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An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought #0
Economic Thought Before Adam Smith: An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 1
This is the first extensive treatment from a modern Austrian perspective of the history of economic thought up to Adam Smith and as such takes into account the profound influence of religious, social and political thought upon economics.
In Economic Thought before Adam Smith, Murray Rothbard contends that laissez-faire liberalism and economic thought itself began with the Catholic scholastics and early Roman and canon law, rather than with Adam Smith. The scholastics, he argues, established and developed the subjective utility and scarcity theory of value, as well as the theory that prices, or the value of money, depend on its supply and demand. This continental, or 'pre-Austrian' tradition, was destroyed, rather than developed, by Adam Smith whose strong Calvinist tendencies towards glorifying labour, toil and thrift is contrasted with the emphasis in scholastic economic thought towards labour in the service of consumption.
Tracing economic thought from the Greeks to the Scottish Enlightenment, this book is notable for its inclusion of all the important figures in each school of thought with their theories assessed in historical context. Classical Economics, the second volume of Professor Rothbard's history of economic thought from an Austrian perspective, is also available.
In Economic Thought before Adam Smith, Murray Rothbard contends that laissez-faire liberalism and economic thought itself began with the Catholic scholastics and early Roman and canon law, rather than with Adam Smith. The scholastics, he argues, established and developed the subjective utility and scarcity theory of value, as well as the theory that prices, or the value of money, depend on its supply and demand. This continental, or 'pre-Austrian' tradition, was destroyed, rather than developed, by Adam Smith whose strong Calvinist tendencies towards glorifying labour, toil and thrift is contrasted with the emphasis in scholastic economic thought towards labour in the service of consumption.
Tracing economic thought from the Greeks to the Scottish Enlightenment, this book is notable for its inclusion of all the important figures in each school of thought with their theories assessed in historical context. Classical Economics, the second volume of Professor Rothbard's history of economic thought from an Austrian perspective, is also available.
572 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
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1397 people want to read
About the author
Murray N. Rothbard
282 books1,114 followersMurray Newton Rothbard was an influential American historian, natural law theorist and economist of the Austrian School who helped define modern libertarianism. Rothbard took the Austrian School's emphasis on spontaneous order and condemnation of central planning to an individualist anarchist conclusion, which he termed "anarcho-capitalism".
In the 1970s, he assisted Charles Koch and Ed Crane to found the Cato Institute as libertarian think tank.
In the 1970s, he assisted Charles Koch and Ed Crane to found the Cato Institute as libertarian think tank.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
July 26, 2016
This is the right way to learn about economics. Bad ideas becoming fashionable over and over again, as well as people who invented them and held them.
The book gets 4 instead of 5 because the author uses far too many names. I do understand that this is what history is, but at the end of the book 2, I already forgot most of the people he was talking about, and the book would be a much better one if he a) omitted the boring details b) made the boring details into interesting details.
Nevertheless, it makes me really sad that the author didn't finish the whole set. I miss the volume 3 already
The book gets 4 instead of 5 because the author uses far too many names. I do understand that this is what history is, but at the end of the book 2, I already forgot most of the people he was talking about, and the book would be a much better one if he a) omitted the boring details b) made the boring details into interesting details.
Nevertheless, it makes me really sad that the author didn't finish the whole set. I miss the volume 3 already
October 23, 2025
Among the many history of economics texts I have read, this is inarguably the best I have read. It is meticulous, going over, with binocular support, the many economic theories of the most important economic thinkers; it is rigorous, discussing the utmost intricacies, and analyzing and critiquing the ideas with only the economic concepts in circulation at the time so as to avoid anachronisms; it is thorough, leaving so few economists of interests before Vilfredo Pareto, and going back in history even before the works of the Ionian physicists to even Hesiod's Theogony / Works and Days; and it employs Mises' Nitzschean thymology (The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay on Method, and Rothboard's own cui bono method, an attitude of dignified ruthlessness used only by an invested, disinterested thinker.
I have enjoyed every second of reading (listening to) this book. It never was a chore to read, nor was I bored by any paragraph. I had to return to my PDF copy for quotations and paragraphs that needed a second or third precision analysis. Every page is fresh and new. Rothbard's insights are always on point, his criticisms are sharp and cut to the bone, to the errors perhaps seen or unseen by the economist a rebuttal is offered that is, today, reminiscent of Anthony Kenny's books.
Murray N. Rothbard (1926 - 1995) is the father of modern libertarianism, and is the foremost anarcho-capitalist of the 20th century. His works span economic theory, the history of economics and politics, political philosophy, scientific methodology, and legal theory. He has earned his Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1956, studying under the tutelage and supervision of Professor Joseph Dorfman. The subject of his thesis was on the panic, and subsequent depression, of 1819, which he published in 1962 along with his magnum opus, Man, Economy, and State (with) Power and Market. The themes in this book, as well as in A History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World War II are explored in the current book; however, the focus of this current book is on the economic theories instead of economic events. Though that is so, much historical epochs are detailed whose importance can be found in the later chapters such as the communisms of the early Protestant era in Europe, and the critiques of usury in the scholastic and early renaissance eras.
The book starts with the initial foundations of the theory, going over methodology, and looking at the philosophy of science of Popper, Kuhn, and the earlier economists of the 21st century. Those methodologies are dismissed after careful consideration. One way to demonstrate a problem with their use in the economic sciences is to look at the results and implications of the author's following these methods. Then, Praxeology is presented. (Where by Praxeology, Austrians mean methodological deductionism, individualism, singularism, and subjectivism.) Finally, in the introduction, the author gives an outline of the book, helping us decide how to approach it, where to skip to, and what to invest our time in.
There are very few gaps in the history. Augustine's City of God is not given much interest, in order to dedicate more time to Aristotle's, the Stoics', Plato's, Aquinas', Duns Scotus', and Ockham's which are exposed to the intense light of day. More than those famous figures of history, we are introduced to tens (if not hundreds) of economists and philosophers one scarcely hears of in his daily life.
These two volumes are highly recommended to graduate students of history and economics even if they do not accept the methodology or results of the Austrian School of Economics; and to laymen of all denominations, even if they were not interested in the dismal science. For the history alone here is worth looking into by itself. And Rothbard's coverage delights the eye with dazzling style and analytic precision. Still, the length of the book may seem foreboding to some, and rightly so -- for the opportunity cost of reading this book comes at the expense of reading about 10 other books. I still understand that some might choose this book over another ten due to its density of information and its exposition that can be found almost nowhere.
