Studentsov V.
Puritans’ Economy: Solidarity Versus Profit-Seeking
Publication Type:


ISSN 2073-6517

The article discusses the Puritans’ economic views and practices. Central to their economic ethics was the concept of calling. In dealing with it as well as in a treatment of wealth, the Puritans stressed that economic activity should be focused on  the  promotion  of  common  good.  Self-interest  was  censured  but  wealth  was  considered  to  be  ethically  neutral  able  to  promote private interest as well as common good. The Puritans’ economic ethic had found its most full application in the seventeenth century New England where a creation of the genuine Christian society was conceived. There was established a semblance of theocracy that bound residents together in addition to adherence to Calvinism by a pursuit to implement the Biblical principles of life, providentialism, a series of covenants, mutual church surveillance and discipline. The Puritans fought idleness, tried to foster callings by promoting education. Being champions of the private property and initiative, they did not interfere without special need in the process of price and incomes formation, but stimulated production. They sought to moderate profit-seeking for the sake of common good promotion. However, the rational method of life of the puritans noted by M. Weber is not sufficient to claim that they were the full-blooded forerunners of a contemporary economic man.


Keywords: economic ethics | puritans | calling | wealth | profit-seeking | common good | economic policy | ethical (communal) capitalism | homo economicus |

Russian Science Citation Index



OTHER PUBLICATIONS ON THIS TOPIC

Studentsov V.
Rereading Max Weber’s "Protestant Ethic": Questions, Doubts, and Objections

Korolev Ivan
Экономическая политика в условиях внешних ограничений. [Текст] / И.С. Королев // Мир перемен. – 2015. – Специальный выпуск. – С.

Kapelyushnikov Rostislav
A Rejoinder to a Contemporary Non-Economist A Comment on a Comment

Sidorova Elena
Which Capitalism Is Better?/ V. Klinov, E. Sidorova // Voprosy Economiki. – 2011. – № 9. – P. 142-151.

Klinova Marina
A View in the Retrospect of Time: A History of State and Business Interaction. Russian and Soviet Marxism on the State’s Role in the Economy // Economic Strategies. – 2017. – No 5 (147). – P. 200–213.

Kondrat’ev Vladimir
Перспективы финансового капитализма // Перспективы. Электронный журнал. 2021. № 2-3 (25-26). С. 160-177. DOI 10.32726/2411-3417-2021-2-3-160-177. URL: http://www.perspektivy.info/upload/iblock/51b/2_3_2021_0_160_177.pdf (дата обращения 28.12.2021).

Kondrat’ev Vladimir
Капитализм в кризисе или кризис капитализма? / В.Б. Кондратьев // Прямые инвестиции. – 2012. – № 4. – С. 19–21.

Mamedyarov Zaur
Лукавство глобалистов [Текст] / З. А. Мамедьяров // Эксперт. – 2018. – № 5.

Prokhorenko Irina
Российская социально-экономическая модель: вопросы методологии / И.Л. Прохоренко // Вестник МГИМО – Университета. – 2011. – № 4. – С. 312–315. – Рец. на кн.: Национальная экономика: учебное пособие/ Булатов А.С. – М.: Магистр: ИНФРА-М, 2011. – 304 с.

Avtonomov Vladimir
Модель человека в экономической науке. С.-Пб., Экономическая школа, 1997, 10 п.л.

Klinova Marina
The Role of the State in the European Union Economy // Herald of the Russian Academy of sciences. 2015. Vol. 85, no 12. P. 1113-1122

Mirkin Yakov
Новая экономическая политика для России // Научные труды Вольного экономического общества России. 2021. Т. 227, № 1. С. 115-127. DOI 10.38197/2072-2060-2021-227-1-115-127.

Kapelyushnikov Rostislav
The Multiplicity of Institutional Worlds: Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences-2009.

Kapelyushnikov Rostislav
Whether economic return from education fell / Kapelyushnikov R.I.

Zaytsev Valery , Zagorskii Andrei, ,
Россия и Северо-Восточная Азия: экономическая взаимозависимость и безопасность. М., ИМЭМО РАН, 1997, 3,2 п.л.

Lapkin Vladimir
«Modernization» and «Capitalism»: Rethinking Contemporary Political Change //Polis Journal.Political Studies, 2012, № 6. P. 41-54

Gutnick Anna
Economic crisis in the UK: it’s specific features and measures undertaken to overcome it

Sidorova Elena
European Economic Integration. Chapter in the monograph, pp. 286-294: International Economic Relations in the global Economy: a textbook for undergraduate and graduate programs / I.N. Platonova (ed.). - Moscow: Urait Publishing house, 2019. - 528 p.

Zagashvili Vladislav
Экономическая безопасность России. М., Юристъ, 1997, 15 п.л. Монографии была присуждена в 1997 г. Премия им. академика В.С. Варги Российской академии наук за лучшие научные работы в области экономики.

Kuznetsov Alexey
В чем проблемы современной российской экономической политики?. [Текст] / А.В. Кузнецов // Мир перемен. – 2015. – Специальный выпуск. – С. 212 – 215.
Related publications


Comments (0)

No comments

Add comment







First news
Institute News
10/06/2022

The next issue of the journal ME & MO (No. 6, 2022), which opens with a panoramic article by V. Mikheev and S. Lukonin, has been published. The authors dedicated it to China on the eve of the 20th CPC Congress. In the economic block of the magazine special attention is paid to digital currencies.

more...

09/06/2022

An article by Marina Klinova «The State and Energy Security in the World and Europe as a Public Good» was published in the June issue of the journal «Voprosy Ekonomiki» ("Economic Issues") under the heading "International Economics" (in Russian).

more...

Recently Published