scholarly journals Virtue, Production, and the Politics of Commerce: Genovesi’s “Civil Economy” Revisited

2019 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 703-729
Author(s):  
Adrian Pabst ◽  
Roberto Scazzieri
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Political ◽  
External Trade ◽  
Stage Of Development ◽  
Civil Economy ◽  
Specific Stage ◽  
Wealth Of Nations

Antonio Genovesi’s economic-political treatise on civil economy was a major contribution to debates in the mid-and late eighteenth century on the nature of political economy. At that time, Genovesi’s book was extensively translated and discussed across continental Europe and Latin America, where it was read as a foundational text of political economy similar to Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. The aim of this article is to contribute to the analysis of the mutual implication between the economic and the political order of society by revisiting Genovesi’s theory of civil economy, which he defined as “the political science of the economy and commerce.” First, the article retraces Genovesi’s conception of civil economy as a branch of political science and the role of “virtue” in ordering the polity according to “the nature of the world.” Second, it explores Genovesi’s theory of production as an inquiry into the proportionality conditions that productive activities should meet for a well-functioning polity to persist over time. Third, our argument emphasizes the importance of Genovesi’s analysis of production structures for his theory of internal and foreign trade. In this connection, the paper investigates Genovesi’s idea that the maintenance of a country’s “trading fund” should be the fundamental objective for its internal and external trade policies. These policies, according to Genovesi, should be consistent with the context of the body politic under consideration and the economy’s proportionality requirements for any specific stage of development.

CHINAMPAAGRICULTURE, SURPLUS PRODUCTION, AND POLITICAL CHANGE AT XALTOCAN, MEXICO

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 183-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher T. Morehart
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Total Population ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Political ◽  
Potential Productivity ◽  
Surplus Production ◽  
Full Production

AbstractThis article examines the productivity of agriculture at the Postclassic polity of Xaltocan, Mexico. Employing multiple lines of data (remote sensing, artifactual, ecofactual, chronological, demographic, historic, ethnographic, and environmental), it reconstructs the potential productivity of an integrated raised field,chinampasystem that surrounded the polity. This exercise reveals that the system was capable of producing a sizeable caloric surplus above the needs of the kingdom's estimated total population and the number of laborers necessary to maintain full production. To situate the processes related to agricultural production, the paper considers how farmers’ strategies were articulated with multiple institutions. Increased integration between political, social, and household institutions possibly fostered residents’ incorporation into the body politic and provided mechanisms to finance the political economy. Such integration and dependency fractured, however, when Xaltocan was conquered.

Class Politics, American-Style

2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 659-662 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Waddell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Political Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Rich ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Winner Take All ◽  
Take All

Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson's Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class is both a work of political science and a contribution to broad public discussion of distributive politics. Its topic could not be more relevant to a US polity wracked by bitter partisan disagreements about taxes, social spending, financial regulation, social insecurity, and inequality. The political power of “the rich” is a theme of widespread public attention. The headline on the cover of the January–February 2011 issue of The American Interest—“Inequality and Democracy: Are Plutocrats Drowning Our Republic?”—is indicative. Francis Fukuyama's lead essay, entitled “Left Out,” clarifies that by “plutocracy,” the journal means “not just rule by the rich, but rule by and for the rich. We mean, in other words, a state of affairs in which the rich influence government in such a way as to protect and expand their own wealth and influence, often at the expense of others.” Fukuyama makes clear that he believes that this state of affairs obtains in the United States today.Readers of Perspectives on Politics will know that the topic has garnered increasing attention from political scientists in general and in our journal in particular. In March 2009, we featured a symposium on Larry Bartels's Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. And in December 2009, our lead article, by Jeffrey A. Winters and Benjamin I. Page, starkly posed the question “Oligarchy in the United States?” and answered it with an equally stark “yes.” Winner-Take-All Politics thus engages a broader scholarly discussion within US political science, at the same time that it both draws upon and echoes many “classic themes” of US political science from the work of Charles Beard and E. E. Schattschneider to Ted Lowi and Charles Lindblom.In this symposium, we have brought together a group of important scholars and commentators who offer a range of perspectives on the book and on the broader themes it engages. While most of our discussants are specialists on “American politics,” we have also sought out scholars beyond this subfield. Our charge to the discussants is to evaluate the book's central claims and evidence, with a focus on three related questions: 1) How compelling is its analysis of the “how” and “why” of recent US public policy and its “turn” in favor of “the rich” and against “the middle class”? 2) How compelling is its critique of the subfield of “American politics” for its focus on the voter–politician linkage and on “politics as spectacle” at the expense of an analysis of “politics as organized combat”? 3) And do you agree with its argument that recent changes in US politics necessitate a different, more comparative, and more political economy–centered approach to the study of US politics?—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

scholarly journals Sorismo en el contexto del geunismo

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandro Sánchez-Seco López
Keyword(s):  
Great Recession ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Political ◽  
Efficient Markets ◽  
Efficient Markets Hypothesis ◽  
Economic Philosophy ◽  
The One ◽  
Regulatory Proposals ◽  
Economic Globalisation

