Although these essays engage in interpretations of the history of economic ideas with reference to particular author(s) or inquire into specific conceptual developments and connected controversies, their interest is not solely or even primarily exegetical or historiographical. They have an analytical core and an underlying unity of themes. They attempt to develop a critique of economic theory, seeking to bring out the distinctive differences in the methodological frameworks and theoretical approaches characteristic of the two broad streams in theories of value and distribution-one, the classical, or what we may call surplus-based, theories and the other, the demand-and-supply-based equilibrium (in short, DSE) theories. (The latter are commonly, but misleadingly, called neoclassical theories.)

The classical theory we here refer to had its beginnings in the works of William Petty in England and the Physiocrats in France. It advanced significantly through the contributions of Adam Smith and David Ricardo and found its comprehensive developments through radical reconstructions in Karl Marx. The DSE theories emerged in the third quarter of the nineteenth century, around the 1870s, spearheaded by the writings of Jevons, Menger and Walras. They rose to dominance eclipsing the classical approach not only for reasons of the logical and analytical hurdles the latter theory met with, but also because of the unacceptability of its sharp theoretical positions stressing the conflict-ridden dynamics of capitalist distribution and accumulation. The approach was prematurely abandoned and was superseded even while the logical problems remained insufficiently explored and hence unresolved.