Books on the Social Order run economy vs. naturalist economist....

[RadioRaheem84]

I am trying to find a book that goes into how the economy is socially run vs. the mainstream economists that talk day in and day out about the natural flux of the invisible hand.

David Harvey's Brief History of Neo-Liberalism is good but mostly deals with the history of how the West went from KEynesianism to neo-liberalism.

I want something that actually explains how oil prices are so high from the premise of the economy run under a social order.

It's to shut up all the people that keep telling me to stop complaining about high gas prices and that it only has to do with current events, speculators and supply and demand.

Some articles from journals, etc would help too. Or if anyone has a long explanation would help too.

Thanks.

[RadioRaheem84]

Anyone?

Did this even make sense to anyone?

I guess I am looking for an answer to people who keep asserting the supply and demand excuse for everything.

[¿Que?]

I found this on JSTOR with a search for "gas prices" "neoliberalism" and "ideology"


Abstract: This paper argues that conflicting assessments of the impacts of free trade in North America are incomplete because they do not analyse these effects in light of the key long term U.S. goal: the reconstruction of U.S. hegemony that was under siege by Japan and Europe. The declining competitiveness of U.S.raw materials supply systems badly damaged U.S. hegemony during the 1970s and 1980s. The original U.S. strategy was to create a continental energy market to reduce overseas oil imports, guarantee access to oil and natural gas from Canada and Mexico, and reduce price instability. The evolution into broader agreements reflected the interests of other U.S. industries and the efforts of Canadian and Mexican states and firms to capture benefits from re- structuring. This paper analyses the role continental integration of raw materials industries played in strategic efforts to reconstruct U.S. hegemony and the consequences of these efforts.

NAFTA and the Reconstruction of U.S. Hegemony: The Raw Materials Foundations of Economic Competitiveness Paul Ciccantell
The Canadian Journal of Sociology / Cahiers canadiens de sociologie, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Winter, 2001), pp. 57-87

You might try other JSTOR searches or google scholar even.

[Ligeia]

I guess I am looking for an answer to people who keep asserting the supply and demand excuse for everything.

Maybe if you look into "alternative" economics like institutional or relational or behavioural economics. I don't like them (they only try to improve capitalism) but they add sociological reasons to the whole neoclassical theory. So it's not just the invisible hand, supply and demand but a lot of other factors like culture,history, but also relations, institutions of all kinds...etc. that shape prices.
They were essentially critics of the homo oeconomicus but just as well of the invisible hand theory or the circular flow theory. And they still exist today with New institutional economics and relational economics being the latest.