The moral economists : R.H. Tawney, Karl Polanyi, E. P. Thompson, and the critique of capitalism / Tim Rogan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rogan, Tim, 1983- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Tawney, R. H. (Richard Henry), 1880-1962.

Tawney, R. H.

Polanyi, Karl, 1886-1964.

Polanyi, Karl.

Thompson, E. P. (Edward Palmer), 1924-1993.

Thompson, E. P.

Capitalism--Moral and ethical aspects.

Capitalism.

Socialism.

Physical Description:

viii, 263 pages ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [2017]

Summary:

A fresh look at how three important twentieth-century British thinkers viewed capitalism through a moral rather than material lens What's wrong with capitalism? Answers to that question today focus on material inequality. Led by economists and conducted in utilitarian terms, the critique of capitalism in the twenty-first century is primarily concerned with disparities in income and wealth. It was not always so. The Moral Economists reconstructs another critical tradition, developed across the twentieth century in Britain, in which material deprivation was less important than moral or spiritual desolation. Tim Rogan focuses on three of the twentieth century's most influential critics of capitalism--R.H. Tawney, Karl Polanyi, and E.P. Thompson. Making arguments about the relationships between economics and ethics in modernity, their works commanded wide readerships, shaped research agendas, and influenced public opinion. Rejecting the social philosophy of laissez-faire but fearing authoritarianism, these writers sought out forms of social solidarity closer than individualism admitted but freer than collectivism allowed. They discovered such solidarities while teaching economics, history, and literature to workers in the north of England and elsewhere. They wrote histories of capitalism to make these solidarities articulate. They used makeshift languages of "tradition" and "custom" to describe them until Thompson patented the idea of the "moral economy."

Contents:

1 R. H. Tawney 16

The North 18

Idealism 22

Pluralism 25

Guild Socialism 29

Christian Socialism 40

Religion and the Rise of Capitalism 43

The History of the Present 48

2 Karl Polanyi 51

Hungary 57

Red Vienna 61

Fascism 65

"Beyond Jesus" 70

The Great Transformation 78

The History of Political Economy 83

3 Capitalism in Transition? 92

The Politics of Democratic Socialism 98

Welfare Economics 103

The Future of Socialism? 106

Planning for Freedom 112

The Education Act of 1944 117

Definitions of Culture 127

4 E. P. Thompson 133

Romantics and Revolutionaries 135

Stalinism 138

The Scrutiny Movement 143

Socialist Humanism 147

The Making of the English Working Class 157

New Lefts 167

After Marx 174.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780691173009

0691173001

OCLC:

983825042