Skip to main content

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
Cancel
×
×
Home
  • Home
Article
  • Cited by 1
  • Cited by
    Crossref Citations
    Crossref logo
    This article has been cited by the following publications. This list is generated based on data provided by CrossRef.
    Kirchgässner, Gebhard 2014. On self-interest and greed. Journal of Business Economics, Vol. 84, Issue. 9, p. 1191.
    ×
  • Get access
    Add to cart USD25.00
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    Log in Register Recommend to librarian

THE RISE OF GREED IN EARLY ECONOMIC THOUGHT: FROM DEADLY SIN TO SOCIAL BENEFIT

  • RUDI VERBURG
Abstract

This paper discusses the historical changes in economic and ideological conditions through which greed turned from one of the deadly sins into a passion from which society derived social benefits. Adding to the perspective developed by Hirschman in his The Passions and the Interests, three stages are distinguished in the construction of the notion of the social utility of greed: (1) the self-sufficient community; (2) the mercantile state; and (3) commercial society. The paper relates how changing conditions led philosophers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to recognize the conditional usefulness of greed and, eventually, to build a dream on the idea of greed as instrumental in establishing the material foundation of progress in society.

Copyright
COPYRIGHT: © The History of Economics Society 2012
References
Hide All
Akerlof, G. A., and Shiller, R. J.. 2009. Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Aristotle, . 1968. The Nichomachian Ethics. Translated by Rackman, H., Aristotle in 23 volumes, vol. XIX, Loeb Classical Library. London: Heinemann/Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Brassey, A., and Barber, S., eds. 2009. Greed. Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Campbell, W. F. 1987. “The Old Art of Political Economy.” In Todd Lowry, S., ed., Pre-Classical Economic Thought. Boston/Dordrecht/Lancaster: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 31–42.
Cicero, . 1975. De Officiis. Translated by Miller, W.. Cicero in 28 volumes, vol. XXI, Loeb Classical Library. London: Heinemann Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Coleman, D. 1969. Revisions in Mercantilism. London: Methuen.
Crouzet, François. 2001. A History of the European Economy, 1000–2000. Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia.
Davenant, Charles. 1698. Discourses on the Publick Revenues, and on the Trade of England. London. <Available from: eebo.chadwyck.com>
DeHaye, L. 2008. “Mercantilism.” In Durlauf, S. N. and Blume, L. E., eds., The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Second edition. Basingstoke/New YorkPalgrave Macmillan.
Deutsch, K. W. 1951. “Mechanism, Organism, and Society: Some Models in Natural and Social Science.” Philosophy of Science 18 (3): 230–252.
Ekelund, R. B., and Tollison, R. D.. 1981. Mercantilism as a Rent-seeking Society; Economic Regulation in Historical Perspective. College Station: Texas A&M University Press.
Faccarello, G. 1999. The Foundations of Laissez-Faire; The Economics of Pierre de Boisguilbert. London & New York: Routledge.
Fox, J. 2009. The Myth of the Rational Market. A History of Risk, Reward and Delusion on Wall Street. New York: Harper Business.
Gay, Peter. 1977. The Enlightenment: An Interpretation/The Science of Freedom. New York/London: W.W. Norton & Co.
Gordon, Barry. 1975. Economic Analysis before Adam Smith: Hesiod to Lessius. London/Basingstoke: The MacMillan Press Ltd.
Gray, A. 1959. The Development of Economic Doctrine. London: Longmans.
Groenewegen, P. D. 1977. The Economics of A.R.J. Turgot. Edited and translated by Groenewegen, . The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Gunn, J. A. W. 1968. “Interest Will Not Lie: A Seventeenth-Century Political Maxim.” Journal of the History of Ideas 29: 551–564.
Hazard, Paul. [1935] 1961. La crise de la conscience européenne 1680–1715. Paris: Fayard. Translated as: The European Mind [1680–1715]. Cleveland: The World Pub. Comp.
