Heterodox economics movement: Difference between revisions

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==Preface==
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The ''Heterodox Traditions'' in Economics began when [http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/rousseau.htm Jean-Jacques Rousseau] ,  a Swiss political philosopher of the Enlightenment and purported father of the French Revolution, wrote his book ''Discourse on Political Economy'' (Economie Politique) (1755)<ref name=ROSSEAU1>''l'ENCYCLOPÉDIE,OU DICTIONNAIRE RAISONNÉ DES SCIENCES, DES ARTS ET DES MÉTIERS par une Société de Gens de Lettres''. Mis en ordre & publié par M. DIDEROT, de l'Académie des Sciences & des Belles-Lettres de Prusse;Paris, Briasson..., 1755</ref> which became the entry on the subject in Diderot's Encyclopedie.


==Utopians and Socialists==
'''Heterodox economics''' refers to a relatively small but growing ''movement'' among economists who are seeking to gain acceptance of their ideas into mainstream economic thinking and scholarly discourse.  Thinkers within the movement seek to organize various economic traditions, including post-Keynesianism, old institutionalism, feminist, social, and Marxian and Austrian economics under its new umbrella, according to the movement's view of what such traditions hold in common. In doing so, the heterodox economics movement seeks to distinguish its conceptualizations from what it views as "mainstream economics", which the movement engages yet opposes on some fundamental concepts.


===Rousseauvian Socialism===
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==History of the movement==


====Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712-1788====
==Views==


[http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/rousseau.htm '''Jean-Jacques Rousseau'''] wrote [http://www.constitution.org/jjr/polecon.htm ''Discourse on Political Economy'' (1755)], an article which contains no obvious economic theory and is merely a pre-taste of the political philosophy he was to lay out in his [http://www.constitution.org/jjr/socon.htm ''Social Contract'' (1762)]. His earlier polemical [http://www.constitution.org/jjr/ineq.htm ''Discourse on Inequality'' (1754)] - which argued that civilization had destroyed man's ''"natural goodness"'' and thus was the source on inequality - is prescient of the Marxian doctrine of ''"alienation"''.
==Criticisms==
 
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Rousseau's work had a little direct impact on economics, but exerted  a substantial indirect influence. He shared with his fellow Enlightenment philosophers the faith in the existence of a ''"natural state"'' of society - which one could thereby extend to social equilibrium and ''"natural value"'' concepts - which were very much ingrained in the thinking of the [http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/schools/physioc.htm Physiocrats] and [http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/smith.htm Adam Smith]. His appeal to this state via his ''"natural man"'', the ''"noble savage"'', is reminiscent of the analogies formed in modern economics.
 
A thorough pessimist about existing human society, Rousseau recognized that this ''"natural state"'' was perverted by ''"civilization"'' and that the appetites and motivations of civilized man had been consequently corrupted and constructed by his interaction with society - ''"Man is born free and is everywhere in chains"'' as he wrote in his famous opening to the ''Social Contract'' <ref name=SOCIALCONTRACT>[http://www.constitution.org/jjr/socon.htm ROSSEAU, Jean-Jacques. ''The Social Contract, or Principles of Political Right''. 1762.<small>Translated by G. D. H. Cole, public domain. Rendered into HTML and text by Jon Roland of the Constitution Society</small>.]</ref> 
 
The "natural state", Rousseau claimed, could only be achieved via wholesale social reform which envisioned a collective state with extra-personal dedication to a ''"General Will"''''. Only in such a state, Rousseau asserted, could the true ''"natural man"'' exist and be truly free. It is these last observations that make Rousseau the father of ''Socialism'' (utopian and otherwise) - and earned him much emnity from later anti-Socialists such as [http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/hayek.htm Hayek].
 
His publications got him arrested and his books were burned throughout France. He ran off to England, being hosted and supported by [http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/hume.htm David Hume] where he wrote his polemical ''Letters from the Mountain'' <ref name=MOUTAIN> ROSSEAU, Jean-Jacques. ''Letter to Beaumont, Letters Written from the Mountain, and Related Writings''. .Editor: Univ Pr of New England; 2002; ISBN 1584651644 .</ref> Soon he returned to France, where he wandered in poverty until his death in 1778.
 
====Jean-Charles-Léonard Simonde de Sismondi, 1773-1842====
 
[http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/sismondi.htm '''Jean-Charles-Léonard Simonde de Sismondi'''] was a French historian, an early socialist and great rival of [http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/say.htm Jean-Baptiste Say] and the [http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/schools/frenchlib.htm French Liberal School.  Sismondi was against the capitalist industrial system, which he viewed as being detrimental to the interests of the poor and particularly prone to crisis brought by an insufficient general demand for goods. 
 