It is quite saddening that the author did not live long enough to finish the third volume. Moreover, Mark Skousen's The Big Three in Economics: Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes may have added Keynes' work, but great as Skousen's book is, there can be no substitute to Rothbard's special touch to whatever he researches and reads. The third volume would have went up until Rothbard's time perhaps; and that makes it all the more sad, that given one or two more years of life, he probably would have written up until to today's time. (We even see glimpses of this prospection in the second volume, when he adds the contributions of Professors Block, Salerno, and even Sowell; the last of which incurred the scathing criticism of the author for his faulty discussion of Eugen Bohm-Bawerck's criticism of Marx (Karl Marx and the Close of His System) in his Marxism: Philosophy and Economics. Any freemarketeer would be surprised that Sowell and the Austrians are not in good terms; as opposed to Walter Williams of the Virginia School.) I would have loved to read Rothbard's critiques of the Chicago School, or the Virginia School of Economics, but alas, he has left us way too soon.
The book takes at once both the analogous positions in the economic sciences of Anthony Kenny's A New History of Western Philosophy and Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy place in philosophy; and again, by one of the leading theoreticians of the field, and one of the most prominent thinkers of the 20th century.
I have enjoyed every second of reading (listening to) this book. It never was a chore to read, nor was I bored by any paragraph. I had to return to my PDF copy for quotations and paragraphs that needed a second or third precision analysis. Every page is fresh and new. Rothbard's insights are always on point, his criticisms are sharp and cut to the bone, to the errors perhaps seen or unseen by the economist a rebuttal is offered that is, today, reminiscent of Anthony Kenny's books.
Murray N. Rothbard (1926 - 1995) is the father of modern libertarianism, and is the foremost anarcho-capitalist of the 20th century. His works span economic theory, the history of economics and politics, political philosophy, scientific methodology, and legal theory. He has earned his Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1956, studying under the tutelage and supervision of Professor Joseph Dorfman. The subject of his thesis was on the panic, and subsequent depression, of 1819, which he published in 1962 along with his magnum opus, Man, Economy, and State (with) Power and Market. The themes in this book, as well as in A History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World War II are explored in the current book; however, the focus of this current book is on the economic theories instead of economic events. Though that is so, much historical epochs are detailed whose importance can be found in the later chapters such as the communisms of the early Protestant era in Europe, and the critiques of usury in the scholastic and early renaissance eras.
The book starts with the initial foundations of the theory, going over methodology, and looking at the philosophy of science of Popper, Kuhn, and the earlier economists of the 21st century. Those methodologies are dismissed after careful consideration. One way to demonstrate a problem with their use in the economic sciences is to look at the results and implications of the author's following these methods. Then, Praxeology is presented. (Where by Praxeology, Austrians mean methodological deductionism, individualism, singularism, and subjectivism.) Finally, in the introduction, the author gives an outline of the book, helping us decide how to approach it, where to skip to, and what to invest our time in.
There are very few gaps in the history. Augustine's City of God is not given much interest, in order to dedicate more time to Aristotle's, the Stoics', Plato's, Aquinas', Duns Scotus', and Ockham's which are exposed to the intense light of day. More than those famous figures of history, we are introduced to tens (if not hundreds) of economists and philosophers one scarcely hears of in his daily life.
These two volumes are highly recommended to graduate students of history and economics even if they do not accept the methodology or results of the Austrian School of Economics; and to laymen of all denominations, even if they were not interested in the dismal science. For the history alone here is worth looking into by itself. And Rothbard's coverage delights the eye with dazzling style and analytic precision. Still, the length of the book may seem foreboding to some, and rightly so -- for the opportunity cost of reading this book comes at the expense of reading about 10 other books. I still understand that some might choose this book over another ten due to its density of information and its exposition that can be found almost nowhere.
It is quite saddening that the author did not live long enough to finish the third volume. Moreover, Mark Skousen's The Big Three in Economics: Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes may have added Keynes' work, but great as Skousen's book is, there can be no substitute to Rothbard's special touch to whatever he researches and reads. The third volume would have went up until Rothbard's time perhaps; and that makes it all the more sad, that given one or two more years of life, he probably would have written up until to today's time. (We even see glimpses of this prospection in the second volume, when he adds the contributions of Professors Block, Salerno, and even Sowell; the last of which incurred the scathing criticism of the author for his faulty discussion of Eugen Bohm-Bawerck's criticism of Marx (Karl Marx and the Close of His System) in his Marxism: Philosophy and Economics. Any freemarketeer would be surprised that Sowell and the Austrians are not in good terms; as opposed to Walter Williams of the Virginia School.) I would have loved to read Rothbard's critiques of the Chicago School, or the Virginia School of Economics, but alas, he has left us way too soon.
The book takes at once both the analogous positions in the economic sciences of Anthony Kenny's A New History of Western Philosophy and Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy place in philosophy; and again, by one of the leading theoreticians of the field, and one of the most prominent thinkers of the 20th century.
January 9, 2020
"The inevitable result [of the Whig theory of history] is a complacent and infuriating Panglossian optimism. In the historiography of economic thought, the consequence is the firm if implicit position that every individual economist, or at least every school of economists, contributed their important mite to the inexorable upward march. There can, then, be no such thing as gross systemic error that deeply flawed, or even invalidated, an entire school of economic thought, much less sent the world of economics permanently astray."
"In recent years, economics, under the dominant influence of formalism, positivism and econometrics, and preening itself on being a hard science, has displayed little interest in its own past. It has been intent, as in any 'real' science, on the latest textbook or journal article rather than on exploring its own history. After all, do contemporary physicists spend much time poring over eighteenth century optics?"
"For if knowledge buried in paradigms lost can disappear and be forgotten over time, then studying older economists and schools of thought need not be done merely for antiquarian purposes or to examine how intellectual life proceeded in the past. Earlier economists can be studied for their important contributions to forgotten and therefore new knowledge today. Valuable truths can be learned about the content of economics, not only from the latest journals, but from the texts of long-deceased economic thinkers."
I finally finished this...well, finished at least half of this giant tome of economic history. Murray Rothbard was an Austrian by trade, so the book presents economic history - and then often criticizes economists and economic schools of thought from that perspective. I'm fine with that, as I find the Austrian school to be one of the most theoretically consistent and fundamentally sound schools. I'm not a full Austrian purist, but neither do I throw a whole school of economic thought away because they're super scary anarcho-capitalists.
This, the first of two volumes, covers economic thought before Adam Smith. After Adam Smith everything changes. BAS v. AAS. I actually found almost all of the time periods fascinating...though not all equally impactful on the course of economic history.
He starts with the first philosopher-economists, the Greeks. From Hesiod's poetry containing themes of scarcity, to Plato's right-wing collectivist utopia, to Aristotle's notions of private property, the division of labor, and money. Interesting note: the first libertarians were the Taoists of ancient China!
