Introduction to Political Economy, 6th edition

Few economics programs today offer students the opportunity to study the history of economic thought or the philosophical foundations of diverse schools of economics. Introduction to Political Economy reintroduces these ideas into the curriculum by presenting the work of the most influential economists of modern times Marx, Veblen, Keynes, Galbraith, and Adam Smith. Introduction to Political Economy covers these thinkers central ideas, including their writings on social class, the role of government in taming capitalist economies, and the misleading assumptions about human behavior in mainstream models. It concludes by presenting classic critiques of monopoly capitalism and examining the Swedish middle way between capitalism and socialism and, in a new chapter, discusses the history and importance of the Mondragón Cooperative Corporation in Spain s Basque country the world s largest cooperative enterprise. In the thoroughly updated 6th edition, the authors demonstrate the continuing relevance of these theories to the global financial crisis and other current events.