Dr. Daniel Burnfin

philosopher and historian

Daniel Burnfin is a philosopher and historian of social and political-economic thought at The University of Chicago. He holds a PhD in Germanic Studies and Philosophy from the University of Chicago. His work involves class theory, classical political economy, Marxian and post-Keynesian theory, and the work of Alfred Sohn-Rethel. Some further interests of his include the history and philosophy of science, economic history, and political realism. His current research projects include a manuscript on the topic involuntary unemployment in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (i.e., the “rabble”), classical political economy, and Marx’s Capital. It argues that, of the three, only the last can provide an adequate explanation of involuntary unemployment, due to Marx’s novel concepts of value and capital. A secondary project concerns the concepts of the so-called Professional-Managerial Class, coined by Barbara and John Ehrenreich, and “unproductive labor” in classical and Marxian political economy.