Classical Political Economy Research Articles

Od tuláků k nezaměstnaným

This article focuses on the genesis of the concept of "unemployment". The concept as we understand it today took root at the close of the 19th century, at a time when the first – very tentative – forms of unemployment insurance began to appear. here, I am trying to capture the language used in the past to describe people who did not work, which of course was to influence the way society was to deal with such non-working people. Liberalism in the 19th century and the ideas on the nature and tasks of man in the world that were associated with it created an anthropological description in which the importance of material assistance was supplanted by the disciplining and moral edification of fallen individuals which may be found in pre-liberal practice in the age of European mercantilism. Classical political economics also had difficulties explaining unemployment scientifically. Under its influence particularly in the first half of the 19th century, attention was shifted to an individualising explanation of the origins of unemployment, situating it to a large extent within the sphere of individual responsibility. I stress here the discursive "invention" of unemployment as opposed to what is perhaps a more ingrained idea today: that unemployment simply derives from the objective economic conditions that hold under capitalism.

Neither Populist nor Neoclassical: The Classical Roots of the Competition Principle in American Antitrust Law

Contemporary critics of American antitrust law lament a supposed misinterpretation by modern, welfare-driven enforcers of the true meaning of the competition principle. This essay contributes to the debate by reconstructing the principle's historical origin. While it did not feature in the Sherman Act, the competition principle was introduced by the Supreme Court during the early years of antitrust law. The court formulated alternative versions of the principle; the one that eventually prevailed was neither populist nor neoclassical, as it was based on classical political economy and, in particular, on freedom of contract and “natural” values. This historical circumstance may pave the way for a new approach to antitrust law.

«Басня о пчелах» Бернарда Мандевиля, или Гимн экономической свободе

Institutions (norms and rules) play an important role in the development of any socio-economic system, and largely determine its direction and speed. Economic freedom is one of the most important ‘products’ generated by the institutional environment. Strictly speaking, there is no unambiguous understanding of this phenomenon, but there is an almost universally accepted opinion that without freedom it’s difficult to achieve success in economic development and thereby ensure the growth of public welfare. The degree of freedom determines the extent and forms in which the interests of economic agents, related to the desire to obtain private benefits, which ultimately benefits the whole society, can manifest themselves. Bernard Mandeville, who can be considered the “petrel of economic freedom” almost the first among scientists and philosophers of Modern times, addressed this issue long before the founders of classical political economy and presented his judgments in allegorical form in “The Fable of the Bees”. Mandeville’s understanding of economic freedom as an opportunity for the manifestation of socially useful ‘private vices’ differs markedly from the interpretations of economic freedom that currently prevail and on the basis of which the relevant international indices are built. Nevertheless, Mandeville’s views, which were frank and devoid of any hypocrisy, served as the ideological foundation of modern views on economic freedom as an extremely useful, but very contradictory phenomenon in people’s lives.

Cross-class solidarity in times of crisis: the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on support for redistribution

This study investigates how the economic crisis associated with the COVID-19 pandemic impacted support for social assistance in Germany. We formulate our expectations drawing from the classical political economy literature on self-interest and the burgeoning research on the role of solidarity. On the one hand, we hypothesize that only low-income individuals impacted economically by COVID-19, who can benefit from social assistance, will support its expansion. On the other hand, we expect higher-income individuals affected economically by COVID-19 to be more supportive of social assistance, even though they do not benefit from it, and less likely to consider welfare recipients ‘undeserving’ compared to higher-income individuals not economically affected by the pandemic. We argue that first-hand crisis experiences update people’s beliefs about how luck impacts one’s economic situation in the presence of an exogenous shock. We combine observational and experimental data from an original survey collected in Germany in April 2021 to test our expectations. On average, low-income respondents appear to be the most vigorous supporters of social assistance, but their support is not conditional on their experience of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, we find that the support for more social assistance among affluent individuals depends on the economic impact of the pandemic. We experimentally manipulated the deservingness of welfare recipients and found that better-off respondents impacted by the pandemic were less likely to penalize even the most ‘undeserving’ welfare beneficiaries. We suggest that solidarity between classes in hard times may occur through a convergence of the deservingness perception among individuals. The article has broader implications for studying the effect of crises on solidarity and the conditional nature of class-based explanations for support for different welfare policies.

