Explorations in Political Economy: Essays in Criticism.

• Author: Dugger, William M.

Edited by Rajani K. Kanth and E. K. Hunt. Savage, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 1990. Pp. xviii, 355. $46.50.

The contributors to this volume are all either members of the economics department of the University of Utah or are closely related to the department in some way. The contributions represent a cross section of heterodox, leftwing thought. This collection of essays comes out at an ideal time. It is a gift of fresh air to the inmates of an airtight, neoclassical prison. The economics profession is under criticism, particularly the Ph.D. granting departments that form the heart of the economics discipline. The criticism is justified, for the doctoral departments have become wastelands of competitive conformity turning out idiot savants in mathematics who know virtually nothing of practical policy, institutional reality, or historical change. However, this volume proves that the Utah economics department has dared to be different. Their daring is commendable and one of its products is the interesting volume under review.

The volume includes 17 separate essays written by 13 different contributors, as well as an introduction by E. K. Hunt (former Utah student, former department chair and current economics professor at Utah) and a postscript by Rajani K. Kanth (economics professor at Utah). A set of selected readings is also included for each of the book's 7 parts. In short, it is an extensive collection and an impressive work. I cannot review each of the essays in this space. But several interesting features of the collection can be discussed and a few remarks about particular essays can be fit into my review.

One feature of this collection immediately gets the reader's attention--historical and institutional details matter of many of the contributors. Several of the essays are excellent case studies of interesting historical episodes or of important economic institutions. The great plains Indian tribes' use and trading of horse is explored in one such case study, while the use of Chinese men and white women in 19th century California manufacturing is explored in another. Institutionalized racial discrimination in the U.S. labor market is explored in a third, and the effect of super power rivalry...