Special Issue Foreword: On the Political Economy of Amateur Athletics

Authors

  • Joshua I. Newman Florida State University
  • Kyle S. Bunds North Carolina State University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17161/jas.v2i1.5696

Abstract

In its most artless definition, political economy refers to the study of inter- and intrastate transaction—concerned in large part with the dialectics of state governance and the production/consumption functions therein. Many of us, with varying degrees of deliberation, have read the works of forerunning political economists such as Adam Smith (c. 1723-1790), David Ricardo (c. 1772-1823), Thomas Malthus (c. 1766-1834), John Stuart Mill (c. 1806-1873), Karl Marx (c. 1818-1883), and Thorstein Veblen (c. 1857-1929). These classic political economists and their contemporaries shared a concern for the extent to which land, labor, income, capital, and the population derived value from, and maintained contingency with, state polity. While each diverged from the others in how to best organize the State in relation to markets and exchange activities (and vice versa) so as to optimize the citizenry’s well-being, these scholars and their contemporaries laid the foundations for the long-standing field of inquiry fixed on exploring how various national political systems (democracy, monarchy, aristocracy, oligarchy, etc.), markets, and political and economic behavior could bring about national prosperity, maximize individual freedom, or raise collective utility.

Downloads

Published

2016-02-29

How to Cite

Newman, J. I., & Bunds, K. S. (2016). Special Issue Foreword: On the Political Economy of Amateur Athletics. Journal of Amateur Sport, 2(1), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.17161/jas.v2i1.5696