The Christian Middle Ages from the Carolingians and Canonists to my favorite Catholic Saint, St. Thomas Aquinas. Leading up to the Renaissance you had the rise of absolutism and the break up of Thomism, Buridan and Oresme's monetary breakthroughs, and the start of the great, seemingly never-ending battle over usury. Seriously, like, it still hasn't ended - and it will never end. I just heard a politician the other day, in 2019, criticizing the charging of interest on loans and actually calling it 'usury'. If you buy into the Whig theory of history, you're naive. The usury problem has been economically solved and unsolved like 50 times.
The chapters revolving around scholasticism were probably some of my favorite. I'm a Catholic, but I had no idea how many of these church fathers made massive contributions to economic thought. Most of it gets lost because it occurred BAS...and also probably because our current culture views the dark ages as some sort of theocratic caricature, devoid of all thought and logic.
One of the other highlights of the reading of this book were the chapters on totalitarian communism of the Anabaptists in 16th century Germany. They were laugh-out-loud funny and utterly terrifying at the same time. If only Luther knew the Pandora's Box he was opening.
Rothbard is right, too. History of economic thought isn't a march upward, towards enlightenment. It winds up being a story of free markets, and their never-ending zig-zag struggle with power and people who want to control other peoples live's and trade.
You then spend a great many chapters on mercantilism and how it spread throughout Europe. Then you get to the real founding father of modern economics: Richard Cantillon. We spent some time in France with the physiocrats, and finish up with the brillant Turgot, before we get to the real meat of this book.
If you can only read one chapter of this giant book, let it be the chapter on Adam Smith. The great meeting point, the critical event that these two volumes revolve around, BAS to AAS.
"Adam Smith is a mystery in a puzzle wrapped in an enigma. The mystery is the enormous and unprecedented gap between Smith’s exalted reputation and the reality of his dubious contributions to economic thought…Smith’s reputation almost blinds the sun. From shortly after his own day until very recently, he was thought to have created the science of economics virtually de novo. He was universally hailed as the Founding Father. Books on the history of economic thought, after a few well-deserved sneers at the mercantilists and a nod to the physiocrats, would invariably start with Smith as the creator of the discipline of economics. Any errors he made were understandably excused as the inevitable flaws of any great pioneer. Innumerable words have been written about him."
Spoiler alert: Rothbard...not the biggest Adam Smith fan. I actually get it, because Hagiography after Hagiography has catapulted this one economist, among thousands of years of economic thought, into immortal greatness when it doesn't take a genius to see that he made some grave errors that took economics and whole societies down some pretty dark paths. Adam Smith has a lot to answer for at the bar of history.
His vast overemphasis on the Division of Labor within industries, while under-emphasizing it among industries. His fallacious views of productive v. unproductive labor, of which even his most strident disciples cringe at today. His theory of distribution, which omitted entrepreneurs from the economic process almost altogether. His hopelessly inadequate, scattered and confused, theories of money and international monetary relations. All this was bad, but the real harm from Smith came from the unmitigated disaster that was his theory of value presented in Wealth of Nations. Ironically, this very theory contradicted what he preached in his own recorded lectures from earlier in his life.
Suddenly, a decade removed from his lectures on the subject, in the Wealth of Nations, Smith finds himself completely unable to solve the paradox of value - which had been solved for a very, very long time. He introduced the labor theory of value, that could plausibly make him responsible for the emergence and horrifying consequences of Marxism. The idea that prices and values could be explained by the 'quantity of labour' embodied in the production is absurd. His obsession with long-run equilibrium pricing and its determinants became more important than market prices paid in the real world by real people - which had always been the focus of economists. Long-run normal prices are useful only in directional tendencies and underlying structures of an economy, but not much else.
"Value and price theory shifts, because of Adam Smith’s unfortunate and drastic change of focus in the Wealth of Nations, from prices in the real world to a mystical non-existent price in the never-never land of long-run ‘equilibrium’."
Paul Douglas wrote: "Smith helped to divert the writers of English Classical School into a cul-de-sac from which they did not emerge, in so far as their value theory was concerned, for nearly a century.”
Emil Kauder, a disciple of Smith, wrote: “Instead, the father of our economic science wrote that water has a great utility and a small value. With these few words Adam Smith had made waste and rubbish out of the thinking of 2,000 years. The chance to start in 1776 instead of 1870 with a more correct knowledge of value principles had been missed."
So...Smith clearly got some things wrong. Even if you're a big Adam Smith fan, you virtually have to grant that. But, why? Some of his earlier work and lectures were much more sound. What happened?
"There is a more fundamental and convincing reason for Adam Smith’s throwing over centuries of sound economic analysis, his abandonment of utility and scarcity, and his turn to the erroneous and pernicious labour theory of value. This is the same reason that Smith dwelled on the fallacious doctrine of productive versus unproductive labour. It is the explanation stressed by Emil Kauder, and partially by Paul Douglas: Adam Smith’s dour Calvinism. It is Calvinism that scorns man’s consumption and pleasure, and stresses the importance of labour virtually for its own sake."
Smith's work, warts and all, eventually swept Europe. Even in France, sounder economic minds still rooting themselves in the subjective utility-scarcity approach to value did so only while claiming devotion to Smith as the founder of free markets.
I suppose that's where I disagree with Rothbard. He's just so aggressively critical of Smith, that I think he overlooks some of the good that the success of the Wealth of Nations had on the world at large. It meant a widespread appreciation and devotion to free markets. It meant universal acknowledgement of the virtue of saving and investment, and a refutation in the proto-Keynesian worry about 'hoarding' or underconsumption. It meant opposition to wildly inflationary schemes of expansion of money and credit. And in his defense, if you could show him the future, of Marx taking his poorly formulated value theories and taking them to their logical and grim conclusions, of the hundred million corpses buried in mass graves as a result of Marx's continuation of his fault in value theory...I'm pretty sure he'd be appalled. I don't think there was malice in his writing. I just think he made some really big mistakes.
Loved the book. I'll definitely read Volume II...but not for awhile. I need a break from this. Recommend to anyone interested in the history of economics BAS.
3.75 stars.
"In recent years, economics, under the dominant influence of formalism, positivism and econometrics, and preening itself on being a hard science, has displayed little interest in its own past. It has been intent, as in any 'real' science, on the latest textbook or journal article rather than on exploring its own history. After all, do contemporary physicists spend much time poring over eighteenth century optics?"
"For if knowledge buried in paradigms lost can disappear and be forgotten over time, then studying older economists and schools of thought need not be done merely for antiquarian purposes or to examine how intellectual life proceeded in the past. Earlier economists can be studied for their important contributions to forgotten and therefore new knowledge today. Valuable truths can be learned about the content of economics, not only from the latest journals, but from the texts of long-deceased economic thinkers."
