Is God an Economist?: An Institutional Economic Reconstruction of the Old Testament (Studies in European Cultur/His)

Cover......Page 1
Contents......Page 8
List of Figures......Page 13
Preface......Page 14
Acknowledgements......Page 16
Copyright Acknowledgements......Page 17
Introduction......Page 18
1 The Economic Approach to Reconstructing the Bible......Page 28
On the textual nature of Old Testament deconstruction......Page 29
Incentive structures and the societal contract......Page 35
From positive to normative institutional economics: Analysing and achieving mutual gains......Page 40
Interactions over capital contributions and capital distributions......Page 42
Dilemma structures and economic man and intervention with the incentive compatibility of the situation......Page 43
1.2 Differences to previous economic and theological research on the Old Testament......Page 45
The theological approach to understanding the Bible......Page 46
The religious economic approach to Bible studies......Page 49
Economic research on the Bible: Ontological issues or a matter of approach?......Page 55
Does economics entertain an unrealistic and dark image of human nature?......Page 57
1.4 Concluding remarks......Page 59
2.1 The heuristic role of the commons dilemma and the prisoner\'s dilemma in institutional economic reconstruction......Page 62
2.2 The original sin and a rational fools\' dilemma in Paradise......Page 66
Capital scarcities and capital contribution issues in Paradise......Page 67
Capital scarcities and capital distribution issues in Paradise......Page 68
A constitutional economic reading of scarcity problems and interaction conflict in Paradise......Page 70
Contested \'good x\' and the natural distribution state in the Paradise story......Page 73
Rationally foolish interaction outcomes for God and Adam & Eve......Page 75
The original sin as analytical driver of Bible stories......Page 77
2.3 The first encounter with \'economic man\' in the Paradise story: The portrayal of human nature or methodological fiction?......Page 80
On the heuristic purpose of economic man......Page 81
Economic man in the Paradise scenario and the snake metaphor......Page 82
2.4 Concluding remarks......Page 87
3 On the Genesis of the Wealth of Nations......Page 90
3.1 Evidence of behavioural economics in the early stories of Genesis: Social ordering in value homogeneous settings......Page 91
The early societal contract: Value contracts with God as sovereign......Page 92
Behavioural economic ordering in the early stories of Genesis......Page 95
Scarcities in capital as starting point of biblical storytelling......Page 99
A dilemmatic conflict model of capital contributions and capital distributions......Page 101
Incentive structures and institutional ordering in the early biblical society......Page 111
Wealth of nations (mutual gains) as goal of conflict resolution......Page 114
Pluralism as a rising interaction condition in Genesis: Towards an economic societal contract......Page 116
Self-interest, wealth accumulation and wealth creation......Page 126
Darker shades of self-interest: The behavioural punishment of \'bad\', opportunistic behaviour......Page 128
Biblical characters getting away with opportunistic behaviour?......Page 130
3.4 Economic ordering in complex, multicultural settings: Joseph and the Israelites in Egypt......Page 135
Dilemmatic scarcities as interaction conditions in the Joseph story......Page 137
Pluralism as an interaction condition in the Joseph story......Page 138
Egypt\'s economic policies under Joseph\'s reign......Page 140
Joseph: Hero by thesis, Moses: Non-hero by anti-thesis......Page 145
3.5 Concluding remarks......Page 152
4 On the Exodus of the Wealth of Nations......Page 157
4.1 The breakdown of cooperation and rational foolishness as outcome of Moses\' and the pharaoh\'s interactions......Page 158
The commons dilemma and uncontrolled population growth......Page 159
Further cooperation dilemmas and unresolved industrial relations problems......Page 162
A modern parallel of industrial relations problems in an Exodus-like scenario......Page 165
The failure to intervene with economic institutions in a dilemma structure......Page 167
Mutual loss as interaction outcome......Page 171
Moses and the pharaoh acting like economic men......Page 174
The snake metaphor in Exodus......Page 176
Cooperation failures driven by God......Page 178
Godly intervention in Exodus and the failure to master pluralism as interaction condition......Page 182
4.4 Concluding remarks......Page 183
5 Institutional Ordering after the Exodus......Page 186
Dilemmatic interest conflicts during the Exodus journey and the Levites\' economic man-like, opportunistic acquisition of influence......Page 187
Incentive structures, biblical laws and new societal contracting......Page 192
Economic organization structures for the Exodus journey......Page 196
Capital exchange in social interactions......Page 198
Mutual gains as interaction outcome......Page 199
The loss of pluralism as interaction condition......Page 200
5.2 Institutional ordering after the Exodus journey......Page 202
Dilemmatic interest conflicts after the first settlements: The \'war of all\' breaking out......Page 203
Incentive structures in the resettlement phase......Page 206
Capital exchange in the resettlement phase......Page 211
Mutual gains: Zero-sum and nonzero-sum games after the Exodus journey......Page 212
Resettlement crusades, institutional ordering and the instrumental role of economic man......Page 214
The loss of pluralism as interaction condition......Page 216
5.3 Concluding remarks......Page 217
6 Economic and Non-Economic Interpretations of God in the Old Testament......Page 220
God as value contractor: Loser in the Paradise story......Page 222
God as value contractor after the Paradise story: New value contracts with humans......Page 224
God\'s struggle with Jacob: The value contractor losing to economic man......Page 226
God as interventionist, ruler and value fundamentalist prosecutor......Page 229
God as inspirational source of intellectual capital......Page 232
6.3 Abstracting the notion of God for economic principles of social ordering......Page 234
God as principle of creative social ordering......Page 235
God and the principle of mutuality of gains as interaction outcome......Page 236
God as a reflection of the principle of maintaining pluralism as an interaction condition......Page 238
The idea of God as a solution for everything?......Page 239
God as a reference to the Unexplained in general......Page 241
Abstracting the restfrage: On the reduction of schisms between religion and the sciences......Page 242
6.5 Concluding remarks......Page 244
7 Conclusions and After thoughts on the Economic Reconstruction of the Old Testament......Page 249
7.1 The Old Testament and economic role models for societal contracting, international relations and nation-building......Page 251
7.2 Organization structures, transactions cost efficiencies and environmental conditions......Page 255
7.3 The onset of modernity in the Old Testament: Pluralism as interaction condition......Page 256
7.4 Encountering dilemma structures and economic man in the Old Testament......Page 258
7.5 A brief note on the question of authorship of the Old Testament......Page 261
7.6 On the capitalist ethics of the Old Testament: Revisiting the Weber thesis......Page 262
7.7 So, is God an economist?......Page 265
Bibliography......Page 270
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