Thursday, January 5, 2012

On the Varieties of Economies

In "Creating a Culture of Gift" (Conversations on Philanthropy, Vol. II: New Paradigms (2005)), Frederick Turner argues that there are five fundamental types of economies: the political economy, the market economy, the gift economy, the environmental economy, and the divine economy. With the exception of the environmental economy, or ecosystem, all of these can be rationally constructed by human beings into organizations, or allowed to develop naturally as spontaneous orders (and mixtures of the two, in interventionist economies).

The spontaneous order political economy is democracy/common law. The spontaneous order market economy is the catallaxy. The spontaneous order gift economy is actually made up of three kinds of spontaneous orders, each representing the three aspects of the gift economy -- the good, the true, and the beautiful become the philanthropic, scientific, and artistic orders. And the spontaneous order divine economy would be what we see in places like the United States, where separation of church and state results in a proliferation of beliefs.

The organizational political economy is dictatorship (not necessarily monarchical). The organizational market economy is central planning socialism. The organizational gift economy is also central planning socialism (the good), but includes central planning science and central planning art (propaganda). The organizational divine economy would be similar to what we saw in Medieval Catholic Europe. Of course, these can be variously combined.

If the spontaneous orders are combined, we get liberal civil society. If the organizational economies are combined, we get something that resembles Stalinsim.

Are there other liberal spontaneous orders? What kind of economy, for example, is the internet? Is it truly distinct? If so, we should expect it to affect the other orders (much as each of the spontaneous orders affect all the other orders).

How might the internet affect the artistic (esp. literary) order? How is it affecting it? In what ways do the other orders affect the literary order?

1 comment:

  1. Divine Economy Theory Is Starting To Reach The Economic Literature.

    Although you mention the divine economy and examine it through the lens of 'spontaneous order' and the 'organizational' lens, neither of these captures the divine economy as unfolded in the divine economy theory. (

    I am grateful though that you are using the term and identifying it as a 'variety' of economics. Indeed, from my perspective the divine economy theory is an authentic economic science in the classical liberalism tradition that comes from the harmony of both science and religion; which means that it gives honor to the human spirit, and permits the recognition of the inseparability ethics and economics, and has the potency to address justice, unity, law, and order in the context of transformation.