Unity in the Social Thought of Adolph Lowe: A Review of "Essays in Political Economics: Public Control in a Democratic Society"

Abstract . From the economist Adolph Lowe's voluminous-writings, Allen Oakleyh has selected eight essays which present the gist of Lowe's thought. It unifies his structural analyses and his instrumental analyses into the system Lowe calls “Political Economics.” This pre-orders desired ends or effects and then determines or applies goal-adequate means to achieve these ends. Lowe's Essays in Political Economics sketches the economic paradigm by which he expands the evolutionary way of thinking from the subject —economic behavior— to the object, the socioeconomic world. He argues that instability is fundamental, basic and inherent in contemporary industrial capitalism as it has evolved physically, technologically and socially and stability can be restored by an approach which reverses the continuum to end-means. He holds that if the world evolves, and it does, so must the goal-adequate methods and instrumentalities to deal with it.