The Challenge of Radical Political Economics

Abstract

Whether radical economists are gaining professional chic or acquiring more status is less important than the fact that they are challenging mainstream views about the subject matter of economics and how the U.S. economy works. Mainstream orthodoxy not only is experiencing erosion as a result of its own inabilities to explain many current economic realities, but also is losing ground as a result of the emergence of new professional groups. Among these are the new grouping of institutional economists and the Union of Radical Political Economics (URPE), whose more than 1,850 members are devoted to radical scholarship and activities. Perhaps of even greater importance is the fact that the elementary economics course is no longer monopolized by mainstream economics textbooks. This is due in no small part to the reasonably large quantity of new radical material and articles which have been published recently. This new state of affairs represents a sharp contrast to the 1950s, when departments of economics tended to be monolithically Keynesian. That bland Keynesianism complemented the consensus politics and blind optimism of the period. This article is an interim summary of the major tenets and general orientation of radical political economy by two authors who are themselves radical economists. What is it? Why is it emerging now? What characterizes its political and ideological perspective?