European University Institute Library

The legacy of scholasticism in economic thought, antecedents of choice and power, Odd Langholm

eng

index present

non fiction

The legacy of scholasticism in economic thought

electronic resource

dictionaries

715163130

Odd Langholm

Historical perspectives on modern economicsCambridge Social Sciences eBooks

antecedents of choice and power

This book studies the development of ideas on freedom, coercion and power in the history of economic thought. It focuses on the exchange of goods and services and on terms of exchange (interest rates, prices and wages) and examines the nature of choice, that is, the state of the will of economic actors making exchange decisions. In a social context, anyone's range of choice is restricted by the choices made by others. The first to raise the question of the will in this economic context were the medieval scholastics, drawing on non-economic analytic models inherited from antiquity and mainly from Aristotle. From these origins, views on economic choice, coercion and power are recorded, as they gradually change over the centuries, until they manifest themselves in more contemporary disputes between different branches of institutional economics.--, Provided by publisher

The Aristotelian tradition -- Aristotle on compulsion and the voluntary -- The early tradition to Grosseteste -- Scholastic commentaries -- The Roman law tradition -- The legal approach -- The Corpus Iuris Civilis and its sources -- The medieval Romanists -- The Augustinian tradition -- St. Augustine on compulsion, the will, and sin -- Gratian and the canonists -- Peter Lombard and the theologians -- Loans and usury -- Usury as robbery -- The argument from compuilsion -- Is paying usury a sin? -- The question of ownership -- The breakdown of scholastic doctrine -- Price and market manipulation -- Value as power -- The role of the market -- Speculation -- Price discrimination and collusion -- Monopoly -- Need and the will in buying and selling -- The principle of mutual benefit -- Need and the will: the buyer -- Need and the will: the seller -- The paradigm abandoned -- Labor and wages -- Scholastic approaches to labor -- Labor and value: commerce -- Labor and value: crafts and professions -- Wages and the will of the laborer -- Hobbes: the antithesis -- Hobbes against "school-divinity" -- Necessitation, compulsion, and the will -- Justice -- A blueprint of laissez-faire? -- The role of charity -- The economics of natural law -- Natural law -- Economic laws -- Natural rights -- Compulsion in the natural rights tradition -- Natural liberty -- The neoclassical system and its critics -- The case of labor -- Transactions and rights -- Economic coercion -- Aspects of liberty -- An ethical legacy