Publisher Description

People live by ideas which help them to make sense of their experiences. Yet different people live by different ideas. Without an attempt to communicate and comprehend, they would at best be unable to share, at worst be obliged to fight. This book is concerned with communicating and comprehending. It takes the view that ideas matter and that a dialogue with alternative worldviews is a civilised exercise in tolerance.
Economic Thought and Political Theory, concentrates on the ideas of Plato, Steuart, Mill, Schumpeter, Hayek, Buchanan, the Catholic social economists and the property-rights tradition. The focus is dual: the market and the State. As interdisciplinary as the modern mixed economy, as contemporary as the search for middle way, Economic Thought and Political Theory will be of interest to all thinkers determined to find a good balance between individuals' autonomy and governmental leadership.

Author Biography

David Reisman is Professor of Economics in the University of Surrey.

Table of Contents

1 Communism, Sparta, and Plato.- 2 Sir James Steuart on the Managed Market.- 3 Economic Theory and Policy: An Introduction to John Stuart Mill's Political Economy.- 4 Church, State, and Market: Accent on the Social.- 5 State and Market When Command Goes Capitalist.- 6 Schumpeter and Capitalism in an Era of Transition.- 7 Cultural Evolution, Collective Learning, and Constitutional Design.- 8 Health and Choice: The Contribution of James Buchanan.

Review

` ... the book is highly recommended to readers interested in an open discussion of ideas from very heterogeneous approaches to a common theme, past and present - the problem of choice between state and the market.'
Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 154:2 (1998)

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Long Description

People live by ideas which help them to make sense of their experiences. Yet different people live by different ideas. Without an attempt to communicate and comprehend, they would at best be unable to share, at worst be obliged to fight. This book is concerned with communicating and comprehending. It takes the view that ideas matter and that a dialogue with alternative worldviews is a civilised exercise in tolerance. Economic Thought and Political Theory, concentrates on the ideas of Plato, Steuart, Mill, Schumpeter, Hayek, Buchanan, the Catholic social economists and the property-rights tradition. The focus is dual: the market and the State. As interdisciplinary as the modern mixed economy, as contemporary as the search for middle way, Economic Thought and Political Theory will be of interest to all thinkers determined to find a good balance between individuals' autonomy and governmental leadership.

Review Quote

' ... the book is highly recommended to readers interested in an open discussion of ideas from very heterogeneous approaches to a common theme, past and present - the problem of choice between state and the market.' Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 154:2 (1998)

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