En el contexto de una obra mucho más amplia y en ciernes, que propone como único sistema plenamente legítimo aquél cuyo cuerpo político viene constituido por la totalidad de habitantes del planeta, es conveniente traer a colación la filosofía política y económica de George Soros, porque aporta una visión muy diferente a la aplicada por los endiosados economistas que no supieron ver con antelación la Gran Recesión global en la que seguimos inmersos. La relación entre la realidad y el pensamiento es clave en el sorismo, como también lo es la distinción entre los diversos tipos de ciencias. La hipótesis de la eficiencia en los mercados también es cuestionada, junto con el concepto de equilibrio en economía, la incertidumbre y la falibilidad. También se acomete la crítica del fundamentalismo de mercado y a las propuestas regulatorias. Y todo en el contexto de una globalización económica poco política.Within the context of a much wider and developing piece proposing as only fully legitimate system the one the body politic of which is composed of the totality of inhabitants on the planet, it is convenient to bring to us the political and economic philosophy of George Soros for it adds a very different vision to that applied by the deified economists who could not in advance see the global Great Recession in which we keep on living. The relation between reality and thought is key within Sorism, as it is the distinction amongst the several kinds of sciences. The Efficient Markets Hypothesis is also put into question side by side with the concept of equilibrium in Economics, uncertainty, and fallibility. The critique of market fundamentalism is also implemented as well as the regulatory proposals. And all of it taking place within the context of a scarcely political but very economic globalisation.

Outliving the Republic

2020 ◽  
pp. 77-100
Author(s):  
Brian Walters
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Republic

Chapter 4 examines claims in republican oratory and letters that the body politic was dead, dying, or would have died, if not for some timely intervention. To some degree, invocations of the republic’s death overlap with the images of wounding and disease explored in earlier chapters, to which at least a few are directly connected. The suggestion of urgency and permanence and the complex emotional resonances evoked by death, however, also often impart meanings of their own. References to the body politic’s demise are particularly common not only in invective but also in consolatory contexts, as Cicero’s letters to and from friends in the period of the civil wars (from 49 to 45 BCE) and Caesar’s dictatorship poignantly show. Common assumptions that Rome’s republic ought to have been undying lent further significance to statements about the political body’s death.

Turning Vanity Fair into The Cœlestial City: England’s Legal Narratives of the Body Politic from Bunyan to Thackeray

Pólemos ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-145
Author(s):  
Matteo Nicolini
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Strong Influence ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Political ◽  
Constitutional History ◽  
Vanity Fair ◽  
Legal Narratives ◽  
English Constitutional History

Abstract The article addresses the different narratives that characterize English constitutional history. It first examines the mainstream narrative, i. e., the retrospective reading of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century constitutional events dispensed by jurists and politicians in an attempt to pack the Establishment Constitution. It then focuses on the alternative legal narratives about the Constitution elaborated during the Civil War and the Restoration. Among them, it ascertains John Bunyan’s impact on the Establishment Constitution. Bunyan was a member of the New Model Army, a radical, and a Puritan who ended up in prison. Despite this background, he exerted a strong influence on Victorian society and on Thackeray’s representation of the body politic. As a consequence, Bunyan entered the political discourse in the first half of the nineteenth century when politicians started to reform English representative institutions, and therefore became part of the Establishment Constitution.

scholarly journals The Law of Nature in Locke's Second Treatise: Is Locke a Hobbesian?

1987 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Coby
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Civil Justice ◽  
Natural Justice ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Law

The question addressed by this essay is whether Thomas Hobbes is the true intellectual forebear of John Locke. A brief comparison of the teachings of these two authors with respect to natural justice and civil justice would seem to suggest that Locke is a determined adversary of Hobbes whose views on justice are reducible to the maxim that “might makes right.” But a reexamination of Locke's Second Treatise shows that Locke adopts this principle with hardly less thoroughness than Hobbes. Even so, an important difference remains, for Locke takes steps to disguise the grim reality of power, whereas Hobbes makes the enlightenment of people the sine qua non of his political science. Locke's departure from Hobbes is seen as an attempt to instill in the body politic a degree of justice that would not otherwise exist.

