Cambridge Realist Workshop 26th February
Next up at the Cambridge Realist Workshop on Monday February 26 is
Margaret Schabas who is head of the Philosophy Department at the
University British Columbia. Margaret’s talk is entitled:
“The Natural Origins of Economics”
There is no paper but I append below the abstract of her recent book with
the same title.
As usual, the talk starts at 8pm, but drinks are available from 7:30 pm
NB the programme for the term and directions to the seminar room in which
we meet can be obtained from the following site:
we meet can be obtained from the following site:
http://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/seminars/realist/workshop_programme.htm
Best regards
Tony Lawson
Schabus Abstract
What motivated the belief that there are laws in the economy, or that the
phenomena could be studied scientifically? The simple answer is that in
the eighteenth century, when the discourse of economics gained its
identity, wealth was treated as a physical process and thus governed by
natural principles. Only over the course of about one hundred years did
economic theory undergo a process of denaturalization, though the process
was gradual and left incomplete.
This work traces the emergence and transformation of economics in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries from a natural to a social science,
chronicling economists’ retreat from appeals to natural processes toward
the recognition of the critical importance of social institutions in
structuring the economy. John Stuart Mill was in many respects the key
figure for this transformation.. One important consequence of this shift
is the belief that the economy can be controlled and stabilized by
monetary or fiscal measures and is thus under human sovereignty.
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