Money and Credit in Radical Political Economy: A Survey of Contemporary Perspectives

Abstract

This article reviews radical political economic (RPE) analyses written since 1970 in which money or credit relations are centrally important. Contemporary authors within RPE differ on how important money and credit are in economic dynamics because they have very different ideas about whether money and credit perform essential economic functions. This paper argues that these essential functions arise only if financing constraints, uncertainty, and information asymmetry are elements of an author's analytical framework.