Part 2
If ideas have consequences, then what are the consequences of ideas? And in the midst of this first question, a second question emerges: What ideas from great economic thinkers have shaped and swayed the world? My own thoughts on these questions are informed by three books.
The first book is Ideas Have Consequences by Richard Weaver. The second book is The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts That Shaped Our World by R. C. Sproul. And the third book is The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times, and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers by Robert Heilbroner.
While the first book does the work of a philosopher, and the second book does the work of a theologian, the third book does the work of an economist. In his introduction to The Worldly Philosophers, Heilbroner states, “It would be convenient if we could begin straight off with the first of the great economists – Adam Smith himself.” Heilbroner continues, “However, we must understand the world that preceded their entrance and we must watch that earlier world give birth to the modern age – the age of the economists.”
In an earlier world, the varied and necessary tasks needed for human survival were handed down from generation to generation through tradition. Eventually, the whip of authoritarian rule was also used to get tasks done. According to Heilbroner, economists became necessary upon the development of a third solution to the problem of survival – the market system. He states, “In the market system the lure of gain, not the pull of tradition or the whip of authority, steered the great majority to his (or her) task.”
The development of the market system would in time be called capitalism, and ideas from the great economic thinkers would continue to shape and sway the world. Heilbroner himself refers to these economists as the worldly philosophers whose ideas are both creative and destructive. And he concludes, “The worldly philosophy is the child of capitalism and could not exist without it.”
~Boethius~