Economic Treatises Research Articles

Families and Women in Alfred Marshall's Analysis of Well-Being and Progress

Some commentators state that Marshall conceptualizes well-being primarily in terms of the consumer's and producer's surpluses, whose interdependence with moral character rests on the ability of markets to produce their effects on character spontaneously. The purpose of the present article is to show that evolutionary faith is not really enough to remove the tension between the economic and moral dimensions of Marshall's definition of well-being. Marshall understands that progress would not happen without assigning a special role to families and women in cultivating family affections as an essential means of harmonizing these two dimensions. To prove this point, the article examines several economic texts written before Marshall's major economic treatise, Principles of Economics, the first edition of which appeared in 1890. These texts have received little consideration in the existing literature about Marshall's treatment of the role of women in society. Yet they prefigure and allow a better understanding of the theory later expounded in Principles, apprehended here as the fruit of a long process of maturation that continues throughout revisions made in the successive editions of the book.

Letters from Filadelfia: Early Latino Literature and the Trans-American Elite

Letters from Filadelfia: Early Latino Literature and the Trans-American Elite

Reimagining socio-economic well-being through the integration of Arthashastra’s economic treatise and Madhva’s philosophical notion on social cohesion

The current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic that has ravaged glocal societies of both developed and developing countries, has once again shown that there are some phenomena that are no respecters of societies. This is clearly observed in the most recent COVID-19 global statistics, where the most advanced country in the world has the greatest number of infections and deaths. Globally, there are 171.5 million COVID-19 cases, 153.7 million recoveries and 3.6 million deaths (worldmeters.info/coronavirus accessed 01 June 2021). Not only has COVID-19 devastated both developed and developing countries, but has also demonstrated the widening gulf between the rich and the poor. The Minority World were able to secure millions of vaccine doses for their citizens, while the Majority World had to wait in line. We have also witnessed an uprising recently (July 2021) in two of South African provinces of social dissolution where socio-economic and racial tension resulted in a number of deaths. It is within this context that this study aimed to examine how the integration of Arthashastra’s economic treatise and Madhva’s philosophical notion on social cohesion, can contribute to a just socio-economic society. Even though Arthashastra’s economic treatise and Madhva’s philosophical notion of social cohesion are common within Hinduism, and more specifically related to India, the global community will benefit from implementing the salient features from it for application in their contexts.

Divine Providence in Early Modern Economic Thought

Divine Providence in Early Modern Economic Thought

Noggle, James. Unfelt: The Language of Affect in the British Enlightenment.

Noggle, James. <i>Unfelt: The Language of Affect in the British Enlightenment</i>.

The Problem of the Stability of the Social System in Ancient Indian Philosophy

Introduction. The purpose of the article is to show the effect of the law of correspondence as a factor of stability of the social system and the relevance of this problem for ancient Indian philosophy. The problem of the stability of society was not directly considered in ancient Indian philosophy or in modern literature, especially through the prism of the law of correspondence.Methodology and sources. The work uses content analysis, system approach, dialectics and the concept of self-organization. In addition, the main analysis of the problem of stability in ancient Indian philosophy is carried out on the basis of the law of correspondence between the real relations that connect people at a given moment and the essence of the “social”. This law was formulated and proposed by V.V. Tuzov. The essence of the “social” could be conditionally expressed through the concepts of “equality”, “humanism”, mutual assistance, “justice”. Real relations may deviate from the essence, but by a certain amount, a measure. Going beyond the limits of the measure deprives the system of stability, and it becomes uncontrollable. The main source of analysis is the academic edition of the text Arthashastra (ancient Indian political and economic treatise), as well as “History of political and legal doctrines”, “Development of ideas about management in philosophical thought”.Results and discussion. The article analyzes the ancient Indian philosophical texts to reveal in them, in a latent or explicit form, the concern of philosophers with the problem of maintaining the stability of the state and society. Attention is focused on the fact that there is a need to observe the law of conformity in the recommendations for rulers on how to govern the people.Analysis of the main source of ancient Indian philosophy, which deals with the problems of governance, shows that the recommendations to the king, which are set forth by the author of Arthashastra Kautilya, imply, in the end result, the need to maintain a balance of interests between the ruling class and the people, that is, to observe the measure for which society loses its stability due to for the impoverishment of the people. In other words, in the management recommendations, the law of conformity, which was discussed above, appears in a latent form.Conclusion. The problem of the stability of the social system in a class society was and remains extremely relevant. The philosophical law of correspondence between real relations and the essence of social relations, which ensures the stability of society while observing the measure, requires justification. Since the principle of forming relationships and the nature of interaction has remained unchanged for centuries, the reflections of ancient philosophers on management, on the structure of society, on the relationship between different groups in it, and on the interaction of interests, on the one hand, confirm the operation of this law, on the other hand, could be useful for modern management.

