Envisioning a different mode of economic relations requires a rethinking of the classical frames of references we commonly take for granted. The implicit assumptions that we carry into critical debates are the stumbling blocks for finding useful solutions to age-old economic problems. And these impediments constrict our political imagination.

This book asks what are these frames of references? How many of them are worthy of retaining, while others might be discarded? And what new framings should be adopted in order to bring about a less crisis-prone and morally acceptable mode of human interaction?

Each chapter interrogates a different frame of reference, including culturally-embedded concepts of human nature, scarcity and abundance, markets, and the human condition. Examining their historical anchoring and the ways in which they have become confining for the realities of the postmodern world in which we currently live, it is shown that they have become so familiar that they are assumed rather than critically examined in most discussions of political economy.

Raphael Sassower is Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. He is author of The Price of Public Intellectuals (2014), Digital Exposure: Postmodern Postcapitalism (2013), Solo: Postmodern Explorations (2011) and Postcapitalism: Moving Beyond Ideology in Economic Crises (2009).

Preface / Part I: Standard Frames of Reference / 1. Abundance and Scarcity / 2. The State of Nature and the Social Contract / 3. Human Nature and the Human Condition / 4. Individual vs. Communal Property Rights / 5. Markets / 6. Economic Growth/ Part II: The Assumptions Underlying these Frames / 7. Dangerous Assumptions / 8. Useful Assumptions / / 9. Alternative Models and the Question of Scale / Part III: Current Models / 10. Contemporary Capitalisms and their Faults / 11. The Perils of Globalization / 12. Remixing and the Knockoff Economy / 13. Marketing the Sharing Economy / Part IV: Reframing Political Economy / 14. Informative Case Studies / 15. Moral Framing of Political Economy / Epilogue / Bibliography