The Economics of Paradise: On the Onset of Modernity in Antiquity

275 Pages·2015·1.38 MB·English

by  Sigmund A. Wagner-Tsukamoto (auth.)

The Economics of Paradise
Also by Sigmund A. Wagner- Tsukamoto
UNDERSTANDING GREEN CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
HUMAN NATURE AND ORGANIZATION THEORY
IS GOD AN ECONOMIST?
The Economics of Paradise
On the Onset of Modernity in Antiquity
Sigmund A. W agner- Tsukamoto
© Sigmund Wagner- Tsukamoto 2015
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-28769-4
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First published 2015 by
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ISBN 978-1-349-67091-8 ISBN 978-1-137-28770-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137287700
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Transferred to Digital Printing in 2014
To my wife and sons, M, M, and N, and to the
memory of my grandparents
Contents
List of Figures xii
Preface xiii
Acknowledgements xiv
Introduction 1
Prologue: Genesis 2–3 9
1 Why and How to Study the Paradise Story
in Economic Terms 13
1.1 Key questions, themes and theses of the book:
conflict, anarchy and capital exchange in paradise 14
Questioning the dualism thesis 16
The ‘old’ unitary thesis for the Old Testament:
is a ‘new’ unitary thesis feasible? 18
‘Permissibility’ of economic research on the
Old Testament 20
1.2 The constitutional and institutional economic
approach to analysing the breakdown of co- operation:
a brief introduction 22
Heuristic models of constitutional and institutional
economics: dilemma structure and homo economicus 24
Organizational/ group- based conflict model 24
‘Capitalist’ problems inside paradise: capital
contribution/distribution and capital exchange 25
Contests in paradise: the critical role of
economic institutions 27
Costs of economic governance and the generation
of mutual gains 29
Constitutional and institutional economic
research strategies for the Paradise story 31
1.3 Methodological approach 32
Narrative analysis of the Paradise story 32
The Paradise story and primeval history 36
Finality of the text 38
1.4 Summary and conclusions 39
vii
viii Contents
2 Looming Capital Contests in Paradise: No Land
of Cockaigne 43
2.1 Work, human capital and time capital 47
Work and human capital 47
Time capital 49
2.2 Morality and ethical capital: the contest for
moral autonomy 51
A capacity for moral reasoning 51
Moral knowledge and the capability for
human governance 53
2.3 Knowledge of everything: the tree of knowledge
and the possibility of science 55
Knowledge capital in the Paradise story 55
How ‘modern’ is knowledge creation? 57
2.4 Contested liberty inside paradise 58
Banned capital and the expectation of obedience 59
Democratic ( self-)governance before the theft? 61
The collapse of the obedience model:
the Hobbesian war as a starting point for
negotiating freedom 63
2.5 Summary and conclusions 65
3 Agents of Paradise and the Rise of S elf- interest 70
3.1 Homo economicus as the key heuristic method
of biblical economics 71
3.2 Economic agents in the Paradise story:
God as homo economicus 77
3.3 Economic agents in the Paradise story:
Adam and Eve as homines economici 79
Capital contests and the rise of the homo economicus 80
Genesis (1: 2 6– 30): humans not pronounced ‘good’ 84
3.4 Economic agents in the Paradise story: the serpent
as cataclysmic catalyst 86
A heuristic reading of the serpent 87
Why did God create the serpent? 90
Specific functions of the serpent: r e- connections
to heuristic readings 91
Re- inventing institutional order through
the serpent model 93
3.5 Summary and conclusions 95
Contents ix
4 The Breakdown of C o- operation in Paradise:
The Rise of Anarchy 99
4.1 The principal– agent problem: a brief introduction 100
Incomplete contracting: information and
delegation problems 102
Moral hazard 103
Risk-bearing 105
Residual loss 106
4.2 Sources of anarchy: incomplete contracting, and
information and delegation problems in
the Paradise story 107
4.3 Sources of anarchy: moral hazard on the side of
the principal ‘God’ and on the side of the agents
‘Adam and Eve’ 111
4.4 Sources of anarchy: r isk- taking on the side of
Adam and Eve, enticed by the serpent 113
4.5 Sources of anarchy: how to manage ‘residual loss’
in the Paradise story 116
4.6 Summary and conclusions 117
5 Outcomes of the Paradise Interactions: Gains and
Losses, Winners and Losers, Rational Fools 120
5.1 Prisoner’s dilemmas, natural distribution states
and mutual losses/gains in the Paradise story 122
Contracting dilemmas as conceptual
starting points 122
Normative relevance of situational logic and
the prospect of mutual loss/mutual gain 124
5.2 Prisoner’s dilemma analysis of the Paradise story 126
Dilemmatic contests in x - goods as starting points
in the Paradise story 126
The paradisiacal defection process 128
The paradox of mutual loss unravelled 130
5.3 The forgotten fool: why was the serpent punished? 134
The serpent: between foolishness and altruism? 135
A heuristic (r e-)reading of the serpent 136
5.4 Heuristic echo: the loss of paradise as
a meta- heuristic for storytelling 139
Prisoner’s dilemma as a heuristic for the
Paradise story 139
x Contents
Putting the Paradise story in heuristic perspective:
a normative programme for building society 142
Augustine’s original sin: is a heuristic reading possible? 144
5.5 Summary and conclusions 146
6 Why Was Paradise Lost? And Is This a Cause for Lament? 150
6.1 Conventional starting points and conventional
solutions to the theft: where is liberty? 152
Traditional views on the pre- theft situation:
the happy, original state and ‘freedom to obedience’ 152
Sin, original sin and ‘pessimistic’ readings of
the outcomes in the Paradise story 154
Traditional resolution of sin and disobedience 157
6.2 Shifting towards a constitutional economic platform
for assessing liberty 159
Missed opportunities: upholding the dualism thesis 159
Questioning dualism: an institutional and constitutional
economic approach to the Paradise story 160
6.3 Lamenting the loss of paradise? Or why contest for
liberty is valuable 163
The authoritarian starting point in the Paradise story 165
From imposed authority into the natural state:
How to gain citizen sovereignty? Is the natural
state valuable? 168
Constitutional rule change: Wicksellian exceptions or
Buchanan’s unanimity 175
6.4 Summary and conclusions 180
7 Concluding Remarks: How Modern Is Religion or
Is it a Road to the Past? 185
7.1 Foreclosing love and the Song of Songs 187
The Song of Songs as an answer to the Paradise story? 187
The Paradise story as an alternative to the Song of Songs 191
The heuristic loss of love and the heuristic organization
of the possibility of conflict 192
Make love, not war: institutional p re- conditions
of modernity 194
7.2 The etiological story: a story about conflict in the
initial state of nature 197
7.3 How ‘modern’ is antiquity? 200
When did modernity begin? 200
A modern reading of the Old Testament 203