This text brings together studies in various aspects of the theory of the capitalist economy. It focuses on major themes of the Marxist tradition that postulate the existence and importance of social relations and structures underlying the esoteric realm of economic categories: prices, profits, wages, etc. The author takes a reappraising, critical look at the concepts of the deep structure - value, explitation, immanent crisis - using the analytical tools of modern economics to improve tho...

This re-incorporation of economics into political economy is one (small, but not insignificant) element in a larger project: to place all of the resources of present-day social-scientific research at the service of increasing democracy, in an ultimate direction toward socialism in the classic sense. An economics-enriched political economy is, above all, empowering: working people in general can calculate, build models, think theoretically, and contribute to a human-worthy future, rather th...

Information is a central concept in economics, and The Knowledge We Have Lost in Information explores its treatment in modern economics. The study of information, far from offering enlightenment, resulted in all matter of confusion for economists and the public. Philip Mirowski and Edward Nik-Khah argue that the conventional wisdom suggesting "economic rationality" was the core of modern economics is incomplete. In this trenchant investigation, they demonstrate that the history of...

Conventional theories of capitalism are mired in a deep crisis: after centuries of debate, they are still unable to tell us what capital is. Liberals and Marxists both think of capital as an ‘economic’ entity that they count in universal units of ‘utils’ or ‘abstract labour’, respectively. But these units are totally fictitious. Nobody has ever been able to observe or measure them, and for a good reason: they don’t exist. Since liberalism and Marxism depend on these non-existing units, the...

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the development of economics from its beginnings, at the end of the Middle Ages, up to contemporary developments. It is strong on contemporary theory, providing extensive coverage of the twentieth century, particularly since the Second World War. The second edition has been revised and updated to take account of new developments in economic thought.

An accessible companion to Karl Marx's essential CapitalWith the recent revival of Karl Marx's theory, a general interest in reading Capital has also increased. But Capital—Marx’s foundational nineteenth-century work on political economy—is by no means considered an easily understood text. Central concepts, such as abstract labor, the value-form, or the fetishism of commodities, can seem opaque to us as first-time readers, and the prospec...

How can property rights be protected and contracts be enforced in countries where the rule of law is ineffective or absent? How can firms from advanced market economies do business in such circumstances? In Lawlessness and Economics, Avinash Dixit examines the theory of private institutions that transcend or supplement weak economic governance from the state.In much of the world and through much of history, private mechanisms--such as long-term relationships, arbitration, ...

The second edition of Regional Economics provides a comprehensive and up-to-date treatment of regional economics. This fully revised edition includes key theoretical developments of the last ten years.Topics included span from the earliest location theories to the most recent regional growth theories. It is also is also enriched by the recent debate on smart specialization strategies recently developed by the EU for the design of new cohesion policies.Key elements ...

This book seeks to reclaim Capital from the myth of internal inconsistency, a myth that serves to justify the censorship of Marx's critique of political economy and present-day research based upon it. Andrew Kliman shows that the alleged inconsistencies are actually caused by misinterpretation. By modifying the standard interpretation of Marx's value theory in two simple ways, the recent 'temporal single-system interpretation' eliminates all of the alleged inconsistencies. Written especial...

Consumers, investors, and corporations orient their activities toward a future that contains opportunities and risks. How do these actors assess uncertainty? Jens Beckert adds a new chapter to the theory of capitalism by showing how fictional expectations drive modern economies—or throw them into crisis when imagined futures fail to materialize.

Critics of capitalist finance tend to focus on its speculative character. Our financial markets, they lament, encourage irresponsible bets on the future that reflect no real underlying value. Why is it, then, that opportunities for speculative investment continue to proliferate in the wake of major economic crises? To make sense of this, Capital and Time advances an understanding of economy as a process whereby patterns of order emerge out of the interaction of speculative investm...

This book explains the development of the classical theory of value from Adam Smith to Karl Marx in a form readily accessible to readers unfamiliar with anything more than elementary arithmetic, while at the same time offering to the specialist a fundamental criticism of Marxian political economy and an original and controversial interpretation of Capital. The author clarifies recent mathematical interpretations of classical political economy, so that philosophers, political scien...