Introduction

Abstract This volume of Research in Political Economy marks a new phase of scholarship in the theory of capitalism, defined by its focus on the reproduction of total social capital. This responds to a widely-felt need to end the divorce of political economy from real-world phenomena, notably financial crisis, long-term stagnation, poverty, inequality and economic injustice. To this end, this volume seeks a renewed pluralist dialogue involving all currents critical of neoclassical paradigm that dominates political economy, above all those that seek a departure from the equilibrium paradigm that permeates it. The basis for such an engagement is a common agreement that by studying the circuit of capital, fresh light can be shed on the basic concepts of money, price, value and credit by enquiring into their role in explaining capitalism’s ‘laws of motion’. These include accumulation, capitalism’s historical origin and reproduction as such.