1st Edition

Political Economy as Theodicy Progress, Suffering and Denial

By David L. Blaney Copyright 2024
232 Pages
by Routledge

232 Pages
by Routledge

232 Pages
by Routledge

Political Economy as Theodicy: Progress, Suffering and Denial proposes that political economics operates within a theological symbolic order that dictates modern sociopolitical and economic life as a whole. This book revisits the work of key figures in the history of political economy and economic thought – primarily Adam Smith, Bernard Mandeville, David Hume, Thomas Malthus, W. Stanley... Read more

1. Modernity, Theological Metaphysics and Theodicy

2. Harmony/Denial in Smith’s Theodicy

3. Spontaneous Order/Domination in Mandeville and Hume

4. Creation’s "Partial Evil" and Malthus’ Two Anti-Utopian Messages  

Interlude: Darwin and Spencer

5. Jevons’ Economic Science as Natural Theology

6. Marshall’s Theodicy "Once Removed"

7. Providence, Fairness and Progress in Clark’s Marginal Productivity Theory

8. Denial in Neoclassical Economics and IPE

9. Beyond Theodicy?

Biography

David L. Blaney is G. Theodore Mitau Professor of Political Science at Macalester College, USA. He writes on the political and social theory of international relations and global political economy. His three earlier books (with Naeem Inayatullah), International Relations and the Problem of Difference (2004), Savage Economics: Wealth, Poverty and the Temporal Walls of Capitalism (2010) and Within, Against, and Beyond Liberalism: A Critique of Liberal IPE and Global Capitalism (2021), center on culture and political economy and the limits of liberal IPE. With Arlene B. Tickner, he has edited Thinking International Relations Differently (2012) and Claiming the International (2013).