The Existential Foundations Of Political Economy

This volume argues that economic thought has long been shaped by deeply human forms of attachment, anxiety, desire, fear of suffering and death, and even historical speculation about the ultimate destiny of humanity. Starting in the 17th century, modern economics began to incorporate patterns of speculation and rhetoric that mirror postulates found in religion and the philosophy of history. This text demonstrates that the political significance of economic theory can only be fully understood when the existential commitments that motivated its seminal thinkers, from Smith and Marx to Hayek and beyond, have been excavated. Featuring incisive examinations and revisionist interpretations of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, F.A. Hayek, and Karl Polanyi, it is powerfully written and exhaustively researched. It will appeal to anyone interested in political economy, the history of political thought, or the roots of contemporary ideologies.

The book investigates the relationship between the economic and political writings of four seminal authors: Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Joseph A. Schumpeter, and John M. Keynes. It underlines how in their works the nexus between ethics, economics, and politics has produced four exemplary solutions. They represent the most relevant modern formulations of the idea of 'political interest', to which the philosophical and political debate constantly returns, as the thought of Carl Schmitt, Hannah Arendt, and Michel Foucault demonstrates. The author discusses the different interpretations by considering economic science not as a natural, but as moral and political science.

The recent economic crisis in the United States has highlighted a crisis of understanding. In this volume, Bradley C. S. Watson and Joseph Postell bring together some of America's most eminent thinkers on political economy--an increasingly overlooked field wherein political ideas and economic theories mutually inform each other. Only through a restoration of political economy can we reconnect economics to the human good. Economics as a discipline deals with the production and distribution of goods and services. Yet the study of economics can-indeed must--be employed in our striving for the best possible political order and way of life. Economic thinkers and political actors need once again to consider how the Constitution and basic principles of our government might give direction and discipline to our thinking about economic theories, and to the economic policies we choose to implement. The contributors are experts in economic history, and the history of economic ideas. They address basic themes of political economy, theoretical and practical: from the relationship between natural law and economics, to how our Founding Fathers approached economics, to questions of banking and monetary policy. Their insights will serve as trusty guides to future generations, as well as to our own.

Despite a burgeoning debate on substantive issues in IPE, little attention has been devoted to its theoretical foundations. In this important new text, Matthew Watson reviews the main current theoretical approaches to IPE and highlights the problems that arise from treating 'states' and 'markets' as separate and contesting units of analysis. Foremost among these problems is the lack of attention given to theorizing the constitution of the individual as both an economic agent and a moral being.

The Political Economy Reader advocates a particular approach to the study of political economy – the "market-institutional" perspective – which emphasizes the ways in which markets are embedded in political and social institutions. This perspective offers a compelling alternative to the market-liberal view, which advocates freer markets and less government intervention in the economy, as if states and markets were naturally at odds with each other. The reader embraces a truly interdisciplinary approach to the study of political economy, with extensive coverage from sociology, economics, history and political science. It includes some of the most important classical and contemporary theoretical perspectives on political economy. And it engages some of the most topical debates in political economy today, such as climate change, the global financial crisis, inequality, the digital platform economy, and the COVID-19 pandemic. For political economy courses at a variety of levels and from a range of disciplines, the reader is also of interest to scholars and citizens wanting perspective on the intersection of economics, politics, and society. New to the Second Edition • More than 20 new readings included by such notables as Elinor Ostrom, E. J. Hobsbawm, Dani Rodrik, Amartya Sen, Thomas Piketty, and Mariana Mazzucato among many others. • Fully updated introductions to the book and each thematic chapter of readings. • Coverage of key emerging debates including climate change, the financial crisis, inequality, the digital platform economy, and COVID-19

The Discretionary Economy argues that we do in fact control our own political and economic destinies. As a community, we have discretion over policies that determine whether an economic process adequately provides for the necessities of life. We also determine who participates in normative public judgments and whether decisions distinguish between what is and what ought to be. Tool argues that we must continuously organize the institutional structures through which economic and political functions in the social process are carried on. We must exercise discretion by creating and modifying institutions that coordinate our behavior. To exercise discretion effectively requires that we employ distinctively American economic, political, and philosophical theory. In this volume, the pivotal twentieth-century contributors to this encompassing theory of political economy are Thorstein Veblen, John Dewey, Clarence Ayres, and R. Fagg Foster. This volume presents, in detail, their analytical and philosophical perspective on social change. A major purpose of this volume is to compare and contrast the American tradition with the traditions of capitalism, Marxism, and fascism, demonstrating that the former can resolve compelling economic and political problems and the latter two cannot. This book explains how to identify and analyze social, economic, and political problems confronted in all communities, and how to go about framing and implementing structural adjustments in the political economy. It will be of interest to students in non-traditional courses in political economy including institutional economics, contemporary social problems, economics and social policy, methodology, and contemporary economic thought.

This book analyzes the links between political economics, governance structures, and the distribution of political power in economic policy making. The book theoretically explains and empirically quantifies these interactions. The analysis includes both public good policies and redistributive policies. Part 1 of the book presents the conceptual foundations of political-economic bargaining and interest group analysis. After presenting the underlying theory, Part 2 of the book examines ideology, prescription, and political power coefficients; Part 3 analyzes a number of specific structures; and Part 4 presents a framework for political econometrics with a number of empirical applications and testable hypotheses. In all four parts of the book, four analytical dimensions of public policy are distinguished: governance structures, political economy, mechanism design, and incidence.

Recent trends in Marxist economic theory have sponsored the methods of modern logic and mathematics. In doing so, they have displaced not only the relatively philosophical style of reflection found in Capital but also certain key problems addressed there by Marx. Ulrich Krause breaks new ground by applying mathematical techniques in an analysis of labor, money and exchange. Rejecting the notion of "homogeneous labor" as a basis of value theory, Krause develops his own understanding of the Marxist concept of "abstract labor," which he then integrates with an analysis of money in the process of commodity exchange. His book concludes with a new discussion of Marx's theory of value and surplus-value. Money & Abstract Labour is a major intervention in one of the most vigorously contested areas of contemporary economic theory.