John Milios


John Milios is a Greek social scientist and Marxian economics scholar. He is Professor of Political Economy and the History of Economic Thought at the National Technical University of Athens. An author of several scholarly books, Milios is also director of the quarterly journal of economic theory Theseis.
He was chief economic adviser of the Greek leftist party SYRIZA until March 2015.

Early life and education

John Milios was born in 1952 in Athens as the son of a lawyer and a dentist. Having attended Athens College, he graduated in the same class with former prime minister George Papandreou, before studying mechanical engineering at TU Darmstadt, Germany, and Athens, where he received his Ph.D. in 1981.
During his studies, Milios became interested in political economics, founding the quarterly journal of economic theory Theseis in 1982. In 1988, he received his second Ph.D. in Social and Economic Studies at the University of Osnabrück, Germany.

Political career

Since at least 2012 until March 2015 he was the chief economic adviser to Syriza. Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras leads a coalition government since the election on 25 January 2015. In February, Milios proposed a scheme to kick start struggling European economies. It involved the European Central Bank buying debt from Euro zone countries. It would hold the debt until the countries Gross domestic product rose to five times its value.
Milios had proposed similar ideas in 2014.

Economic theory

Regarding the Marxian concept of value-form, Milios argues for a monetary theory of value, where "Money is the necessary form of appearance of value in the sense that prices constitute the only form of appearance of the value of commodities."
Milios has authored more than two hundred papers published in refereed journals and has authored or co-authored more than ten scholarly books on Marxian economics.

Main publications in English