Block gained a more exclusively economic focus publishing three extremely influential works that included two books, Postindustrial Possibilities and The Vampire State; as well as a more prescriptive article on ways capitalist economies could be reformed for more just and efficient results in Capitalism without Class Power.
Of these, Postindustrial Possibilities is the most widely regarded as a sweeping statement on the findings of economic sociology as a field of study combined with Block’s own original contribution woven into the narrative.
Block's 2014 book, The Power of Market Fundamentalism: Karl Polyani's Critique (HUP, 2014), which he co-authored with Margaret Somers, examines the rise of free-market ideology from the ashes of the Great Depression, and looks more generally at its continued survival in the face of laissez-faire's repeated failures.
His most recent book, Capitalism: the Future of an Illusion (University of California Press, 2018), explores the illusory view that capitalist economies are autonomous, coherent, and regulated by their own internal laws.
The work contends that restoring the vitality of the United States and the world economy can be accomplished only with major reforms on the scale of the New Deal and the post–World War II building of new global institutions.