Humanity and Nature in Economic Thought Searching for the Organic Origins of the Economy Routledge Studies in the History of Economics Series

Humanity and Nature in Economic Thought: Searching for the Organic Origins of the Economy argues that organic elements seen as incompatible with rational homo economicus have been left out of, or downplayed in, mainstream histories of economic thought.

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.

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.

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

Gábor Bíró is an Assistant Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Philosophy and History of Science at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, and a Research Fellow of the MTA Lendület Morals and Science Research Group at the Research Centre for the Humanities, Budapest, Hungary. He was awarded the History of Economics Society 'Craufurd Goodwin Best Article Prize' in 2021 for his paper on Michael Polanyi and the first economics film, published in the Journal of the History of Economic Thought.