Silver, Blackness, and Fugitive Value, “from China to Peru”

This essay treats two related historical phenomena, the Chinese demand for silver and the Black Legend idea of “Spanish cruelty” in early modern English ideologies of slavery, empire, and free trade. Comparisons between circulating silver and runaway slaves inscribed fugitivity with a type of black aesthetic and market value that can be seen across theatrical performances, economic treatises, travel writing, and chinoiserie art.

Olivian Echoes in the Economic Treatises of Bernardine of Siena and John of Capistrano

Olivian Echoes in the Economic Treatises of Bernardine of Siena and John of Capistrano

The controversy over Friedrich Pollock’s state capitalism

The critique of capitalism is the bedrock on which rests the reputation of Frankfurt School critical theory. Though critical theory has often been heralded – or criticized and rejected – as a reformulation of Marxian theory for our times, its relation with the critique of political economy, and in particular the economic treatises, has barely been studied. Friedrich Pollock, who was Max Horkheimer’s lifelong friend and close associate at the Institute for Social Research, was responsible for all administrative and financial questions, but he wrote few theoretical essays and Wiggershaus calls him ‘the last unknown member of the Frankfurt School’. Nevertheless this article asks whether not only has his influence on early critical theory been sorely underestimated, but also his impact on the late philosophies of Horkheimer, Adorno and Marcuse.

Domestic virtues and national importance: sailors, commerce, and virtue in Mansfield Park, Persuasion, and The Wealth of Nations

Many scholars have noted the ways in which Jane Austen's narratives bring to life elements of Adam Smith's moral philosophy as articulated in Theory of Moral Sentiments. His economic treatise Wealth of Nations is also worth considering. Looking at the representations of sailors in Mansfield Park and Persuasion, this essay traces connections to Wealth of Nations to argue that Austen is cautiously but increasingly accepting the role of commerce in her society. Through her portrayal of naval officers, she conceptualises commercial ambition and domestic affection as intertwined rather than in tension. This connection provides a check to acquisitiveness and mercantile urges. She also appears to reject specialisation as a desirable human occupation. As a result, she unites the sympathies of The Theory of Moral Sentiments with the entrepreneurial energy of The Wealth of Nations. While Fanny Price and Anne Elliot are each, in their own ways, exemplary women, it is noteworthy that Austen gives us William Price and Captain Wentworth as exemplary, naval, commercial, men.

Keynes, Bastiat and the Multiplier

Keynes is back. President Obama’s economic stimulus package is based on the premise that we can spend our way out of recession. It is an application of the Keynesian multiplier theory, which was expounded in Keynes’ 1936 economic treatise, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. Post-1936 economic history has given the multiplier theory mixed reviews, mostly because it has done a less than perfect job of explaining economic reality.Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) was a French economist and journalist. He discussed the multiplier theory in the 1840s, more than a generation before John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) was born. This paper explores the similarities and differences of their two multiplier theories. A bibliography with links to other Bastiat studies is also included.