I finally finished this...well, finished at least half of this giant tome of economic history. Murray Rothbard was an Austrian by trade, so the book presents economic history - and then often criticizes economists and economic schools of thought from that perspective. I'm fine with that, as I find the Austrian school to be one of the most theoretically consistent and fundamentally sound schools. I'm not a full Austrian purist, but neither do I throw a whole school of economic thought away because they're super scary anarcho-capitalists.
This, the first of two volumes, covers economic thought before Adam Smith. After Adam Smith everything changes. BAS v. AAS. I actually found almost all of the time periods fascinating...though not all equally impactful on the course of economic history.
He starts with the first philosopher-economists, the Greeks. From Hesiod's poetry containing themes of scarcity, to Plato's right-wing collectivist utopia, to Aristotle's notions of private property, the division of labor, and money. Interesting note: the first libertarians were the Taoists of ancient China!
The Christian Middle Ages from the Carolingians and Canonists to my favorite Catholic Saint, St. Thomas Aquinas. Leading up to the Renaissance you had the rise of absolutism and the break up of Thomism, Buridan and Oresme's monetary breakthroughs, and the start of the great, seemingly never-ending battle over usury. Seriously, like, it still hasn't ended - and it will never end. I just heard a politician the other day, in 2019, criticizing the charging of interest on loans and actually calling it 'usury'. If you buy into the Whig theory of history, you're naive. The usury problem has been economically solved and unsolved like 50 times.
The chapters revolving around scholasticism were probably some of my favorite. I'm a Catholic, but I had no idea how many of these church fathers made massive contributions to economic thought. Most of it gets lost because it occurred BAS...and also probably because our current culture views the dark ages as some sort of theocratic caricature, devoid of all thought and logic.
One of the other highlights of the reading of this book were the chapters on totalitarian communism of the Anabaptists in 16th century Germany. They were laugh-out-loud funny and utterly terrifying at the same time. If only Luther knew the Pandora's Box he was opening.
Rothbard is right, too. History of economic thought isn't a march upward, towards enlightenment. It winds up being a story of free markets, and their never-ending zig-zag struggle with power and people who want to control other peoples live's and trade.
You then spend a great many chapters on mercantilism and how it spread throughout Europe. Then you get to the real founding father of modern economics: Richard Cantillon. We spent some time in France with the physiocrats, and finish up with the brillant Turgot, before we get to the real meat of this book.
If you can only read one chapter of this giant book, let it be the chapter on Adam Smith. The great meeting point, the critical event that these two volumes revolve around, BAS to AAS.
"Adam Smith is a mystery in a puzzle wrapped in an enigma. The mystery is the enormous and unprecedented gap between Smith’s exalted reputation and the reality of his dubious contributions to economic thought…Smith’s reputation almost blinds the sun. From shortly after his own day until very recently, he was thought to have created the science of economics virtually de novo. He was universally hailed as the Founding Father. Books on the history of economic thought, after a few well-deserved sneers at the mercantilists and a nod to the physiocrats, would invariably start with Smith as the creator of the discipline of economics. Any errors he made were understandably excused as the inevitable flaws of any great pioneer. Innumerable words have been written about him."
Spoiler alert: Rothbard...not the biggest Adam Smith fan. I actually get it, because Hagiography after Hagiography has catapulted this one economist, among thousands of years of economic thought, into immortal greatness when it doesn't take a genius to see that he made some grave errors that took economics and whole societies down some pretty dark paths. Adam Smith has a lot to answer for at the bar of history.
His vast overemphasis on the Division of Labor within industries, while under-emphasizing it among industries. His fallacious views of productive v. unproductive labor, of which even his most strident disciples cringe at today. His theory of distribution, which omitted entrepreneurs from the economic process almost altogether. His hopelessly inadequate, scattered and confused, theories of money and international monetary relations. All this was bad, but the real harm from Smith came from the unmitigated disaster that was his theory of value presented in Wealth of Nations. Ironically, this very theory contradicted what he preached in his own recorded lectures from earlier in his life.
Suddenly, a decade removed from his lectures on the subject, in the Wealth of Nations, Smith finds himself completely unable to solve the paradox of value - which had been solved for a very, very long time. He introduced the labor theory of value, that could plausibly make him responsible for the emergence and horrifying consequences of Marxism. The idea that prices and values could be explained by the 'quantity of labour' embodied in the production is absurd. His obsession with long-run equilibrium pricing and its determinants became more important than market prices paid in the real world by real people - which had always been the focus of economists. Long-run normal prices are useful only in directional tendencies and underlying structures of an economy, but not much else.
"Value and price theory shifts, because of Adam Smith’s unfortunate and drastic change of focus in the Wealth of Nations, from prices in the real world to a mystical non-existent price in the never-never land of long-run ‘equilibrium’."
Paul Douglas wrote: "Smith helped to divert the writers of English Classical School into a cul-de-sac from which they did not emerge, in so far as their value theory was concerned, for nearly a century.”
Emil Kauder, a disciple of Smith, wrote: “Instead, the father of our economic science wrote that water has a great utility and a small value. With these few words Adam Smith had made waste and rubbish out of the thinking of 2,000 years. The chance to start in 1776 instead of 1870 with a more correct knowledge of value principles had been missed."
So...Smith clearly got some things wrong. Even if you're a big Adam Smith fan, you virtually have to grant that. But, why? Some of his earlier work and lectures were much more sound. What happened?
"There is a more fundamental and convincing reason for Adam Smith’s throwing over centuries of sound economic analysis, his abandonment of utility and scarcity, and his turn to the erroneous and pernicious labour theory of value. This is the same reason that Smith dwelled on the fallacious doctrine of productive versus unproductive labour. It is the explanation stressed by Emil Kauder, and partially by Paul Douglas: Adam Smith’s dour Calvinism. It is Calvinism that scorns man’s consumption and pleasure, and stresses the importance of labour virtually for its own sake."
Smith's work, warts and all, eventually swept Europe. Even in France, sounder economic minds still rooting themselves in the subjective utility-scarcity approach to value did so only while claiming devotion to Smith as the founder of free markets.
I suppose that's where I disagree with Rothbard. He's just so aggressively critical of Smith, that I think he overlooks some of the good that the success of the Wealth of Nations had on the world at large. It meant a widespread appreciation and devotion to free markets. It meant universal acknowledgement of the virtue of saving and investment, and a refutation in the proto-Keynesian worry about 'hoarding' or underconsumption. It meant opposition to wildly inflationary schemes of expansion of money and credit. And in his defense, if you could show him the future, of Marx taking his poorly formulated value theories and taking them to their logical and grim conclusions, of the hundred million corpses buried in mass graves as a result of Marx's continuation of his fault in value theory...I'm pretty sure he'd be appalled. I don't think there was malice in his writing. I just think he made some really big mistakes.
