Philosophical Origins of Seventeenth Century American Economic Thought

James S. CICARELLI

Abstract


Abstract. This paper examines the philosophical origins of seventeenth century American economic thinking, considering the contributions of both Puritan thought as derived from the abundant written legacy its followers left behind, and that of Quaker thought, which though less voluminous proved to be more influential in the long run development of American economics. Before addressing the dominant theme of this essay, the paper begins with a discussion of protohistory, a concept essential to understanding the contention that historiography has overvalued the significance of Puritanism at the expense of Quakerism.

Keywords. Protohistory; Puritanism; Quakerism.

JEL. A10, A20.

Keywords


Protohistory; Puritanism; Quakerism.

Full Text:


References


Ahlstrom, S.E. (1972). A Religious History of the American People. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Anderson, T.L. (1975). The Economic Growth of Seventeenth Century New England: A Measurement of Regional Income. New York, NY: Arno Press.

Appleby, J.O. (1978). Economic Thought and Ideology in Seventeenth-Century England. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Bailyn, B. (1955). The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Bailyn, B. (1960). Education in the Forming of American Society. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina.

Bailyn, B. (1986). The Peopling of British North America. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.

Bercovitch, S. (1993). The Rites of Assent: Transformations in the Symbolic Construction of America. New York, NY: Routledge.

Blaug, M. (1985). Economic Theory in Retrospect. (Fourth Edition). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Boughton, L.C. (1987). Choice and Action: William Ames’s Concept of the Mind’s Operation in Moral Decisions. Church History.56(2), 188-203.

Bridenbaugh, C. (1970). Myths & Realities: Societies of the Colonial South. New York, NY: Atheneum.

Bridenbaugh, C. (1981). Early Americans. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Bronner, E.B. (1978[1962]). William Penn’s “Holy Experiment:” The Founding of Pennsylvania, 1681-1701. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Bruce, P.B. (1910). Institutional History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century. New York, NY: Putman.

Carnes, M.C. (2007). Editor’s Preface. In Edmund S. Morgan’s The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop. (Third Edition), pp. ix-x. New York, NY: Pearson/Longman.

Carter, M.S. (2008). Puritan Life. In British Colonial America: People and Perspectives. (J. A. Grigg, Editor), pp. 41-58. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC Clio.

Casey, G.N. 2010. The Major Contributions of the Scholastics to Economics. Mises Daily. December 3. (Online).

Cassedy, J.H. (1969). Demography in Early America: Beginnings of the Statistical Mind, 1600-1800. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Copeland, D.A. (1997). Colonial American Newspapers: Character and Content. Newark, DE: University of Delaware.

Cressy, D. (1987). Coming Over, Migration and Communication between England and New England in the Seventeenth Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Crosby, A.W. (1972). The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Davis, J.C. (2005). William Ames’s Calvinist Ambiguity over Freedom of Conscience. Journal of Religious Ethics, 33(2), 335-355. doi. 10.1111/j.1467-9795.2005.00194.x

Dorfman, J. (1946). The Economic Mind in American Civilization, 1606-1895. New York, NY: Viking Press.

Dunn, R.S. (1986). Penny Wise and Pound Foolish: Penn as a Businessman. In The World of William Penn. (R. S. Dunn and M. M. Dunn, Editors): Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press: 37-54.

Dunn, M.M., & Dunn, R.S. (1982). The Founding, 1681-1701, In Philadelphia, a 300-Year History. (R. F. Weigley, Editor), pp. 1-32. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.

Elsbree, W.S. (1939). The American Teacher: Evolution of a Profession in a Democracy. New York: American Book Company.

Emerson, E. (1990). John Cotton (Revised Edition). Boston, MA: Twayne.

Endy, M.B. (1973). William Penn and Early Quakerism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Evans, C. (1941[1916]). American Bibliography, A Chronological Dictionary of All Books, Pamphlets, and Periodicals Published in the United States of America, Volume I, 1639-1729. New York, NY: P. Smith.

Foreman, C.T. (1943). Indians Abroad, 1493-1938. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.

Forrest, T.J. (2001). William Penn, Visionary Proprietor. (eBook): xroads.virginia.edu.

Frey, D.E. (1998). Individualist Economic Values and Self Interest: The Problem in the Puritan Ethic. Journal of Business Ethics. 17(14), 1573-1580. doi. 10.1023/A:1005917301794

Frey, D.E. (2009). America’s Economic Moralists. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Friedman, D.D. (1980). In Defense of Thomas Aquinas and the Just Price. History of Political Economy. 12(2), 234-242. doi. 10.1215/00182702-12-2-234

Galenson, D.G. (1996). The Settlement and Growth of the Colonies: Population, Labor, and Economic Development. In The Cambridge Economic History of the United States, Volume I, The Colonial Era: (S. L. Engerman and R. E. Gallman, Editors), pp. 135-207. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Geiter, M.K. (2000). William Penn. Harlow, UK: Pearson Education.

Geller, L.D., & Gomes, P.J. (1975). The Books of the Piligrims. New York, NY: Garland.

Graff, H.J. (2011). Literacy Myths, Legacies, & Lessons. New Brunswick, NJ; Transaction.

Greene, J.P., & Pole, J.R. (1984). Reconstructing British American Colonial History: An Introduction. In Colonial British America. (J.P. Greene & J.R. Pole, Editors), pp. 1-17. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Grubb, F.W. (1990). Growth of Literacy in Colonial America: Longitudinal Patterns, Economic Models, and the Direction of Future Research. Social Science History, 14(4), 451-82. doi. 10.1017/S0145553200020897

Haller, W. (1957[1938]). The Rise of Puritanism. New York, NY: Harper & Row.

Henretta, J.A. (1979). Social History as Lived and Written. American Historical Review. 84(5), 1293-1322. doi. 10.2307/1861469

Hull, W.I. (1970). William Penn and the Dutch Quaker Migration to Pennsylvania. Balitmore, MD: Genealogical Publishing.

Jernegan, M.W. (1931). Laboring and Dependent Classes in Colonial America, 1607-1783. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Johnson, E.A.J. (1932). American Economic Thought in the Seventeenth Century. London: P.S. King & Son.

Jones, E.L. (1996). The European Background. In The Cambridge Economic History of the United States, Vol. I, The Colonial Era. (S. L Engerman and R. E. Gallman, Editors), pp. 99-133. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Kammen, M. (1980[1972]). People of Paradox: An Inquiry concerning the Origins of American Civilization. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Langholm, O. (1998). The Legacy of Scholasticism in Economic Thought. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Lockridge, K.A. (1974). Literacy in Colonial New England. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.

Maloy, J.S. (2008). The Colonial American Origins of Modern Democratic Thought. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

McCusker, J.J., & Menard, R.R. (1985). The Economy of British America, 1607-1789. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

McCusker, J.J. (1996). British Mercantilist Policies and the American Colonies. In The Cambridge History of the United States, Vol. I, The Colonial Era. (Edited by S. L. Engerman & R. E. Gallman), pp. 337-362. Cambridge, UK; Cambridge University Press.

McGrade, A.S. (Editor). (2003). The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Philosophy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

McNeill, J.T. (1954). The History and Character of Calvinism. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Middleton, R. (2002). Colonial America, A History, 1565-1776. (Third Edition): Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Miller, P. (1933). Orthodoxy in Massachusetts, 1630-1650. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Miller, P. (1953). The New England Mind from Colony to Province. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Miller, P. (1956). Errand Into The Wilderness. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.

Miller, P. (1967[1939]). The New England Mind, the Seventeenth Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Morgan, E.S. (1963). Visible Saints: The History of a Puritan Idea. New York, NY: New York University Press.

Morgan, E.S. (1964). The Founding of Massachusetts: Historians and the Sources. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill.

Morgan, E.S. (1965). Puritan Political Ideas, 1558-1794. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill.

Morgan, E.S. (1980[1944]). The Puritan Family, Religion & Domestic Relations in Seventeenth-Century New England (New Edition). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Morgan, E.S. (1983). The World and William Penn. Proceeding of the American Philosophical Society. 127(5), 291-315.

Morgan, E.S. (2007). The Puritans Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop. (Third Edition). New York, NY: Pearson/Longman.

Morgan, E.S. (2009). American Heroes: Profiles of Men and Women Who Shaped Early America. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.

Morison, S.E. (1936). The Puritan Pronaos: Studies in the Intellectual Life of New England in The Seventeenth Century. New York, NY: New York University Press.

Morison, S.E. (1964[1930]). Builders of the Bay Colony. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Mott, F.L. (1945). American Journalism: A History of Newspapers in the United States through 250 Years, 1690-1940. New York, NY: Macmillan.

Munch, T. (1989). Seventeenth Century Europe, 1598-1700. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press.

North, G. (1988). Puritan Economic Experiments. Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics.

O’Neill, T. (1987). Man of the House. New York, NY: Random House.

Parks, L.A. (1996). Capitalism in Early American Literature. New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Parrington, V.L. (1927). Main Currents in American Thought. New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace & World.

Peare, C.O. (1957). William Penn, A Biography. Philadelphia, PA: J. B. Lippincott.

Perkins, E.J. (1980). The Economy of Colonial America. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Price, J.M. (1984). The Transatlantic Economy. In Colonial British America. (J. P. Greene and J. R. Pole, Editors): Baltimore, MD, pp18-42. Johns Hopkins University Press.

Rosano, M.J. (2003). John Winthrop, John Cotton, and Nathaniel Niles: The Basic Principles Of Puritan Thought. In History of American Political Thought. (B-P. Frost and J. Sikkenga, Editors), pp. 25-43. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

Schultz, E.B., & Tougias, M.J. (2000). King Philips’s War: The History and Legacy of America’s Forgotten Conflict. Woodstock, VT: Countryman Press.

Schumpeter, J.A. (1954). History of Economic Analysis. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Slotow, L., & Stevens, E. (1981). The Rise of Literacy and the Common School in the United States, A Socioeconomic Analysis to 1870. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Smith, D.S. (1972). The Demographic History of Colonial New England. The Journal of Economic History. 32(1), 165-183. doi. 10.1017/S0022050700075458

Sprunger, K.L. (1972). The Learned Doctor William Ames: Dutch Backgrounds of English and American Puritanism. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Steinberg, S. H. (1959). Five Hundred Years of Printing. New York, NY: Criterion Books.

Thomas, I. (1970[1810]). The History of Printing in America. New York, NY: Weathervane Books.

Trigger, B.G. (1985). Natives and Newcomers: Canada’s “Historic Age” Reconsidered. Kingston, Ontario: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Trigger, B.G., & Swagerty, W.R. (1996). Entertaining Strangers: North America in the Sixteenth Century. In The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas, Volume I, North America, Part 1. (B. G. Trigger and W. E. Washburn, Editors): Cambridge, UK, pp. 325-398. Cambridge University Press.

Tyler, L.G. (1904). England in America, 1580-1652. New York, NY: Harper.

Tyler, L.G. (1907). Narratives of Early Virginia, 1606-1625. New York, NY: Scribner’s.

Valeri, M. (2010). Heavenly Merchandize: How Religion Shaped Commerce in Puritan America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Vaughen, A.T. (1965). New England Frontier: Puritans and Indians, 1620-1675. Boston, MA: Little, Brown.

Ver Steeg, C.L. (1964). The Making of America: The formative Years, 1607-1763. New York, NY: Hill and Wang.

Weber, M. (1958[1930]). The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York, NY; Scribner’s.

Weeks, L.H. (1996[1916]). A History of Paper Manufacturing in the United States, 1690-1916. New York, NY: Burt Franklin.

Wright, L.B. (1940). William Perkins: Elizabethan Apostle of “Practical Divinity.” The Huntington Library Quarterly, 3(2), 171-196. doi. 10.2307/3815898

Yero, J.L. (2006). The Mayflower Compact. Washington, DC: National Geographic Society.

Zuniga, G. (1997). Scholastic Economics: Thomastic Values Theory. Religion and Liberty: (Online).




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1453/jest.v3i2.844

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Bookmark and Share


Journal of Economic and Social Thought - J. Econ. Soc. Thoug. - JEST - www.kspjournals.org

ISSN: 2149-0422

Editor: jest@ksplibrary.org   Secretarial: secretarial@ksplibrary.org   Istanbul - Turkey.

Copyright © KSP Library