Books in the Economics as Social Theory series

Consumer capitalism arose with the second-industrial revolution, the application of continuous-mass production to consumer goods during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

This classic study extends feminist analysis to economics but rejects setting up an economics solely for women It is the first full length, single authored book to focus on gender bias in contemporary economics.

The contributions to this volume draw on the body of postcolonial studies to critique both orthodox and heterodox economics. The book addresses a large gap in postcolonial studies, which lacks the type of sophisticated analysis of economic questions that it displays in its analysis of culture.

This book edited by two of the most respected figures in feminist economics is a welcome collection that charts and critically analyses how other movements have influenced the development of feminist economics as a distinct discipline.

This volume argues that economics is, and always has been, about human values, which guide, enable, constrain and change economic behaviour.

Is or has economics ever been the imperial social science? Could or should it ever be so? This book deals with these questions. It addresses the shifting boundaries between economics and other social sciences as seen from the confines of the dismal science, with some reflection on the responses to the economic imperialists by other disciplines.

In this comprehensively updated and revised new edition, traditional approaches in studies of consumption as well as the most recent literature are addressed and incorporated, with wide reference to theoretical and empirical work.

In facing and trying to resolve contradictions and lapses within Marxism, this book confronts the basic incompatibilities among the versions of Marxian theory, and the fact that Marxism seemed cut off from the criticisms of determinist modes of thought offered by post-structuralism and post-modernism and even by some of Marxism's great theorists.

Argues that economics has become a monolithic science, variously described as formalistic and autistic with neoclassical orthodoxy reigning supreme. This book details how political economy became economics through the desocialisation and the dehistoricisation of the dismal science, accompanied by its separation from the other social sciences.

Through a series of examples, this collection shows how Marxian class analysis can be used to challenge existing modes of thought and produce new insights about the problems of capitalist development.

Provides an examination of two opposing viewpoints and covers a discussion of the ethical boundaries of markets, the role of private property rights in environmental protection, the nature of sustainability and the valuation of goods over time. This book is suitable for students studying courses in ecological and environmental economics.

The new institutional economics offers one of the most exciting research agendas in economics today. The book looks at the differences and similarities between the three main approaches.

Hodgson calls into question the tendency of economic method to explain all economic phenomena using the same catch-all theories. He argues that you need different theories and that historical contexts must be taken into account.

There is an increasingly widespread belief, both within and outside the discipline, that modern economics is irrelevant to the understanding of the real world. This work traces this irrelevance to the failure of economists to match their methods with their subject.

Shows how the rules and institutions which are the basis of co-operation in society can be systematically explained. This book offers an analysis which cuts across traditional disciplinary boundaries between such fields as economics, law, moral philosophy, sociology and political science.

This book challenges the view that an alternative to Western capitalism is neither possible nor desirable. Without proposing a static blueprint, the author explores a new possible scenario.