Modern economists claim that human beings must accept resource scarcity, especially in conditions of population growth. However, resources, as we have already argued, are only ever scarce in the short term. Over time, it is arguably the case that nature combined with human labour, ingenuity and creative production can generate an almost infinite flow of finite resources that help mankind meet real, objective needs and provide universal basic goods Ð food, shelter, health, education, friendship. Scarcity is nearly always something artificially engineered by both monopoly capital and the fabrica- tion of fake desires. Indeed, cartels and monopolies generate rents that accrue to the few while restricting genuinely free and fair competition that can help generate prosperity for the many.
The myth of scarce resources ultimately rests on a perverse moral philoso- phy that we owe to Thomas Malthus. Surveying the deprivation and struggle of the poor from the comfort of his vicarage in the late eighteenth century, he denounced what he saw as the greed of a Ôreckless rabbleÕ. That is why he attributed human vice to Ôthe constant pressure on man from the difficulty of subsistenceÕ,67 which is exacerbated by growing populations Ð hence the modern, neo-Malthusian tendency to control reproduction through state intervention and market incentives. Thus Malthus presented a vision of Ôman as he really is, inert, sluggish and averse from labour unless compelled by necessityÕ.68
So not, after all, so unlike Bernard de Mandeville before him, Malthus claimed that humans are naturally immoral and that, paradoxically, Ômoral evil is absolutely necessary to the production of moral excellenceÕ Ð another variant of the liberal logic of pessimism and necessity.69 But where the libidinised Huguenot Mandeville was content to see vice flourish to the end of common benefit, the prurient Low Church Anglican clergyman Malthus wished to promote a bourgeois version of heroic virtue in reaction to the spur of natural and moral evil. This spur was, above all, that of scarcity of resources, which was supposed to teach by fearful example the puritanical need for thrift, self-discipline and sexual continence. It is partly in conse- quence of this dual Calvinistic legacy of double predestination to both the festively diabolic and the dismally divine that the modern economy must demand at once an unnaturally excessive hedonism and yet a tight restraint of all our natural desires.70
So what is in question is human nature. Like liberal political thought, modern economics assumes that mankind is fundamentally selfish and indif- ferent to mutual recognition or the public good, even if Mandevillian vice can be tempered by the pursuit of rational self-interest. Adam Smith, indeed, embedded his market in networks of social sympathy, but this embedding was limited by a double distrust. First, in the human ability to extend virtue beyond the Ôthick tiesÕ of family relations and friendship,71 and second, in human association, which Smith claims nearly always leads to the vice of corruption.72 For Smith, both markets and states ought to be amoral and neu- tral because only the pursuit of individual self-interest Ð without regard to the well-being of our butcher, brewer and baker, or they for us Ð can produce social benefit.73
It is therefore little surprise that post-Smithian economics no longer locates the market within the realm of civil society or the moral virtues of civic life. Yet ethically construed markets may be also economically more profitable and socially more sustainable. A Ôcivil economyÕ model, which advocates this ethical inherence, is the only genuine alternative to the pessimism in modern economics about either individual or social motivations. The roots of this
model go back to the Middle Ages and the Italian Renaissance, but it was explicitly articulated in the later Neapolitan Enlightenment by SmithÕs near contemporary, Antonio Genovesi.74 The next chapter sets out a post-liberal alternative to liberal capitalism that renews the Ôcivil economyÕ tradition.
NOTES
1. Adam Smith, Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (London: Random, 1910), I, 9.
2. John Kay, Other PeopleÕs Money: Masters of the Universe or Servants of
the People? (London: Profile, 2015), 80Ð140.
3. We first developed this idea in an article entitled ÔThe Meta-crisis of Secular CapitalismÕ, International Review of Economics 62:3 (2015): 197Ð212, on which this chapter draws.
4. Michael Lewis, Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt (New York: Norton, 2014); Nicholas Shaxson, Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men who Stole the
World (London: Vintage, 2012); Stephen Platt, Criminal Capital: How the Finance
Industry Facilitates Crime (London: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2015).
5. Will Hutton, How Good We Can Be: Ending the Mercenary Society and
Building a Great Country (London: Little Brown, 2015), 49Ð89.
6. John Lanchester, Whoops! Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can
Pay (London: Penguin, 2010).
7. Thomas Piketty, Le capital au XXIe si•cle (Paris: Seuil, 2013), 662Ð65. 8. Tristan Garcia, Form and Objects: A Treatise on Things, trans. Mark Allan Ohm and Jon Cogburn (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1914), 303Ð30.
9. Martha C. Howell, Commerce Before Capitalism in Europe, 1300Ð1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
10. Karl Polanyi, Primitive, Archaic and Modern Economies: Essays of Karl
Polanyi, ed. George Dalton (New York: Anchor Books, 1968), esp. ÔAristotle Discovers the EconomyÕ, 78Ð115.
11. Seneca, ÔOn BenefitsÕ, in Moral Essays III (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), xviiÐxviii, 158Ð59.
