chapter 43
...................................................................................................................................................POLITICAL THEORY
AND POLITICAL
ECONOMY
...................................................................................................................................................stephen l. elkin
Political theorists neglect at their peril the relation of political theory to
political economy. With such neglect comes the implication that it matters
little for political life how the productive apparatus of the society is organ-
ized. 1 This is unlikely to be so. In theorizing about the contemporary world,
political theorists especially need to take account of political economy be-
cause, as Marx noted, capitalism is the most powerful force at work in
shaping the modern sociopolitical world. More speciWcally, for those living
in democracies, political theory should, in signiWcant part, be a theory of
political economy because, at the core of the political life of these polities, are
economic questions concerning economic growth, the distribution of wealth
1 For an example that comes perilously close to saying this explicitly, see Barber ( 1984 ), preface to
the fourth printing, where Barber says ‘‘if democracy is made to work politically, the American people
will be positioned to choose the economy they deem compatible with their liberties and with
prosperity’’ (see also Barber 1986 ).