Hecht, Jacqueline. 1966. Pierre de Boisguilbert, ou la naissance de l’économie politique. Vol. II: Oeuvres, manuscriptes et imprimées. Paris: INED.
Heckscher, E. F. [1935] 1994. Mercantilism. Two volumes. London: Routledge.
Heilbroner, R. L., and Milberg, W.. 2009. The Making of Economic Society. Twelfth edition. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Herlitz, L. 1993. “Conceptions of History and Society in Mercantilism, 1650–1730.” In Magnusson, Lars. ed., Mercantilist Economics. Boston/Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 87–124.
Hirschman, Albert O. 1977. The Passions and the Interests; Political Arguments for Capitalism before its Triumph. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Hume, David. 1987. Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary. Edited by Miller, E. F.. Indianapolis: Liberty Press.
Irwin, D. A. 1996. Against the Tide: An Intellectual History of Free Trade. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
James, E. D. 1972. Pierre Nicole: Jansenist and Humanist. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Jones, Eric L. 1988. Growth Recurring; Economic Change in World History. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Karayiannis, A. D., and Dodd, S. D.. 1998. “The Greek Christian Fathers.” In Lowry, S. Todd and Gordon, B., eds., Ancient and Medieval Economic Ideas and Concepts of Social Justice. Leiden/New York/Koln: Brill, pp. 163–208.
Keohane, Nannerl O. 1974. “Nonconformist Absolutism in Louis XIV’s France: Pierre Nicole and Denis Veiras.” Journal of the History of Ideas 35: 579–596.
Keohane, Nannerl O. 1980. Philosophy and the State in France; The Renaissance to the Enlightenment. Princeton/New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Landes, David S. 1969. The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Langholm, O. 1987. “Scholastic Economics.” In Lowry, S. Todd, ed., Pre-Classical Economic Thought. Boston/Dordrecht/Lancaster: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 115–146.
Langholm, O. 1998. “The Medieval Schoolmen (1200–1400).” In Lowry, S. Todd and Gordon, B., eds., Ancient and Medieval Economic Ideas and Concepts of Social Justice. Leiden/New York/Koln: Brill, pp. 439–501.
Lewis, T. J. 1978. “Acquisition and Anxiety: Aristotle’s Case against the Market.” Canadian Journal of Economics 11 (1): 69–90.
Little, L. K. 1978. Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe. New York: Cornell University Press.
Lowry, S. Todd. 1987. “The Greek Heritage in Economic Thought.” In Lowry, S. Todd, ed., Pre-Classical Economic Thought. Boston/Dordrecht/Lancaster: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 7–30. Lovejoy, Arthur O. [1936] 1978. The Great Chain of Being; A Study of the History of an Idea. Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press.
Magnusson, Lars. 1987. “The Language of Mercantilism,” In Lowry, S. Todd, ed., Pre-Classical Economic Thought. Boston/Dordrecht/Lancaster: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 174–184.
Magnusson, Lars. 1993. Mercantilist Economics. Boston/Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Magnusson, Lars. 1994. Mercantilism: The Shaping of an Economic Language. London: Routledge.
Mandeville, Bernard. [1724] 1988. The Fable of the Bees or Private Vices, Publick Benefits, edited by Kaye, F. B.. Two volumes. Indianapolis: Liberty Press.
Meek, R. L. 1951. “Physiocracy and Classicism in Britain.” The Economic Journal 61 (241): 26–47.
Mokyr, Joel. 2007. “The Market for Ideas and the Origins of Economic Growth in Eighteenth Century Europe.” Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis 4 (1): 3–38.
Mokyr, Joel. 2006. “Mercantilism, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution.” In Findlay, R. et al. ., eds., Eli Heckscher, International Trade, and Economic History. Cambridge/London: The MIT Press, pp. 269–303.
Muller, Jerry Z. 2002. The Mind and the Market. Capitalism in Modern European Thought. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Mun, Thomas. [1664] 1959. England’s Treasure by Forraign Trade, or, The Ballance of our Forraign Trade is The Rule of our Treasure. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Myers, M. L. 1972. “Philosophical Anticipations of Laissez-Faire.” History of Political Economy 4 (1): 163–175.
