An important new book about what’s wrong with classic economics, A Guide To What’s Wrong With Economics may be more about what is wrong with neoclassical economics. However, in the public’s mind and in most economics department neoclassical economics is economics. Unfortunately, the monopoly position of neoclassical economics leaves many students bewildered, especially those who are at least somewhat familiar with the ideas of the 19th century political economists.

The book is a collection of essays by a wide variety of economists, many with heterodox views. Though the essays vary greatly in style, relevance, and value, reading the book is justified not by the analytical excellence of every single essay, but by the stand out essays which will allow the reader to pursue interesting strands of heterodox thought as well as the overall impact and provocation generated.

All in all, this is an extremely insightful and very important book. Its focus is the underlying assumptions that dominate economics in the news, political debate, and the academy. The writing is largely accessible to the intelligent lay person. (One does not need to be a mathematician.) The authors put the current consensus, neoclassical economics, to the test of the real world. It doesn’t do well, and they point to a better way.

Edward Fullbrook Fullbrook is a Visiting Research Fellow at the School of Economics, University of the West of England. He is the founder and editor of the Post-Autistic Economics Review. The current issue also contains our own Michel Bauwens’ seminal essay on The Political Economy of Peer Production. All this well worth a close look for those interested in what this forum is all about.