Economic Rationales For A Tyranny of Sociopaths

A critique of neoclassical economics

Image by Hunters Race, from Unsplash

A monumental transition happened when the subjects of feudal monarchies in Europe and its colonies were “liberated,” as we would say, by the capitalistic democracies that replaced them. These revolutions were enabled by the return of pagan humanism, and by the invocation of the individual’s worth.

Previously, under theocracies, Europeans valued themselves mainly in relation to a divine lawgiver. There were sinners and sons of gods, heretics and messiahs or prophets. Above all, people themselves to be subject to some higher power.

Then the Catholic insiders wrestled with the naturalistic humanism that was implicit in the surviving texts from the old Greco-Roman cultures. And the scales fell from the peasants’ eyes as the Protestants revolted against the Church hegemony which had proved itself to be irredeemable in its Albigensian crusade against the more Christ-like Cathars.

Classical Economics

With this rise of skepticism, Europeans came to see themselves as valuable, instead, because of their bare humanity, their inherent strengths as relatively rational, autonomous, and creative mammals. They were persons, not slaves of nature or of supernature.