First edition; there is also an issue with a variant brown cloth binding. A nice general introduction from a sociological perspective, in that the first part is broadly concerned with sociological theories of economics, including stage-based theory and social functions; the second part deals with more purely economic theories, including monetary theory, taxation, property and monopolies. Ely is known as a promoter of interventionist economics, a tendency which he shows here with regard to public finance, despising ‘parsimony’ and encouraging public spending, and indeed the borrowing necessary to fund it.