The Spirit of Capitalism: Nationalism and Economic Growth is the second volume of my nationalism trilogy. When I published the first volume,Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity, the accepted view on the subject of nationalism was that it is a product of economic development, specifically, of industrialization and capitalism. On the basis of historical evidence, I proved that its emergence had nothing to do with these economic phenomena: in fact, it preceded both. Reviews of Nationalism, noting that, for this reason, economic developments could not have caused nationalism, raised the question what relationship, then, did exist between nationalism and the economy, and this led me to investigate it.
I wrote...
The Spirit of Capitalism: Nationalism and Economic Growth
The Spirit of Capitalism answers a fundamental question of economics, a question neither economists nor economic historians have been able to answer: what are the reasons (rather than just the conditions) for sustained economic growth? Taking her title from Max Weber's famous study on the same subject, Liah Greenfeld focuses on the problem of motivation behind the epochal change in behavior, which from the sixteenth century on has reoriented one economy after another from subsistence to profit, transforming the nature of economic activity.
A detailed analysis of the development of economic consciousness in England, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Japan, and the United States allows her to argue that the motivation, or "spirit," behind the modern, growth-oriented economy was not the liberation of the "rational economic actor," but rather nationalism.
This book is a powerful argument, logically and sociologically unassailable, about cultural foundations of economic activity, whose specific hypothesis (that Protestantism was responsible for the rise of capitalism) was refuted by empirical evidence.
It served as the point of departure for my research.
I recommend The Protestant Ethic… very strongly because a) it clearly distinguishes capitalism from other economic systems by its historically unique orientation to growth, rather than vaguely defining it as an expression of greed and tendency for exploitation of others, which are present throughout history, and b) because it shows that a logically perfect interpretation of reality in question may nevertheless lead to wrong hypotheses based on imperfect knowledge.
In The Protestant Ethic, Max Weber opposes the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism and relates the rise of the capitalist economy to the Calvinist belief in the moral value of hard work and the fulfillment of one's worldly duties.
The Wealth of Nations is the foundational text of modern economics, reflecting – contrary to the common notion – the clearly national consciousness of its author and demonstrating that modern economic imagination (and activity) is a product of nationalism.
Its nationalist inspiration is the main reason I recommend reading it, for the commonplace interpretations of this classic miss this most interesting aspect of the work. In addition, it is a delightful text.
First published in 1776, the year in which the American Revolution officially began, Smith’s Wealth of Nations sparked a revolution of its own. In it Smith analyzes the major elements of political economy, from market pricing and the division of labor to monetary, tax, trade, and other government policies that affect economic behavior. Throughout he offers seminal arguments for free trade, free markets, and limited government.
Criticizing mercantilists who sought to use the state to increase their nations’ supply of precious metals, Smith points out that a nation’s wealth should be measured by the well-being of its people. Prosperity in…
This book is a rare attempt by an eminent economic historian to examine cultural determinants of economic growth and answer the question whyit happens, which distinguishes it sharply from the discipline’s exclusive focus on how it proceeds.
Landes, in other words, disentangles the explanation of causes from the preoccupation with the process, which is why I recommend this book.
Now that the old division of the world into the two power blocs of East and West has subsided, the great gap in wealth and health that separates North and South remains the single greatest problem and danger facing the world of the Third Millennium. The only challenge of comparable scope and difficulty is the threat of the environmental deterioration, and the two are intimately connected, indeed are one. David Landes argues that the North-South division is the great drama of our times, and that drama implies tension, passion, conflict and disappointment as well as happy outcomes. While Landes does…
This book, originally published in 1960, is the classical statement of the still dominant position in economic history, which assumes that economic growth is natural and which I have proven wrong.
I recommend it to anyone interested in the current (unchanging for decades) state of the discipline as an essential model of what I was arguing against.
2017 Reprint of 1960 First Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition software. In the text Professor Rostow gives an account of economic growth based on a dynamic theory of production and interpreted in terms of actual societies. Five basic stages of economic growth are distinguished with detailed discussions of each stage including illustrative examples. Rostow also applies the concept of stages of growth to an examination of the problems of military aggression and the nuclear arms race. The final chapter includes a comparison of his non-communist manifesto with Marxist theory. Remains a classic text…
Mercantilismis the classical historical discussion of the early expression of economic nationalism when it was a form of protectionism.
It is essential background reading for anyone interested in economic history. I recommend it among other things because without this background one cannot appreciate the position of Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations, usually identified with the criticism of mercantilism, which he nevertheless defends when it advances British national interest.
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For those who have no support system in place, the thought of aging without help can be a frightening, isolating prospect. Whether you have friends and family ready and able to help you or not, growing old does not have to be an inevitable decline into helplessness. It is possible to maintain a good quality of life in your later years, but having a plan is essential. WHO WILL TAKE CARE OF ME WHEN I'M OLD? equips readers with everything they need to prepare on their own:
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