Edward O'Boyle - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Edward O'Boyle

International Journal of Social Economics, Jun 12, 2007

This article addresses two tasks. First, it provides a rough sketch of what it means to approach ... more This article addresses two tasks. First, it provides a rough sketch of what it means to approach economic affairs from the perspective of person and personalism versus individual and individualism. To accomplish that task, it is necessary to answer three questions about the economic agent: 'Who?,' 'What?,' and 'Whose?.' How one responds to those questions determines how one thinks about economic affairs. Second, we trace the origins of personalist economics to Aristotle, Aquinas, and Smith, and show why personalist economics departs from mainstream economics, and how it is linked to Weber and Walras principally through Schumpeter. In undertaking the second task it has been necessary to demonstrate that person and personalism which emerged during the electronic stage of human communication are much more relevant to contemporary economic affairs than individual and individualism which are tied to the earlier script stage of human communication.

Ron Stanfield has had a long and distinguished career as a social economist and commentator on th... more Ron Stanfield has had a long and distinguished career as a social economist and commentator on the social economy.1 Of special concern to us in this article are Stanfield’s interests in social capital, sustainable development, and nurturance which we refer to as caring. We also take up several other virtues including sympathy, benevolence, and generosity that have been part of the economics literature from the time of Smith’s Moral Sentiments along with the associated vices of heartlessness, insensitivity, meanness, greediness, and others. This article attempts to show that (1) adding social capital to the machine-like individual of mainstream economics results in the acting person of personalist economics who becomes more fully a human person through social interactions that foster the development of several virtues or less fully a human person through other interactions that instill certain vices; and that (2) in matters relating to sustainability, becoming more fully a human pers...

The European Union must continually re-examine where in the social order decision-making on polit... more The European Union must continually re-examine where in the social order decision-making on political and economic affairs should be located. This challenge requires reaching agreement on the decisions that are to be controlled by the European Union and the ones to be controlled by the member states. These decisions often involve locating control in the public sector or the private sector. In these matters the principle of subsidiarity, which gives preference to private control, is instructive. There is one lesson for E.U. member states to be drawn from the U.S. experience. Ceding control of decisionmaking to Brussels can over time weaken the resolve and ability of member states to reclaim control over decision-making regarding political and economic affairs such that subsidiarity no longer has any effective application. The social order will have collapsed leaving no effective intermediary bodies between the E.U. and private-sector organizations, crushing member states as functiona...

The Journal of Markets and Morality, 2007

Homo economicus rests on the silent premises that human communication today is no different than ... more Homo economicus rests on the silent premises that human communication today is no different than it was in Adam Smith’s day, and therefore human beings relate to each other and to themselves no differently than 225 years ago. In essence, the development of the telegraph followed by the telephone, radio, television, fax, email, and Internet have had no bearing on the way we think about economic agency. Homo economicus never changes. Proclaiming a requiem for homo economicus is more than just clever rhetoric. The call is grounded in an understanding of human nature that surfaced with the development of electronic communication that altered our awareness of others and of ourselves and gave birth to the philosophy of personalism. Burying homo economicus and substituting homo socioeconomicus brings the basic unit of economic analysis out of the individualism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries into the personalism of the twentieth century. Edward J. O'Boyle, "Requiem for...

