Humanity and Nature in Economic Thought

<p><em>Humanity and Nature in Economic Thought: Searching for the Organic Origins of the Economy</em> argues that organic elements seen as incompatible with rational homo economicus have been left out of, or downplayed in, mainstream histories of economic thought. </p><p>The chapters show that organic aspects (that is, aspects related to sensitive, cognitive or social human qualities) were present in the economic ideas of a wide range of important thinkers including Hume, Smith, Malthus, Mill, Marshall, Keynes, Hayek and the Polanyi brothers. Moreover, the contributors to this thought-provoking volume reveal in turn that these aspects were crucial to how these key figures thought about the economy. </p><p>This stimulating collection of essays will be of interest to advanced students and scholars of the history of economic thought, economic philosophy, heterodox economics, moral philosophy and intellectual history.</p> <p>Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Sympathies for Common Ends: The Principles of Organization in Hume’s Psychology and Political Economy Chapter 3: Adam Smith on Organic Change in Moral Beliefs Chapter 4: Malthusianism In and Out of Darwinism. Naturalising Society and Moralising Nature? Chapter 5: J.S. Mill’s Understanding of the “Organic” Nature of Socialism Chapter 6: The Concept of Organic Growth in Marshall’s Work Chapter 7: The Role of Keynes’s Idea of “Organic Unity” in his “General Theory” of Capitalism Chapter 8: Unintended Order and Self-Organization in the Evolutionary Social Theory of Friedrich Hayek Chapter 9: The Politics of Naturalizing the Economy: Organic Aspects in the Economic Thought of Karl and Michael Polanyi</p>