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Calvin and the Social Order in Early America: Moral Ideals and Transatlantic Empire

Mark Valeri

in John Calvin's American Legacy

This chapter explores the mixed history of Calvin’s influence on economic mores and practices in early America. It retraces Calvin’s ideal for economic discipline over the emergent market in Geneva. ... More

This chapter explores the mixed history of Calvin’s influence on economic mores and practices in early America. It retraces Calvin’s ideal for economic discipline over the emergent market in Geneva. It shows how three different communities in colonial America transposed Calvinist ideals: Puritans in Boston, with their localized conceptions of social order; Dutch Reformed leaders in New York, with their urbane mercantile associations; and Huguenots in Charleston, with their dispersed social networks. Calvin promulgated a flexible and pragmatic approach to scripture that allowed his adherents to adapt economic instruction to the needs of their religious communities. Early American Calvinists followed this method when they transformed their teaching about commerce and the nascent market economy in the context of colonization. Throughout, this chapter challenges how the Weber thesis has been misapplied to the American context.Less

The Priceless Child Revisited

Viviana A. Zelizer

in Economic Lives: How Culture Shapes the Economy

This chapter presents a view of what is happening to children in our own times. It examines children's current economic value with a different slant. It lays out a framework for understanding two ... More

This chapter presents a view of what is happening to children in our own times. It examines children's current economic value with a different slant. It lays out a framework for understanding two other persistent questions: (1) When and why does thinking about children's productive activities make us uncomfortable? (2) In what ways do children generate immediate economic value but also contribute to their own financial, human, social, and cultural capital as well as that of their families and communities? Drawing mostly from household carework and immigrant enterprises, the chapter focuses on children's economic practices. It reveals the impressive variety of children's labor and illustrates the crucial contributions that children make to the maintenance of adult-run enterprises.Less

“I Do Solemnly Swear”

George F. DeMartino

in The Economist’s Oath: On the Need for and Content of Professional Economic Ethics

This chapter discusses the idea of a professional economic oath of ethics and whether such an oath exists. The chapter finds this lack interesting and explains in detail why this is so. Economics ... More

This chapter discusses the idea of a professional economic oath of ethics and whether such an oath exists. The chapter finds this lack interesting and explains in detail why this is so. Economics appears to operate on the presumption that the answer to the ethical questions that arise in economic practice are so obvious that they require no sustained attention. The chapter concludes that the economics profession faces an obligation to examine the ethical substance of its practice. A properly specified professional economics ethics would improve conduct not through legislation but through careful attention to the complex responsibilities that attend the economist's influence.Less

Economics in Practice: What Do Economists Do?

George F. DeMartino

in The Economist’s Oath: On the Need for and Content of Professional Economic Ethics

Where do economists work, and what do they do? The absence of licensing or certification of economists implies that there is no full mapping of the profession. This chapter begins to provide that ... More

Where do economists work, and what do they do? The absence of licensing or certification of economists implies that there is no full mapping of the profession. This chapter begins to provide that mapping, drawing on official government statistics, interviews and other sources. The mapping reveals the vast array of economists’ assignments and responsibilities in academia, the public and private sectors, non-governmental organizations and the multilateral agencies. While leadership of the profession (and its most prestigious associations) falls to academic economists, the majority of all economists are found outside of the university. Even this cursory survey of economists’ work begins to reveal the ethical quandaries that they face as they attempt to meet their professional responsibilities.Less

Agriculture, Conflict, and the Maintenance of Stable Social Relations

Kees van der Spek

in The Modern Neighbors of Tutankhamun: History, Life, and Work in the Villages of the Theban West Bank

Although, archaeological work for the Supreme Council of Antiquities is government employment, the nature of Qurnawi economics for those so employed is one that combines formal with informal ... More

Although, archaeological work for the Supreme Council of Antiquities is government employment, the nature of Qurnawi economics for those so employed is one that combines formal with informal money-earning activities. Even where such formal government work is not related to archaeology, informal aspects may still be present However, for many Qurnawi to identify themselves in the first instance as farmers, confirms that which escaped most of the early European visitors, namely the inherently agricultural quality of west bank subsistence. This chapter provides a discussion of Qurnawi agricultural practice that must be offered before considering Qurnawi involvement in archaeology. It aims to establish the variety of ways in which agricultural pursuits continue to form part of the range of economic practices to which Qurnawi in the Theban foothills have access.Less

Introduction

Derek J. Penslar

in Shylock's Children: Economics and Jewish Identity in Modern Europe

This chapter discusses gentile perceptions of Jewish economic difference that were usually hostile, at times admiring, but always influential in the shaping of government policies toward Jews and ... More

This chapter discusses gentile perceptions of Jewish economic difference that were usually hostile, at times admiring, but always influential in the shaping of government policies toward Jews and social interaction between Jews and Gentiles. Throughout much of European history, Jews concentrated in certain occupations and displayed particular characteristics in the practice of their livelihoods and the spending of their earning. The chapter analyzes Jewish response to Gentile critiques of Jewish economic behavior and, more broadly, Jewish thinking about the relationship between Judaism and economic practice. The history of Jewish social policy is a largely unexplored subject, but its intellectual underpinnings are even more poorly understood: not merely feelings of compassion, obligation or anxiety, but also visions of a Jewish political economy, speculation about the nature of Jewish economic difference, and contemplation of the role of economic factors in the shaping of Jewish existence.Less

Archaeology and Townley-Read's Economy: Faunal Remains, Red Stone, and Alcohol Bottles

Kurt A. Jordan

in The Seneca Restoration, 1715–1754: An Iroquois Local Political Economy

This chapter uses archaeological evidence to examine the Seneca local political economy at Townley-Read in terms of animal use (for both subsistence purposes and the fur trade), involvement as ... More

This chapter uses archaeological evidence to examine the Seneca local political economy at Townley-Read in terms of animal use (for both subsistence purposes and the fur trade), involvement as geographic middlemen, and access to alcohol. Although these issues are crucial to the interpretation of eighteenth-century Seneca history, the Europeans viewed Seneca local economic practices only infrequently. Even when European observers took pen to paper, they did not document these issues with the level of detail needed for the interpretation of short-term local political economies. Archaeology provides a crucial missing piece in scholarly reconstructions, and the Townley-Read evidence demonstrates that local economic practices, either unseen by or of little interest to Europeans, could be quite different from what contemporary observers and subsequent scholars imagined them to be.Less

Conceptual frameworks: towards geographies of alternative education

Peter Kraftl

in Geographies of alternative education: Diverse learning spaces for children and young people

This chapter introduces the key conceptual frameworks that are deployed and developed in the book. It begins by situating the book within recent geographies of education and childhood, ... More

This chapter introduces the key conceptual frameworks that are deployed and developed in the book. It begins by situating the book within recent geographies of education and childhood, sub-disciplinary concerns that form the immediate context for this book and my own research. It then highlights three theoretical strands that inform the analysis and which each defy simple labels: ‘radical’ theories of education, informal education, and alternative education; diverse economic and autonomous geographies; nonrepresentational geographies and the politics of life-itself. Cross-reference to longer-standing work on sociologies of education and education studies is also made throughout this chapter. Attention is also paid to critiques of ‘radical’ and alternative education approaches.Less

‘All That is Solid Melts into Air’: Phantom Fortune and the Ghosts of Capitalism

Saverio Tomaiuolo

in In Lady Audley's Shadow: Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Victorian Literary Genres

This chapter considers the Phantom Fortune, centring on imperialist and colonial issues, and addresses the questions that are raised by capitalistic economic practices during late Victorian Britain. ... More

This chapter considers the Phantom Fortune, centring on imperialist and colonial issues, and addresses the questions that are raised by capitalistic economic practices during late Victorian Britain. It views Phantom Fortune as another attempt to go beyond the Lady Audley paradigm, and to refresh Braddon’s narrative using the influence of French realism. The chapter reveals Braddon’s affiliation to Marx, and views Phantom Fortune as a model of Braddon’s wide and prolific career.Less

Introduction

in A History of Trust in Ancient Greece

This introductory chapter discusses the theme of this volume which is about the history of trust in Greece during classical and early Hellenistic periods, roughly the fifth and fourth centuries bce. ... More

This introductory chapter discusses the theme of this volume which is about the history of trust in Greece during classical and early Hellenistic periods, roughly the fifth and fourth centuries bce. This volume moves from economic practices to politics in the analysis of trust and systems. It examines Greek practices and discourses related to the issues of haggling, valuing, and apportioning liability.Less

Towards the ‘good life’: alternative visions of learning, love and life-itself

Peter Kraftl

in Geographies of alternative education: Diverse learning spaces for children and young people

The argument of this chapter is that alternative learning spaces offer alternative versions and visions of life-itself. That is, they do not just proffer alternative approaches to education, but to ... More

The argument of this chapter is that alternative learning spaces offer alternative versions and visions of life-itself. That is, they do not just proffer alternative approaches to education, but to the very thinking and doing of life. This argument is inspired by a trans-disciplinary series of thinkers who have propounded distinct but overlapping theories of life-itself. Their theories have, in some circles, come to be termed ‘vital materialisms’ – inspired by poststructural theories of materiality, diverse economic practices, and ongoing developments in biology, neuroscience and social psychology. Significantly, these theorists say little about education, explicitly. Using extended empirical evidence from alternative learning spaces, the chapter explores how the social and the biological are interwoven in the constitution of autonomy as something that is more-than-social and collaborative. An emphasis on the biological and material represents a departure from previous theorisations of autonomy. The chapter also examines how alternative educators are intimately involved with other attempts to live life differently – from local food networks to (inter)national developments in sustainable building. Thus, the chapter closes by understanding some alternative learning spaces as utopian – but in ways that are more obdurate than the prefigurative, experimental utopias favoured by poststructural utopian theorists.Less