Taste formation in Classical Political Economy

Owing to the mainstream interpretation of classical economics as being supply-side, studies examining the analytical role of demand and consumption have been scarce. In this paper, I bring together such passages in Cantillon, Steuart, Smith and Ricardo and forge an analytical link between social tastes and consumption—an attempt at reconstructing a classical theory of taste formation. A classical theory of taste formation has as its foundation methodological holism—viewing social classes as the fundamental unit of analysis. Through a discussion of necessaries and luxuries in the above classical economists, the social division of commodities is highlighted. By drawing on social classes and the social division of commodities, it is seen that taste plays a critical role in the determination of economic growth by influencing consumption expenditure. Finally, it is demonstrated that taste is both a cause and consequence of foreign trade.

ECONOMIC REFORMS IN UKRAINE FROM THE STANDPOINT OF BEHAVIORAL ECONOMY

The article shows that when developing and implementing economic reforms, irrational behavior of economic entities is not sufficiently taken into account. For its more complete consideration, it is proposed to make wider use of the theory and principles of behavioral economics – a special direction of institutional economics, within which the influence of psychological factors on the behavior of the economic subjects is investigated. It is noted that behavioral economics originated against the background of criticism of the theory of rational choice, which in its constructions traditionally relied on the concept of «economic man». It is noted that the «sprouts» of the theory of behavioral economics appeared in the works of the representatives of classical political economy, Keynesianism and neo-institutionalism, its beginnings – in the works of M. Alle, D. Ellsberg, L. Savage, G. Simon and J. Katons, and the basics – in the works of D. Kahneman, A. Tversky and their followers. It is shown that the work of D. Kahneman and A. Tversky stimulated the process of differentiation of behavioral economics and contributed to the emergence within its framework of several theories, namely: the choice of decisions in conditions of uncertainty and risk (prospects and cognitive heuristics), intertemporal choice (anomalies and behavioral finances), behavioral games (social preferences and equitable distribution, as well as the theory of nudging. For the practical use of theories of behavioral economics on their basis the basic principles of behavior of economic subjects are allocated: painful attitude to risks and losses; permanent improvement; compliance with a certain style of the behavior; problems of self-control; imitating crowd behavior; incorporating equity into the utility function; paternalism; nudging (najing). It is emphasized that the theories and principles of behavioral economics should be used when carrying out economic reforms. The experience of their use in foreign countries is summarized. The possibilities of their use in Ukraine during the implementation of the following reforms are revealed: institutional (state administration, national security and defense system, deoligarization, decentralization and regional policy) – to improve public management of the socio-economic development of the country, regions and territorial communities, to protect the country from russian military aggression; financial sector of the economy (monetary policy, tax and budget policy) – to encourage business and citizens to save, lend to the economy and pay taxes, improve control over budget expenditures; real sector of the economy (land, agriculture, industry and infrastructure) – to eliminate the monopoly on state property, in particular land, restoration of the effective owner, innovative development of the economy; social sphere (education, labor market, medical, pension and social protection system of the population) – to improve the quality of education and the level of employment, improve the system of providing social services, etc.; spheres of nature use (subsoil use and systems of state supervision in the field of environmental protection) – to ensure sustainable development of the country.

Развитие концепции воспитательного протекционизма в истории экономической мысли

An important issue within the framework of economic theory has always been the problem of the relationship between free trade and protectionist measures to protect domestic production. At a certain stage, the ideology of free trade (developed by Adam Smith, David Ricardo) became the mainstream of economic thought. Later, within the framework of the German Historical school, an important contribution was made by the economist Friedrich List, who proposed the concept of educational protectionism as an alternative to the free trade ideology of classical political economy. In this article it is proposed to analyze the main ideas and arguments of the concept of educational protectionism and compare them with the argumentation of other economic schools. Were described the characteristics of the German Historical school. It was shown, that despite some similar ideas, the concept of educational protectionism is very different from mercantilist ideas, this concept does not deny free trade direction from a historical perspective, but in some way offers a way of transition to free trade policy. The institutional and economic restrictions, that F. List considers for the success of protectionist policy, were analyzed. The reaction to the concept of educational protectionism was shown, both from the point of view of the role of this concept in economic policy in Russia, and from the point of view of a negative attitude towards this concept from socialist thought, including Rudolf Hilferding. It can be concluded that the concept of educational protectionism also turned out to be largely utopian, but it played an important role in expanding the boundaries of the discussion about free trade and the factors determining this trade policy.