scholarly journals Class Politics, American-Style

2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 654-658 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas Pontusson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Political Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Rich ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Winner Take All ◽  
Take All

Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson'sWinner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—And Turned Its Back on the Middle Classis both a work of political science and a contribution to broad public discussion of distributive politics. Its topic could not be more relevant to a US polity wracked by bitter partisan disagreements about taxes, social spending, financial regulation, social insecurity, and inequality. The political power of “the rich” is a theme of widespread public attention. The headline on the cover of the January–February 2011 issue ofThe American Interest—“Inequality and Democracy: Are Plutocrats Drowning Our Republic?”—is indicative. Francis Fukuyama's lead essay, entitled “Left Out,” clarifies that by “plutocracy,” the journal means “not just rule by the rich, but rule by and for the rich. We mean, in other words, a state of affairs in which the rich influence government in such a way as to protect and expand their own wealth and influence, often at the expense of others.” Fukuyama makes clear that he believes that this state of affairs obtains in the United States today.Readers ofPerspectives on Politicswill know that the topic has garnered increasing attention from political scientists in general and in our journal in particular. In March 2009, we featured a symposium on Larry Bartels'sUnequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. And in December 2009, our lead article, by Jeffrey A. Winters and Benjamin I. Page, starkly posed the question “Oligarchy in the United States?” and answered it with an equally stark “yes.”Winner-Take-All Politicsthus engages a broader scholarly discussion within US political science, at the same time that it both draws upon and echoes many “classic themes” of US political science from the work of Charles Beard and E. E. Schattschneider to Ted Lowi and Charles Lindblom.In this symposium, we have brought together a group of important scholars and commentators who offer a range of perspectives on the book and on the broader themes it engages. While most of our discussants are specialists on “American politics,” we have also sought out scholars beyond this subfield. Our charge to the discussants is to evaluate the book's central claims and evidence, with a focus on three related questions: 1) How compelling is its analysis of the “how” and “why” of recent US public policy and its “turn” in favor of “the rich” and against “the middle class”? 2) How compelling is its critique of the subfield of “American politics” for its focus on the voter–politician linkage and on “politics as spectacle” at the expense of an analysis of “politics as organized combat”? 3) And do you agree with its argument that recent changes in US politics necessitate a different, more comparative, and more political economy–centered approach to the study of US politics?—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

Class Politics, American-Style

2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 648-651
Author(s):  
Jodi Dean
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Political Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Rich ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Winner Take All ◽  
Take All

Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson's Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class is both a work of political science and a contribution to broad public discussion of distributive politics. Its topic could not be more relevant to a US polity wracked by bitter partisan disagreements about taxes, social spending, financial regulation, social insecurity, and inequality. The political power of “the rich” is a theme of widespread public attention. The headline on the cover of the January–February 2011 issue of The American Interest—“Inequality and Democracy: Are Plutocrats Drowning Our Republic?”—is indicative. Francis Fukuyama's lead essay, entitled “Left Out,” clarifies that by “plutocracy,” the journal means “not just rule by the rich, but rule by and for the rich. We mean, in other words, a state of affairs in which the rich influence government in such a way as to protect and expand their own wealth and influence, often at the expense of others.” Fukuyama makes clear that he believes that this state of affairs obtains in the United States today.Readers of Perspectives on Politics will know that the topic has garnered increasing attention from political scientists in general and in our journal in particular. In March 2009, we featured a symposium on Larry Bartels's Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. And in December 2009, our lead article, by Jeffrey A. Winters and Benjamin I. Page, starkly posed the question “Oligarchy in the United States?” and answered it with an equally stark “yes.” Winner-Take-All Politics thus engages a broader scholarly discussion within US political science, at the same time that it both draws upon and echoes many “classic themes” of US political science from the work of Charles Beard and E. E. Schattschneider to Ted Lowi and Charles Lindblom.In this symposium, we have brought together a group of important scholars and commentators who offer a range of perspectives on the book and on the broader themes it engages. While most of our discussants are specialists on “American politics,” we have also sought out scholars beyond this subfield. Our charge to the discussants is to evaluate the book's central claims and evidence, with a focus on three related questions: 1) How compelling is its analysis of the “how” and “why” of recent US public policy and its “turn” in favor of “the rich” and against “the middle class”? 2) How compelling is its critique of the subfield of “American politics” for its focus on the voter–politician linkage and on “politics as spectacle” at the expense of an analysis of “politics as organized combat”? 3) And do you agree with its argument that recent changes in US politics necessitate a different, more comparative, and more political economy–centered approach to the study of US politics?—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

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