The dominant neoliberal approach presents politics and political economy as nuisances which disturb the smooth operation of self-regulating markets. But political economy is not merely an academic issue - it is a class issue, and this book forcefully argues that political economy should return to a central position in the study of the social sciences.
Offering nothing less than a reconciliation of Marxian, Keynesian and neoclassical economics, the work opens with a discussion of the key, interconnected economic concepts which help us to understand capitalism: price, income, profit, value, growth and crisis. Prices reflect income distribution and therefore class relations, and the chapters show that the very emergence of capitalism resulted from mass empowerment of the so-called "lower orders". Profit is always available if entrepreneurs spend on net investment and create incomes for additional labour; this, in turn, requires expanding demand, and so therefore profit dep
