Managing the Wealth of Nations – what a conceptual and ideas-based approach can tell us about capitalism and economic development, 15th-19th centuries
Practical information
Attendance is free of charge, and a sandwich lunch will be provided. To ensure suitable catering and accommodation, we kindly ask you to confirm your attendance via shoc@vub.be, along with any dietary preferences (vegetarian, vegan).
Abstract
Pre-classical economic thinkers have rarely been considered in our narratives on the origins of capitalism, industrialisation, and the making of the modern wealth of nations. If at all, it is usually Adam Smith and other thinkers of the Scottish enlightenment who are credited as the inventors of modern political economy. Simultaneously, to the present day most accounts have focused on England, omitting not only Scotland and Ireland, but also a whole continent when comparing “Europe” and “Asia” in long-term global economic development. In the process, the contributions by continental European thinkers and practitioners of historical economic development have fallen by the wayside. Similarly, the virtues of a longue-durée perspective on capitalism, the industrial revolution and modern economic development, could also have been more proactively emphasised. This has led to multiple selection biases in global or deep history approaches to the industrial revolution, great and small divergences, imputed European miracles, or modern capitalism more generally speaking.
Defocusing from an Anglo-centric angle on the modern wealth of nations I would like to bring in conceptual-historical approaches (Begriffsgeschichte) to political economy, in particular the contributions made by German-language speakers, their works and theories, to the making of historical economic development from the Renaissance to the industrial revolution.