12. Robert Brenner, ÔAgrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial EuropeÕ, Past & Present, 70 (1976): 30Ð74; Merchants and
Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict and LondonÕs Overseas Traders 1550Ð1653 (London: Verso, 2003), 3Ð37; Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Origin of
Capitalism: A Longer View (London: Verso, 2002), 95Ð146.
13. Charles P. Kindleberger, Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of
Financial Crises (Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2005).
14. Michael Perelman, The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret History of Primitive Accumulation (Durham: Duke University Press, 2000).
15. Colin Crouch, ÔPrivatised Keynesianism: An Unacknowledged Policy RegimeÕ,
S. Hacker, The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of
the American Dream (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).
16. Hannah Arendt, Imperialism (San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1976), 3Ð37. 17. Marcel HŽnaff, Le prix de la vŽritŽ: le don, lÕargent, la philosophie (Paris: Seuil, 2002), 51Ð80.
18. R.H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1998), 79Ð132.
19. John Neville Figgis, Studies of Political Thought from Gerson to Grotius,
1414Ð1625 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1916), 1Ð115; Joseph R. Strayer, On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970).
20. Bruce D. Porter, War and the Rise of the State: The Military Foundations of
Modern Politics (New York: Free Press, 1994).
21. Charles Tilly, Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons (New York: Russell Sage, 1984), 147.
22. J.G.A. Pocock, ÔThe Political Economy of BurkeÕs Analysis of the French RevolutionÕ, in Virtue, Commerce, and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 196.
23. Burke, Reflections, 126. See also 260, where Burke notes the late repetition in France of English Protestant history: ÔThe long parliament confiscated the lands of deans and chapters in England on the same ideas upon which your assembly set to sale the lands of the monastic ordersÕ.
24. ÔIf this monster of a constitution can continue, France will be wholly governed by the agitators in corporations, by societies in the towns formed of directors of assig-
nats and trustees for the sale of church lands, attornies, agents, money-jobbers, specu- lators and adventures, composing an ignoble oligarchy founded on the destruction of the crown, the church, the nobility and the people. Here end all deceitful dreams and visions of the equality and rights of menÕ, Reflections, 313. Pocock notes that if, in an imaginary conversation, Marx were to say to Burke that he had overlooked the rise of the middle class and of a new capitalist system of production, then Burke could reply that, to the contrary, it is Marx who has overlooked the more primary and inherently destructive role of speculation in the capitalist process.
25. Piketty, Le capital, 505Ð10.
26. Ibid., 47Ð57, 206Ð16, 259Ð74, 368Ð70, 468Ð71, 500Ð5, 596Ð99, 642Ð65,
701Ð14, 740Ð44, 941Ð50.
27. Ibid., 216Ð38, 270Ð74. 28. Ibid., 53Ð57, 78Ð99, 259Ð70.
29. In contrast to Marx, Piketty argues that these returns must themselves be expanded beyond merely profit to include rates, royalties, loans, re-investments in firms and the added value of new economic and social opportunities for intervention and commodification. Ibid., 19Ð34, 50Ð57.
30. Ibid., 47Ð50, 176Ð79, 214Ð16, 270Ð74, 360Ð70, 529Ð35, 596Ð99, 608Ð13,
701Ð8; Thomas Piketty, ÔInterview: Dynamics of InequalityÕ, New Left Review, 85 (January/February 2014), 107Ð8.
32. Piketty, Le capital, 355Ð58.
33. D.N. McCloskey, ÔMeasured, Unmeasured, Mismeasured and Unjustified Pessimism: A Review Essay of Thomas PikettyÕs Capital in the Twenty-First
CenturyÕ, Erasmus Journal of Philosophy, 7:2 (2014): 73Ð115, quote 106.
34. McCloskey does not adequately consider PikettyÕs point that capital is increasingly channelled in unproductive directions, not only of financial speculation but also of property ownership. Here she simply rehearses the obvious respects in which Ricardo has proved wrong, without properly facing PikettyÕs contemporary evidence as to ways in which he is, after all, proving right.
35. Pope Francis, Laudato SiÕ (Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2015).
36. It is telling Ð and reeks of detached American utopian illusion Ð that McCloskey thinks modern mass warfare has nothing to do with liberalism, but is largely due to the intrusion of right-wing romantic ideology.
37. Piketty, Le capital, 794Ð97, 836Ð40, 883Ð91, 937Ð40; Piketty, ÔInterview: Dynamics of InequalityÕ, 103Ð16.
38. Piketty, ÔInterview: Dynamics of InequalityÕ, 103Ð16.
39. Ernst JŸnger, Der Arbeiter. Herrschaft und Gestalt (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1932).
40. Piketty, Le capital, 396Ð401.
41. Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals; Howell, Commerce before Capitalism.
42. Piketty, Le capital, 662; Michael Young, The Rise of the Meritocracy (London: Thames and Hudson, 1958); ÔDown with MeritocracyÕ, The Guardian, 29 June 2001, available online at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment.
43. Will Hutton, The State WeÕre in: Why Britain Is in Crisis and How to
Overcome It (London: Vintage, 1996).
