عنوان

LIBERAL ECONOMICS AND THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF SIN:

شماره

LA129804

زبان متن نوشتاري يا گفتاري و مانند آن

انگلیسی

عنوان اصلي

LIBERAL ECONOMICS AND THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF SIN:

نام عام مواد

[Article]

ساير اطلاعات عنواني

CHRISTIAN AND STOIC VESTIGES IN ECONOMIC RATIONALITY

نام نخستين پديدآور

Leland Glenna

محل نشرو پخش و غیره

Leiden

نام ناشر، پخش کننده و غيره

Brill

متن يادداشت

The recognition that ecological problems often extend beyond nation-state boundaries has prompted environmentalists, politicians, and academics to call for and generate problem-solving discourses meant to be global in perspective. Free-market rhetoric has emerged as one of the more prominent of the global discourses, even though the free market's commodification of human beings and nature causes many environmental problems. To discredit this economic rationality, many scholars have compared it to religion. These comparisons are intriguing, but they have lacked the critical analysis necessary to appear as anything more than name-calling. This paper clarifies the definition of religion and uses it to examine the origins of economic rationality's fundamental presupposition-that greedy self-interested competition generates more social benefits than altruistic cooperation-within eighteenth-century Natural Law vs. Ecclesiastical Law debates. Despite economic rationality's adoption of sophisticated empirical methods and mathematical rigor over the past two centuries, it is a religion because it retains vestiges of the Protestant Christian and Stoic beliefs of how social life is governed by supernatural intervention when it uncritically promotes policies based on that presupposition. Recognizing economic rationality is a religion may benefit those who are striving to develop systems of governance based on democratic principles by leading to a greater understanding of economic rationality's normative attraction. The recognition that ecological problems often extend beyond nation-state boundaries has prompted environmentalists, politicians, and academics to call for and generate problem-solving discourses meant to be global in perspective. Free-market rhetoric has emerged as one of the more prominent of the global discourses, even though the free market's commodification of human beings and nature causes many environmental problems. To discredit this economic rationality, many scholars have compared it to religion. These comparisons are intriguing, but they have lacked the critical analysis necessary to appear as anything more than name-calling. This paper clarifies the definition of religion and uses it to examine the origins of economic rationality's fundamental presupposition-that greedy self-interested competition generates more social benefits than altruistic cooperation-within eighteenth-century Natural Law vs. Ecclesiastical Law debates. Despite economic rationality's adoption of sophisticated empirical methods and mathematical rigor over the past two centuries, it is a religion because it retains vestiges of the Protestant Christian and Stoic beliefs of how social life is governed by supernatural intervention when it uncritically promotes policies based on that presupposition. Recognizing economic rationality is a religion may benefit those who are striving to develop systems of governance based on democratic principles by leading to a greater understanding of economic rationality's normative attraction.

تاريخ نشر

2002

توصيف ظاهري

31-57

عنوان

Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology

شماره جلد

6/1

شماره استاندارد بين المللي پياييندها

1568-5357

اصطلاح موضوعی

economic rationality

اصطلاح موضوعی

environment

اصطلاح موضوعی

protestantism

اصطلاح موضوعی

religion

مستند نام اشخاص تاييد نشده

Leland Glenna

شماره بازیابی

10.1163/156853502760184586

نام الکترونيکي

فرمت انتشار

p

نوع ماده

[Article]

کد کاربرگه

275578

سطح دسترسي

a

تكميل شده

Y