In Defence of the Faith: Joaquim Marques de Araújo: A Comissário in the Age of Inquisitional Decline by James E. Wadsworth (review)

Reviewed by: In Defence of the Faith: Joaquim Marques de Araújo: A Comissário in the Age of Inquisitional Decline by James E. Wadsworth Thomas M. Cohen In Defence of the Faith: Joaquim Marques de Araújo: A Comissário in the Age of Inquisitional Decline. By James E. Wadsworth. (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. 2013. Pp. xxii, 202. $65.00. ISBN 978-0-7735-4117-7.) The Portuguese Inquisition, established in 1536 and abolished in 1821, never created a tribunal in Brazil. Resident Inquisition officials known as comissários and familiares investigated cases in Brazil and when necessary sent individuals to Portugal to be tried. James E. Wadsworth makes expert use of little-known archival documents in Portugal and Brazil to bring to life the comissário Joaquim Marques de Araújo (1742–1820), whose career “offers us a unique opportunity to examine the belief systems that animated inquisitional officials, the career path they followed, and the social, political, and religious niches they inhabited” (p. 6). This is the first book-length study of an official of any of the early-modern inquisitions. Wadsworth builds here on his first book, Agents of Orthodoxy (Lanham, MD, 2007), a prosopographical study of the familiares in Brazil. He builds, too, on the work of Daniela Buono Calainho, Aldair Carlos Rodrigues, and David Higgs on the Inquisition in late-colonial Brazil (which reflects previous work by Anita Novinsky, Maria Luisa Tucci Carneiro, and other historians focused on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries). [End Page 392] With a few notable exceptions, Wadsworth’s portrait of Marques is an admiring one. By the late-eighteenth century, the Inquisition in Recife, where Marques was born and where he lived throughout his life, no longer focused on the heretical acts committed by New Christians (people of Jewish descent). Instead, it focused on crimes such as bigamy and blasphemy. Through painstaking examination of Inquisition documents, Wadsworth is able to piece together the complex series of cases that Marques investigated. Wadsworth argues that Marques generally showed compassion for the men and women whom he was called upon to examine, and that his judicious style belies the image of fanaticism with which the Inquisition is generally associated. Reporting in 1806 to the Mesa da Consciência e Ordens about prisoners in Pernambuco who were waiting to be sent to Lisbon for trial, Marques wrote, “I pity them, because they are dying of hunger. . . . I call them to your attention so that you can practise the piety and justice which is your custom for these wretches.” Four years later he wrote on behalf of two men in Recife who were being held for blasphemy and bigamy and had endured “great calamities and miseries and needed to be sentenced” (p. 65). The growing influence of Enlightenment thought in late-colonial Brazil challenged traditional institutions and changed Marques’s conduct of his inquisitional duties. He placed himself at the forefront of the Inquisition’s struggle against the so-called libertines (libertinos), whom Antônio de Moraes e Silva defined as men “who [shake] off the yoke of revelation and [presume] that reason alone can guide with certainty with respect to God, life, etc.” In the 1790s Marques “began to handle a growing number of cases dealing with blasphemy, libertinage, failure to respect the sacraments, and heretical propositions. Many of these cases represented the intellectual and social elite of Pernambucan society” (p. 73). It was in this context that Wadsworth offers some judicious criticism of Marques’s conduct, especially in his sustained conflict with Father Bernardo Luís Ferreira Portugal and his patron, Bishop José Joaquim da Cunha de Azeredo Coutinho, who later served as Inquisitor General. Even those who are familiar with Azeredo Coutinho’s well-known economic treatises will discover new dimensions of his work in Wadsworth’s account of his service in Olinda (1798–1802). Azeredo Coutinho was an instrumental proponent of Enlightenment ideas in Brazil and established a seminary that trained many of the priests (including Bernardo Luís) who participated in the 1817 rebellion in Recife. In summing up the attempt of Bernardo Luís and Azeredo Coutinho to deprive Marques of his canonship in the cathedral...

