Before Economics

In the second chapter of The Worldly Philosophers, Robert Heilbroner gives a brief history of life before the advent of economics, and explains why in his view there was no need for economists or economic philosophy prior to the advent of the industrial revolution. The chapter concludes in the period just before the life of Adam Smith, whom Heilbroner identifies as the first of the wordly philosophers.

He begins this chapter by providing several snapshots of life before the revolution, showing how different the pre-modern world was in its relationship with the market. One of the examples he cites is of the trial of a man named Robert Keayne in Boston in 1639:

A trial is in progress; one Robert Keayne, “an ancient professor of the gospel, a man of eminent parts, wealthy and having but one child, and having come over for conscience’ sake and for the advancement of the gospel”, is charged with a heinous crime: he has made over sixpence profit on the shilling, an outrageous gain. The court is debating whether to excommunicate him for his sin, but in view of his spotless past it finally relents and dismisses him with a fine of two hundred pounds.

Another is of the nature of the rules in the articles of incorporation of The Merchant Adventurers Company in England:

In England a great trading organization, The Merchant Adventurers Company, has drawn up its articles of incorporation; among them are these rules for the participating merchants: no indecent language, no quarrels among the brethren, no card playing, no keeping of hunting dogs. No one is to carry unsightly bundles in thes treets. This is indeed an odd business firm, it sounds more nearly like a fraternal lodge.

The point Heilbroner wishes to impress on us is that the notion of gain, or profit, is a comparatively recent one and not at all ingrained in us:

It may strike us as odd that the idea of gain is a relatively modern one; we are schooled to believe that man is essentially an acquistive creature and that left to himself he will behave as any self-respecting businessman would. The profit motive, we are constantly being told, is as old as man himself. But it is not. The profit motive as we know it is only as old as “modern man”. Even today the notion of gain for gain’s sake is foreign to a large portion of the world’s population, and it has been conspicuous by its absence over most of recorded history … The idea of gain, the idea that each working person not only may, but should, constantly strive to better his or her material lot, is an idea that was quite foreign to the great lower and middle strata of Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and medieval cultures … Not only is the idea of gain by no means as universal as we sometimes suppose, but the social sanction of gain is an even more modern and restricted development.

This should not in his view be confused with the existence of wealth, or greed:

Wealth, of course, there has always been, and covetousness is at least as old as the Biblical tales. But there is a vast deal of difference between the envy inspired by the wealth of a few mighty personages and a general struggle for wealth diffused throughout society.

Much of the chapter is comprised of such examples that would strike us today as fundamentally alien: legal restrictions on the number of threads in fabrics, technological innovations being harshly regulated by trades guilds, and the basic fact that almost everyone was born into their profession. The notions we hold of technological innovation being an instrinsic good, or at least something worth pursuing, of selling one’s labour to the highest bidder, of attempting to increase one’s wealth in life - were as alien to the pre-modern world as their attitudes are to us.