His underconsumption thesis was shared by [http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/malthus.htm Robert Malthus], and sparked off the [http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/essays/classic/glut.htm General Glut Controversy] of the 1820s where their theories were pitted against those of [http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/say.htm Say], [http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/ricardo.htm Ricardo] and the [http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/schools/ricardian.htm Classicals].
 
Sismondi wrote, among other books, [http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k89694m.notice ''Nouveaux principes d'économie politique ou De la richesse dans ses rapports avec la population''], [http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/sismondi/poliec ''Political Economy'' (1815)], [http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k61987t.notice ''Examen de la Constitution françoise'' (1815)]
 
===Utopian Socialism===
 
====St. Thomas More 1477-78? - 1535====
 
[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14689c.htm '''St. Thomas More'''], saint, knight, Lord Chancellor of England, author and martyr, was born in London, 7 February, 1477-78; executed at Tower Hill, 6 July, 1535.
 
Of his writings the most famous is the [http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/more/utopia-contents.html ''Utopia''] <ref name=UTOPIA>[http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/more/utopia-contents.html MORE, St. Thomas. ''Utopia''. New York: Ideal Commonwealths. P.F. Collier & Son; The Colonial Press; 1901.<small> This book is in public domain;  Internet Wiretap; July 1993. Prepared by Kirk Crady (kcrady@polaris.cv.nrao.edu), first published in 1516</small>.]</ref>
 
The volume recounts the fictitious travels of one Raphael Hythlodaye, a mythical character, who, in the course of a voyage to America, was left behind near Cape Frio and thence wandered on till he chanced upon the ''Island of Utopia'' ("nowhere") in which he found an ideal constitution in operation.
 
The whole work is really an exercise of the imagination with much brilliant satire upon the world of More's own day. Real persons, such as Peter Giles, Cardinal Morton, and More himself, take part in the dialogue with Hythlodaye, so that an air of reality pervades the whole which leaves the reader sadly puzzled to detect where truth ends and fiction begins, and has led not a few to take the book seriously. But this is precisely what More intended, and there can be no doubt that he would have been delighted at entrapping William Morris, who discovered in it a complete gospel of Socialism; or Cardinal Zigliara, who denounced it as "no less foolish than impious"; as he must have been with his own contemporaries who proposed to hire a ship and send out missionaries to his non-existent island. The book ran through a number of editions in the original Latin version and, within a few years, was translated into German, Italian, French, Dutch, Spanish, and English.
 
A collected edition of More's English works was published by William Rastell, his nephew, at London in 1557; it has never been reprinted and is now rare and costly. The first collected edition of the Latin Works appeared at Basle in 1563; a more complete collection was published at Louvain in 1565 and again in 1566. In 1689 the most complete edition of all appeared at Frankfort-on-Main, and Leipzig. Lakowski compiled a full bybliography of More's writtings, see: [http://extra.shu.ac.uk/emls/01-2/lakomore.html LAKOWSKI, Romuald Ian. ''A Bibliography of Thomas More's Utopia''; Early Modern Literary Studies 1.2 (1995): 6.1-10]
 
====John Locke, 1632-1704====
 
[http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/locke.htm '''John Locke'''] was an empiricist philosopher, [http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/schools/optimist.htm#natural natural law] social thinker and Whig political theorist, John Locke was nonetheless a rather traditional Mercantilist in his economics. Locke developed a ''theory of money'' in his 1692 ''Considerations'', after Child's promoted low interes rate.
 
Locke introduced the concept of ''"money as convention"'' as well as, following [http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/bodin.htm Bodin], the main elements of the [http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/essays/money/quantity.htm ''Quantity Theory of Money''], notably the concept of ''"velocity"''.
 
In his 1690 Treatises, he proposes a quite explicit ''labor theory of value''.  In his 1692 ''Consequences'', Locke adheres to a ''demand-based theory of value''. [http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/law.htm John Law (1705)] did much to clarify the confusion between them.
 
===Ricardian Socialism===
 
===Saint-Simonism===
 
===Revolutionary Anarcho-Socialism===
 
===Marxist Socialism===
 
===Young Hegelians and State Socialism===
 
===Christian Socialism===
 
===American Populists and Socialists===
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
==References==
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[[Category:CZ Live]]
[[Category:Economics Workgroup]]
[[Category:Sociology Workgroup]]
[[Category:Politics Workgroup]]

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Heterodox economics refers to a relatively small but growing movement among economists who are seeking to gain acceptance of their ideas into mainstream economic thinking and scholarly discourse. Thinkers within the movement seek to organize various economic traditions, including post-Keynesianism, old institutionalism, feminist, social, and Marxian and Austrian economics under its new umbrella, according to the movement's view of what such traditions hold in common. In doing so, the heterodox economics movement seeks to distinguish its conceptualizations from what it views as "mainstream economics", which the movement engages yet opposes on some fundamental concepts.