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From Socrates to Smith: The Moral and Cultural Foundations of Economics

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The Keynesian Revolution and Our Empty Economy

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Abstract

Outlines the moral and cultural nature of historical paradigms for studying economics—the Nature paradigm of classical Greece and Rome, the God paradigm of medieval and early modern Christians, and the Reason paradigm of the Enlightenment—as well as reasons these paradigms passed away. For 2300 years the economy was rooted in imperatives that were seen as a permanent part of human nature. This is a point on which ancients, medievals and moderns largely agreed, and in each age predominant thinkers defended it using similar arguments. This is the integration of empirical, moral, and cultural observation in our understanding of economics lost its grip among leading economists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and was replaced by the new vision: the Keynesian Revolution.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For example, while Augustine’s The City of God famously acknowledges that both the “city of God” and “city of man” exist within the Roman civil community, requiring much compromise (see esp. Book XIX), its core argument is that Rome did the right thing to embrace Christianity as its official religion; on the argument that civilization requires the moral influence of the church see esp. Book II.

  2. 2.

    “The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it” (Smith 1994, 33; I.5).

  3. 3.

    From Federalist #9, by Alexander Hamilton: “The science of politics, however, like most other sciences, has received great improvement. The efficacy of various principles is now well understood, which were either not known at all, or imperfectly known, to the ancients. The regular distribution of power into distinct departments, the introduction of legislative balances and checks, the institution of courts composed of judges holding their offices during good behavior, the representation of the people in the legislature by deputies of their own election; these are wholly new discoveries, or have made their principal progress towards perfection in modern times. They are means, and powerful means, by which the excellencies of republican government may be retained, and its imperfections lessened or avoided” (Hamilton et al. 2003, 36).

  4. 4.

    From George Washington’s Farewell Address: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports…The mere politician , equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity…Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric? Promote then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge” (Washington 2017).

  5. 5.

    For example, in John Adams’ attack on medieval canon and feudal law, he does not call them the greatest systems of tyranny ever, but only the greatest systems of tyranny “since the promulgation of Christianity” (Adams 1985, 5); moreover, he says they were rolled back when “God in his benign providence raised up the champions who began and conducted the Reformation” (6–7).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers, FL, USA

    Victor V. Claar

  2. Trinity International University, Deerfield, IL, USA

    Greg Forster

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  1. Victor V. Claar
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Correspondence to Victor V. Claar .

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Claar, V.V., Forster, G. (2019). From Socrates to Smith: The Moral and Cultural Foundations of Economics. In: The Keynesian Revolution and Our Empty Economy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15808-8_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15808-8_2

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-15807-1

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