Economic Update - Contending Economic Theories - 01/15/13

Trying a new format, we use the full hour to examine the two basic kinds of economic theory mostly widely used now to understand economic issues. On one side, the dominant mainstream theories ("neoclassical economics" and "Keynesian economics") celebrate the capitalist economic system. On the other side, Marxian economics is the dominant critical theory of capitalism whose premiss is that society can do better than capitalism. Today's discussion builds on R. Wolff and S. Resnick's new book, Contending Economic Theories: Neoclassical, Keynesian and Marxian (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012).