Loved the book. I'll definitely read Volume II...but not for awhile. I need a break from this. Recommend to anyone interested in the history of economics BAS.
3.75 stars.
May 23, 2013
Rothbard's excellent two volume set is not to be missed for a libertarian perspective on economic history. Rothbard is sharply critical of many classical economists including Smith, Ricardo and John Stuart Mill while he highlights the stronger contributions of figures such as Nassau Senior, Bastiat, Turgot and Cantillon. Written in his usual engaging style, it reads much quicker than you would expect a two volume set of the history of economic thought to be read. Comments at the end of volume 2 implied a third volume to come, although sadly the third volume seems never to have been written.
October 1, 2018
Excellent book describing the economic thinking from Greeks and Taoists, scholastics and protestants to mercantilists and Smith. Rothbard proves that great economists existed before Smith, many important theories discovered by e.g. Salamanca school, Cantillon or Turgot, or that many fallacies promoted by Keynes or today´s economists and politicians were supported (or even implemented) in middle ages (costs regulation, interests rates manipulation, monopoly creation, all resulted to violence of some king, even to totalitarian terror of e.g. protestant Geneva and others).
I recommend to all fans of history , economics and business.
I recommend to all fans of history , economics and business.
September 21, 2013
Imagine a world where we forget all past progress of thougths and ideas, and repeat all the bad ideas and celebrate them as fresh and new when they pop up, again and again. After reading this mind-blowing book, I get the feeling that this is the world we live in.
April 2, 2013
Rothbard writes against the Great Man Theory of economic history. With his usual acid tongue he dispenses with the linear—and self-serving—narrative associated with at least US economic historical teaching as I've experienced it. Lucid, witty, even entertaining at times, this book reminds me of the need to be wary of pat, glib expositions of subjects that existentially affect us all.
One star off for failing to cover the 20th-century US (yes, I know Rothbard died before writing Volume 3; the review is of the book, not Rothbard).
One star off for failing to cover the 20th-century US (yes, I know Rothbard died before writing Volume 3; the review is of the book, not Rothbard).
March 12, 2009
Most interesting economics book ever. His knowledge is amazing
November 10, 2024
Es un libro muy interesante, extremadamente completo, quizás sí se nota el claro fanatismo hacia ciertos autores, que te menciona sus aportaciones como algo tremendamente espectacular, que en realidad no eran la gran cosa o eran ideas que antes se habían mencionado...
En general me gustó mucho, está denso, pero creo que si es necesario que te lo leas para tus clases de Historia del Pensamiento Económico.
- 4.125/5 ⭐
- 27:23⌛💀
En general me gustó mucho, está denso, pero creo que si es necesario que te lo leas para tus clases de Historia del Pensamiento Económico.
- 4.125/5 ⭐
- 27:23⌛💀
June 12, 2009
Murray Rothbard presents a historical analysis of economic thought from ancient times through Adam Smith in this first volume of his Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought.
Clearly, the history comes through the bias of an Austrian economist. I agree with many if not all of his conclusions. It was fascinating to learn about the late scholastics who understood much about the subjective-utility theory of value long before Adam Smith essentially buried it with his backsliding work, The Wealth of Nations.
I have a better understanding of economic thought from reading this book.
Clearly, the history comes through the bias of an Austrian economist. I agree with many if not all of his conclusions. It was fascinating to learn about the late scholastics who understood much about the subjective-utility theory of value long before Adam Smith essentially buried it with his backsliding work, The Wealth of Nations.
I have a better understanding of economic thought from reading this book.
March 11, 2013
Very informative in terms of factual information, but beware of Rothbard's storytelling.
August 9, 2013
Very Dense.
May 15, 2022
Volume One: Adam Smith is often hailed as the first economist, as a trailblazer who created the science of economics virtually de novo, and one who championed laissez-faire and liberal policies. However, this whole edifice falls once we look closer at the facts. For there was a great tradition of economics amongst the Catholic scholastics of the middle ages and a system of liberal economic thought amongst the French before Smith's time. Furthermore, Smith's ideas were themselves harmful and destructive, for he set economics down the wrong path with respect to value (espousing a labor theory instead of a subjective theory of value), as well as many mistakes in the realms of interest rates, banking, currency, the division of labor, and many other topics. Lastly, those ideas which we associated with Smith (the invisible hand, the division of labor, the freedom to transact, etc.) all originated with earlier traditions, such that Adam Smith added nothing to the subjective of economics, but may have taken many things away.
Rothbard deals with several schools of thought; the ancient Greek philosophers, whose ideas were haphazard and unimpressive to say the least, the ancient Daoist, who, though had good political writings, never added anything of real substance to the science of economics, the early Christians, who were deeply inconsistent in their attitudes toward wealth and accumulation, often both condemning and praising it, sometimes at the same time, the medieval Christians and the Roman law, who basically held to free market ideas except in the case of usury, the French physiocrats, who despite a flawed theory of productivity were capable economists, the French liberals, who created a tradition very near to the Austrian tradition to be found a century later, the Scottish Enlightenment, who, like the French, had an evolution towards proto-Austrian ideas, and finally Smith and his contemporaries, whose reservations and qualifications about the free market led to a discrediting of free market institutions by later generations.
Rothbard argues that there is a noticeable difference between the quality of economic thought of those on the continent versus those in Britain. He attributes this to the Protestant-Catholic split, particularly with Calvinism and its militant focus on labor productivity and eschewing of luxury, compared to the relatively laid back Catholic attitude of consumption and enjoyment.
Summary (Volume Two): Rothbard continues with his history of economics, discussing J.B. Say and the French liberals, James Mill and his influence on Ricardianism, the decline of Ricardianism and its eventual resurrection by John Stuart Mill, the anti-bullionist/bullionist controversy during the Napoleonic wars over whether to limit exports of gold bullion, the depression of 1819, the currency school vs. the banking school controversy over whether to limit the issuance of new notes and to force banks to cover their notes with 100% gold reserves (currency school) or to allow the central bank to create new notes with fewer restrictions (the banking school), the rise of liberalism all across the continent as produced by the writings of Frederic Bastiat and his pupils, the works of Vilfredo Pareto, the influence of American classical liberals, and the eventual decline of liberalism, both on the continent and in Britain.
Rothbard deals with several schools of thought; the ancient Greek philosophers, whose ideas were haphazard and unimpressive to say the least, the ancient Daoist, who, though had good political writings, never added anything of real substance to the science of economics, the early Christians, who were deeply inconsistent in their attitudes toward wealth and accumulation, often both condemning and praising it, sometimes at the same time, the medieval Christians and the Roman law, who basically held to free market ideas except in the case of usury, the French physiocrats, who despite a flawed theory of productivity were capable economists, the French liberals, who created a tradition very near to the Austrian tradition to be found a century later, the Scottish Enlightenment, who, like the French, had an evolution towards proto-Austrian ideas, and finally Smith and his contemporaries, whose reservations and qualifications about the free market led to a discrediting of free market institutions by later generations.
