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Moral Conditions of Economic Growth*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Karl F. Helleiner
Affiliation:
The University of Toronto

Extract

Historians in general are rather suspicious of theories—and who is to blame them? The temptation to do violence to historical reality is strong, and must be resisted with might and main. However, bad company will sooner or later corrupt even the best of manners; and the economic historian, owing to his long and intimate association with that bold and reckless crowd, the theorists, has finally learned to overcome his scruples and inhibitions. Like the children of Israel, he goes a whoring after Baalim: he tries to develop a general theory of economic growth.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1951

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References

1 Stigler, George J., The Theory of Price (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1946), p. 12Google Scholar.

2 Boulding, Kenneth E., “Equilibrium and Wealth: A Word of Encouragement to Economists,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, V (1939), 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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4 See, for instance, Simon Kuznets, “Measurement of Economic Growth,” The Tasks of Economic History (Supplemental Issue of The Journal of Economic History), VII (1947), 10 ff., and Spengler, Joseph J., “Theories of Socio-Economic Growth,” Problems in the Study of Economic Growth (New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1949), pp. 47 ff.Google Scholar

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7 See Schweitzer, Albert, Indian Thought and Its Development, trans. Mrs. Russell, Charles E. B. (2d ed.; London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd., 1936Google Scholar).

8 In the case of the Stoics, however, this fundamental attitude of serene indifference and detachment did not lead to complete withdrawal from worldly activities. The Stoic, while setting no store by personal achievements in the field of politics or in economic pursuits, nevertheless accepted active participation in social life as a duty. Since the Stoic was expected to fulfill his social obligations—though without enthusiasm—his asceticism did not, perhaps, seriously impair his energy in matters economic or political. Indeed, some of the most active and successful administrators of imperial Rome were disciples of the Stoa.

It was different, however, with the Epicureans. Unlike the followers of Zeno, those of Epicurus did advocate withdrawal. “The life they envisaged as ideal was that of a club, a group of congenial friends like the one in the midst of which their Master lived in the Garden in Athens, unmolested because of its obscurity and inactivity.”—W. S. Ferguson, “The Leading Ideas of the New Period,” The Cambridge Ancient History, VII, 37.

9 The statement of a Christian writer of the second half of the fourth century, Tyrannius Rufinus, that in Egypt the number of monks was nearly equal to the remainder of the people (Gibbon, Edward, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire [Modern Library; New York: Random House], II, 4, n. 15Google Scholar) was-undoubtedly a gross exaggeration. But we may give some credence to other contemporary authors (quoted by Gibbon), all of whom testify to the multitude of anchorites and monasteries in various regions of the Hellenistic world.

10 St. Augustine, De opere monachorum, chap. 22, quoted by Gibbon, II, 7, n. 30.

11 To many of these people the attractions of monastic life may not have been purely spiritual. The economic and social security of the cloister must often have appeared preferable to the hardships and dangers of worldly life. To oppressed tenant farmers and poor mechanics the ascetic discipline to which they had to submit may have seemed sweet and lenient, compared with the toil and misery of their previous existence.

12 See, for instance, Weber, Max, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (London: G. Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1930Google Scholar), and Tawney, R. H., Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (Harmondsworth, England: Pelican Books, 1938Google Scholar).

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22 Enlightened opinion on the subject was summarized by Daniel Defoe in the preface to his A System of Magick or a History of the Black Art (London, 1727) in these words: “I see no great Harm in our present Pretenders to Magick, if the poor People could but keep their Money in their Pockets; and that they should have their Pockets pickʼd by such an unperforming, unmeaning, ignorant Crew as these are, is the only Magick that I can find in the whole Science.”

23 This badly neglected “plutological” aspect of war has been made the subject of a highly stimulating study by Lane, Frederic C., “The Economic Meaning of War and Protection,” Journal of Social Philosophy and Jurisprudence, VII (1942), 254 ff.Google Scholar

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25 See Brunner, Otto, Land und Herrschaft (3d ed.; Brno, Munich, Vienna: R. M. Rohrer, 1943)Google Scholar.

26 In recent times, however, an increasingly broad interpretation of labor's right to “peaceful” picketing threatens to introduce an element of neofeudalism—nor can it be said to be the only one—into modern society.

27 von Wieser, Friedrich, Das Gesetz der Macht (Vienna: J. Springer, 1926), pp. 254 ffGoogle Scholar.

28 See Easterbrook, W. T., “The Climate of Enterprise,” American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, XXXIX (1949), 322 ff.Google Scholar

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31 The “Summa Theologica” of St. Thomas Aquinas, literally translated by fathers of the English Dominican province, Part II2 (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne Ltd., 1918), p. 321Google Scholar (quaestio LXXVII, art. 2).

32 Erasmus, Desiderius, The Praise of Folly, trans. Hudson, Hoyt Hopewell (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1941), p. 69.Google Scholar

33 Defoe, Daniel, An Essay upon Projects (London, 1702), reprinted in The Works of Daniel Defoe, ed. Hazlitt, William (London, 1843), III. 11.Google Scholar