As I suggested earlier, Stabile's “lessons” typically take the form of questions. For example, what is the conceptual basis for defining a minimum income sufficient to sustain a labor force (what Stabile dubs the argument from sustainability)? Is there an absolute standard based strictly on...

Let me begin this essay with some propositions found in the preface to this study. “(A) dynamic of contradiction…stands at the heart of Marxist theory” (p. 8). And (quoting Engels) while “men make their own history…in that each person follows his own consciously desired end, and it is...

The long delay between the publication of Bernt Stigum's magnum opus and this review owes not only in part to personal reasons of no interest to anyone but the reviewer, but also to the sheer heft and density of the book itself. It is a long (768 pages) and difficult book. In fact, it is really...

David Hume's image, as produced by his fellow Scot, Allan Ramsey, is printed large on the hardback cover of David Hume's political economy . This handsome portrait captures Hume's confidence and intelligence and displays, in its scarlet cloth, fine lace and elaborately worked, golden trim, Hume...

Business cycle theory is normally described as having evolved out of a previous tradition of writers focusing exclusively on crises. In this account, the turning point is seen as residing in Clément Juglar's contribution on commercial crises and their periodicity. It is well known that the...

In the US minimum wages were initially enacted by individual states, beginning with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1912. These laws were modeled on legislation enacted over the previous two decades in Australia, New Zealand, and England ( Fisher, 1926, chap. 8 ; Hammond, 1915, 1913; Hobson,...

China around 1900 was an enormous domain with approximately 400 million people, almost all of them desperately poor. Most were farmers, working intensively on small tracts of land using relatively primitive technology. It was in many respects a Malthusian economy, with high death and birth rates...

The Hesitant Hand is a book about the struggle between market and state control of human behavior. Medema tells a convincing story of the evolution of the management of self-interest, which has fluctuated over time from more government control to less and back again. Adam Smith's lack of...