From Classical Political Economics to Neoclassical (Mainstream) Economics: The Ideological Reproduction and Depoliticization Process of Economics

The first school of thought that allowed economics to be treated as a separate discipline was classical economics, known as classical political economy. Classical economics is described as the science of distribution. However, the extent to which science prioritises distributional dynamics is debatable. On the other hand, after the marginalist revolution in the 1870s, the birth of neoclassical economics led to the separation of economics from social sciences. Pure economic logic has separated the economy from society, politics, and all kinds of social factors and put it into positive sciences that operate with an autonomous mechanism within itself. In this way, it is thought that it is aimed to exclude the secrets that can question the structural depth and distribution dynamics of the capitalist system. In all these contexts, the ideological-based reproduction and depoliticisation process of classical and neoclassical economics will be discussed within a historical materialist framework. Thus, it is thought that it will be possible to reveal the theoretical and ideological realities behind the visible faces of classical economics, characterised as classical political economy and neoclassical economics, known as mainstream economics.

ЕНДОГЕННІ ПЕРЕШКОДИ РИНКОВОЇ ЕКОНОМІКИ ТА МОНЕТАРНО-ФІСКАЛЬНІ ЗАХОДИ ЇХ ПОДОЛАННЯ

The author's vision of endogenous obstacles to the development of the modern market economy and the ways to overcome them in the direction of macroeconomic policy on the labor-value basis of classical political economy are revealed. Three obstacles to economic growth in the course of its selfflowing (without state intervention) processes have been identified, namely: a) violation of valuemoney parity – loss of value adequacy of money; b) the lagging of solvent demand from the volume of product supply, which with a certain cyclicality blocks the reproductive process of production; c)"overproduction" of fictitious capital, which bleeds the real sector of the economy. Regarding the support of value-monetary parity in the economy, the expediency of applying the "monetary rule" of monetarism has been confirmed: the emission of the money supply to the beat with the increase in real GDP. Cyclical crises of commodity overproduction are caused by the lagging of solvent demand from supply by the amount of capital accumulation, and therefore have no rational options for overcoming them, except for damping sharp changes in cyclicality. The main novelty of the author's proposals is directed against the parasitic essence of the "financial economy", which sprouts in the course of the "overproduction" of fictitious capital. Since the root cause of such a harmful phenomenon is the overprofitability of the financial sector of the economy as a result of the value-speculative revaluation of inflated assets, the essence of the author's innovation comes down to a radical reform of the tax system in order to prevent their speculative revaluation: the transition from income taxation to taxation of the market capitalization (market valuation) of large businesses based on stock price. According to the author's assumption, the tax on the market value of assets should lead to the depreciation of the inflated capitalization of financial pyramids and bubbles, that will direct investments flows to the commodity-producing sector of the economy, exempted from taxation of business profits. As a result the tax reform will deconserve the production capacities of the real economy, will lead to the industrial revival of the countries of the world democracy in the face of authoritarian revenge. Especially if these countries are consolidated on the basis of a coordinated monetary and fiscal policy: a single currency and a unified tax system. Opposing the axis of autocratic evil requires it.

THE FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT IN UKRAINE UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF CLASSICAL POLITICAL ECONOMY IN THE LATE XVIII – EARLY XX CENTURY

The purpose of the work. The article describes and analyses the achievements of such figures as S. Desnitsky, M. Bałudjanski, V. Karazin in the process of formation and development of Ukrainian economic thought in the period of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is analysed that the most significant influence on the system of economic views of these Ukrainian researchers was made by the concepts of representatives of classical political economy. Methodology. To achieve this goal, both general scientific and special methods of scientific cognition were used, in particular scientific abstraction, induction and deduction, analysis and synthesis – to study the sources, provisions and hypotheses expressed by S. Desnіtsky, M. Bałudjanski, V. Karazin, formed under the influence of the views of the classic of political economy A. Smith. Results. The article analyses the views and ideas of S. Desnіtsky, M. Bałudjanski, and V. Karazin in historical, evolutionary, theoretical and practical aspects. It is determined that the economic views of these Ukrainian scholars are mainly based on the theoretical foundations of classical political economy, in particular, on the concepts of A. Smith. Scientific novelty. It is substantiated that S. Desnіtsky's research was focused on the category of "property" and the analysis of property relations; M. Bałudjanski in his manuscripts approved the conceptual apparatus of political economy, studying the market mechanism, situation and competition in the field of agricultural production; V. Karazin, being a supporter of the labour theory of value, developed an agricultural programme, implemented his projects and inventions in agriculture, developing also Ukrainian technical thought. Practical Significance. The study found that theoretical scholars served the interests of resource owners, associated wealth with virtue, justified the existence of landowners and their exploitation of hired labour, and saw laziness, disinterest in labour results, and the inability to organise their work responsibly and reasonably as the main cause of poverty. For example, M. Bałudjanski and V. Karazin saw the cause of poverty of the common people of Ukraine in drunkenness and laziness, which led to moral and material impoverishment; they considered their main task to be to help wealthier peasants who had some starting capital; they received certain subventions from governments.

