Superphysics
The Timeline of Western Economic Thought 1204-2020
April 11, 2015 5 minutes • 1025 words
Table of contents
- Proto-mercantile: The Rise Of The Merchants (1204-1420)
- Pre-mercantile: Discovery And Conquest For Gold And Silver (1420-1600)
- Mercantile Period: The Problem Begins (1600-1799)
- Pre-capitalist Period: Utility And Money For Pleasure And Industrial Development (1800-1889)
- Capitalism: Microeconomics, Banks, And Big Business (1890-1944)
- Global Capitalism: (1944-2020)
The differences in the economic philosophies of different time periods can be attributed to the main ideas or mentalities prevalent during those times, as the effect of new experiences or ‘impressions’ on the mind. We chronologically list the main events that may have caused people to have those new experiences from which they developed new ideas.
Proto-mercantile: The Rise Of The Merchants (1204-1420)
The Venetians give Europe the first taste of commerce and manufactures |
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1204 | Constantinople is sacked during the Fourth Crusade and treasures are brought back to Venice, which becomes a European power |
| 1271 | Marco Polo, a Venetian, leaves for Asia |
| 1300 | The Travels of Marco Polo is published, describing the East |
| 1368 | Start of the Ming Dynasty |
| 1405 | The Ming show off its wealth and power through its Treasure Fleet |
Pre-mercantile: Discovery And Conquest For Gold And Silver (1420-1600)
The Portuguese and Spanish want to join in the Italians’ business through sea exploration, since the way to the East was blockeed by the Arabs through fall of Constantinople
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1425 | Henry the Navigator develops the caravel to be used to seek a sea route to the East |
| 1488 | Portuguese Bartolomeu Dias reaches Cape of Good Hope |
| 1492 | Italian Christopher Columbus reaches the Americas through Spanish support |
| 1498 | Portuguese Vasco da Gama reaches India |
| 1577 | Venice suffers from the Black Death while having lost its Eastern trade to the Portuguese |
| 1588 | Spanish Armada defeated by the British |
Mercantile Period: The Problem Begins (1600-1799)
Trade and the Commercial Company Spread Around the World Like a Virus. With the Spanish defeated, other Europeans join in the colonization game with their own merchants through the invention of companies, paper financial products, and commodities trading
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1600 | English East India Company established |
| 1602 | Dutch East India Company established |
| 1660 | Royal African Company established |
| 1694 | (Central) Bank of England established |
| 1695 | Bank of Scotland established |
| 1711 | South Sea Company established |
| 1714 | John Law goes to France to eventually set up the Mississippi scheme |
| 1752 | Royal African Company dissolved |
| 1755 | Richard Cantillon publishes Essai, contributing to monetary theory |
| 1759 | Adam Smith publishes The Theory of Moral Sentiments, advocating a new system of morality that is against Utility |
| 1776 | Adam Smith publishes The Wealth of Nations,bashing the Commercial System which is based on Money and Utility |
| 1789 | Start of the French Revolution |
Pre-capitalist Period: Utility And Money For Pleasure And Industrial Development (1800-1889)
The Greed Virus Takes Root. The too-big-to-fail commercial company model proves unsustainable. The Industrial Revolution peaks, leading to new material experiences to gratify the senses. The word ‘scientist’ replaces ’natural philosopher’. Big non-corporate companies are established to build steel plants and railroads.
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1800 | Dutch East India Company dissolved |
| 1803 | JB Say publishes A Treatise on Political Economy, advocating utility, the cause of producers, andtotally removing ethicsfrom the Political Economy |
| 1850 | South Sea Company dissolved |
| 1874 | English East India Company dissolved |
| 1848 | John Stuart Mill publishes Principles of Political Economy |
| 1861 | John Stuart Mill publishes Utilitarianism permanently corrupting the Political Economy with utility, something that Smith argued against in The Theory of Moral Sentiments |
| 1867 | Karl Marx publishes Capital: Critique of Political Economy, bashing the Capitalist system espoused by Mill that came from England and France |
| 1870 | John D. Rockefeller establishes Standard Oil which spurs the Second Industrial Revolution |
| 1871 | William Stanley Jevons publishes The Theory of Political Economy, adding Calculus to the Political Economy, also based on Utility. Carl Menger publishes Principles of Economics, starting the Austrian school |
| 1872 | Andrew Carnegie enters the steel business |
| 1874 | Leon Walras publishes Elements of Pure Economics with the General Equilibrium Theory |
Capitalism: Microeconomics, Banks, And Big Business (1890-1944)
The Wealth Virus Creates War. The corporate ‘firm’ and banks pick up what the mercantile companies left behind. Economics is formalized. By now Western moral philosophy has died, leading to world wars.
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1890 | Alfred Marshall publishes Principles of Economics, turning the Political Economy into Economics. By now, moral philosophy is totally alien to Economics |
| 1892 | Irving Fisher publishes Mathematical Investigations in the Theory of Value and Prices. The marginal revolution imposed the artificial concept of profit maximization which led to prices being unnatural. This transferred the economy from the hands of the entrepeneurs into the hands of banks which controlled the flow of money through interest rates. |
| 1895 | The bank J.P. Morgan and Company is established |
| 1913 | Federal Reserve System established |
| 1914 | World War 1. The lack of moral philosophy in the West eventually leads to war |
| 1920’s | The Fed goes into open market operations to grow the US economy |
| 1929 | Start of Great Depression |
| 1936 | John Maynard Keynes publishes The General Theory, establishing macroeconomics and the liquidity preference, enshrining money as wealth. Moral philosophy is still nowhere, proven by his reference to ‘animal spirits.’ It enshrines money, banking, and interest rates, different from the classical notions of capital, industry, and profits respectively |
| 1939 | World War 2. With no moral philosophy, World War 1 was revived with tanks, jets, rockets, and other 'wonder weapons' designed to kill humans more efficiently |
Global Capitalism: (1944-2020)
The US emerges from the ashes of both world wars and the Cold War to impose its own system of global capitalism. The firm evolves into huge corporations, a type of which is the too-big-to-fail bank which can crash the global economy by itself. The Wealth Virus is Stopped by a Real Virus.
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1944 | Bretton Woods established; The US becomes a superpower after World War II |
| 1948 | Paul Samuelson publishes Economics, standardizing Economic science |
| 1971 | Nixon shock makes currencies pegged to nothing. Oil prices spike as petrodollars get pegged to oil instead. Inflation follows |
| 1998 | Repeal of Glass-Steagal. Banks awash with fiat cash, which is pegged to nothing, combine long-term and short-term cash to get employed and make even more money |
| 2008 | Start of Financial Crisis in the US. The combined fiat cash of banks runs out of employment and crashes |
| 2020 | Under the weight and oppression of capitalism and global warming, Nature finally breaks out in revolt with a Covid-19 pandemic and a lot of natural disasters, bringing global capitalism to its knees which no economist can solve |
