Books by Michael Perelman

Classical Political Economy addresses the question of what determines the social division of labour, the division of society into independent firms and industries and develops the theoretical implications of primitive accumulation. It also offers a significantly different interpretation of classical political economy, demonstrating that this school of thought supported the process of primitive accumulation.Classical political economy presents an imposing facade. For more than two centuries, the accepted doctrine dictates that a market generates forces that provide the most efficient method for organising production. This laissez faire approach is an ideology that gives capital absolute freedom of action, and yet called for intervention to coerce people to do things that they would not otherwise do. Classical political economy therefore encouraged policies that would hinder people''s ability to produce for their own needs.Michael Perelman, however, in this innovative take on the subject, seeks to challenge the ideologies that would allow things to continue in this line unchecked.

As Socialist states struggle to transform themselves into market economies and the United States privatizes everything from schooling to policing, the current crises in Russia and East Asia suggest that something might be amiss.

This book explores how, even in the United States, the most capitalist of all countries, the market has always been subjected to numerous constraints. As well as discussing the opinions of economists, the book looks at the opinions and practices of figures such as Henry Ford, J.P. Morgan, and Herbert Hoover.

A discussion of various types of capitalism and the evolution of the firm. The book examines the concept of the firm in the context of class conflict and considers markets as an impediment to economic process. Finally the book examines the use of computer software as a public good.

Examines diaries, letters, and the practical writings of the classical economists to show how Adam Smith and the other classical economists appear to have deliberately obscured the nature of the control of labour and how policies attacking the economic independence of the rural peasantry were essentially conceived to foster primitive accumulation.

Corporate power has a huge impact on the rights and privileges of individuals -- as workers, consumers, and citizens. This book explores how the myth of individualism reinforces corporate power by making people perceive themselves as having choices, when in fact most peoples' options are very limited.*BR**BR*Perelman describes the manufacture of unhappiness - the continual generation of dissatisfaction with products people are encouraged to purchase and quickly discard - and the complex techniques corporations employ to avoid responsibility and accountability to their workers, consumers and the environment. He outlines ways in which individuals can surpass individualism and instead work together to check the growing power of corporations. *BR**BR*While other books have surveyed the corporate landscape, or decried modern consumerism, Perelman, a professor of economics, places these ideas within a proper economic and historical context. He explores the limits of corporate accountability and responsibility, and investigates the relation between a wide range of phenomena such as food, fear and terrorism.*BR**BR*Highly readable, Manufacturing Discontent will appeal to anyone with an interest in the way society works - and what really determines the rights of individuals in a corporate society.

The history of capitalism has long been thought to be a sequence of recurring crises that appear in various forms: crises in employing people, crises in obtaining resources, and financial crises. Marx's Crises Theory: Scarcity, Labor, and Finance provides a framework for interpreting Marx's theory of crises.

This book integrates Keynes' observations about the q-theory into a coherent theory of replacement investment. It demonstrates why, in the absence of a significant post-war depression, business was relieved of the need to replace obsolete capital goods, leading to a period of prolonged stagnation.