Rothbard argues that there is a noticeable difference between the quality of economic thought of those on the continent versus those in Britain. He attributes this to the Protestant-Catholic split, particularly with Calvinism and its militant focus on labor productivity and eschewing of luxury, compared to the relatively laid back Catholic attitude of consumption and enjoyment.
Summary (Volume Two): Rothbard continues with his history of economics, discussing J.B. Say and the French liberals, James Mill and his influence on Ricardianism, the decline of Ricardianism and its eventual resurrection by John Stuart Mill, the anti-bullionist/bullionist controversy during the Napoleonic wars over whether to limit exports of gold bullion, the depression of 1819, the currency school vs. the banking school controversy over whether to limit the issuance of new notes and to force banks to cover their notes with 100% gold reserves (currency school) or to allow the central bank to create new notes with fewer restrictions (the banking school), the rise of liberalism all across the continent as produced by the writings of Frederic Bastiat and his pupils, the works of Vilfredo Pareto, the influence of American classical liberals, and the eventual decline of liberalism, both on the continent and in Britain.
July 31, 2024
THE FIRST VOLUME OF ROTHBARD'S "AUSTRIAN" HISTORY OF ECONOMICS,
Murray Newton Rothbard (1926-1995) was an American economist of the Austrian School of economics, and a prominent figure in the Libertarian movement; the successor volume is Classical Economics: An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought. He also wrote books such as 'Man, Economy and Stat,' 'Power and Market: Government and the Economy,' 'America's Great Depression,' etc.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 1995 book, "this work is an overall history of economic thought from a frankly 'Austrian' standpoint... This is the only such work by a modern Austrian... Not only that: this perspective is grounded in what is currently the least fashionable though not the least numerous variant of the Austrian School: the 'Misesian' or 'praxeological.'" (Pg. vii) He adds, "leaving out religious outlook, as well as social and political philosophy, would disastrously skew any picture of the history of economic thought... The entire work is longer than most since it insists on bringing in all the 'lesser' figures... I hope that, for the reader, the unwonted length will be offset by the inclusion of far more human drama than is usually offered in histories of economic thought." (Pg. xiii)
He states, "The usury prohibition was the tragic flaw in the economic views of medieval jurists and theologians." (Pg. 45) He observes, "The decline of Church authority, then, was matched by the rise in the power of the absolute state." (Pg. 69)
He is (perhaps surprisingly) rather disparaging of Adam Smith: "The honour of being called the 'father of modern economics' belongs... [not to] Adam Smith, but to a gallicized Irish merchant, banker and adventurer... [named] Richard Cantillon." (Pg. 345) "after Adam Smith... the entire tradition of subjective utility... gets poured down the Orwellian memory hole by Adam Smith's fateful decision to discard even his own previous concepts... Adam Smith has a lot to answer for at the bar of history." (Pg. 449-450) "Adam Smith contributed nothing of value to economic thought... he introduced numerous fallacies, including the labour theory of value, and thereby caused a significant deterioration of economic thought..." (Pg. 463) "The most unfortunate aspect of the total Smithian takeover in economics was... the blotting out of knowledge of the rich tradition of economic thought that had developed before Smith. As a result, the Austrians ... were in many ways forced to reinvent the wheel, to painfully claw their way back to the knowledge that many pre-Smithians had enjoyed long before." (Pg. 502)
He admits, "Natural rights, laissez-faire libertarians always confront several problems or lacunae in their theory. One is taxation. If every individual is to have inviolable property rights, and those rights are to be guaranteed by the government, taxation, itself an infringement of property rights, presents an immediate problem to laissez-faire theorists. For HOW HIGH should taxes be, and WHO should pay them?" (Pg. 371)
This first volume goes into MUCH more detail on the early economists than many readers will be even marginally interested in; however, Rothbard's incisive comments make this volume essential reading for anyone studying Austrian economics, or the history of economics.
Murray Newton Rothbard (1926-1995) was an American economist of the Austrian School of economics, and a prominent figure in the Libertarian movement; the successor volume is Classical Economics: An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought. He also wrote books such as 'Man, Economy and Stat,' 'Power and Market: Government and the Economy,' 'America's Great Depression,' etc.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 1995 book, "this work is an overall history of economic thought from a frankly 'Austrian' standpoint... This is the only such work by a modern Austrian... Not only that: this perspective is grounded in what is currently the least fashionable though not the least numerous variant of the Austrian School: the 'Misesian' or 'praxeological.'" (Pg. vii) He adds, "leaving out religious outlook, as well as social and political philosophy, would disastrously skew any picture of the history of economic thought... The entire work is longer than most since it insists on bringing in all the 'lesser' figures... I hope that, for the reader, the unwonted length will be offset by the inclusion of far more human drama than is usually offered in histories of economic thought." (Pg. xiii)
He states, "The usury prohibition was the tragic flaw in the economic views of medieval jurists and theologians." (Pg. 45) He observes, "The decline of Church authority, then, was matched by the rise in the power of the absolute state." (Pg. 69)
He is (perhaps surprisingly) rather disparaging of Adam Smith: "The honour of being called the 'father of modern economics' belongs... [not to] Adam Smith, but to a gallicized Irish merchant, banker and adventurer... [named] Richard Cantillon." (Pg. 345) "after Adam Smith... the entire tradition of subjective utility... gets poured down the Orwellian memory hole by Adam Smith's fateful decision to discard even his own previous concepts... Adam Smith has a lot to answer for at the bar of history." (Pg. 449-450) "Adam Smith contributed nothing of value to economic thought... he introduced numerous fallacies, including the labour theory of value, and thereby caused a significant deterioration of economic thought..." (Pg. 463) "The most unfortunate aspect of the total Smithian takeover in economics was... the blotting out of knowledge of the rich tradition of economic thought that had developed before Smith. As a result, the Austrians ... were in many ways forced to reinvent the wheel, to painfully claw their way back to the knowledge that many pre-Smithians had enjoyed long before." (Pg. 502)
He admits, "Natural rights, laissez-faire libertarians always confront several problems or lacunae in their theory. One is taxation. If every individual is to have inviolable property rights, and those rights are to be guaranteed by the government, taxation, itself an infringement of property rights, presents an immediate problem to laissez-faire theorists. For HOW HIGH should taxes be, and WHO should pay them?" (Pg. 371)
This first volume goes into MUCH more detail on the early economists than many readers will be even marginally interested in; however, Rothbard's incisive comments make this volume essential reading for anyone studying Austrian economics, or the history of economics.
