(a web resource focussing on radical politcal economy: from critical analysis to alternative proposals)
Scope and Purpose:
The Compendium
of Radical Political Economy is intended to be a resource for both scholars and activists interested
in ideas associated with radical political economy. The site seeks to
provide answers to two questions: 1. Who are some of the leading
radical economists today? 2. What are their ideas and specific
critiques of capitalism?
The web site will provide two different but related ways of answering these questions. First, the section entitled "The Directory of Radical Political Economists"
identifies some the most important individuals currently working in the
field and presents biographical and bibliographical synopses and links
to some of their representative works. The purpose is to provide
an introduction to these economists and social thinkers while providing
those interested in more in-depth explorations with useful information
for doing so.
A second section, entitled "An encyclopedia of Critical Analysis"
deals with the central themes that radical economists are preoccupied
with their analyses of real world economies and mainstream economic
theory. The purpose is to provide scholars and activists with a full
and lucid complement of counter-arguments that radical economists
employ against orthodox economic opinion. Some examples of the themes
discussed include market economics, comparative advantage, economic
freedom, money, and economic calculation.
A third esection, emphasizing
the historical precedents of current radical theory and focussing on
seminal figures such as Marx, Veblen, and Polanyi will round out the
content of the site.
The home page of the site will
seve both as a launching pad to the different content sections and as
means of highlighting specific issues and recent works on an ongoing
basis.
A
trait common to all who adopt the radical approach to politcal
economy is dissent from conventional views of economics and advocacy of
a qualitative structural transformation of social institutions. There
is also considerable diversity in the methodology and programmatic
prescriptions among radical economists. This diversity is reflected
here in the wide range of radical theoretical traditions in which
radical political economists choose to orient their work, ranging from
Marxian, Srafffian, ecological, world-systems, new left, critical
institutionalist and other approaches to political economy.