First published in 1977, David Levine's Economic Studies offers a critique and reconstruction of the theoretical conception of economic life. The premise of the study is that only an investigation of the system of elementary economic relations - value, capital, production - can overcome the confusion and misdirection which baffles progress in all areas of economic theory, and lay the foundation for further development of economic science.

Levine discusses both the origins of economic science and the character of contemporary economic thought. He presents a critique of the ideas of classical political economy and of the notion of a labor theory of value which excludes the possibility of a science of economic relations.