Book Review: The Quest for Prosperity: Reframing Political Economy

Abstract

In The Quest for Prosperity Raphael Sassower combines elements of postmodernism, Marxian analysis, and Popperian philosophy to mount a unique, three-pronged investigation of the theoretical and practical foundations of capitalism and an inquiry into new conceptualizations of capitalism that promise novel solutions to its perennial problems; problems inherent in its foundations but perhaps most evident in implemented and ramified mainstream liberal political economy. Sassower canvasses the ideological, philosophical, and even mythological origins of the foundational concepts of capitalism from historical and systematic points of view, emphasizing capitalism's most recent twists and turns. The author attempts to reconceptualize much of political economy, with varying degrees of success, and further suggests some provisional solutions to the problems of capitalism on this newly articulated basis. Throughout, Sassower vividly illustrates how flawed ideas and dangerous assumptions perpetuate flawed and dangerous systems no matter the changes in "optics." Sassower's critique is "radical" in the sense that it draws into question the very roots of capitalist political economy: individual property rights, the efficiency of markets, the scarcity assumption, the insatiability of human acquisitiveness, and the global scalability of an economic monoculture.The book could serve as a good, mid-level text for introductory courses on the radical critique of liberal political economy or on philosophy of economics from a radical point of view. The unusual combination of often-opposing analytical orientations adds an interesting dimension lacking in many similar but more traditional texts. Sassower's ambitious and wide-ranging but generally responsible sampling of relevant ideas from philosophy, economics, and other disciplines also adds to its richness.Part I, "Assumptions Underlying Theories," offers a penetrating analysis of the conceptual bases of general capitalist political economy, covering scarcity and abundance, the state of nature and the social contract, human nature and the human condition, individual versus communal property rights, markets, and economic growth. Sassower stresses how the framing of foundational concepts affects the concepts built upon them. To take a familiar instance, a society's view of human nature (e.g., that it is essentially good, bad, or a moral blank slate), which may be set by religious or ideological factors, will largely dictate how that society organizes itself in the politico-economic sphere, determining, for example, the relative prevalence of individual versus communal property rights, biases built into regulatory frameworks, etc.