The political theology of "Laissez-Faire": from "Philia" to self-love in commercial society
This essay examines the neglected theological origins of early economic discourse. Against accounts emphasizing the secular and scientific foundations of classical political economy, I examine the origins of economic thought in religious debates concerning the nature of human love and divine grace....
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic/Print Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group
[2016]
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| In: |
Political theology
Year: 2016, Volume: 17, Issue: 5, Pages: 417-433 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Economics
/ Political theology
/ Free enterprise
/ Self-love
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| RelBib Classification: | FD Contextual theology NBE Anthropology NCD Political ethics NCE Business ethics ZA Social sciences |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | This essay examines the neglected theological origins of early economic discourse. Against accounts emphasizing the secular and scientific foundations of classical political economy, I examine the origins of economic thought in religious debates concerning the nature of human love and divine grace. Specifically, the theorization of what was called "commercial society" in the eighteenth-century depended upon two general theoretical innovations, each of which began in the post-Hobbesian social contract tradition. The first was a conception of the oeconomy understood as a domain of non-political "society," based on pre-political property relations and sub-political voluntary associations of a primarily commercial variety, reflecting divinely ordained social progress. The second was the transformation of the ancient concept of philia to stress the self-love underlying all human relationships and the necessary role of divine grace in generating social integration. The idea that an “invisible” mechanism - the market functioning according to God's providential design - makes private vices conduce to public benefit promised an account of social order generated through essentially non-political processes based on a specific political theology. Tracing these ideas from their origins in theological debates through to their appropriation as core features in the analysis of commercial society takes us from a late seventeenth-century theological argument to the late eighteenth-century formalization of a secular model of sociability in classical political economy. In conclusion, I consider how aspects of this early political theology may remain implicit in the modern conception of economic rationality. |
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| ISSN: | 1462-317X |
| Reference: | Kritik in ""Love in a time of capital" (2016)"
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| Contains: | Enthalten in: Political theology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/1462317X.2016.1211287 |