Політекономічний аналіз передумов для створення ефективних корпоративних структур

The article provides political economic analysis of advantages and disadvantages of corporate structures of various types (joint stock companies, trusts, corporations, etc.). Based on their balance, we will try to identify the prerequisites for creating effective corporate structures in the past and now. To this end, economic theories of the development of the corporate sector of economics are considered in the works of representatives of mercantilism, classical political economy, historical school, Marxism, social democracy, neoclassicism, neoliberalism, institutionalism, evolutionary development, Keynesianism, neo-institutionalism, monetarism and transformation of capitalism. The following advantages of corporate structures are singled out and analyzed: concentration and centralization of capital, strong competitive positions, high market value of assets, high profitability, innovatization of economic activity, separation of management from property and limited responsibility of investors, democratization of capital, development of social (including international) division of labor and vertical integration of production, orientation to integration of production and creation of "islands of socialism," social responsibility. The main disadvantages of corporate structures include: contradictions between the owners of capital and between them and employees, increased property differentiation of citizens and the growth of a dormant class, closeness and family-clan character, influence on politicians, monopolization of markets, orientation to economic colonization of other countries, financialization of the economy, significant costs for the technostructure and inefficiency of its control, large transaction costs and neglect of small benefits, tax problems transactions. A superposition of advantages and disadvantages of corporate structures is carried out. It is noted that they have more advantages than disadvantages. It is emphasized that the most critical attitude towards corporate structures is noted among representatives of classical political economy (in particular, A. Smith), Marxism and the historical school. It is concluded that in modern conditions corporate structures are the most important organizational form of business and at the same time the basis of the economy of most countries, including Ukraine. In this regard, it is noted that it is necessary to take a maximum advantage of corporate structures and avoid their shortcomings.

Philosophical Critique and Decoding Path of Rosa's New Alienation

The theory of alienation occupies a very important position in Marx's theoretical system. In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx criticizes classical political economy in England starting from alienated labor and puts forward four aspects of alienated labor. The Frankfurt School further developed Marx's theory of alienation and conducted comprehensive investigations on technological alienation, cultural alienation, consumer alienation, and other aspects of modern society's culture, politics, and art. In the new turn of late modern society, the fourth generation Frankfurt School scholar Hartmut Rosa, starting from time analysis, analyzes the growth logic and dynamic stability of modern society's overall crisis through the theory of social acceleration critique, and proposes the social pathologies of "acceleration" and the solution of "resonance", attempting to achieve a better life for people in the present era through the adaptive mode of resonance theory. Based on Hartmut Rosa's works and related research, this article explores the theoretical origins of Rosa's theory of social acceleration critique, the historical background and ideological elements, elaborates on Rosa's analysis of the phenomenon of social acceleration, the new forms of alienation under the background of accelerated society, and the resonant solutions to the problem of new alienation. Finally, this article examines the theoretical value and shortcomings of his theory.

Producing the Present through the Past: Adam Smith and the Inevitability of the Economy

This article makes two claims: first, “the economy” in its contemporary sense is distinct from the object of classical political economy; and second, despite this distinction, social scientists have generated a narrative history of the economy that contributes to its appearance as natural and inevitable by presenting it as a continuous object. This article briefly examines some of the ways in which we read the language of “the economy” back onto Smith, contributing to this appearance of continuity. This article then demonstrates that while Smith may have originated or elaborated many of the concepts used by contemporary economists, he did not understand his own object to be “the economy,” and concludes with a brief discussion of the political possibilities opened up by such an assertion. [Article copies available for a fee from The Transformative Studies Institute. E-mail address: journal@transformativestudies.org Website: http://www.transformativestudies.org ©2024 by The Transformative Studies Institute. All rights reserved.]

