America's Economic Moralists: A History of Rival Ethics and Economics
Since colonial times, two discernable schools have debated major issues of economic morality in America. The central norm of one morality is the freedom, or autonomy, of the individual and defines virtues, vices, obligations, and rights by how they contribute to that freedom. The other morality is relational and defines economic ethics in terms of behaviors mandated by human connectedness. America's Economic Moralists shows how each morality has been composed of an ethical outlook paired with...
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Traces the history of two rival American economic moralities from colonial times to the present. EH.net America s Economic Moralists is one of those still rare academic explorations of this subject The strength of Frey s book lies in the author s ability to condense the study of a quite large number of schools of economic morality into workable, chronologically directed chapters provide[s] a useful lens for thinking through competing visions of economic morality in America, and underscores the truth that there is no such thing as a value-free economic science.
Acknowledgments viiChapter 1 Introduction 1Chapter 2 Colonial Faith: Work, Wealth, and the Wider Welfare 13Chapter 3 Acting for Self's Sake; The Later Colonial Era 25Chapter 4 Laissez-Faire for Americans 35Chapter 5 Ethics Better than the Morals of Hermits 49Chapter 6 Religious Socialism: The Communal Moravians 61Chapter 7 Abolition: Human Dignity as a boundary to Markets 75Chapter 8 Social Darwinists of Different Species 87Chapter 9 New Influences in Economics 101Chapter 10 The Social Gospel and Catholic Thought Around 1900 115Chapter 11 The 1920S and 1930S: depressed old values 131Chapter 12 Too Agnostic. Too Certain: Welfare Economics, Chicago Economics 147Chapter 13 Moralists of Twentieth-Century Capitalism 163Chapter 14 Unconventional Alternatives to the Conventional Wisdom 177Chapter 15 An Ecumenical Consensus on Economic Ethics 199Chapter 16 Summary, Assessments, and a Projection 205Notes 217Works Cited 225Index 233
\ CHOICE“…Frey’s book is a timely and welcome contribution to the literature on ethics in business and economics. He provides scholars the much-needed historical background on the development of thoughts related to economic morality since Colonial times.”\ \ \ \ \ Christian Century“…a monumental project that surveys the work of over 100 writers and their treatment of autonomy and relational morality … America’s Economic Moralists is an invaluable resource. Frey’s two categories of moralists provide an innovative typology around which constructive discussion of morality and economics can occur.”\ \ \ EH.net“…America’s Economic Moralists is one of those still rare academic explorations of this subject … The strength of Frey’s book lies in the author’s ability to condense the study of a quite large number of schools of economic morality into workable, chronologically directed chapters … provide[s] a useful lens for thinking through competing visions of economic morality in America, and underscores the truth that there is no such thing as a value-free economic science.”\ \ \ \ \ Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology“Do not be deceived by the apparent thinness of this book. The mere 216 pages are dense, the subject is weighty … there is probably no one out there except for Frey who brings to the subject of economics and ethics the impressive historical breadth of this book.”\ \ \ \ \ Review of Social Economics“…a book full of new thoughts and ideas … It is a book that is needed and ought to be widely read so that everyone might come to understand what lies behind their thinking.”\ \
