James Halteman and Edd Noell
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199763702
- eISBN:
- 9780199932252
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199763702.003.0006
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Financial Economics
Heterodox economics presents alternative critical explanations for the driving forces behind capitalism. The chapter examines the distinctive moral reflections expressed by Karl Marx, Thorstein ...
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Heterodox economics presents alternative critical explanations for the driving forces behind capitalism. The chapter examines the distinctive moral reflections expressed by Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, and Friedrich Hayek. Marx’s historical materialism relies on dialectical reasoning to explain class struggle and economic change. His valuation of human autonomy, as ultimately manifested in communism, drives his moral critique of capitalism. Veblen’s understanding of the complex instincts underlying economic activity lays a path for more extensive incorporation of moral reflections in economics. Yet his evolutionary economics posits no final purpose in human economic activity. Hayek challenges the perfect information assumption of neoclassical economics, finding that competitive markets continually generate new information that creates disequilibrium. His reflections on the origins of moral codes and critique of collectivist planning affirm the superiority of the norm of liberty. The chapter concludes with the vignette “Karl Marx: Can a Materialist Produce a Moral Critique of Capitalism?”Less
Heterodox economics presents alternative critical explanations for the driving forces behind capitalism. The chapter examines the distinctive moral reflections expressed by Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, and Friedrich Hayek. Marx’s historical materialism relies on dialectical reasoning to explain class struggle and economic change. His valuation of human autonomy, as ultimately manifested in communism, drives his moral critique of capitalism. Veblen’s understanding of the complex instincts underlying economic activity lays a path for more extensive incorporation of moral reflections in economics. Yet his evolutionary economics posits no final purpose in human economic activity. Hayek challenges the perfect information assumption of neoclassical economics, finding that competitive markets continually generate new information that creates disequilibrium. His reflections on the origins of moral codes and critique of collectivist planning affirm the superiority of the norm of liberty. The chapter concludes with the vignette “Karl Marx: Can a Materialist Produce a Moral Critique of Capitalism?”
Zosia Halina Archibald
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199682119
- eISBN:
- 9780191762727
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199682119.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Archaeology: Classical
This chapter looks at the long-term changes in the various ecological zones of the north Aegean that provide the framework within which we can begin to understand the specific, medium-term changes ...
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This chapter looks at the long-term changes in the various ecological zones of the north Aegean that provide the framework within which we can begin to understand the specific, medium-term changes that occurred in the second half of the first millennium bc. The transformation of landscapes as a result of agricultural, pastoral, and mineralogical regimes is both a symptom and a product of conscious economic strategies. Animal husbandry provided traction and transport as well as dietary supplements, while textile manufacture, metallurgy, and ceramic technologies track the complex pattern of intra-regional exchange that made the region a distinctive one in the period under consideration. Thorstein Veblen's conviction that ‘the instinct of workmanship’has been a key driver of cultural and economic production is applied here in the context of east Balkan fashions and material preferences.Less
This chapter looks at the long-term changes in the various ecological zones of the north Aegean that provide the framework within which we can begin to understand the specific, medium-term changes that occurred in the second half of the first millennium bc. The transformation of landscapes as a result of agricultural, pastoral, and mineralogical regimes is both a symptom and a product of conscious economic strategies. Animal husbandry provided traction and transport as well as dietary supplements, while textile manufacture, metallurgy, and ceramic technologies track the complex pattern of intra-regional exchange that made the region a distinctive one in the period under consideration. Thorstein Veblen's conviction that ‘the instinct of workmanship’has been a key driver of cultural and economic production is applied here in the context of east Balkan fashions and material preferences.
Zosia Halina Archibald
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199682119
- eISBN:
- 9780191762727
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199682119.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Archaeology: Classical
Ancient economies, outside the Persian, and later, Roman empires, were unlike the economies of modern nation states. Transactions were conducted bilaterally, just like a face to face contract, so ...
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Ancient economies, outside the Persian, and later, Roman empires, were unlike the economies of modern nation states. Transactions were conducted bilaterally, just like a face to face contract, so exchanges led to the development of a dense network of agreements. This book explores the economic networks within a region framed by the Pindhos and Balkan mountain chains on the west and north, the Black Sea and the Bosporus to east and south, in the second half of the first millennium bc. The Greco-Persian wars, at the start of this period, triggered a process of political integration, as two dynastic powers, Macedon and Odrysian Thrace, expanded across this land mass, and whose progressive demise brought about by Roman military and political interventions culminated in economic integration with the Roman state, as represented in the implementation of the tax law of Asia, during the course of the first century bc. The chapters focus at least as much on preoccupations with workmanship, as they do on the lifestyles of leading fashionable circles, and the economic agents of the intervening centuries, such as merchants from Thasos, leather workers of civic centres of the interior, and metal smiths from various mountainous zones. Exchange is unthinkable without markets playing a key role, while animals must also be factored into the debate about travel and the intensity of traffic.Less
Ancient economies, outside the Persian, and later, Roman empires, were unlike the economies of modern nation states. Transactions were conducted bilaterally, just like a face to face contract, so exchanges led to the development of a dense network of agreements. This book explores the economic networks within a region framed by the Pindhos and Balkan mountain chains on the west and north, the Black Sea and the Bosporus to east and south, in the second half of the first millennium bc. The Greco-Persian wars, at the start of this period, triggered a process of political integration, as two dynastic powers, Macedon and Odrysian Thrace, expanded across this land mass, and whose progressive demise brought about by Roman military and political interventions culminated in economic integration with the Roman state, as represented in the implementation of the tax law of Asia, during the course of the first century bc. The chapters focus at least as much on preoccupations with workmanship, as they do on the lifestyles of leading fashionable circles, and the economic agents of the intervening centuries, such as merchants from Thasos, leather workers of civic centres of the interior, and metal smiths from various mountainous zones. Exchange is unthinkable without markets playing a key role, while animals must also be factored into the debate about travel and the intensity of traffic.