Pierre de Jean Olivi. Traité des Contrats by Sylvain Piron

Reviewed by: Pierre de Jean Olivi. Traité des Contrats by Sylvain Piron David Flood, OFM Sylvain Piron, Pierre de Jean Olivi. Traité des Contrats (Bibliothèque Scolastique, Volume 5), Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2012, 7.6 x 5 x 1.3 inches, Pages 439, ISBN 978-2251610054 Sylvain Piron has brought a new manuscript into play in his recent edition of Peter of John Olivi’s contribution to medieval economics. The new manuscript, Oxford, Bodleian Library, cod. Bodley 52, gives us the reworked and developed views of the author. Bodley 52’s version of the treatise allows the editor to fuse the previously known three parts together into one text, A Treatise on Contracts. On the occasion of the new edition, Piron argues its importance as a scholastic text, a treatise on the economics of its time and one of wide influence. He offers us a highly informative study of the text, then, before he gets to an excellent critical edition. The edition is accompanied by a translation of the treatise into French. It is followed by brief references to the text as aid to its study. Piron’s book is an impressive contribution to medieval studies. Piron introduces the treatise by requesting acknowledgement of scholastic economics. The intellectual context of Brother Peter of John’s era differs from the discussions on economics that take place in the Western world in our day. There existed then presuppositions that resulted in an understandable approach to the production and distribution of goods. Following on the Decretum Gratiani (1141) theologians and canonists made explicit that an excess of property obliged the rich to see to the needs of the poor. Wealth was a special burden that the materially lucky bore. Or, in truth, if Christian, were to bear. Moreover, charity as a Christian imperative forbade preying on the poor (as U.S. economics allows; which, when impressively successful, even wins esteem). [End Page 511] Such a simple observation helps us understand sensitivity to usury in the Middle Ages. In our day Amartya Sen (whom Piron references) has spoken clearly about the relation of ethics to economics in a positive fashion. Sen proposes we consider the origin of economics either through concern for ethics or by solutions to practical matters (engineering is Sen’s term). How can we settle down and how can we all settle down. Inevitably, Jesus’ concern for the other and its consequent censure of the wealthy will weigh in heavily on economic reflection in a Christian context. Economic thought in Peter of John’s day was otherwise concerned with people than is economics in our day. His economics was not one early stage towards the complete grasp of economic realities in our advanced day, as many of today’s historians would see it. Once Piron justifies scholastic economics (11-26), he goes on to sketch out the social context of Peter of John’s treatise (27-71). He surfaces historical scenes in which the treatise guides business in the interests of society. Once he has made the treatise come alive historically, he goes on to the technical work of the edition. He explains how he will use what sources. He goes further when he makes a few remarks on his translation of the text. Before Piron begins with the edition and its translation, pages 94-321, Latin to the left, French to the right, he has a few remarks (a page and a half, 91-92) on the text’s passage from Latin into French. He explains where he places himself as regards the text and as regards the reader of the translation. He is sensitive to both. He has a duty to the text and would make it understandable to today’s reader. Once clear on the point, Piron goes into a list of words. He explains how he will handle them, given context. Now languages are different. There is no verbal or syntactical correspondence between them. And an economic treatise is drenched in precise detail. In a way, a translator will never get it right because the two linguistic worlds differ. Yet she or he has to make it work somehow. Piron’s brief explanation of the several...

Las &lt;i&gt;Reflexiones&lt;/i&gt; (1761) de Simón de Aragorri y la reforma del comercio atlántico español

Reflexiones sobre el estado actual del comercio de Espana –Reflections about the Current State of the Commerce in Spain– is a hitherto unknown and vast economic and political treatise which was published in 1761 anonymously. His author was Simon de Aragorri. The serendipity of a print copy of the treatise let us assert that it aimed at having a bearing on the economic debate right after Carlos III’s enthronement. This article analyzes the theoretical foundations and the reformists scheme put forward in the treatise relative to the overseas Spanish possessions.

