The Mediterranean Tradition in Economic Thought

It is a matter of academic routine to consider economic thought as having exclusively Anglo-American origins. However, many of the civilizations that flourished in the Mediterranean basin long before the rise of the Atlantic economies bequeathed a rich legacy of economic thinking. It was a tradition deeply embedded in politics, ethics, and religion; it was, in fact, more sweeping and complete than that of the West. The Mediterranean Tradition in Economic Thoughtsurveys the development of this tradition over four millennia. It considers the economic context of the scriptures of the Mesopotamian civilizations, Pharaonic Egypt and the Biblical peoples and the contributions of the Greeks and Romans and their influence on Islamic civilization and on the Medieval scholastics. The flowering of the school of Salamanca as recently as the seventeenth century demonstrates how long-lived the tradition was, and throughout the author demonstrates how these ideas continue to survive andresurface, citing the renewed interest in the ethical dimension of economics, the revival of interest in the history of Islamic thought, and the re-emergence of Slavophile doctrine in contemporary Russia.

Louis Baeck is Professor of International Economics and Development at the Catholic University of Leuven.