Description

The recent economic crisis in the United States has highlighted a crisis of understanding. In this volume, Bradley C. S. Watson and Joseph Postell bring together some of America's most eminent thinkers on political economy-an increasingly overlooked field wherein political ideas and economic theories mutually inform each other. Only through a restoration of political economy can we reconnect economics to the human good. Economics as a discipline deals with the production and distribution of goods and services. Yet the study of economics can-indeed must-be employed in our striving for the best possible political order and way of life. Economic thinkers and political actors need once again to consider how the Constitution and basic principles of our government might give direction and discipline to our thinking about economic theories, and to the economic policies we choose to implement. The contributors are experts in economic history, and the history of economic ideas. They address basic themes of political economy, theoretical and practical: from the relationship between natural law and economics, to how our Founding Fathers approached economics, to questions of banking and monetary policy. Their insights will serve as trusty guides to future generations, as well as to our own.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction Part 2 Part I: Theoretical Foundations of Political Economy Chapter 3 Chapter 1: The Moral Basis for Economic Liberty 4 Chapter 2: Restoring Sound Economic Thinking: What Natural Law Taught Us 5 Chapter 3: The Idea of Commerce in Enlightenment Political Thought 6 Chapter 4: Understanding Friedrich Engels (and Marx) and Adam Smith on Economic Organization and the Price Mechanism 7 Chapter 5: Ten (Mostly) Austrian Insights for These Trying Times 8 Part II: Political Economy and American Economic Experience 9 Chapter 6: Promoting the General Welfare: Political Economy for a Free Republic 10 Chapter 7: The Economic Theory of the American Founding 11 Chapter 8: Hamilton and Jefferson: Two Visions of Democratic Capitalism 12 Chapter 9: The Right Kind of Regulation: How the Founders Thought about Regulation 13 Chapter 10: American Banking from Birth to Bust, and All Points in Between

Product details

Published 16 Aug 2011
Format Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
Edition 1st
Extent 272
ISBN 9780739166611
Imprint Lexington Books
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Anthology Editor

Joseph Postell

Anthology Editor

Bradley C. S. Watson

Contributor

Bruce Caldwell

Contributor

Alan Levine

Contributor

Peter McNamara

Contributor

John Mueller

Contributor

Richard Wagner

Contributor

Thomas G. West

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