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      Economics, Science and Capitalism
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      Book

      Economics, Science and Capitalism

      DOI link for Economics, Science and Capitalism

      Economics, Science and Capitalism book

      Economics, Science and Capitalism

      DOI link for Economics, Science and Capitalism

      Economics, Science and Capitalism book

      ByRichard Westra
      Edition 1st Edition
      First Published 2021
      eBook Published 20 December 2021
      Pub. Location London
      Imprint Routledge
      DOI https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003103028
      Pages 206
      eBook ISBN 9781003103028
      Subjects Economics, Finance, Business & Industry
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      Westra, R. (2021). Economics, Science and Capitalism (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003103028

      ABSTRACT

      Various strains of heterodox economics have sought, and largely failed, to dismount orthodoxy from its dominant position. This book critiques the criticizers, explaining why heterodox economics challenges have faltered, and then presents a coherent alternative paradigm of its own. This simultaneously exposes the vacuousness of neoclassical economics, the limitations of heterodox critique and the subverting of Karl Marx’s revolutionary economic thought by his own disciples.

      The book draws in particular on two key intellectual traditions in making its arguments: critical realism and Marxism. From the refounding of critical realist philosophy of science in the hands of Roy Bhaskar, emphasis is placed upon the position that the ontological nature of the object of study determines the form of its possible science. However, in their theoretical constructions, neither orthodox economics nor heterodox economics problematizes the unique ontology of capitalism to the detriment of knowledge about the social world. The book maintains that a century of misthinking over Marx’s corpus has resulted in a missed opportunity to construct a paradigmatic alternative to orthodox economics. Drawing upon the tradition of the Japanese Uno approach to Marxism, and supported by Bhaskar’s development of critical realism as underlaborer for science, the book defends Marx’s writing in his monumental Capital as founding an economic science adequate to its ontological object of study. It then elaborates upon how Marxian economic theory exposes the hidden scourges of capitalism and what is required to unleash the potential of this theory for comprehensive analysis of capitalist vicissitudes, the study of economic life in precapitalist societies and the design of a desperately needed postcapitalist social order.

      Broadening its appeal as it sets out to reclaim Marx’s revolutionary legacy, this original volume critically traverses writings in mainstream and heterodox economics, cutting edge philosophy of science and Marxian political economy and introduces readers to a reconstruction of Marx’s Capital engineered in Japan. This provocative book is essential reading for everyone interested in heterodox economics, critical realism, Marxian economics and critiques of capitalism.

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      chapter 1|15 pages

      Introduction

      Economics and “the economy”

      chapter 2|19 pages

      How economics forgot capitalism

      chapter 3|21 pages

      Economics caught in a physics masquerade

      chapter 4|18 pages

      Rethinking science and social science with critical realism

      chapter 5|21 pages

      Rethinking Marx and the economic science of Capital

      chapter 6|32 pages

      The Uno–Sekine reconstruction of Capital

      Microeconomics of value, macroeconomics of crises

      chapter 7|19 pages

      Levels of analysis in Marxian political economy

      chapter 8|27 pages

      Marxists and Marx's unfinished project in Capital

      chapter 9|16 pages

      Conclusion

      Capital, science and political economy in the narrow and comprehensive sense
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