Provides a comprehensive and analytical overview of the development of economic theory from its beginnings, at the end of the Middle Ages, up to contemporary contributions. Traditional theories are presented as living matter and modern theories as part of a historical process and not as established truths. In this way, the book avoids the dangerous dichotomy between the 'pure' historians of thought, who dedicate themselves exclusively to studying 'facts', and the 'pure' theorists, who are interested only in the evolution of the logical structure of theories. An unconventionally large amount of space is reserved for the thought of the last 50 years of the twentieth century, for more than 50% of scientific knowledge has been produced in this time span. The book is not directed to a specialist public nor solely to a student audience. It aims to reach the educated person who has an interest in understanding the context in which economic ideas were formed. The second edition contains several changes and additions. Among them: a look at the ‘civil economy’ perspective in Humanism and Renaissance; an interpretation of Adam Smith as an institutionalist; a hint at the social ontology of Karl Marx; a new treatment of post-Keynesian and new Keynesian approaches; a final chapter on contemporary institutionalist thought in the light of globalization and postmodernism.

Provides a comprehensive and analytical overview of the development of economic theory from its beginnings, at the end of the Middle Ages, up to contemporary contributions. Traditional theories are presented as living matter and modern theories as part of a historical process and not as established truths. In this way, the book avoids the dangerous dichotomy between the ‘pure’ historians of thought, who dedicate themselves exclusively to studying ‘facts’, and the ‘pure’ theorists, who are interested only in the evolution of the logical structure of theories. An unconventionally large amount of space is reserved for the thought of the last 50 years of the twentieth century, for more than 50% of scientific knowledge has been produced in this time span. The book is not directed to a specialist public nor solely to a student audience. It aims to reach the educated person who has an interest in understanding the context in which economic ideas were formed.

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A deconstruction of the Marxian theories of value and exploitation is attempted by arguing, first, that the labour theory of value is logically and methodologically inconsistent as a basis for a theory of capitalist exploitation and, second, that it is founded on an ontology of the social being which is not plausibly justified. A counterfactual model economy is then built, called Utopia, in which the workers receive the whole net output while commodities exchange at labour values. This model is used as a benchmark to evaluate a capitalist economy where commodities exchange at production prices and workers are exploited. It is shown that the factor of exploitation can be expressed as a ratio between the labour commanded by, and the labour contained in, the net output, or between the value added produced in a capitalist economy and that produced in Utopia. The resulting theory of exploitation entails a weak ontology of the social being, expressing a worker's point of view.