![]() One contrast throughout these chapters is that of making up economic principles based on pre-existing notions of how things “should” be, often based on some religious or philosophic point of view, and describing formulating models and principles based on how economics works in actual practice. Augustine of Hippo, then makes a similar leap forward to examine the ideas of Saint Thomas Aquinas regarding moneylending - which, strange as it may sound today, were based on the idea that money was “barren” and hence charging interest on a loan was “unnatural”. He then jumps ahead about six centuries to visit the ideas of St. Kishtainy begins with Plato and Aristotle, noting how the former distrusted wealth (his philosopher kings were to share everything in common, including their children) while the latter embraced the concept of using money as a way to evaluate the value of goods (thus obviating the need for barter every time you want something). ![]() ![]() Fortunately, such is not the case with Niall Kishtainy’s A Little History of Economics, a breezy and entertaining stroll through the subject by means of 40 brief, self-contained chapters that provide a chronological overview of some of the central ideas of economics (including both ideas embraced by mainstream economists today, and ideas that have largely been discarded). If economics is truly the dismal science, then you might conclude that the history of economics must be a positively depressing topic for a book. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |