Mind and the Market

Zusatztext “A magisterial contribution to the history of ideas.”—Peter L. Berger! Institute for the Study of Economic Culture “Comprehensive! lucidly analytical! and splendidly! admirably objective.”—Howard M. Sachar! author of A History of Israel and Dreamland: Europeans and Jews in the Aftermath of the Great War “Thanks to Muller’s sensitive and critical guidance! we come away knowing the subject far better than would otherwise be possible.”—David S. Landes! author of The Wealth and Poverty of Nations Informationen zum Autor Jerry Z. Muller is Professor of History at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He is the author of The Other God That Failed: Hans Freyer and the Deradicalization of German Conservatism, Adam Smith in His Time and Ours: Designing the Decent Society, and Conservatism: An Anthology of Social and Political Thought from David Hume to the Present. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland. Klappentext Capitalism has never been a subject for economists alone. Philosophers, politicians, poets and social scientists have debated the cultural, moral, and political effects of capitalism for centuries, and their claims have been many and diverse. The Mind and the Market is a remarkable history of how the idea of capitalism has developed in Western thought. Ranging across an ideological spectrum that includes Hobbes, Voltaire, Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, Hegel, Marx, and Matthew Arnold, as well as twentieth-century communist, fascist, and neoliberal intellectuals, historian Jerry Muller examines a fascinating thread of ideas about the ramifications of capitalism and its future implications. This is an engaging and accessible history of ideas that reverberate throughout everyday life. Leseprobe Chapter One Historical Backdrop: Rights, Righteousness, and Virtue "Those who accumulate possessions without end and without measure, those who are constantly adding new fields and new houses to their heritage; those who hoard huge quantities of wheat in order to sell at what to them is the opportune moment; those who lend at interest to poor and rich alike, think they are doing nothing against reason, against equity, and finally against divine law, because, as they imagine, they do no harm to anyone and indeed benefit those who would otherwise fall into great necessity.... [Yet] if no one acquired or possessed more than he needed for his maintenance and that of his family, there would be no destitute in the world at all. It is thus this urge to acquire more and more which brings so many poor people to penury. Can this immense greed for acquisition be innocent, or only slightly criminal?" -Father Thomassin, traité de négoce et de l'usure , 1697 "Trade, without doubt, is in its nature a pernicious thing; it brings in that wealth which introduces luxury; it gives rise to fraud and avarice, and extinguishes virtue and simplicity of manners; it depraves a people, and makes way for that corruption which never fails to end in slavery, foreign or domestic. Lycurgus, in the most perfect model of government that was ever framed, did banish it from his commonwealth." -Charles Davenant, "Essay upon the probable methods of making a people gainers in the balance of trade," 1699 To distinguish the novel from the perennial in modern debates about the moral worth of a society organized around the market, we must recall the characteristic attitudes of the great traditions of European thought toward commerce and the systematic pursuit of material gain through trade. For they made up the backdrop of concepts and images against which modern intellectuals would write. Even when these traditional arguments were no longer advanced explicitly, they lingered on as residues, influencing popular perceptions and more articulate debate. There was no room-or little ro...

Product details

• Authors: Jerry Muller, Jerry Z Muller, Jerry Z. Muller
• Publisher: Anchor Books USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 11.11.2003
• EAN: 9780385721660
• ISBN: 978-0-385-72166-0
• No. of pages: 512
• Dimensions: 130 mm x 210 mm x 25 mm
• Subject: Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous