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Competing Frameworks of Economic Thought
Macroeconomics: An Introduction by Alex M Thomas, Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, New Delhi and Singapore: Cambridge University Press, 2021; pp xx + 234, price not indicated.
One of the outcomes of the Great Recession of 2008 has been the recognition that mainstream frameworks of research and teaching in economics require a radical overhaul. Though progress on this front has been frustratingly slow, there are instances of significant change. The core economics textbook has attempted to institutionalise an alternative pedagogy of teaching, while a liberal stalwart no less than the Economist (2021) magazine has argued for decentering the importance of equilibrium in the practice of economics. Yet there exists a valid debate over whether these new interventions truly represent an alternative to mainstream frameworks (Balakrishnan 2018).
In that regard, Alex M Thomas’s Macroeconomics: An Introduction represents an important contribution to the discourse. The primary thrust of this book is to make students aware that alternatives to the mainstream do exist, alternatives based on fundamentally different axiomatic frameworks as compared to the present individualist-based theoretical edifice erected by mainstream economics. This book is aimed at providing a text on topics otherwise inaccessible for students in Indian universities, a worthy goal indeed.
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