politics

Political Economy is what people like Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Marx and many others engaged in attempting to explain the way economy works and functions in society. “Economics” as it’s practiced now is kind of a bastardization of it meant to strip moral questions out of the picture and use bs models to say whatever the capitalists want to say. If you want to know I’d say start by reading a summary of the ideas of Smith Ricardo and Marx (something like Marx’s wage labor and capital might be good). I wouldn’t start by trying to read Das Kapital itself. Marxist political economy would be people picking up that tradition and following on from Marx. Lenin’s analysis of Imperialism is adjacent to this.

In terms of modern writers I’m not sure if something like Pickettys Capital in the 21st Century would count, I haven’t read it and not sure if he’s a Marxist. Michael Hudson has good modern analysis as well.