History of Economic Thought: A Critical Perspective 3rd Edition, by E. K. Hunt and Mark Lautzenheiser criticizes the arguments of important economic thinkers from early mercantilist writing to the present time. His discussion is guided by his beliefs that social and social-historical processes are interconnected, that social and economic change are continuous, and (perhaps most importantly) that there is no such thing as a "value-free" economics.
Author emphasizes two central issues: whether capitalism is harmonious or conflict-ridden, and whether it is stable or unstable. Since he recognizes “that social theories and social-historical processes are reciprocally interconnected” (p. xvii), Hunt is very careful to place the economic ideas that he discusses firmly in their historical context. Thus Chapter 1 is devoted to the history (and pre-history) of early capitalism, and throughout the book there are lengthy and generally very helpful accounts of the economic, political and social environment from which economic thought emerged.
Chapter 2 deals, much too briefly, with economics before Adam Smith, while the next three chapters focus on Smith, Malthus and Ricardo. This is standard fare. Chapters 6 and 7, however, are unusual; the first presents the economics of Bentham, Say and Senior as leading exponents of “rationalistic subjectivism,” and the second promotes William Thompson and Thomas Hodgskin as authors of “the political economy of the poor.” In Chapter 8, the “pure” utilitarian Frédéric Bastiat is compared with the “eclectic” utilitarian John Stuart Mill, and Chapter 9 offers an unusually clear summary of Karl Marx’s political economy.
This is followed by two chapters on the birth of neoclassical economics, concentrating first on Jevons, Menger and Walras (Chapter 10) and then on Marshall, Clark and Böhm-Bawerk (Chapter 11). Hunt returns to heterodox economists in Chapter 12, which is on Veblen, and Chapter 13, with a sympathetic discussion of the writings of Hobson, Luxemburg and Lenin on imperialism. Chronology gives way to criticism in Chapter 14, which bears the title “Consummation, consecration, and destruction of the invisible hand: neoclassical welfare economics.”
Keynes and Sraffa are the subjects of Chapters 15 and 16, and the final three chapters deal with “contemporary economics,” in its mainstream, Post Keynesian and institutionalist, and Marxian versions, respectively.
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