A systematic comparison of the 3 major economic theories — neoclassical, Keynesian, and Marxian—showing how they differ and why these differences matter in shaping economic theory and practice. Contending Economic Theories offers a unique comparative treatment of the three main theories in economics as it is taught today: neoclassical, Keynesian, and Marxian. Each is developed and discussed in its own chapter, yet also differentiated from and compared to the other two theories. The authors identify each theory's starting point, its goals and foci, and its internal logic. They connect their comparative theory analysis to the larger policy issues that divide the rival camps of theorists around such central issues as the role government should play in the economy and the class structure of production, stressing the different analytical, policy, and social decisions that flow from each theory's conceptualization of economics. Building on their earlier book Economics: Marxian versus Neoclassical , the authors offer an expanded treatment of Keynesian economics and a comprehensive introduction to Marxian economics, including its class analysis of society. Beyond providing a systematic explanation of the logic and structure of standard neoclassical theory, they analyze recent extensions and developments of that theory around such topics as market imperfections, information economics, new theories of equilibrium, and behavioral economics, considering whether these advances represent new paradigms or merely adjustments to the standard theory. They also explain why economic reasoning has varied among these three approaches throughout the twentieth century, and why this variation continues today—as neoclassical views give way to new Keynesian approaches in the wake of the economic collapse of 2008.

Moishe Postone undertakes a fundamental reinterpretation of Karl Marx's mature critical theory. He calls into question many of the presuppositions of traditional Marxist analyses and offers new interpretations of Marx's central arguments. He does so by developing concepts aimed at grasping the essential character and historical development of modern society, and also at overcoming the familiar dichotomies of structure and action, meaning and material life. These concepts lead him to an original analysis of the nature and problems of capitalism and provide the basis for a critique of 'actually existing socialism'. According to this new interpretation, Marx identifies the core of the capitalist system with an impersonal form of social domination generated by labor and the industrial production process are characterized as expressions of domination generated by labor itself and not simply with market mechanisms and private property. Proletarian labor and the industrial production process are characterized as expressions of domination rather than as means of human emancipation. This reinterpretation entails the form of economic growth and the structure of social labor in modern society to the alienation and domination at the heart of capitalism. This reformulation, Postone argues, provides the foundation for a critical social theory that is more adequate to late twentieth-century capitalism.

The essays in this volume, by veteran economists as well as younger scholars, are part of a radical attempt to grapple with the problems of advanced capitalist development without discarding the real theoretical breakthroughs made by Keynes. The contributors argue that Keynes was correct in pointing to the economic contradictions stemming from unemployment, income inequality, and speculative finance, but failed to consider the class composition of social output, the macroeconomic effects of the modern firm, and the atrophy of investment under conditions of capitalist maturity. They thus seek to uncover the sources of stagnation under monopoly capitalism by building on the work of three of the great economists of modern times: Marx, Keynes, and Kalecki.

In this revised and expanded edition of Long Waves of Capitalist Development , Ernest Mandel seeks to explain the underlying determinants of the booms and slumps of the trade cycle. Mandel first establishes that there have indeed been twenty- to twenty-five-year-long waves of capitalist expansion and contraction—and that these have persisted in the period since World War II. He then assembles evidence to show that while broad tendencies in the rate of profit have been decisive in triggering downturns, the ingredients necessary for a new upswing are, by contrast, generally political and extra-economic in character. He thereby demonstrates the falsity of neo-liberal doctrines, according to which the free market will itself generate a new formula for balanced and sustainable expansion. Long Waves of Capitalist Development not only offers a penetrating analysis of the ills that have afflicted contemporary capitalist economies but also surveys, and takes forward, one of the classical debates of modern economic history.

This is the fourth in a continuing series of collected essays by the former editors of Monthly Review on the state of the U.S. economy and its relation to the global system. Like its predecessors, this volume focuses on the most recent phase of the development of U.S. capitalism, stressing the profound contradictions of the underlying processes of capital accumulation and pointing the way to the fundamental reforms that are the essential precondition for a real economic revival.

Born in 1879, Eugen Varga became the most prominent Marxist economist in the Soviet Union, referred to as 'Stalin's economist.' As the official theorist of the early USSR, Varga was easily one of the most influential economists of the 20th century, yet his ideas are largely unknown in the West. By selecting and translating--often for the first time--some of his most important works, this volume aims to correct the record. Selected Political and Economic Writings offers a wide and representative selection of his works, dating from his entry into the Hungarian Communist Party in 1919 through to his criticisms of John Maynard Keynes in the 1950s. It also includes the entire text of his Economic Problems of the Proletarian Dictatorship, cited by Lenin as the best work on the collapse of the revolutionary government in Hungary. A detailed critical introduction by Varga's biographer, André Mommen, supplies valuable background detail on the circumstances of Varga's work, contextualising it in relation to political events and the development of orthodox economic theory in the USSR.