ECONOMIC THEORY AND CAPITALIST SOCIETY

Economic Theory and Capitalist Society is a collection of Shigeto Tsuru's most important essays written over the period of the past 60 years in the fields of general economic theory, development and environmental economics, and Marxian political economy. Professor Tsuru has been a leading critic of the major tenets of modern economic theory and has been credited in particular for his comparative studies of aggregate concepts, such as those of Quesnay, Keynes and Marx. Essentially an institutionalist, the author reviews the methodological significance of Marx's contribution, taking up in detail the latter's unique concept of the 'fetishism of commodities' and discussing the relevance of Marxian methodology to the analysis of present-day capitalism. The author's critique of the fundamental equation of growth accounting developed by Robert Solow, 'Effects of Technology on Productivity', is one of a number of theoretical papers included in this volume. It also features a series of important essays on environmental economics which the author, as a founder of the Japanese environmental movement, has written over the past half century.

This collection of key articles by one of the most distinguished Japanese economists will be welcomed by students and practitioners in the fields of institutional and radical economics, environmental economics and the history of economic thought. The volume also includes an autobiographical essay which explains the development of Professor Tsuru's thought, his education at Harvard in the 1930s and his experience of post-war Japan. The Economic Development of Modern Japan, the second volume of Shigeto Tsuru's selected essays, is also published by Edward Elgar.