The Worldly Philosophers and The Economic Revolution

Explaining the rise to capitalism as a change in social attitudes is an argument I am entirely unfamiliar with.  Reading this chapter revealed my total ignorance to the context of capitalism's birth. The fact that wealth has for most of history been derided and propriety has been defined by the modesty of destitution is one of those important facts that needs to learned by any scholar looking to understand the history of economics. It truly was a backward system, yet back then the idea of the "market system" was entirely novel. Even today there are those who criticize the existence of a free market, calling it heartless and exploitative. Given this new context, an argument could be made that these are outmoded mindsets influenced by the pull of tradition. The concept that medieval society could not understand capital, land, and labor as philosophical entities defining an abstract market perfectly captured the ignorance of the period, even though today we take this concept for granted.

Due to my lack of historical knowledge on this subject, it is hard to disagree with the conclusions the author reaches. However, through analysis, it does seem to make sense. The Earth is assumed as a constant; over the thousands of years of recorded history, it has been largely similar. So humans are the main variable. Now, what could have changed in us to cause the Industrial Revolution? Well, it could have been a few things. First is an increase in intelligence that allowed for innovation. This makes sense, but brilliant inventors had been around for centuries before the IR. Think of Leonardo da Vinci, the Ancient Romans and their Aqueducts, Alexander the Great, Archimedes. Intelligence was not unique to the 20th century. So an argument that we were just smarter is probably off-base. The other most common argument is that things just happened to come together then, due to years of unseen progress which culminated in the Industrial Revolution. Why at that moment in history though? Nothing had changed for hundreds of years. We were poor before, and poor at the time of the IR. By process of elimination, since the other reasons don't hold up to scrutiny, I would argue that the driving factor behind the Revolution was certainly a change in mindset, counter-intuitive as it may seem. So I agree with the author's analysis.

Professor Rizzo said that one of the most important reasons for studying economics was the sense of wonder it provides. This was a reading that proved his point.

Questions:

1. How was the rise of the free-market system an inevitability?

2. What system comes after the free-market system? If a book is written like this hundreds of years in the future, how will they look back on our capitalist society?

3. Was the change in attitude towards wealth a revelation of theory or a revealing of human nature?

Main Ideas:

1. People haven't always sought wealth. The idea of gain is a relatively new one, and for most of history has been reviled.

2. The rise of capitalism was influenced heavily by a change in social attitude towards economic growth. This allowed for the material gains and material inventions that defined the Industrial Revolution.

3. Economics is a new field.

4. Human unpredictability makes for a society based on astoundingly fragile foundations, which can collapse if not treated carefully. A fear of this collapse creates the need for economics.