Генезис концепцій людського капіталу в економічній теорії

The aim of the article is to study the evolution of scientists’ views on the category of human capital and to reproduce the genesis of this scientific category. Human capital is considered in the article as a multifactorial intellectual system that explores the emergence, development, formation and improvement under the influence of objective and subjective factors. The article analyzes the history of the development of economic thought and the evolution of the theory of human capital. A study of the system of scientific tools of representatives of mercantilism, the school of physiocrats, classical political economy, marginalism, neoliberalism, neoclassical theory, Keynesianism, institutional school and neo-institutionalism is carried out and the possibilities of its application in the global context of human development are determined. The objective economic, organizational, historical, scientific-technical, social and institutional prerequisites for the formation of the conception of human capital are defined. The conception of human capital is a new socioeconomic paradigm, the basis for the formation of which was the transition from the traditional economic system of development to the modern or innovative system. Within the framework of the theory of human capital, a person is considered through the prism of economic processes: social production, reproduction, economic activity. This was the basis for the rapid formation and spread of the theory of human capital. Objective reality emphasizes the importance of the formation and effective use of human capital, and significant scientific achievements on this issue confirm the long process of evolutionary development and relevance regardless of time intervals. The directions for further research include the development of methods for assessing human capital, in particular on the basis of the Human Development Index, a powerful tool for analyzing global processes and transformations in society.

Economy of Nature as the Logic of Government

The aim of this paper is to show that Foucault’s genealogy of liberal governmentality necessitates reconsideration in light of the history of biology and its societal implications. In his lectures at the Collège de France in the late 1970s, Foucault argued that the natural growth of the market is what ultimately verifies or falsifies the excellence of liberal governmentality. Liberal governmentality recognizes the intimate correlation between the physical and social dimensions in order to adapt its political action to the natural processes of the market. It follows that liberal governmentality rests upon a certain kind of naturalism and the knowledge that defines this form of naturalism is political economy, which explicates both the foundations and the limits of governmental action in the name of the nature of the market. Foucault thus accords significant importance to the concept of nature in liberal governmentality. However, his genealogy is confined to an inquiry into the naturalism of classical political economy, without considering the economicism of the emerging biological sciences. To expand upon Foucault’s genealogy, the present paper focuses on the influence of political economy in the development of the theory of evolution by natural selection. The locution “economy of nature” is introduced to denote the discursive formation that brings together the naturalism of classical political economy and the economism of early evolutionary biology. This study contends that this construct played a critical role in shaping liberal governmentality.

Ekonomia polityczna a demokracja w pismach klasyków liberalizmu – John Stuart Mill i Herbert Spencer

POLITICAL ECONOMY AND DEMOCRACY IN THE WRITINGS OF CLASSICAL LIBERALS – JOHN STUART MILL AND HERBERT SPENCER The main aim of this paper is showing mainstream economic theory as an important factor shaping the evolution of political liberalism. The role of the economic theory in this process seems underestimated. The paper analyses the writings of two classical liberal thinkers – John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer, the former a pioneer of egalitarian liberalism, the latter of laissez-faire liberalism. Both Mill and Spencer were the followers of the classical political economy accepting the classical theory of distribution. Both saw the distribution of wealth as a spontaneous process, seeing no possibility correcting it for the people’s sake without disturbances or damages. According to the classical theory of wage fund, workers would get higher incomes only through accumulation of capital by owners and repressing their own fertility. Such statement was fundamentally opposite to all postulates of the workers’ movement. Workers always claimed bigger share in social income and legislation favoring laborers. The inevitable result of this contradiction was a conflict between liberal and democratic ideas. Mill and Spencer proposed two different solutions. J. S. Mill found a specific compromise and proposed enlarging franchise on working class, but with a still dominant position of the educated classes. Mill was against equal franchise for the working class because he did not conceive them as liable, rational and sober people. This position results from the wage fund doctrine; according to it, abundant workers’ fertility is wasteful for them and only sexual restraint (or chastity) would make their wages higher. Spencer in his early writing was an enthusiast of democracy, supposing the working class’ affinity to free market solutions. His later disappointment with democracy turned him into a strong critic of democratic parliamentarism from the standpoint of laissez-faire individualism. The case of these two liberal thinkers shows fundamental difficulty in reconciliation between the ideas of democracy and free market. We could choose democracy accepting welfare state or choose free market solution and become unambiguous critics of democracy. Spencer was a forerunner of all later ‘neoliberal’ critics of welfare state. Mill’s opinion was halfway between laissez-faire liberalism and modern egalitarian liberalism. Democracy and equal voting rights became acceptable by mainstream economist only when they had abandoned the wage fund doctrine and other constructs of the classical political economy. Thus changes in the economic theory had a significant impact on the evolution of political liberalism.

