The Guardian
An obituary of John Weeks appeared in the Guardian on 24th August 2020
The link is here
Laszlo Andor , Hungarian Economist , was EU Commissioner Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion 20
Laszlo is the Secretary General of FEPS , the Foundation for European Progressive Studies
“This Summer, progressive economists lost a great thinker, author, teacher, activist and friend. I have known Prof. John Weeks for nearly three decades, starting with a visit at SOAS, and then an invitation to Budapest. During the post-1989 transition, those who refused to buy into the newly hegemonic neoliberal dogma, found his book Capital and Exploitation highly illuminating as well as accessible. more ..“
Stephany Griffith-Jones, Council member
John Weeks was a rigorous and progressive academic economist, committed to good economic policy and political action; at the same time he was a very kind, supportive and loyal colleague and friend. He is being so very badly missed; his memory, and that of his personal and intellectual contributions, however, keeps him alive amongst his colleagues and friends
I got to know John well in recent years, when PEF was being formed. He kindly invited me to join the PEF Council, which I have enjoyed tremendously, so am really grateful to him for that. John was so crucial to the work of PEF, and to the links with ,as well as our support for the Labour party, and in particular for then Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and his team. It was really admirable to see John’s dedication, which continued till the end, even as his health was failing him.In this, he was not just admirable, but in many ways heroic. He was a wonderful colleague, always generous with his support of other people’s work.
Ann Pettifor, Council member
Ann has written a full obituary for Tribune Magazine
“Late last month, pioneering socialist economist John Weeks passed away. Ann Pettifor remembers her colleague and friend – and his contributions to left-wing politics.”: https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/08/remembering-john-weeks
Carolina Alves, Council member
John Weeks was scholar who inspired me to know more about Marx, Keynes and inequalities. I knew his work on Marx before I met him in person in 2011. Having accepted to give an interview about his views on labour theory of value, he opened his house without knowing me that well. It was an amazing encounter, and an amazing interview. From this day onwards, John never stopped supporting me and listening to what I had to say.
During my PhD at SOAS (2013-2017), he would patiently listen to my ideas, doubts and question, but he was different than other seniors scholars. He seemed to actually listen to me. He showed interests in my ideas. He was curious about my views. He always made me feel like if I knew something he didn’t. This gave me confidence, it made me feel I was doing something right and it made me grow intellectually. I think perhaps that’s what made John so good at his work and so special, he would listen to others – and he will listen to the others with an open mind and open heart. This didn’t mean he didn’t have strong views or a very clear dear of his principles, theories (we all know that he did!) but he was never afraid to test them.
My experience as a PhD student and after as a young scholar showed that John was an exception in academia because he would carry you with him. While many others would only speak about giving space to young minds or women or people from other minorities, John would actually do something about it. He would invite me for events, for discussions, and would push me to write and be vocal. All this he would do treating me as an equal.
He made me feel valuable and sometimes in academia this is all you need to enable you to carry on. There are many other things that made John very special. He was committed to build a better world and he gave his time for that. He was a humanist with his sharp sense of humour. He was transparent and honest. The heterodox community didn’t only lose a brilliant mind, we lost a human being who made our community more bearable and caring.
Sue Konzelmann, Council member
When you’ve known him for only three of his 79 years, it ought to be harder to write about John than it actually is. His engagement with not only economics, but also the people who define, implement – and, not infrequently, suffer – from it, is not a characteristic you develop overnight. Much the same could be said of his deceptively “low key” approach to both other people and getting things done; he was someone you simply wanted to work with and help out. Unsurprisingly, that’s how we first met John in 2017 – helping him to bring another book to fruition.
This softly spoken gentleman was, though, without doubt also someone driven to continually try to improve things, a task he set about with an energy that never really wound down. Much will be written about his professional career, which will in all likelihood continue to be influential well into the future. But that’s only part of the reason for the many words of appreciation being written and spoken about John. He was also a thoroughly decent man with real sympathy for his fellow man, as well as a keen wit, making light of his declining health with the observation that “getting old is not for sissies …”
John also took great delight in his cats, and saw no reason not to adopt another in the last year of his life. In an email exchange after his previous cat died, he wrote: “I asked my 5 year old grandson what he thought that meant. ‘He won’t come back’, my grandson said – which is not bad for a 5 year old, but not true. The cat and my sister come back to me every day in my memories”.
A lot of people are going to remember John like that, too.
Richard Murphy
I first met John when I was appointed as a Professor of Practice. John showed that he understood what others I was working with did not, which was that when appointed to such a post you might really know your subject, but that did not mean that you were familiar with the ways of academia. Because he had that insight he appreciated what others did not, which was that translating ideas into journal paper format is a skill most academics learn when doing a PhD, which stage I had missed. He helped me greatly with that process of adjustment.
We didn’t always agree. We were on occasion robust with each other. And I like and admired John for precisely that reason. Our commitment to progressive economics permitted differences in pursuit of a greater cause. As a result I did, like I suspect many others who learned from John over his many years in academia, come to greatly appreciate his wisdom, guidance and friendship.
A life well lived is, I think, one that has positive impact on the lives of others. I only knew John in the last years of his life, but he added enormously to my knowledge and understanding during that period, and I am immensely grateful for having had the chance to know him. I suspect there will be a great many who feel the same way.
Guy Standing, Council member
When one loses a long-time friend, fellow traveller and kindred spirit, one realises one has lost of bit of oneself. There will be no replacement. This is the case with John Weeks. I will always recall the moment many years ago when he said to me quietly, ‘Please call me Johnny’. He was nearly always a rather serious man. However, what he meant was that he only wanted family and close friends to call him Johnny, rather than the formal John. I felt honoured.
Here is not the place to try to duplicate the excellent obituary written for The Guardian. I merely want to testify to our friendship and recall the two years we worked together in preparing a report for President Nelson Mandela’s Labour Market Commission in 1994-6. I was Director of Research for the Commission, which was a tricky assignment, mainly because of my opposition to the economic strategy being finalised by the Minister of Finance, Trevor Manuel, under the guidance of the IMF. I asked Johnny to work with me on our report and the book that came from all our research, which had contributions from about 50 economists in the country. We also asked John Sender to join our three-man team.
What I will always be grateful for is that Johnny was the one who resolutely supported me and who made major contributions to the book, particularly on macro-economic policy and above all in our economic analysis criticising the emerging IMF approach, known as GEAR.
Johnny and I concluded that if GEAR was pursued, there would be years of sluggish growth, persistence of very high unemployment and worsening inequalities, both within the white population and within the black population. At the time, South Africa had the highest unemployment in the world and probably the most unequal income distribution. Despite our efforts, the ANC government followed GEAR. Today, the country has the highest unemployment rate in the world and the worst income inequality, with a gini coefficient of 0.63. There is not much pleasure in being proved right in such circumstances, but several years ago the Minister of Labour told me that he still regarded our book as his ‘bible’.
Johnny and I often recalled our work together, and just weeks before he died, when he was asking me to explain exactly why I was highly critical of the job furlough scheme in the UK, he reminded me that I had written a similar critique of wage subsidies in our book. I had forgotten; he had not.
Johnny was the sort of colleague and friend we all need. He could be critical at times, and often was. But you always knew that the friendship and kindred spirit would remain.
