Now with a substantial new postscript on the financial crisis

This book provides a basic introduction to the 'nuts and bolts' of capitalism. It starts by examining the classic accounts of capitalism found in the works of Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Joseph Schumpeter, and John Maynard Keynes. Each placed emphasis on different institutional elements of capitalism - Smith on the market's 'invisible hand'; Marx on capital's exploitation of labour; Weber on the foundations of economic rationality; and Schumpeter and Keynes on the instability that results from...

"Few economic phenomena provoke as much confusion as money. In this accessible book, Geoffrey Ingham cuts through this tangled web of debate to examine the fundamental debate over the nature of money and trace the import of these competing views for how we understand our contemporary monetary systems"--