Paul Cockshott
William Paul Cockshott (born 16 March 1952) is a Scottish computer scientist, Marxian economist and a reader at the University of Glasgow.
William Paul Cockshott | |
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Born | |
Nationality | Scottish, British |
Alma mater | Manchester University (BaEcon) Heriot Watt University (MSc) Edinburgh University (Ph.D) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Computer science Marxian economics |
Institutions | University of Glasgow |
Website | paulcockshott |
He has made contributions in the fields of image compression, 3D television, parallel compilers and medical imaging, but became known to a wider audience for his proposals in the multi-disciplinary area of economic computability, most notably as co-author, along the economist Allin Cottrell, of the book Towards a New Socialism, in which they strongly advocate the use of cybernetics for efficient and democratic planning of a complex socialist economy.[1]
Education
Cockshott earned a BA in Economics (1974) from Manchester University, an MSc (1976) in Computer Science from Heriot Watt University and a PhD in Computer Science from Edinburgh University (1982).[2]
Political views
In the 1970s, Cockshott was a member of the British and Irish Communist Organisation, but he and several other members became unhappy with B&ICO's position on workers' control.[3] Cockshott and several other B&ICO members resigned and formed a new party, the Communist Organisation in the British Isles.[3] When studying for his PhD in Edinburgh during the 1980s, he was recruited to the CPGB along with fellow computer science student Muffy Calder.
Published works
- Cockshott, P. (1990). Ps-Algol Implementations: Applications in Persistent Object Oriented Programming, Ellis Horwood Ltd. ISBN 978-0745808277
- Cockshott, P. (1990). A Compiler Writer's Toolbox: Interactive Compilers for PCs With Turbo Pascal, Ellis Horwood Ltd. ISBN 978-0131737907
- Cockshott, P., Cottrell, A. (1993). Towards a New Socialism, Spokesman. ISBN 978-0851245454
- Cockshott, P., Renfrew K. (2004). SIMD Programming Manual for Linux and Windows, Springer. ISBN 978-1852337940
- Cockshott, P. (2010). Transition to 21st Century Socialism in the European Union, Lulu. ISBN 978-1445715070
- Cockshott, P. (2011). Glasgow Pascal Compiler with vector extensions, Lulu. ISBN 978-1447761563
- Cockshott, P., Zachariah, D. (2012). Arguments for Socialism, Lulu. ISBN 978-1471658945
- Cockshott, P., Cottrell, A., Michaelson, G., Wright, I., Yakovenko, V. (2012). Classical Econophysics, Routledge. ISBN 978-0415696463
- Cockshott, P., Mackenzie, L., Michaelson, G. (2015). Computation and its Limits, Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0198729129
- Cockshott, P. (2020). How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day, Monthly Review Press. ISBN 978-1-58367-777-3
References
- Allin Cottrell & W.Paul Cockshott, Towards a new socialism (Nottingham, England: Spokesman, 1993). Retrieved: 17 March 2012.
- Curriculum Vitae
- What is the Communist Organisation in the British Isles? in Proletarian, No. 1, c. 1974.
External links
- Paul's YouTube channel
- Paul's blog
- "Paul Cockshott - Towards a new Socialism (1/3)". Video produced by Oliver Ressler on Paul Cockshott and his planned economy-model. Transcription of a video by O. Ressler, recorded in Glasgow, GB, 25 min., 2006
- Towards a new socialism, complete book download.
- Len Brewster on "Towards a new Socialism? by W. Paul Cockshott and Allin F. Cottrell. (Nottingham, U.K.: Spokesman Books, 1993)", Review Essay, The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, Vol.7, No.1 (Spring 2004): 65-77.; Paul Cockshott, "Notes for a critique of Brewster" (June 20, 2009).