Politics and economics interact. As a consequence, political science textbooks must often relate to the economic dimension--implicitly or explicitly. But we know very little about how these textbooks relate to economics. Are they merely unreflective customers of neoclassical economics or do they strive for a cross-disciplinary approach? An analysis of five American textbooks identifies two very different and concurrent interactions between politics and economics. The first is a theoretically conceived market economy in which market forces independently drive growth and create equilibrium, where politics has a rather secluded role. The second is the actually existing mixed economy, characterized by increased inequality, economic concentration, power, and environmental problems, influenced by a state forced to regulate. The problems of operating with such a dichotomy--and possible solutions to it--are being explored in the article. (Contains 3 tables and 23 notes.)