This introduction to the main heterodox schools of economic thought examines their main concepts and their critiques of mainstream theory. The schools examined include Austrian economics, geo-economics, the Virginia school of political economy, feminist economics, humanist economics, institutional economics, and nondeterminist Marxism. The aim of these essays is to understand the ideas and methodology of these approaches, and also to explain why there are different approaches to economics, and how the various schools relate to each other.

For at least a half-century, there has been active debate on the nature of the economy between classical and neoclassical economists and advocates of a more -substantivist- approach (most recently, cultural anthropologists)... The essays are uniformly well written and excellently documented... Heartily recommended for academic libraries, community college level up. --S. M. Soiffer, Choice

This book argues that economists need to reengage with societal issues, such as justice and fairness in distribution, that inevitably arise when discussing the basic economic problem of unlimited human wants and finite resources. Approaching the problem through a history of economic thought, Johnson reexamines Adam Smith’s contributions to show how they reach beyond neoclassical models that are too simplistic to reflect the growing interdependencies of market economies. He breaks down supposedly value-free neoclassical postulates to expose normative assumptions about economics and justice, demonstrating, for example, that the concept of market equilibrium is problematic because need-based behavior can produce involuntary unemployment even when a competitive labor market achieves equilibrium.

Beyond the Market launches a sociological investigation into economic efficiency. Prevailing economic theory, which explains efficiency using formalized rational choice models, often simplifies human behavior to the point of distortion. Jens Beckert finds such theory to be particularly weak in explaining such crucial forms of economic behavior as cooperation, innovation, and action under conditions of uncertainty--phenomena he identifies as the proper starting point for a sociology of economic action. Beckert levels an enlightened critique at neoclassical economics, arguing that understanding efficiency requires looking well beyond the market to the social, cultural, political, and cognitive factors that influence the coordination of economic action. Beckert searches social theory for the components of an alternative theory of action, one that accounts for the social embedding of economic behavior. In Durkheim and Parsons he finds especially useful approaches to cooperation; in Luhmann, a way to understand how people act under highly contingent conditions; and in Giddens, an understanding of creative action and innovation. Together, these provide building blocks for a research program that will yield a theoretically sophisticated understanding of how economic processes are coordinated and the ways that markets are embedded in social, cultural, and cognitive structures. Containing one of the most fully informed critiques of the neoclassical analysis of economic efficiency--as well as one of the most thoughtful blueprints for economic sociology--this book reclaims for sociology the study of one of the most important arenas of human action.

Heterodox economics refers to methodologies or schools of economic thought that are considered outside of "mainstream economics", often represented by expositors as contrasting with or going beyond neoclassical economics. Including, but not limited to socialist, Institutional, Marxian, evolutionary, Georgist, Feminist, Gift-based economics, technocracy, Austrian, social, post-Keynesian (not to be confused with New Keynesian), and many other influential ecological economic theories. Alfred H.R. Robinson's overview and reference source serves as a useful study guide, reference, and as a beneficial citation resource. In addition to covering each type This edition also provides a comprehensive history of economic thought, methodology, and heterodox approaches.

This is the first book to examine the central tenets of economics from a feminist point of view. In these original essays, the authors suggest that the discipline of economics could be improved by freeing itself from masculine biases. Beyond Economic Man raises questions about the discipline not because economics is too objective but because it is not objective enough. The contributors—nine economists, a sociologist, and a philosopher—discuss the extent to which gender has influenced both the range of subjects economists have studied and the way in which scholars have conducted their studies. They investigate, for example, how masculine concerns underlie economists' concentration on market as opposed to household activities and their emphasis on individual choice to the exclusion of social constraints on choice. This focus on masculine interests, the contributors contend, has biased the definition and boundaries of the discipline, its central assumptions, and its preferred rhetoric and methods. However, the aim of this book is not to reject current economic practices, but to broaden them, permitting a fuller understanding of economic phenomena. These essays examine current economic practices in the light of a feminist understanding of gender differences as socially constructed rather than based on essential male and female characteristics. The authors use this concept of gender, along with feminist readings of rhetoric and the history of science, as well as postmodernist theory and personal experience as economists, to analyze the boundaries, assumptions, and methods of neoclassical, socialist, and institutionalist economics. The contributors are Rebecca M. Blank, Paula England, Marianne A. Ferber, Nancy Folbre, Ann L. Jennings, Helen E. Longino, Donald N. McCloskey, Julie A. Nelson, Robert M. Solow, Diana Strassmann, and Rhonda M. Williams.

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.