Nicole, Pierre. 1696. Moral essays, contain’d in several treatises on many important duties. Four volumes. London. <Available from: eebo.chadwyck.com>
North, Dudley. 1691. Discourses Upon Trade. London: Tho Basset. <Available from: eebo.chadwyck.com>
Pascal, Blaise. 1962. Pensées. Paris: Editions du Seuil.
Perrotta, C. 1997. “The Preclassical Theory of Development: Increased Consumption Raises Productivity.” History of Political Economy 29 (2): 295–326.
Posner, R. A. 2009. A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of ‘08 and the Descent into Depression. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Raab, F. 1964. The English Face of Machiavelli: A Changing Interpretation, 1500–1700. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Routh, Guy. 1977. The Origins of Economic Ideas. New York: Vintage Books.
Rowlands, A. 1999. “The Conditions of Life for the Masses.” In Camera, E., ed., Early Modern Europe: An Oxford History. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 31–62.
Schumpeter, J. A. [1954] 1972. History of Economic Analysis. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Sedgwick, A. 1977. Jansenism in the Seventeenth-Century France. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia.
Smith, Adam. [1759] 1976a. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Edited by Macfie, A. L. and Raphael, D. D.. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Smith, Adam. [1776] 1976b. An Inquiry into the Causes and Nature of the Wealth of Nations. Edited by Campbell, R. H. and Skinner, A. S.. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1776.
Spengler, J. J. 1984. “Boisguilbert’s Economic Views vis-à-vis Those of Contemporary Réformateurs.” History of Political Economy 16 (1): 69–88.
Spiegel, H. W. 1971. The Growth of Economic Thought. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
Stiglitz, J. E. 2010. Freefall: America, Free Markets and the Sinking of the World Economy. New York: Norton.
Viner, J. 1978. “Religious Thought and Economic Society: Four Chapters of an Unfinished Work.” History of Political Economy 10 (1): 114–150.
Vries, J. de, and Woude, A. van der. 1997. The First Modern Economy: Success, Failure, and Perseverance of the Dutch Economy, 1500–1815. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wiles, R. C. 1974. “Mercantilism and the Idea of Progress.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 8 (1): 56–74.
Wiles, R. C. 1987. “The Development of Mercantilist Thought.” In Lowry, S. Todd, ed., Pre-Classical Economic Thought. Boston/Dordrecht/Lancaster: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 147–73.
Wilson, C. 1984. England’s Apprenticeship 1603–1763. Second edition. London and New York: Longman.
Wood, D. 2002. Medieval Economic Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Worland, S. T. 1987. “Scholastic Economics.” In Lowry, S. Todd, ed., Pre-Classical Economic Thought. Boston/Dordrecht/Lancaster: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 136–146.
Wrigley, E. A. 1988. Continuity, Chance and Change. The Character of the Industrial Revolution in England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zaratiegui, J. M. 1999. “The Imperialism of Economics over Ethics.” Journal of Markets & Morality 2, 2 (Fall): 208–219.
Recommend this journal

Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this journal to your organisation's collection.

Journal of the History of Economic Thought
  • ISSN: 1053-8372
  • EISSN: 1469-9656
  • URL: /core/journals/journal-of-the-history-of-economic-thought
Please enter your name
Please enter a valid email address
Who would you like to send this to? *

CAPTCHA *

Skip to the audio challenge
×

Metrics

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 10
Total number of PDF views: 61 *
Loading metrics...

Abstract views

Total abstract views: 310 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between September 2016 - 12th June 2018. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Cancel
Confirm
×