44. On the role of Ernest Bevin in the creation of the German economic model (including co-determination within corporate governance, a vocational labour market model in relation to craft and the banking system based upon regional and sectoral endowment), see Maurice Glasman, ÔThe Profundity of DefeatÕ, paper given to the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Berlin, 30 October 2013, http://www.bluelabour. org/2013/10/30/285/; to this one can add the key contribution of Allan Flanders who, drawing on the tradition of Ôethical socialismÕ, shaped the post-war German settle- ment with the focus on workersÕ representation on company boards.
45. Lanchester, Whoops! 1Ð33.
46. Piketty, Le capital, 524Ð29, 582Ð85.
47. For evidence on how austerity has depressed growth, see ñscard Jordˆ and Alan M. Taylor, ÔThe Time for Austerity: Estimating the Average Treatment Effect of Fiscal PolicyÕ, NBER Working Paper 19414 (September 2013), http://www.nber.org/ papers/w19414.
48. Polanyi, Primitive, Archaic and Modern Economies; Fernand Braudel, La
dynamique du capitalisme (Paris: Flammarion, 1985); Marcel Mauss, The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies, trans. W.D. Halls (New York:
W.W. Norton, 2000).
49. Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for
ÔFrom Transactions to Encounters: The Joint Generation of Relational Goods and Conventional ValuesÕ, in Benedetto Gui and Robert Sugden (eds.), Economics and
Social Interaction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 23Ð51.
50. Nancy Fraser, ÔBehind MarxÕs Hidden AbodeÕ, New Left Review 86 (MarchÐ April 2014): 55Ð72.
51. Antonio Negri, The State-Form: Towards a Critique of the Political Economy
of the Constitution (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977); Michael
Hardt and Antonio Negri, Labor of Dionysus: A Critique of the State-Form (Minne- apolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994).
52. Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in
the Twentieth Century (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974).
53. Richard Sennett, The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of
Work in the New Capitalism (New York: W.W. Norton, 1999); The Culture of New Capitalism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007).
54. Maurizio Lazzarato, The Making of the Indebted Man (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2012).
55. Robert and Edward Skidelsky, How Much is Enough? The Love of Money and
the Case for the Good Life (London: Allen Lane, 2012).
56. Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins
of Our Time (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001 [1944]).
57. Piketty, Le capital, 206Ð10.
58. Polanyi, The Great Transformation; Polanyi, Primitive, Archaic and Modern
Economies; Karl Polanyi, The Livelihood of Man (New York: Academic Press, 1977).
59. Henri de France, LÕŽconomique revisitŽe: Pour une plus grande profondeur
de champ (Toulouse: Octar•s, 2003), chap. 8: ÔLÕheure de SismondiÕ, 179Ð90.
60. Colin Mayer, Firm Commitment: Why the Corporation Is Failing Us and
How to Restore Trust in It (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
61. Luigino Bruni and Stefano Zamagni, Civil Economy: Efficiency, Equity,
Public Happiness (Bern: Peter Lang, 2007), 159Ð52; Ernesto Screpenti and Stefano
Zamagni, An Outline of the History of Economic Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 456Ð519.
62. Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice (London: Allen Lane, 2009). In SenÕs variant of liberalism, a competitive logic within public institutions is balanced by a bureaucratic statist concern to increase the ability of individuals to realise their ÔcapabilitiesÕ in both state and market activities.
63. Andrew Brien, ÔProfessional Ethics and the Culture of TrustÕ, Journal of
Business Ethics, 17:4 (1998): 391Ð409; Robert Hurley, ÔThe Decision to TrustÕ, Harvard Business Review 84:9 (2006): 55Ð65; Graham Dietz and Nicole Gillespie, Building and Restoring Organizational Trust (London: Institute of Business Ethics,
2011).
64. Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello, The New Spirit of Capitalism, trans. G. Elliott (London: Verso, 2007), 223.
65. F.A. Hayek, ÔThe Use of Knowledge in SocietyÕ, The American Economic
Review, 35:4 (1945): 519Ð30; The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (London:
66. Hacker, The Great Risk Shift.
67. Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population as It Affects the
Future Improvement of Society (London: Johnson, 1798), 349.
68. Ibid., 363. 69. Ibid., 375.
70. Thomas Carlyle had mainly the Malthusian perspective in mind when he dubbed economics Ôthe dismal scienceÕ.
71. Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (New York: Prometheus, 2000), II, ii, 125.
72. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (London: Random Century, 1910), I, x, 2, 117.
73. Adrian Pabst, ÔFrom Civil to Political Economy: Adam SmithÕs Theologi- cal DebtÕ, in Paul Oslington (ed.), Adam Smith as Theologian (London: Routledge, 2011), 106Ð24.
74. John Robertson, The Case for the Enlightenment: Scotland and Naples,
1680Ð 1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Adrian Pabst, ÔThe Paradoxical Nature of the Good: Relationality, Sympathy, and Mutuality in Rival Traditions of Civil EconomyÕ, in The Crisis of Global Capitalism, 173Ð206.