Economic Studies: Contributions to the Critique of Economic Theory

by David P. Levine

First published in 1977, David Levine's Economic Studies offers a critique and reconstruction of the theoretical conception of economic life. The premise of the study is that only an investigation of the system of elementary economic relations - value, capital, production - can overcome the confusion and misdirection which baffles progress in all areas of economic theory, and lay the foundation for further development of economic science.

Levine discusses both the origins of economic science and the character of contemporary economic thought. He presents a critique of the ideas of classical political economy and of the notion of a 'labor theory of value' which excludes the possibility of a science of economic relations.

Genres: Economics, Philosophy

331 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1977

Reviews

[Sara-Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

once upon a time, i took a class called intro to macroeconomics. it was stupid.

this book is not stupid. and it is a pageturner to boot.



I typically read books with following operative principle: that I will not intellectually understand the whole shebang, especially not from the outset. Bred from the suspicion that reading is preparation for something, I know not what, this policy has its disadvantages, sure, but the advantages, I think, are these: the possibility of reducing the strain, anxiety and blindspots produced by attempts at mastery and the possibility of letting oneself get the feel of the text, of immersing just enough so that this feel or “rhythm” can be reactivated if need be. This combination of closeness and distance allows room for reflection too as to the purpose and use of reading the particular work. Now this book and his economic theory v 1 are very abstract and Levine, with marx and hegel by his side, makes an excellent case for the necessity of such a method. The abstractions, however, haven’t yet rendered my daily life intelligible. Since this issue is something between the abstract and the specific or theory and practice, I could spout some hegelese but that doesn’t feel quite right. There is something I don’t yet feel as totally sufficient. I’m guessing that, at the very least, it is largely a result of how I have been taught to think about economics. The impossibility of shaking off the stupidity of my learning is what makes it difficult. The categories bequeathed to me from neoliberalism, lets say, don’t just evaporate--the mist of mystifications cannibalizes the openness of abstraction even in the process of reading. The Second section of this book was instructive in fitting me with stopbreaks on this problem; seeing the insight of the self-reproduction of elementary relations activated in an incisive manner to expose contradictions of neoclassical econ made it easier to do an immanent critique on myself, made such stupidity plausible, rendered it understandable in a way. but i want more.

Already a stupefied fan of levine’s methodological rythym, I was especially impressed, enthralled really, with the capacity of such a method to hone in on theoretical contradictions in political economy. I read a chapter a day, I can get very regimented like that, and filled up the equivalent of 2 pages front and back with notes (with economic theory it was more like 9 pages). although I was shortchanged in that every two pages, verso/recto, of the chapter on Ricardo in my copy was blank, white without black, I found I could still manage the chapter. This was made possible by a peculiar sensation experienced while reading. One gets the feeling that Levine is writing one sentence throughout. He is repetitive, endlessly so, but each new articulation of the sentence (don’t ask me what that sentence is, all I know is that it’d at least have to make use of a semi-colon) is an expansion and you must take deep breaths to appreciate the beauty of this excitable notion. Must certainly read again and again, though I suspect it will be his ‘Economic Theory’, rather than ‘Economic studies’ that continues to command my attention.

[Antonio Wolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though Levine never mentions it, the critiques in this work are through and through Hegelian in that the whole idea of science which Levine deploys as the metric of critique is Hegelian conceptually articulated and immanently systematically ordered science.

That said, one need not know a word of Hegelianism or even Marxism in order to understand his language. Levine takes an immense care to explicitly develop and phrase his critiques and show them as clearly as he can concerning their conceptual confusions and problems that major economic theorists have fallen to without acknowledgement of these failures.

Quite a dry read, but for those who are interested in the deep conceptual and philosophical problems of economic science's concepts it is a page turning read.

[Theodore Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very dry read. But the way Levine develops the categories presented in the book immanently by way of integrating economic study with speculative science is astonishing; and something which has rarely been attempted by "scholars" in the field.