The Real Economy: History and Theory

A provocative new theory of ＂the economy,＂ its history, and its politics that better unites history and economics

What is the economy, really? Is it a ＂market sector,＂ a ＂general equilibrium,＂ or the ＂gross domestic product＂? Economics today has become so preoccupied with methods that economists risk losing sight of the economy itself. Meanwhile, other disciplines, although often intent on criticizing the methods of economics, have failed to articulate an alternative vision of the economy. Before the ascent of postwar neoclassical economics, fierce debates raged, as many different visions of the economy circulated and competed with one another. In The Real Economy, Jonathan Levy returns to the spirit of this earlier era, which, in all its contentiousness, gave birth to the discipline of economics.

Drawing inspiration particularly from Thorstein Veblen and John Maynard Keynes, Levy proposes a theory of the economy that is open to rich empirical and historical scrutiny, covering topics that include the emergence of capitalism, the notion of radical uncertainty, the meaning of demand, the primal desire for money, the history of corporations, and contemporary globalization. Writing for anyone interested in the study of the economy, Levy provides an invaluable provocation for a broader debate in the social sciences and humanities concerning what ＂the economy＂ is.

Jonathan Levy is the James Westfall Thompson Professor in the Department of History and a member of the John U. Neff Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Freaks of Fortune: The Emerging World of Capitalism and Risk in America and Ages of American Capitalism: A History of the United States.