May 19, 2024
A fairly thorough survey of economic thought up until and including Adam Smith, although I was saying that the author is very opinionated in a way that was not enjoyable, if also not particularly disagreeable. The work had the breadth and scope of Bertrand Russell's History of Western philosophy Philosophy, and some overlap of material, but Russell wrote as an intelligent observer with a dry and sharp sense of humor, while Rothbard's style is more reminiscent of a socially awkward outcast complaining about the popular kids. There was a lot of emphasis on the discovery of ideas and a disdain for popularizing the ideas, despite the obvious fact that ideas must be known if they are to be impactful, and if they are not impactful then they are not valuable. I'm a little disappointed that a scholar, in the field that studies value, can write a book, which highlights how often ideas are (re)discovered, without concluding that the discovery of ideas is more trivial than intellectuals would like to believe.
In short, the book does an excellent job, intentionally and unintentionally, of showing that in the social sciences, and especially economics, motivated reasoning reigns supreme
In short, the book does an excellent job, intentionally and unintentionally, of showing that in the social sciences, and especially economics, motivated reasoning reigns supreme
March 22, 2022
This is a fascinating, sprawling, original book from Rothbard. I enjoyed the hell out of it, and read it probably more quickly than is strictly speaking healthy given the size. So I kind of regret rating it so low, but above all else this is a serious mixed bag.
The first book is better than the second. Rothbards attempts to rehabilitate so much economic thought before smith are fascinating stuff. (I'll finish this later)
The first book is better than the second. Rothbards attempts to rehabilitate so much economic thought before smith are fascinating stuff. (I'll finish this later)
April 14, 2024
Great work in ilustrating the evolution of economic thought, which mostly is in Europe. Ultimately sad that the state will support intellectuals and economists that fit their purpose, so laissez faire type intellectuals end up getting discarded by state agencies and universities.
I'm glad I listened to this and not read it since there's so much detail on all these economists' lives that aren't not exactly memorable.
I'm glad I listened to this and not read it since there's so much detail on all these economists' lives that aren't not exactly memorable.
November 30, 2025
As someone who did not study economics in school this book was a huge education in early economic though from the ancients right through to the early 19th century. Rothbard ties it all in very nicely with the political and historical events of the time leading to a very cogent narrative. Its a detailed read but well worth the time and effort. This is only the first volume of a 2 part history but lilely the more interesting part.
March 21, 2022
Is book is among the very best, analysis of economic development. Shine a bright light on many writers that have been forgotten from the collective mind. Doing it in a lite and well written manner, creating a flowing history that make the reader lost itself onto it.
June 17, 2016
The Greeks were the first civilized people to use reason to systematically analyze the natural world around them, as opposed to thinking that natural events and things resulted from, and were subject to, the whims of the gods. They developed a system of thought and scientific investigation that they called Natural Law. They examined the natural world and its properties, and classified things into categories. This included the study of man. According to Aristotle, man's existence is limited and not necessary. According to Plato, however, man's existence is eternal and necessary; man has simply degraded from this original form; we are supposed to transcend and work our way back to our original, perfect, eternal selves. In political thought, both Aristotle and Plato favored the aristocratic, oligarchical rule of the "polis," the city-state, where individual aspirations and endeavors are subjugated to the needs of the state, in this case, the polis; the "good" is not to be pursued by the individual, and the individual has no rights. Rather, virtue and the good life is to be found in the context of the polis. This statist view led to a feeling of contempt for innovation, entrepreneurship, labor and trade for profit. Hesiod, an early Greek poet, was the first "economist," as one of his poems, Works and Days, focuses on the problem of how humans use scarce resources towards abundant ends; labor, Material, and time must be allocated efficiently and harmoniously through the just application of laws. Other pre-Socratic theorists include Pythagorus and Democritus who founded "subjective value theory," i.e. wealth is a subjective value, although an over-abundant good is necessarily less valued. He also defended the idea of private property because it provides an incentive for work. Plato, Rothbard argues, favored in his Republic a "right-wing collectivist utopia." That is, the two ruling classes, the philosopher-kings and the soldiers were to live under absolute communism, sharing property, women, children, and meals, because private property corrupts virtue. The state would also be totalitarian where freedom of speech and the arts are suppressed. He proposed the idea of division of labor, although he ranked hierarchically the individual occupations, with laborers at the bottom. He denounced the use of gold and silver as money. Zenophon wrote on household management. One of his ideas was that an increase in supply of a commodity leads to a decrease in price. Aristotle was in favor of private property, and this idea heavily influenced the middle ages as it considered itself Aristotelian. He also denounced the "communism of the ruling class called for by Plato" because private property is more productive and leads to progress. Plato argued that communism would lead to peace, whereas Aristotle argued that it would lead to conflict. Aristotle also provided the concept that only private property allows people to behave morally because it allows for philanthropy and benevolence. He opposed the accumulation of wealth, however, & charging interest. After Greek society was absorbed by Rome, economic thought was consumed by the ideas of dealing with scarcity by accepting fate and curbing desires, ie. stoicism, cynicism, epicureanism. The stoics developed the concept of natural law (just law discovered by man's reason) that focused on the individual and on states everywhere rather than the Greek polis. Via mainly Cicero, the anti-statist stoic doctrine of natural laws influence Roman law, which touted property rights, which in turn influenced English common law and the civil law of the continent. In China the legalists were statists, the Taoists libertarians (no interference by state), and Confucions middle of the road.
Private property rights and the idea of laissez-faire came to the west via the Theodosian code and the Corpus Juris Civilis of Justinian - a "just price" is any price freely arrived at by buyer and seller. "Canon Law" was the law governing the church. During early middle ages canon law incorporated Roman law but also the capitularies of the Carolingian empire which fixed "fair prices" (prices commonly charged) & prohibited usury. In the high middle ages, the University of Bologna published the Decretum (collection of canon law)which took an anti-merchant position. Later, a more favorable view of private property and merchants grew.
"Thomism, in contrast, demonstrated that the laws of nature, including the nature of mankind, provided the means for man's reason to discover a rational ethics."
Late 13th century scholastics: Franciscans and utility theory: Pierre de Jean Olivi said value is determined by scarcity (supply), usefulness, and desirability (subjective utility). Utility is relative to supply and not absolute. Value of a good is determined by its marginal utility. Olivi also brought into economic thought the concept of capital (a fund of money invested in a business venture).
Private property rights and the idea of laissez-faire came to the west via the Theodosian code and the Corpus Juris Civilis of Justinian - a "just price" is any price freely arrived at by buyer and seller. "Canon Law" was the law governing the church. During early middle ages canon law incorporated Roman law but also the capitularies of the Carolingian empire which fixed "fair prices" (prices commonly charged) & prohibited usury. In the high middle ages, the University of Bologna published the Decretum (collection of canon law)which took an anti-merchant position. Later, a more favorable view of private property and merchants grew.
