Product Description

Foundations of Economics breathes life into the discipline by linking key economic concepts with wider debates and issues. By bringing to light delightful mind-teasers, philosophical questions and intriguing politics in mainstream economics, it promises to enliven an otherwise dry course whilst inspiring students to do well.
The book covers all the main economic concepts and addresses in detail three main areas:
* consumption and choice
* production and markets
* government and the State.
Each is discussed in terms of what the conventional textbook says, how these ideas developed in historical and philosophical terms and whether or not they make sense. Assumptions about economics as a discipline are challenged, and several pertinent students' anxieties ('Should I be studying economics?') are discussed.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1026485 in Books
• Published on: 1998-06-18
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 424 pages

About the Author
Yanis Varoufakis is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at Sydney University. He is the co-author with Shaun Hargreaves-Heap, of Game Theory: A Critical Introduction, also published by Routledge.

Customer Reviews

Should be compulsory reading for beginners and ideologues
If you want to expand your intellectual horizon, then this is the book for you. If, on the other hand, you wish to slavishly follow textbook dogma, never learn about the plethora of internal problems facing neo-classical theory (aka microeconomics), or perpetuate the fantasy that economics is objective, then keep away from this book!

For each of the three areas of consumption, production and welfare theory, the book provides a review, an history, and a critique. The last section of the book looks at methodological and then sociological questions. It is a sad comment on introductory textbooks that this "companion" out performs them in every area it deals with: its review of the textbook material is more lucid and entertaining; its historical background is more informative; its critique is devastating and thought-provoking. In short, it provides average undergraduate (and graduate!) economics students with an entirely new and exciting intellectual experience.