Paul Cockshott trained in Economics and Computer Science. He worked as a hardware designer for ICL and Memex Ltd, later becoming an academic at the Universities of Strathclyde and Glasgow. His research work in computing has included data persistence, data compression, video coding, special purpose hardware processors, 3D television, parallelising compilers and the physical foundations of computability. His published work in economics has covered value theory, models of profitability and economic planning. He retired in 2017 and is now an honorary researcher at the University of Glasgow. His main books are: Towards a New Socialism, Classical Econophysics, Computation and its Limits and How the World Works. Translated editions of his work have been published in half a dozen languages.