Historical Evolution of Ideas and Theories Related to the Concept of Civil Society

The article presents the historical origin and growth of civil society. The philosophies of many philosophers show the ever-changing dimensions of civil society from time to time. The historical debate starts from classical political economists’ views, continues with Hegelian, Marx’s and Gramsci’s notions of civil society and ends at the current debate on civil society. Classical scholars considered civil society as an economic sphere and the property of emerging industrial societies that were characterized by complex segmentation of labor, the centrality of production and economic interactions. They give more importance to the state rather than individuals. Hegel, Karl Marx and Gramsci are the main philosophers of the classical school of thought. Other scholars like Herbert Marcuse, Jurgen Habermas, John Rawls, Michal Sandel, Charles Tayler and Michal Walzer also contributed in the debate of relationship between the state and civil society. Current scholars like Foucault, Derrida, Deliuze, Lyotard, Fradric Jameson and Francis Fukuyama have discussed the term of civil society with new directions and ideas. The main focus of these scholars is state, human rights, morality, socialism, liberalism and social movements. Their main point is that individuals are more important than the state. The major analysis of this article is based on qualitative approach. The article concludes that the nature of ideas about relationship between the state and civil society and the influence of civil society on state and that of state on civil society have shaped civil society in different dimensions in different periods of history.

Classical Political Economy Concepts of Value and Rent against Mainstream Economic Theory

Classical Political Economy Concepts of Value and Rent against Mainstream Economic Theory

Baroque and Cameralism: Towards an Intellectual History of Economic Thinking

The Baroque, as an era and style in architecture, music, and literature, shares analogies with the history of early political economy. The main purpose of this article is to show that the use of the notion of the Baroque in the intellectual history of economic thinking provides a better understanding of both the corpus of works and the motivations of the authors. It is common to refer to the era preceding classical political economy as mercantilism or cameralism, as its German version. A close acquaintance with the most prominent figures of cameralism — such as Johann Joachim Becher and Johann Heinrich Gottlob Justi — raises questions. How can we understand such amazing productivity and desire to work simultaneously in such different fields, not limited to agriculture, finance, security, police, ethics, but touching upon law, natural philosophy, and natural sciences, humor, and such questions as making paints or turning sand into gold? Why are they so versatile and multifaceted? Why such immense mobility and desire to impress, charm and at the same time to create verbose intrigue, to intentionally obscure their meaning, to bring about a certain level of confusion? Why this manner of writing and the famous projectionism — those which are courageous and comic at the same time? In some cases, it is the juxtaposition of the two labels that will give a better understanding of the corpus of texts — Baroque and Cameralism. In addition, states had new demands for maintaining a permanent army, for building roads and buildings, for displaying grandeur and glory. The festive splendor of Versailles needed a Baroque man. Many obscure manifestations of economic thought become clearer through the prism of Baroque terms. The corpus of works exhibits vitality, excess, a desire for a new pathos, and optimism.

Political Economy for Hispanic America: José Joaquín de Mora as a Bridge between Continents (1825–43)

In the early nineteenth century, the gradual transformation of Spain's former American territories into new independent republics required redefining their political and economic frameworks. This process demanded economic reforms, policies, and institutional changes based on the ideas of the Enlightenment and liberalism that fueled a transatlantic flow of political and economic ideas from Europe to the new republics. This article examines the crucial contribution of the Spanish economist José Joaquín de Mora to this migration of ideas. His main achievement was an institutional and economic agenda for the Republic of Chile based on classical political economy and adapted to the new republic's economic, political, and social environment. The primary economic growth process, which Mora also considered appropriate for the rest of the newly created American republics, was the result of a long and successive building process, which the research also tackles.