History of Economic Thought ─ A Critical Perspective

Economists Hunt (U. of Utah) and Lautzenheiser (Earlham College, Indiana) emphasize the competing visions and beliefs economists have had regarding how capitalism functions, and the resulting divergent theoretical frameworks they constructed. They begin with early mercantilists as a lead up to Adam Smith, where they place the genesis of economic thought. Other topics include Robert Thomas Malthus, William Thompson and Thomas Hodgkin on the political economy of the poor, Karl Marx, Thorsten Veblen, John Maynard Keynes' neoclassical ideology and the myth of the self-adjusting market, and the bifurcation of orthodoxy in contemporary economics. No dates are noted for earlier editions. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)