The romantic economist : imagination in economics / Richard Bronk.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bronk, Richard.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Economics.

Romanticism--Economic aspects.

Romanticism.

Economics--Philosophy.

Physical Description:

xviii, 382 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Summary:

Educated at Merton College, Oxford, Richard Bronk gained a first-class degree in Classics and Philosophy. He spent the first seventeen years of his career working in the City of London, where he acquired a wide expertise in international economics, business and politics. Bronk is now a writer and part-time academic, and a Visiting Fellow in the European Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Contents:

1 Preface to The Romantic Economist 1

1 The Romantic and imaginative aspects of economics 1

2 Romantic Economist: neither revolutionary nor mainstream 7

3 Using the history of ideas 11

4 Wordsworth and Marshall 15

5 The structuring role of metaphor 22

6 Romantic economics prefigured 25

Part I The Prelude: The Romantic Economist and the History of Ideas 29

2 The great divide 31

1 Mill on Bentham and Coleridge 31

2 Nervous breakdown of an economist 37

3 The philosophy and history of two cultures 40

4 Mill and a bridge too short 50

3 Debates within political economy 57

1 Smith and the emergence of a discipline 59

2 Recurring disagreements 67

3 The triumph of social physics and Rational Choice 78

4 Lessons from Romanticism 84

1 Interdependent themes and lessons 87

2 Unity and fragments 103

Part II Fragments of Unity: Romantic Economics in Practice 117

5 Using organic metaphors in economics 119

1 Economic models of interdependence and growth 122

2 Complexity Theory: moving towards a new template 128

3 The lessons of organicism 133

4 Some applications of the organic metaphor 141

6 Economics and the nation state 149

1 National versus universal solutions 149

2 Early advocates of national economics 154

3 Varieties of Capitalism and beyond 158

4 Globalisation and national economics 168

7 Incommensurable values 172

1 No single scale of value 172

2 The measurement and ethical definition of policy success 180

3 Consistency and indifference 190

8 Imagination and creativity in markets 196

1 The nature of imagination 198

2 The economy as creative process 207

3 Imagination and the microfoundations of economics 214

9 Homo romanticus and other homines 225

1 Homo economicus through thick and thin 225

2 Homo economicus in symbiosis with homo romanticus 234

3 Homo sociologicus: cohabiting with cousins 241

4 The role of sentiment and sympathy 247

5 'Superman' and self-creation in economics 252

10 Imagination and perspective in economics 256

1 After Kant: a disconcerting or liberating philosophy? 256

2 Reading the interpretations that structure social reality 263

3 Kuhn, imagination and the nature of paradigms 267

4 The creative use of metaphor 273

5 Romantic pointers to best research practice 276

11 The Romantic Economist: conclusion 288.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 305-366) and index.

ISBN:

9780521513845

0521513847

9780521735155

0521735157

OCLC:

256770264

Online:

Contributor biographical information

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