The most important theoretical and practical problem of contemporary political understanding is the problem of how to understand the economic dimension. It is a central cognitive responsibility of contemporary political science, economics, and sociology to show us exactly how it can be understood. But none of these social sciences at present offers a compelling general approach to such understanding. The purpose of this volume is to bring out the historical novelty and intellectual importance of this predicament, to show how it has arisen, and to suggest, by bringing it into clearer and steadier focus, how we might begin to remedy it. The book’s contributors range from historians of ideas to economic theorists. All of them bring to bear upon the issue the particular approaches of their own intellectual disciplines. Anyone seriously concerned with understanding modern politics, either academically or in practice, can learn extensively from careful reading and close consideration of their arguments.
