The Theory Of Capitalism In The German Economic Tradition

The theory of capitalism and of the economic order is the central topic of the German economic tradition in the 20th century. Capitalism has not only been the topic for Marxist economics and for the Frankfurt School but also for the Historical School and for the postmarxist theory of capitalism in Ordo- and Neo-Liberalism as well as in Solidarism. The question of the foundations of the economic order of the market economy and of capitalism as well as the problem whether a third path between capitalism and social ism is possible occupied this tradition from the Historical School to Ordo Liberalism and the theory of the social market economy. The theory of capitalism and of the social market economy as well as the critique and reform developed in this theoretical tradition is important for the theory of economic systems as well as for today's problems of the eco nomic order. Its relevance for the present world economy is visible in the discussions whether there exist different models of capitalism and whether they can be described as the Anglo-American and as the Rhenish model of capitalism influenced by the thought of the German economic tradition. Michel Albert, the author of this classification, gave the key-word in his book Capitalism against Capitalism. The papers of this book can help to clarify this debate by giving a first hand introduction to some of the main economic thinkers of capitalism.

Wolfgang Streeck has written extensively on comparative political economy and institutional theory. In this book he addresses some of the key issues in this field: the role of history in institutional analysis, the dynamics of slow institutional change, the limitations of rational design and economic-functionalist explanations of institutional stability, and the recurrent difficulties of restraining the effects of capitalism on social order. In the classification of the 'Varieties of Capitalism' school, Germany has always been taken as the chief exemplar of a 'European', coordinated market economy. Streeck explores to what extent Germany actually conforms to this description. His argument is supported by original empirical research on wage-setting and wage structure, the organization of business and labor in business associations and trade unions, social policy, public finance, and corporate governance. From this evidence, Bringing Capitalism Back In traces the current liberalization of the postwar economy of democratic capitalism by means of an historically-grounded approach to institutional change. This is an important book in comparative political economy and key reading across the social sciences for academics, researchers, and advanced students of Political Economy, Sociology, comparative business systems.

The social market economy forms a fundamental theory of the market economy and an integrated economic and ethical theory of the economic order in which the political and societal conditions for the working of the market are included in the theory of the market economy. The social market economy is presented as a universal theory of the decisions to be made about the economic order in all cultures and is analysed in its basic theoretical foundations and in its application to the transition process from the planned to the market economy, particulary in the privatisation of socialised property in Russia and former East Germany. Leading German and Russian experts in the field as well as four classical texts present a systematic analysis of the social market economy from the point of view of economics, law, and ethics.

Economics has become a monolithic science, variously described as formalistic and autistic with neoclassical orthodoxy reigning supreme. So argue Dimitris Milonakis and Ben Fine in this new major work of critical recollection. The authors show how economics was once rich, diverse, multidimensional and pluralistic, and unravel the processes that lead to orthodoxy’s current predicament. The book details how political economy became economics through the desocialisation and the dehistoricisation of the dismal science, accompanied by the separation of economics from the other social sciences, especially economic history and sociology. It is argued that recent attempts from within economics to address the social and the historical have failed to acknowledge long standing debates amongst economists, historians and other social scientists. This has resulted in an impoverished historical and social content within mainstream economics. The book ranges over the shifting role of the historical and the social in economic theory, the shifting boundaries between the economic and the non-economic, all within a methodological context. Schools of thought and individuals, that have been neglected or marginalised, are treated in full, including classical political economy and Marx, the German and British historical schools, American institutionalism, Weber and Schumpeter and their programme of Socialökonomik, and the Austrian school. At the same time, developments within the mainstream tradition from marginalism through Marshall and Keynes to general equilibrium theory are also scrutinised, and the clashes between the various camps from the famous Methodenstreit to the fierce debates of the 1930s and beyond brought to the fore. The prime rationale underpinning this account drawn from the past is to put the case for political economy back on the agenda. This is done by treating economics as a social science once again, rather than as a positive science, as has been the inclination since the time of Jevons and Walras. It involves transcending the boundaries of the social sciences, but in a particular way that is in exactly the opposite direction now being taken by "economics imperialism". Drawing on the rich traditions of the past, the reintroduction and full incorporation of the social and the historical into the main corpus of political economy will be possible in the future.

Presents fresh approaches to the history of capitalism in the context of Weimar and Nazi Germany.

Now in paperback, Fredric Jameson’s most wide-ranging work seeks to crystalize a definition of ”postmodernism”. Jameson’s inquiry looks at the postmodern across a wide landscape, from “high” art to “low” from market ideology to architecture, from painting to “punk” film, from video art to literature.

Applying the new economics of organisation and relational theories of the firm to the problem of understanding cross-national variation in the political economy, this volume elaborates a new understanding of the institutional differences that characterise the 'varieties of capitalism' worldwide.