António Almodovar

The Ascent and Decline of Catholic Economic Thought, 1830–1950s

The emergence of Catholic economic thought in the late nineteenth century was preceded by several attempts to deal with some crucial moral issues arising out of economic activity, although economic questions did not rank high in the churchs concerns until the second half of the nineteenth century. From the 1830s onward we identify several political economists bearing a Catholic viewpoint and the development of intellectual networks in several continental European Catholic countries in the second half of the nineteenth century. At the end of the century these efforts received a significant stimulus with the first papal documents promoting the social doctrine of the Catholic Church. By the early decades of the twentieth century, Catholic economic thought had flourished. In this article we deal with the evolution of Catholic economic thought in western continental Europe between 1830 and the early 1950s, especially the efforts to develop a Catholic school of economic thought, with a specific agenda of research and of social and economic transformation.

‘Catholic in its faith, Catholic in its manner of conceiving science’: French Catholic political economy in the 1830s

Abstract This paper addresses a group of Catholic political economists in France in the 1830s, which was described by the Dublin Review as ‘Catholic in its faith, and Catholic in its manner of conceiving science’. A first section clarifies how contemporaries perceived this group. This is followed by an analysis of Villeneuve-Bargemonts Economie politique Chrétienne in order to outline a standard Catholic approach to political economy. Finally, that standard is used to chart the work of other Catholic economists within that group and to contrast it with the approach followed by other contemporary social political economists.

Da economia política cristã à ciência social católica − elementos para uma história do pensamento económico católico (1832-1959): Classe de Letras - Sessão de 21 de Julho de 2011

El pensamiento economico catolico esta practicamente ausente de las historias contemporaneas del pensamiento economico. Aqui se presenta una vision global que muestra que estos autores comparten una orientacion comun y que, en ultima instancia, pertenecen a la misma escuela -la escuela catolica- del pensamiento economico.

Political Economy And The ‘Modern View’ As Reflected In The History Of Economic Thought

Abstract This paper focuses on the transition from classical political economy to ‘modern’ economics, a central aspect of which is the ascent of the conception of ‘theory’ as a mere instrument of research. We analyse how this transitional phase was perceived and interpreted in representative, more or less contemporaneous histories of economic thought: those by Luigi Cossa in 1880, by John Kells Ingram in 1915 (originally published in 1888), and by Charles Gide and Charles Rist in 1915. Despite their differences, all authors share the same conception of the structure of scientific laws, as well as the view that economics must be separated from liberalism.