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[...] there are situations in which they don't seem to work all that well--and not merely relative to the perfection some assume they should attain, but even relative to suitably diminished "real-world" expectations. Economists call these "market failures," and perhaps the most commonly noted is th…

[...] The common claim that economics is evil because it "quantifies" everything is a weak and distracting argument; too many radical critics give it too much emphasis. It is hard to imagine that whatever world anticapitalism produces will not require lots of "quantitative" analysis. The very notio…

Orthodox arguments about what markets can do only understand the "market" dimensions of markets, and can only understand those relative to a mythical standard. They cannot comprehend markets as dynamic social institutions, embedded, sometimes deeply, sometimes precariously, in real times and places…

Orthodox economists do not walk the Earth naively believing all markets are actually perfect, if only the rest of us could see it. They know full well they are not. But orthodox capitalist analysts do not assume perfection because it accurately represents the world, but rather because without it, t…

[...] Contract to the impression one gets from the media, just because the market is essential to capitalism, does not mean that capitalism is the market. [...] In truth, markets are only part of the capitalist system, a substantial and essential part to be sure, but there are others: state, fami…