The Moral Economists
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
The Moral Economists
| Full title | The Moral Economists: R. H. Tawney, Karl Polanyi, E. P. Thompson, and the Critique of Capitalism |
|---|---|
| Author | Tim Rogan |
| Published | 2017 |
| Pages | 280 |
| Recommended | Once |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Rogan reconstructs a non-Marxist line of anti-capitalist argument: Tawney, Polanyi and E. P. Thompson each objected to industrial capitalism on moral grounds — that it dissolved the obligations, customs and solidarity people live by — in a Christian or humanist vocabulary. His larger claim is that when those premises fell away, the critique lost its force, leaving the left with distributional arguments that cannot say what a market does to a person. |
Where I heard about it
- Brendan McCord — on his Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List (March 2026), under Capitalism, Morality, and Culture — the part of the list that treats the market as a moral question, where this supplies the strongest version of the other side’s case. Full transcription: The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List.
Connections
- Capitalism — the object of the critique being reconstructed.
- Morality — the ground on which these three argued.
- Christianity — the vocabulary Rogan says the critique lost.
- The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List — the curriculum this came from.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.