The Economic Person

Early scholars, perceiving economics as the praxis of persons, emphasized their obligation to share economic goods; to use them prudently and lawfully and to trade or lend them justly. As notional economics grew and became more complex, scholars like Adam Smith perceived economics as a science of human conduct and relations with its own principles of operation. It reflected the secular, amoral, and empirical Zeitgeist of the 19th century, demoting homo economicus into a mere economic agent without moral principles. This book focuses on the human person as a whole self-conscious spirit and a whole material body rather than an economic agent. From this point of view, economic values come under scrutiny. Common practice and ideals are reinterpreted when self-interest melds with 'other-interest' to generate economic well-being.