"Thomism, in contrast, demonstrated that the laws of nature, including the nature of mankind, provided the means for man's reason to discover a rational ethics."
Late 13th century scholastics: Franciscans and utility theory: Pierre de Jean Olivi said value is determined by scarcity (supply), usefulness, and desirability (subjective utility). Utility is relative to supply and not absolute. Value of a good is determined by its marginal utility. Olivi also brought into economic thought the concept of capital (a fund of money invested in a business venture).
May 13, 2022
Summary: Adam Smith is often hailed as the first economist, as a trailblazer who created the science of economics virtually de novo, and one who championed laissez-faire and liberal policies. However, this whole edifice falls once we look closer at the facts. For there was a great tradition of economics amongst the Catholic scholastics of the middle ages and a system of liberal economic thought amongst the French before Smith's time. Furthermore, Smith's ideas were themselves harmful and destructive, for he set economics down the wrong path with respect to value (espousing a labor theory instead of a subjective theory of value), as well as many mistakes in the realms of interest rates, banking, currency, the division of labor, and many other topics. Lastly, those ideas which we associated with Smith (the invisible hand, the division of labor, the freedom to transact, etc.) all originated with earlier traditions, such that Adam Smith added nothing to the subjective of economics, but may have taken many things away.
Rothbard deals with several schools of thought; the ancient Greek philosophers, whose ideas were haphazard and unimpressive to say the least, the ancient Daoist, who, though had good political writings, never added anything of real substance to the science of economics, the early Christians, who were deeply inconsistent in their attitudes toward wealth and accumulation, often both condemning and praising it, sometimes at the same time, the medieval Christians and the Roman law, who basically held to free market ideas except in the case of usury, the French physiocrats, who despite a flawed theory of productivity were capable economists, the French liberals, who created a tradition very near to the Austrian tradition to be found a century later, the Scottish Enlightenment, who, like the French, had an evolution towards proto-Austrian ideas, and finally Smith and his contemporaries, whose reservations and qualifications about the free market led to a discrediting of free market institutions by later generations.
Rothbard argues that there is a noticeable difference between the quality of economic thought of those on the continent versus those in Britain. He attributes this to the Protestant-Catholic split, particularly with Calvinism and its militant focus on labor productivity and eschewing of luxury, compared to the relatively laid back Catholic attitude of consumption and enjoyment.
Rothbard deals with several schools of thought; the ancient Greek philosophers, whose ideas were haphazard and unimpressive to say the least, the ancient Daoist, who, though had good political writings, never added anything of real substance to the science of economics, the early Christians, who were deeply inconsistent in their attitudes toward wealth and accumulation, often both condemning and praising it, sometimes at the same time, the medieval Christians and the Roman law, who basically held to free market ideas except in the case of usury, the French physiocrats, who despite a flawed theory of productivity were capable economists, the French liberals, who created a tradition very near to the Austrian tradition to be found a century later, the Scottish Enlightenment, who, like the French, had an evolution towards proto-Austrian ideas, and finally Smith and his contemporaries, whose reservations and qualifications about the free market led to a discrediting of free market institutions by later generations.
Rothbard argues that there is a noticeable difference between the quality of economic thought of those on the continent versus those in Britain. He attributes this to the Protestant-Catholic split, particularly with Calvinism and its militant focus on labor productivity and eschewing of luxury, compared to the relatively laid back Catholic attitude of consumption and enjoyment.
February 10, 2017
Esse primeiro volume da história do pensamento econômico escrito por Murray Rothbard é grandioso em sua extensão: contra a prática Whig de iniciar a historiografia com Adam Smith, sem antes é claro ridicularizar os mercantilistas e dar um "oi" aos Fisiocratas, Rothbard inicia com Platão e Aristóteles, e até vai mais atrás ao apontar as idéias econômicas de poetas gregos do Século VIII antes de Cristo, depois passa ao pensadores medievais e suas idéias sobre valor e suas posições sobre o fenômeno da "usura". Os pensadores da Escola de Salamanca são especialmente reverenciados pela solidez e perspicácia de suas idéias. Os mercantilistas são tratados pelo que são: propagandistas do engrandecimento estatal e lobistas em favor dos poderes constituídos. Richard Cantillon, em um capítulo dedicado a ele, recebe os créditos devidos por ter sido o primeiro economista próprio ao elaborar um curto tratado baseado na sólida análise econômica quase meio século antes de Adam Smith. ARJ Turgot, longe de ser um mero fisiocrata, é apropriadamente elevado à posição que merce como um excelente analista do valor e dos juros, tendo precedido mesmo Bawerk e sua teoria do juro como originado na preferência temporal. Os três capítulos finais são dedicados aos Iluministas Escoceses; em um, os precursores de Smith, Francis Hutcheson e David Hume; no penúltimo capítulo uma avaliação completa de Adam Smith e seu suposto mérito como Grande Economista e Eminente Liberal é levada a cabo com grande maestria — basicamente o que há de novo em Smith está errado e o que há de certo em Smith foi herdado de percursores maiores que ele; e, por fim, temos uma visão do espalhamento das idéias smithianas pela Europa.
Este livro é um marco em seu campo e a última obra prima da pena de Rothbard, seu testamento.
Este livro é um marco em seu campo e a última obra prima da pena de Rothbard, seu testamento.
April 30, 2014
As much as this work is about economics, it is also about the history of thought in the West. Anyone who wants to understand better the development and disintegration of thought in the West should read this work. I expected a rich history and insightful commentary on economic thought; I received that and much more! In fact, the book might be too detailed despite its superb ability to summarize since it covers so much territory. Nonetheless, I am glad that I read this book and will be reading the second volume sometime in the summer.
April 10, 2013
Rothbard's first volume provides a strong introduction to economic thought before Adam Smith, showing the sophisticated market analysis was being undertaken by the medieval scholastics and that later continental schools of thought advanced the discipline, noting especially the contributions of Turgot and Cantillon. A strong work and a reminder of how radically knowledge can be lost in the social sciences.
December 13, 2015
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, though, considering the sheer number of ideas and facts that are contained within it... I will definitely have to read it once or twice more to fully grasp what the material. It is then, perhaps, that I will write a review befitting this masterpiece.
September 3, 2010
Apparently Adam Smith was a dope, and Bacon a waste of time. Good to know.
Nothing better than a heavy dose of econ and history.
Nothing better than a heavy dose of econ and history.
October 26, 2012
Genius!
April 11, 2016
Early history of market economists.
July 2, 2019
20/20
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