The scope and significance of William Thomas Thornton's literary works

Following the publication in the 1840s of two political economy tracts, William T. Thornton had come to be seen as an influential social reformer and economic commentator. The 1850s were marked, in turn, by the publication of three books of verse. These works form a bridge linking his political tracts of the 1840s to the economic and philosophical works he penned in the 1860s and 1870s. Thornton's poetical compositions also serve to illustrate how the creative work of an economist can shed light on matters treated only cursorily in his earlier political tracts and later economic treatises.

Economics as a Laughing Matter: Freud's Jokes and Their Relation to the Economic and Rhetorical Unconscious

Freud's Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious can be read as a fundamental economic and rhetorical treatise on a number of different levels. Viewed most basically, this work outlines the economizing mechanisms that Freud believes are at work in all unconscious psychic operations. In this regard, Jokes focuses on the third dimension Freud associated with his general metapsychological project, the first two being the topological and the dynamic aspects of psychic life. But on a more profound level, economic thought, structures, and metaphors invade Freud's text in its very rhetoric and discursive structure. However, the parallels between the economics and the rhetoric of this work do not end here. Jokes assume a privileged status in Freud's theory because, as acts of interhuman communicative transfer, they demonstrate that certain psychic structures not only operate unconsciously, but can also be consciously manipulated to achieve strategic psychological effects and affects in others. Jokes thereby manifest the social and rhetorical dimensions of precisely those “economic” principles by which they function. Ultimately, these very same joke mechanisms—deferral, displacement, repetition, anticipatory tension—inform the rhetoric and argumentative structure of this very treatise. Just as the joke-teller invests inordinate intellectual energy in the joke just so that he or she will receive a residual pleasure through the laughter of the joke-audience, Freud as author of this treatise deploys joke-mechanisms to win over his own readers in an effort to gain currency for himself as scientist, and for the project of psychoanalysis more generally.

What Really Ails the Eurozone?: Faulty Supranational Architecture

The global financial crisis which erupted in the United States instantaneously swept across Europe. Like the United States, the European Monetary Union (EMU) was ripe for a crash. It had its own real estate bubble, specifically in Ireland and Spain, indulged in excessive deficit spending, financially de regulated, and rapidly expanded credit. Policy responses and recovery patterns for key EU members like Germany, France (within the Eurozone) and the United Kingdom (outside the Eurozone) were similar. However, after the bubble burst and the crisis began unfolding it became clear that the Eurozone plight differed from America’s in one fundamental respect. There was no exact counterpart of Eurozone GIIPS (Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal and Spain) in the United States. The disparity is traced to the EU’s and Eurozone’s special form of governance called “supranationality” (a partially sovereign transnational organization) that has been largely ignored in economic treatises about the costs and benefits of customs unions, economic communities, and monetary unions. EZ members have put themselves in a monetary cage, akin to the gold standard. Member states have surrendered control over their monetary and foreign exchange rate policies to the German dominated European Central Bank (ECB), without supplementary central fiscal, private banking and politi cal union institutions. This should be enough in general competitive theory, but too often leads to factional and societal gridlock that compounds the misery, and could cause the EU to permanently and gravely underperform relative to community’s “un-caged” potential.

Poetics of the Commonplace: Composing Robert Southey

Previous articleNext article No AccessRobert Southey in ContextPoetics of the Commonplace: Composing Robert SoutheyDahlia PorterDahlia Porter Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Wordsworth Circle Volume 42, Number 1Winter 2011Robert Southey in Context Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/TWC24043999 Views: 6Total views on this site © 2011 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

New World Gold: Cultural Anxiety and Monetary Disorder in Early Modern Spain (review)

