-87626-881-0
• Waste of Nations: Dysfunction in the World Economy (1989) ISBN 978-0-8133-0810-4
• Blues for America: A Critique, a Lament, and Some Memories (1997) ISBN 978-0-85345-982-8
• Against the Conventional Wisdom: A Primer for Current Economics Controversies and Proposals (1997) ISBN 978-0-8133-2796-9
• Capitalism and Its Economics: A Critical History (2000) ISBN 978-0-7453-1643-7
• Understanding Capitalism: Critical Analysis from Karl Marx to Amartya Sen (2002) ISBN 978-0-7453-1782-3
• At the Cliffs Edge: World Problems and U.S. Power (Peninsula Peace and Justice Cener, 2007)^[3]

Footnotes

1. "California, Birth Index, 1905-1995". FamilySearch. Retrieved 15 August 2013.
2. Wells, Tom. The War Within: America's Battle Over Vietnam. p 264
3. http://monthlyreview.org/2007/05/01/venezuela-who-could-have-imagined/

External links

• Official site of Doug Dowd