The Essential Hirschman by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Essays, Social Science, Politics, development, Social History, History, Business & Economics, General, Economic Development
ISBN: 9781400848409
Google: NV4TAAAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1400848407
Goodreads: 17942061
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2013-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

THE concEPT of inTErEsT

from Euphemism to Tautology

Few words in public debate have been burdened with more baggage than “self- interest.” By the early 1980s, right- wingers were slinging it around to make the case for unfettering individuals from intrusive states; critics called them naive. They extolled the importance not of self- interest but of social purpose. Hirschman, as ever, found the exchange between ideologues unhelpful to say the least. His friend Pierre Bourdieu invited him to return to Paris, this time to deliver a series of keynote lectures at the Collège de France; Hirschman chose the theme of an enlarged political economy ( une économie politique élargie), hoping to turn a dialogue of the deaf into fruitful conversation between adversaries. His goal was to show that the idea— the concept— of “interest” had a history and had been the battleground for economists since the seventeenth century. It was linked, however, not just to the concept of the self, but so importantly to the idea of political power itself. His point to the audience gathered in Paris was to show that personal welfare and statecraft were raveled together from the start. The effort to narrow the definition threatened to separate behaviors and activities from one domain of life from others, selfish or “interested” motivations from altruistic or “ethical” actions. This trend drained the concept itself of its great analytical power.

—Jeremy Adelman

“inTErEsT” or “inTErEsTs” is one of the most central and controversial concepts in economics and, more generally, in social science and history. It is also extremely versatile, not to say ambiguous, and

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its meaning has been shifting a great deal. Since coming into widespread use, in various European countries around the latter part of the sixteenth century as essentially the same Latin- derived word ( intérêt, intéresse, etc.), the concept has stood for the fundamental forces, based on the drive for self- preservation and self- aggrandizement, that motivate or should motivate the actions of the prince or the state, of the individual, and, later, of groups of people occupying a similar social or economic position (classes, interest groups). When related to the individual, the concept has at times had a very inclusive meaning, encompassing interest in honor, glory, self-respect, and even afterlife, while, at other times, it became wholly confined to the drive for economic advantage. Correspondingly, “pursuing one’s interests” can cover— to the point of tautology— all of human action while it will more usefully designate a specific manner or style of conduct, known variously as “rational” or as “instrumental” action.

The esteem in which interest- motivated behavior is held has also varied drastically. The term was originally pressed into service as a euphemism serving, already in the late Middle Ages, to make respectable an activity, the taking of interest on loans, that had long been considered contrary to divine law and known as the sin of usury. In its wide meanings, the term achieved at times enormous prestige as key to a workable, peaceful, and progressive social order. But it has

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