Revisiting the work of Donald Harris, father of Kamala

In a video clip that has gone viral recently, Kamala Harris quotes her mother asking her whether she thought she had just fallen out of a coconut tree. The probable Democratic nominee for president breaks into a laugh at the turn of phrase before explaining, somewhat philosophically, the message of the story: “you exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.” For Ms Harris some of that context is esoteric economic theory. Her father, Donald, is an 85-year-old, Jamaican-born economist, formerly a professor at Stanford University.

As part of a tradition of heterodox economists, Mr Harris is tenacious and prosecutorial, with a terrier-like grip on the blind spots and misguided assumptions of the mainstream (as well as the foibles of his daughter, whom he publicly admonished for stereotyping Jamaicans when she admitted to smoking marijuana). He is a clear writer. There are few compound nouns or sentences that run for paragraphs. Yet he is still a Marxist and his writings are sprinkled with obscurantist theorising. Republicans who have mocked Ms Harris for word-salad speeches will find precedent in her father’s writing.