Alejandro A Tagliavini
Today’s most widely known market theory was developed based on the principles of the Scottish School led by Adam Smith, who “In several respects… diverted economy from its fair course, the one represented by the continental tradition commenced by medieval and late scholastics… leading economy to a very different path…”, says Murray N Rothbard. This “continental tradition” was developed by a group of famous Thomists, mostly Jesuits and some Dominicans, many of whom were professors of Moral and Theology at the University of Salamanca. Nobel Prize in Economics Friedrich Hayek assured that “the basic principles of the market theory… were established by the sixteenth century Spanish Scholastics”. All the same, “economy” was not intended to be a science, but was derived from moral: the study of human behavior – in the market – within the pre-existing natural order. But then rationalism – as to all other “sciences” – diverted the issue to a rational construction and granted economy the status of autonomous “science” for it was created by human reason independently from pre-existing order. Such “independence” implies two features: it does not occur spontaneously since it does not respond to the nature of things and, therefore, must be coercively imposed and, logically, ignores the real authority, which is moral authority, since it considers itself “free”. Therefore, we will attempt to return to the origins -as I’ve tried in my late book “Cómo ser ricos y felices”-, to the natural market, i.e. the market of the natural order.
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