Ithaca College

Naeem Inayatullah has just published Savage Economics: Wealth, Poverty and the Temporal Walls of Capitalism (Routledge, January 2010).  Situated in the overlap between economic anthropology, history of economic thought, and international relations theory, this book opens  the way for different understanding of wealth and poverty under capitalism.

Co-authored with David Blaney of Macalester College, the book challenges the most pervasive ideas concerning political economy, international relations, and ethics in the modern world.  Rereading classical authors including Adam Smith, James Steuart, Adam Ferguson, Hegel, and Marx, it provides a cultural critique of political economy and critically describes the nature of the mainstream understanding of economics.

Inayatullah and Blaney construct an argument about how political economy and the capitalist market economy should be understood, demonstrating that poverty is a product of capitalism itself.

They address these questions:

• Is wealth for some bought at the cost of impoverishing, colonizing, or eradicating others?
• What benefits of wealth might justify these human costs?
• What do we gain and lose by endorsing a system of wealth creation?
• Do even "savage cultures" contain values, critiques, and ways of life that the West still needs?