Reviewed by: New World Gold: Cultural Anxiety and Monetary Disorder in Early Modern Spain Judith G. Caballero New World Gold: Cultural Anxiety and Monetary Disorder in Early Modern Spain. University of Chicago Press, 2010. By Elvira Vilches. How does one win a multimillion-dollar lottery and still end up broke? This is the conundrum that Early Modern Spaniards were confronting: how was it possible that after discovering the New World and literally receiving boatloads full of gold, silver, and precious stones, Spain’s economy had collapsed? In her book, New World Gold: Cultural Anxiety and Monetary Disorder in Early Modern Spain, Elvira Vilches delves into the intricate world of finance and credit of Early Modern Spain and shows how most Spaniards of the XVI and XVII centuries, using scholastic and mercantilistic lines of thought, judged the economic collapse of their era to spiritual malaise and to the mismanagement of gold and silver brought to the Peninsula from the Americas. Elvira Vilches’s use of a wide scope of writings—which include economic treatises, letters, chronicles, and literary works—and authors—such as Christopher Columbus, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, Luis Saravia de la Calle, Diego de Covarrubias, Tomás de Mercado, Lope de Vega, Miguel de Cervantes, and Mateo Alemán—allows her to create a comprehensive portrayal of the financial concerns of Early Modern Spain and of the New World during the era of discovery and early colonization. The writing of this era reflects the distress caused by the dire situation of Spain and its inhabitants’ frustration at failing to understand why the increase in riches negatively affected the economy. By exploring an array of writings, Elvira Vilches not only explains the theories developed to comprehend and potentially solve the crisis, but also shows how difficult it was for the people of that era to grasp the complexities of credit, the abstraction of money, inflation, and the devaluation of precious metals. This approach does not converge into a single narrative that explains the economic demise of Spain—it is not Vilches’s objective to create a theory explaining why it [End Page 215] occurred—rather, it provides us with the multiple narratives of the era, thus forcing readers to reflect upon Spain’s economic circumstances to reach their own conclusion. Amongst the most important ideas that surface constantly throughout the book is the distress caused in the population by the shift from concrete money to abstract money. Under the monetary system of Medieval Spain, a coin’s worth was based upon the quantity and quality of the metal it contained. The seal of the king did not add value to the coin, it just certified that it was not an adulterated coin. However, this system was based on the idea that gold had an intrinsic, unalienable, and stable worth. Because the value of gold was perceived as immutable, an influx of it should not affect its value at all. In fact, according to the mercantilistic writings of the era, the more gold acquired, the better off they would be. However, this view was challenged by the arrival of riches from the New World that depreciated the value of gold and by the monarchy’s decision to increase the worth of the currency in the New World but not in Spain; this had the unintended consequence of creating greater monetary confusion and economic disincentives. As inflation soared through the Peninsula and the New World, Spaniards found that the purchasing value of their coins had diminished, yet the fluctuation of gold’s value was inconceivable for Early Modern Spaniards; mercantilists came to the conclusion that to save the economy, the gold had to be kept within Spain and pushed to stop exporting raw materials to foreign nations in exchange for manufactured goods. They blamed the people for not being frugal and for spending their money in trifles. This belief persisted, though Vilches does point out that scholars at the School of Salamanca had figured out that precious metals did not have intrinsic value, and had asked the government to monitor the new credit industry and money market. Elvira Vilches provides us with the multiple perspectives about the economic crisis of Early...

New World gold: cultural anxiety and monetary disorder in early modern Spain

The discovery of the World was initially a cause for celebration. But the vast amounts of gold that Columbus and other explorers claimed from these lands altered Spanish society. The influx of such wealth contributed to the expansion of the Spanish empire, but it also raised doubts and insecurities about the meaning and function of money, the ideals of court and civility, and the structure of commerce and credit. New World Gold shows that, far from being a stabilizing force, the flow of gold from the Americas created anxieties among Spaniards and shaped a host of distinct behaviors, cultural practices, and intellectual pursuits on both sides of the Atlantic. Elvira Vilches examines economic treatises, stories of travel and conquest, moralist writings, fiction, poetry, and drama to reveal that World gold ultimately became a problematic source of power that destabilized Spain's sense of trust, truth, and worth. These cultural anxieties, she argues, rendered the discovery of gold paradoxically disastrous for Spanish society. Combining economic thought, social history, and literary theory in transatlantic contexts, New World Gold unveils the dark side of Spain's Golden Age.