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Understanding Capitalism: Critical Analysis From Karl Marx to Amartya Sen
Understanding Capitalism combines the essays of seven leading economists, including Robin Hahnel and John Bellamy Foster, in a critical assessment of the relationship between economic thought and the dominance of capitalism. With analyses of economists ranging from Karl Marx to Amartya Sen, the book traces the growth of the capitalist system over the past two hundred years and how economic theory has, in fact, become capitalist ideology. Relating socio-economic and analytical histories to present-day economic policy, this is a thoroughly accessible work which makes an ideal introduction to the key thinkers in economic thought past and present.Major economists and economic schools of thought are discussed in a chapter-by-chapter guide that covers Marx, Veblen, Gramsci, post-Keynesian theory, US institutionalists, Sweezy and the Monopoly Capital school, and recent Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen. Contributors include Michael Lebowitz, Carl Boggs, Michael Keaney, Frederic Lee, John Bellamy Foster and Robin Hahnel, with an introduction by the editor, Douglas Dowd.
- GenresEconomics
192 pages, Paperback
First published June 20, 2002
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About the author
Douglas Dowd
20 books6 followersDouglas Dowd is a political economist, economic historian and political activist. He has taught at UC Berkley, Cornell, and the University of Modena, near his home in Bologna, Italy.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 12, 2019
A honest title would have been *What WE mean when we say Capitalism*.
February 15, 2021
(it's Douglas Dowd, not Down)
Dowd, who taught political economics and economic history. His books are many. This one is a collection of essays by Dowd and other contemporaries, each of varying intellectual value. His chapter on Thorstein Veblen was my favorite.
He also lays out some important basics that any Freshman considering a major in economics would do well to take seriously:
"One can gain a Ph D in Economics in the United States and, while learning a great deal of economic theory, never learn anything about the economy."
"The problem with economics arises from its principle of selection, which questions it asks and -- at least as important -- does not ask, what is abstracted from and what is and is not focused upon, and why - or ultimately, saying something like the same thing, who gains and who loses from policies flowing from the theory."
Dowd's chapter on Thorstein Veblen is also probably the best contributions to the book. Other chapters include one on Gramsci (by Carl Boggs).
About Veblen: "explicit throughout his writings is Veblen's conviction that U.S. capitalism was simultaneously the most efficient and the most wasteful system in all history, and would become always more so in both respects ... the waste is found in what is produced, how it is marketed, and its socioeconomic costs."
"In most of his writings Veblen was famously sardonic and witty, as well as convolute in his sentences -- deliberately so, it seems, in order to soften or to camouflage the radical nature of his observations and conclusions. Understanding his society as well as he did, he inferred that the pill of serious social criticism will be swallowed only when it is coated with the sugar of humor."
...illustrated in a footnote by ths interesting anecdote:
Veblen's proposed subtitle for The Higher Learning was not permitted by the publishers: "A Study in Total Depravity."
More on Dowd: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas...
Dowd, who taught political economics and economic history. His books are many. This one is a collection of essays by Dowd and other contemporaries, each of varying intellectual value. His chapter on Thorstein Veblen was my favorite.
He also lays out some important basics that any Freshman considering a major in economics would do well to take seriously:
"One can gain a Ph D in Economics in the United States and, while learning a great deal of economic theory, never learn anything about the economy."
"The problem with economics arises from its principle of selection, which questions it asks and -- at least as important -- does not ask, what is abstracted from and what is and is not focused upon, and why - or ultimately, saying something like the same thing, who gains and who loses from policies flowing from the theory."
Dowd's chapter on Thorstein Veblen is also probably the best contributions to the book. Other chapters include one on Gramsci (by Carl Boggs).
About Veblen: "explicit throughout his writings is Veblen's conviction that U.S. capitalism was simultaneously the most efficient and the most wasteful system in all history, and would become always more so in both respects ... the waste is found in what is produced, how it is marketed, and its socioeconomic costs."
"In most of his writings Veblen was famously sardonic and witty, as well as convolute in his sentences -- deliberately so, it seems, in order to soften or to camouflage the radical nature of his observations and conclusions. Understanding his society as well as he did, he inferred that the pill of serious social criticism will be swallowed only when it is coated with the sugar of humor."
...illustrated in a footnote by ths interesting anecdote:
Veblen's proposed subtitle for The Higher Learning was not permitted by the publishers: "A Study in Total Depravity."
More on Dowd: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas...
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews