Theological Revolution and the Idea of Equality

2021 ◽  
pp. 237-272
Author(s):  
Jon D. Wisman
Keyword(s):  
Economic Surplus ◽  
Commercial Society ◽  
Agricultural Society ◽  
Social Treatment ◽  
Ready Access ◽  
New Institutions ◽  
Means Of Production ◽  
A Share ◽  
Ownership Control

The transition in Europe from a predominantly agricultural society dominated by a landed aristocracy to an emerging commercial one with an expanding bourgeoisie gave birth to a reformulated expression of Christianity whose doctrines could better legitimate the new institutions and practices of commercial society. Whereas Catholicism provided an ideology that justified the landlords’ capture of economic surplus, Protestantism legitimated the emerging bourgeoisie’s ability to do the same. Protestantism’s privileging of work and asceticism afforded social respectability to the bourgeoisie and ideological support for its capturing a share of society’s surplus. It gave legitimacy to the harsh social treatment of a rising class of wage workers who had been separated from any ownership, control, or ready access to the means of production. Protestantism served as a transitional religion between a traditional agricultural world dominated by Catholic doctrine and a more modern commercial one dominated by secular thought.

scholarly journals The eighteenth-century historiographic tradition and contemporary ‘Everyday IPE’

2012 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
MATTHEW WATSON
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Moral Autonomy ◽  
Economic Surplus ◽  
Commercial Society ◽  
Sympathetic Response ◽  
Historical Method ◽  
Economic Man ◽  
Recent Phase ◽  
Modern Economic ◽  
The Individual

AbstractThis article focuses on Adam Smith's largely sympathetic response to the Rousseauian critique of the moral degeneracy of modern ‘economic man’. It thus emphasises his philosophical ambivalence towards commercial society over the textbook IPE presentations which ascribe to him an almost wholly unreflexive market advocacy. In doing so it provides important methodological lessons for the study of Everyday IPE today. Arnaldo Momigliano has identified a decisive break in historical method in the eighteenth century, of which Smith and Rousseau were key exponents. However unwittingly, contemporary Everyday IPE scholars are the spiritual heirs of the eighteenth-century move from writing public histories of the state to writing private histories of unnamed individuals who embody the most recent phase of human sociability. The eighteenth-century economic man was conceptualised in relation to evolving forms of economic organisation, where the economy in turn was thought to reflect the prevailing system of ‘manners’. Smith united with Rousseau in the belief that their society's bourgeois politeness allowed materialist ideologies to corrupt the moral autonomy of the individual. The historical method underpinning such concerns also allows Everyday IPE scholars to ground similarly-styled attempts to understand threats to moral autonomy arising from the struggle over economic surplus today.

Phase Model of Market Economy

2005 ◽  
pp. 41-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Yegorenkov ◽  
E. Kazakova ◽  
M. Starodubtseva
Keyword(s):  
Market Economy ◽  
Consumer Goods ◽  
Imperfect Competition ◽  
Phase Model ◽  
Status Change ◽  
Means Of Production

The phase model of market economy is suggested in the article. It is formalized in the cubical equation The equation takes into account the imperfections of competition and the fact that consumer goods are produced with the help of means of production. Transitions from the imperfect competition to the perfect one and visa versa yield qualitative status change of market economy.

Adam Ferguson and the Idea of Civil Society

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Smith
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
Commercial Society ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
The University

Adam Ferguson was a Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and a leading member of the Scottish Enlightenment. A friend of David Hume and Adam Smith, Ferguson was among the leading exponents of the Scottish Enlightenment’s attempts to develop a science of man and was among the first in the English speaking world to make use of the terms civilization, civil society, and political science. This book challenges many of the prevailing assumptions about Ferguson’s thinking. It explores how Ferguson sought to create a methodology for moral science that combined empirically based social theory with normative moralising with a view to supporting the virtuous education of the British elite. The Ferguson that emerges is far from the stereotyped image of a nostalgic republican sceptical about modernity, and instead is one much closer to the mainstream Scottish Enlightenment’s defence of eighteenth century British commercial society.

Legitimation of Private Property in the Means of Production in Ukraine

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 64-87
Author(s):  
Volodymyr Reznik ◽  
Oleksandr Reznik
Keyword(s):  
Private Property ◽  
Psychological Adaptation ◽  
Social Recognition ◽  
Private Enterprises ◽  
Private Land ◽  
National Academy Of Sciences ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Basic Hypothesis ◽  
Ideological Attitudes ◽  
Means Of Production

This article explores the sources of legitimacy of private property in the means of production in Ukraine. The conceptualization of legitimacy of private property was made by analyzing theoretical approaches to the study of the foundations of private property relations in Western countries. The application of these approaches tests economic utilitarian, psychological, and sociocultural explanations of legitimacy of large and small private enterprises and private land in the process of activation of post-communist transition of Ukrainian society. The basic hypothesis was that the process of legitimation of private property in the means of production proceeds by uniting utilitarian and psychological adaptation with sociocultural agreement of ideological attitudes. This hypothesis was verified with the help of created legitimacy indices by comparison of linear regressions and data of the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) of Ukraine for 2013 and 2017. The results indicate that the hypothesis has been held true only concerning legitimacy of small private enterprises. They have acquired a moderate extent of legitimacy owing to the fact that besides the factors of adaptation, social recognition has increased at the expense of people who support the multiparty system and the liberal and mixed methods of regulation of the economy. In contrast, the existence of large private enterprises and private land has not acquired the corresponding sociocultural foundation.

Social inequality in the evolution of human societies

2019 ◽  
pp. 98-120
Author(s):  
Georgi Derluguian
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequality ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Mass Violence ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Tangible Assets ◽  
Transition To Agriculture ◽  
New Institutions ◽  
High Level ◽  
Political Economic

The author develops ideas about the origin of social inequality during the evolution of human societies and reflects on the possibilities of its overcoming. What makes human beings different from other primates is a high level of egalitarianism and altruism, which contributed to more successful adaptability of human collectives at early stages of the development of society. The transition to agriculture, coupled with substantially increasing population density, was marked by the emergence and institutionalisation of social inequality based on the inequality of tangible assets and symbolic wealth. Then, new institutions of warfare came into existence, and they were aimed at conquering and enslaving the neighbours engaged in productive labour. While exercising control over nature, people also established and strengthened their power over other people. Chiefdom as a new type of polity came into being. Elementary forms of power (political, economic and ideological) served as a basis for the formation of early states. The societies in those states were characterised by social inequality and cruelties, including slavery, mass violence and numerous victims. Nowadays, the old elementary forms of power that are inherent in personalistic chiefdom are still functioning along with modern institutions of public and private bureaucracy. This constitutes the key contradiction of our time, which is the juxtaposition of individual despotic power and public infrastructural one. However, society is evolving towards an ever more efficient combination of social initiatives with the sustainability and viability of large-scale organisations.

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