Monday, August 03, 2020

Reconstructing Political Economy 

The Econ tribe occupies a vast territory within the far North. Their land appears bleak and dismal to the outsider, and travelling through it makes tough sledding; but the Econ, through a long period of adoption, have learned to wrest a living of sorts from it. They are not without some genuine and sometimes even fierce attachment to their ancestral ground,and their young are brought up to feel contempt for the softer living in the warm lands of their neighbours, such as the Polscis and the Socios.Despite a common genetic heritage, relations with these tribes are strained the distrust and contempt that the average Econ feels for these neighbours being heartily reciprocated by the latter—and social intercoursewith them is inhibited by numerous taboos. The extreme clannishness,not to say xenophobia, of the Econ makes life among them difficult and perhaps even dangerous for the outsider. This probably accounts for the fact that the Econ have so far not been systematically studied.

(Leijonhufvud 1973:347)


Contents
1 The two cultures in economics 1
2 Of dialogic debates and the uncertain embrace 17
3 Contestation and canonicity: the Adam Smith problem 32
4 The legacies of classical political economy 53
5 Marx and the long run 75
6 The neoclassical (counter) revolution 91
7 Heterodoxy and holism 111
8 Keynes and the world turned upside down 132
9The last half-century in the mainstream 154
10 Theorizing economic growth 177
11 From equilibrium into history 203


Reconstructing Political Economy

offers an original perspective on the questions the great economists have asked and looks at their significance for today’s world.Written in a provocative and accessible style, it examines how the diverse traditions of political economy have conceptualized economic issues, events and theory. Going beyond the orthodoxies of mainstream economics, it shows the relevance of political economy to debates on the economic meaning today.This book is a timely and thought provoking contribution to a political economy for our time. In this light, it offers fresh insights into such issues as modern theories of growth, the historic relations between state and market, and the significance of globalization for modern societies.
Reconstructing Political Economy
will be of great interest to economists, political scientists, and historians of economic thought.
William K.Tabb
is Professor of Economics and Political Science at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is the author of
The Japanese System: Cultural Economy and Economic Transformation, The Political Economy of the Black Ghetto;
and co-editor of
Instability and Change in the World Economy
.Contemporary Political Economy series
Edited by Jonathan Michie, Birkbeck College, University of London

No comments: