Premodern Economic Cultures

Modern economists have made a science of studying the aggregate effects of individual choices. This science is based on the realities of personal freedom and individual choice. Prior to the modern era, however, different realities comprised very different economic cultures: moral economies in which greed was evil and generosity benefitted the patron's soul; familial collectives operating within historical conditioned diasporas; economies of obligation that threatened to collapse under their own weight as economic structures shifted. In this course we will be reading cross-culturally to develop an understanding of the shared and distinct elements of premodern economic cultures.