This volume covers the theoretical method, macroeconomics, microeconomics, international trade and finance, development, and policy of economic theory. It incorporates various alternative approaches as well as a broad spectrum of policy issues.

The recent financial meltdown and the resulting global recession have rekindled debates regarding the nature of contemporary capitalism. This book analyses the ongoing financialization of the economy as a development within capitalism, and explores the ways in which it has changed the organization of capitalist power. The authors offer an interpretation of the role of the financial sphere which displays a striking contrast to the majority of contemporary heterodox approaches. Their interpretation stresses the crucial role of financial derivatives in the contemporary organization of capitalist power relations, arguing that the process of financialization is in fact entirely unthinkable in the absence of derivatives. The book also uses Marx’s concepts and some of the arguments developed in the framework of the historic Marxist controversies on economic crises in order to gain an insight into the modern neoliberal form of capitalism and the recent financial crisis. Employing a series of international case studies, this book will be essential reading for all those with an interest in the financial crisis, and all those seeking to comprehend the workings of capitalism.

Neoliberalism and deregulation have come to dominate national and international political economy. This major book addresses this convergence and analyzes the implications for the future of capitalist diversity. It considers important questions such as: Is the preference for free markets a well-founded response to intensified global competition? Does this mean that all advanced societies must all converge on an imitation of the United States? What are the implications for the institutional diversity of the advanced economies? Political Economy of Modern Capitalism provides a practical and informed analysis of the public policy choices facing governments and business around the world.

The present volume makes students and researchers familiar with contemporary issues in global political economy with a focus on the working of global capitalism in the last four to five decades. The volume covers a wide range of issues from conceptual questions to empirical investigation with the aim to promote a critical understanding of the major challenges posed by contemporary capitalism. It contains contributions of leading political economists from India and abroad. The volume will be a significant resource for developing a graduate course in global political economy. This book is co-published with Aakar Books, New Delhi. Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the print versions of this book in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

This book constitutes an overview of recent developments in political economy in general, and Marxist value theory in particular. The implications of value theory for bank credit, inflation and deflation are fully explored.

From the Introduction: This book challenges the conventional wisdom about classical political economy and the rise of capitalism. It is written in the conviction that modern interpretations of political economy have suffered terribly from acceptance of the prevailing liberal view of the origins and development of capitalist society. By the liberal account, capitalism emerged out of the centuries-old competitive activities of merchants and manufacturers in rational pursuit of their individual economic self-interest. Over time, this account claims, the persistent activity of these classes developed new forms of wealth and productive resources and new intellectual and cultural habits, which eroded the existing structure of society. The rise of capitalism is thus explained in terms of the rise to prominence of the most productive, rational, and progressive social groups—merchants and manufacturers. Not surprisingly, classical political economy came to be seen as an intellectual reflection of the ascendance of merchants and manufacturers and as a theoretical justification of their interests and activities. This book argues that capitalism was the product of an immense transformation in the social relationships of landed society and that this fact is crucial to understanding the development of classical political economy. Without a radical transformation of the agrarian economy, the activities of merchants and manufacturers would have remained strictly confined. By no inexorable logic of their own were mercantile and industrial activities capable of fundamentally transforming the essential relations of precapitalist society. Rather, the changes in agrarian economy, which drove rural producers from their land, forced them onto the labour market as wage labourers for their means of subsistence, and refashioned farming as an economic activity based upon the production of agricultural commodities for profit on the market, established the essential relations of modern capitalism. In what follows, these processes are described in terms of the emergence of agrarian capitalism. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1988.

This book promotes an in-depth understanding of the key mechanisms that govern the functioning of capitalist economies, pursuing a Classical Political Economics approach to do so. It explores central theoretical issues addressed by the classical economists Smith and Ricardo, as well as Marx, while also operationalizing more recent theoretical developments inspired by the works of Sraffa and other modern classical economists, using actual data from major economies. On the basis of this approach, the book subsequently provides alternative explanations for various microeconomic issues such as the determination of equilibrium prices and their movement induced by changes in income distribution; the dynamics of competition of firms within and between industries; the law of tendential equalization of interindustry profit rates; and international exchanges and transfers of value; as well as macroeconomic issues concerning capital accumulation and cyclical economic growth. Given its scope, the book will benefit all researchers, students, and policymakers seeking new explanations for observed phenomena and interested in the mechanisms that give rise to surface economic categories, such as prices, profits, the unemployment rate, interest rates, and long economic cycles.