Robin Hahnel

In recent years Hahnel has stopped publishing books with Michael Albert on participatory economics. He has done much work in academic oriented political economic theory. Notably, he wrote an essay analysing the works of Amartya Sen that was published in the anthology "Understanding Capitalism: Critical Analysis from Karl Marx to Amartya Sen". There is a noticeable turn in his recent work towards consideration of mid-term strategies such as global Keynesianism and living wage reforms while maintaining his long-term sights on a libertarian socialist economy based on equitable cooperation. He has also written extensively on environmental economic issues, such as carbon trade and the formal Coase theorem. Links between his work on participatory economics and his research of economic justice and democracy, as well as environmental issues, are prevalent in the books Economic Justice and Democracy: From Competition to Cooperation (2005) and Of the people, By the people – The Case for a Participatory Economy (2012).

As the nineties wore on, Hahnel became increasingly immersed in analysis of corporate-sponsored globalization, and actively participated in movements opposed to it. As disparate oppositional groups planned and unified for what were to be momentous demonstrations against the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle in 1999, Hahnel was among the leading economic analysts educating popular movements.

In 1991, as the Soviet bloc crumbled and capitalism emerged triumphant Albert and Hahnel published "The Political Economy of Participatory Economics", a model of an economy based upon allocation by participatory democracy within an integrated framework of nested production and consumption councils that was proposed as an alternative to contemporary capitalism, centralized state socialism and market socialism. In ensuing years Hahnel and Albert fleshed out the gaps in their vision, discussed possible complementary political and cultural institutions, and replied to many of their critics.

Robin Eric Hahnel (born March 25, 1946) is an American economist and professor emeritus of economics at American University. He was a professor at American University for many years and traveled extensively advising on economic matters all over the world. He is best known for his work on participatory economics with Z Magazine editor Michael Albert.