Edgar Richard "Hardy" Hardcastle (1900–June 1995) was a theoretician of Marxian economics. 1900 (MCM) was an exceptional common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, but a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. ... 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Marxian economics refers to a body of economic thought stemming from the work of Karl Marx. ... Face-to-face trading interactions on the New York Stock Exchange trading floor Economics is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of valuable goods and services. ...

The son of a founder member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, Hardcastle went to prison as a socialist conscientious objector in the First World War, formally joining his father's party in 1922. After studying at the London School of Economics under Professor Edwin Cannan, he worked all his life as a researcher in the trade union movement, first for the Agriculture Workers Union, then for a short while for the international trade union movement in Brussels, then till his retirement for the Union of Post Office Workers where he was chief adviser to a succession of UPW General Secretaries. Arguing against capitalism, Speakers Corner, October 31, 2004 The Socialist Party of Great Britain, also known as the SPGB, is a small Marxist party, which is emphatically not Leninist. ... A conscientious objector (CO) is an individual following the religious, moral or ethical dictates of his or her conscience that are incompatible with being a combatant in military service, or being part of the armed forces as a combatant organization. ... Ypres, 1917, in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele. ... Year 1922 (MCMXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar). ... It has been suggested that LSE Computer Security Research Centre be merged into this article or section. ... Edwin Cannan (1861-1935) was a British economist. ... A Trade Union (Labour union) ... is a continuous association of wage-earners for the purpose of maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment. ... Nickname: The Capital Of Europe, Comic City City of a 100 Museums Map showing the location of Brussels in Belgium Coordinates: Country Belgium Region Brussels-Capital Region Founded 979 Founded (Region) June 18, 1989 Mayor (Municipality) Freddy Thielemans Area    - City 162 (Region) km²  (62. ... The Union of Communication Workers was a trade union in the United Kingdom for workers in the post office and telecommunications industries. ...

His main interest was monetary economics. From the 1930s on, as his Socialist Standard articles (written under the pen name of H.) testify, he did battle against Keynes on behalf of Marx and also, more curiously it might be thought, on behalf of his old professor, Cannan. Edwin Cannan, a largely forgotten bourgeois economist of the first part of this century, could be described as the last of the classical political economists and, as such, shared with Marx certain economic views, in particular that inflation was a purely monetary phenomenon caused by an excessive issue of an inconvertible paper currency and that banks were merely financial intermediaries without any power to “create credit”. Both of these positions were denied by Keynes whose views became part of the economic orthodoxy. Central Bank or Finance Ministry based economics where the interest rate plays a pivotal role in the cost of money and the amounts banks must hold in their reserves. ... The 1930s (years from 1930-1939) were described as an abrupt shift to more radical and conservative lifestyles, as countries were struggling to find a solution to the Great Depression, also known in Europe as the World Depression. ... The Socialist Standard is a monthly socialist newspaper published without interruption since 1904 by the Socialist Party of Great Britain. ... John Maynard Keynes John Maynard Keynes [ˈkeɪns], 1st Baron Keynes of Tilton (June 5, 1883 - April 21, 1946) was an English economist, whose radical ideas had a major impact on modern economic and political thought. ... Marx is a common German surname. ... Social Credit is an economic ideology and a social movement which started in the early 1920s. ...

Hardcastle’s empirical bent enabled the SPGB to refute, with the necessary statistical evidence, theories which have sometimes been attributed to Marx such as under-consumptionism, the increasing pauperisation of the working class, the collapse of capitalism (Hardcastle was the author of the famous 1932 SPGB pamphlet Why Capitalism Will Not Collapse) and—more controversially within the Party—the increasing severity of economic crises. 1932 (MCMXXXII) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link will take you to a full 1932 calendar). ... In economics, crisis is an old term in business cycle theory, referring to the sharp transition to a recession. ...

Hardcastle gave a great input into the SPGB, particularly to the Socialist Standard, serving on the editorial committee for over thirty years and contributing articles from the early 1920s onwards. He was also a member of the Executive Committee for decades and a Party lecturer and representative in debates (see Socialist Party of Great Britain debates). The 1920s was a decade sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties, usually applied to America. ...

Towards the end of his life, Hardcastle found himself a member of one of two branches which were expelled by a poll of all the membership for deliberately and repeatedly refusing to apply a democratically-arrived-at Conference decision. The two expelled branches went on to form the Socialist Studies group in 1991, of which Hardcastle remained a member until his death some four years later. 1991 (MCMXCI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

References

• Obituary in the August 1995 Socialist Standard
• "Edgar Richard Hardcastle ("Hardy"): Obituary". Socialist Studies № 17, pp. 17–20.
• The Times, 25 April 1975.

The Socialist Standard is a monthly socialist newspaper published without interruption since 1904 by the Socialist Party of Great Britain. ... The Times is a national newspaper published daily in the United Kingdom since 1785, and under its current name since 1788. ... April 25 is the 115th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (116th in leap years). ... 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday. ...

External links

• Edgar Hardcastle Archive at the Marxist Internet Archive