International Journal of Social Economics, 2010

Forum for Social Economics, 2006

The Great Irish Famine resulted from two massive failures: the blight which destroyed the potato ... more The Great Irish Famine resulted from two massive failures: the blight which destroyed the potato crop and the non-interventionism of the English government. The first failure which also occurred in other European countries was devastating for the Irish who depended on the potato as their main source of nourishment. The second failure was a human failure because English government policy was instructed by classical economics to let the market clear the surplus population from the land and was reinforced by the anti-Irish racism common in England at the time, even among classical economists, notably Senior and J.S. Mill. It is commonplace in economic research to assume that the investigator has removed all traces of personal values from his/her work. As Becker (1961, p.10) implies, that could be a serious error. For that reason, let me state at the outset that I am a first-generation Irish-American, holding dual citizenship in the United States and the Republic of Ireland. My mother and father both were born and raised in County Mayo-the poorest county in western Ireland where the toll in human lives lost during the Great Famine was staggering. I do not know how many of my own Irish ancestors suffered and died during the Great Famine. What I do know and acknowledge is that my selection of this topic clearly is related to that family background which also very likely influenced the way I have interpreted the evidence presented herein. I concede that someone else sifting through the evidence might come to different conclusions, but I know of no other way to proceed. Supportive comments by Hans Jensen and Peter Danner on earlier drafts are gratefully acknowledged, as are the suggestions made by the editor and an anonymous referee. Any remaining errors are entirely mine. For most of the nineteenth century the English answer was to ignore the hate and crush the crime which (the land system) produced. In the forty years before 1870 forty-two Coercion Acts were passed. During the same period there was not a single statute to protect the Irish peasant from eviction and rack-renting. Winston Churchill, The Great Democracies, p. 343. The Great Irish Famine of 1845-50 represented the greatest crisis in the history of England's relationship with Ireland (Mill 1979a, p.35). For Ireland the Famine was the greatest social catastrophe in its entire history (Póirtéir 1995a, p. 1). This conjoined crisis/catastrophe represents the first limit. In 19th century Europe, Ireland after the Great Famine was unique in terms of the scope of its postfamine psychological trauma, its demographics, and its connectedness to its emigrant sons and daughters (Gray 1995b, p.117)-the second limit. In both instances, limit is used not in the usual mathematical sense but rather to characterize the Great Famine as an extraordinary event of enormous, tragic consequences which even today merits serious scholarly inquiry. The laissez-faire doctrine of classical economics and its practice were never more dominant in English history than between 1817 and 1870 (Viner, p.v)-the third limit. Here limit is used in similar fashion: to underscore the especially significant role of classical economics in shaping English government policy regarding the Irish question (Viner, p.v; Cosmopolite, p.2). Put differently, had the classical economists of that period played no such role in policy making, there would be no limit three and no basis for exploring their role in the Great Famine. Instead, the Great Famine became the ultimate 18 th century test of the classical doctrine that unfettered markets sort out all conflicts and serve the common good and that government officials ought not meddle in economic affairs-the fourth limit. Here limit is used in a somewhat different sense, referring in this instance to the intersection of limits one, two, and three. With the Great Famine we have what Becker (1953, p. xvii) describes as "that valuable social tool, the limiting case." If in the face of the unprecedented human tragedy befalling British subjects in Ireland classical economists in England were unwilling to accept that at times markets fail and government intervention is necessary, what would have convinced them that "the invisible hand" is rhetoric and that a sound economics cannot be constructed without regard for the central problem of unmet human material need? The answer came some 80-85 years later in the form of the Great Depression and the Keynesian Revolution that finally exposed the flaws in classical economic theory and made clear that government must intervene whenever markets break down and huge numbers of human beings suffer the hardship of unmet material need. This article is organized in five parts. The first part addresses the scope of the Great Famine and the response of the English government in order to confirm as authentic the claims referred to as limits one and two and to set aside the counterclaims of some revisionist historians. The second part identifies the leading classical economists in England during the early and mid-1800s and presents the central tenets of classical economics. The role of classical economics in the Irish land question is examined in the third part. In the fourth part, the elitism, false stereotyping, racism, and anti-Catholicism characteristic of England and classical economists are reviewed. In part four, it has been necessary to quote several sources at length because those very words are centrally important in establishing the extent of the hostility and prejudice in England among classical economists. Parts two, three, and four present evidence to authenticate the claims referred to as limits three and four. All of the evidence, taken together, supports the proposition that the Great Famine is the limiting case that precedes and in a sense foretells the ultimate collapse of classical economics during the Great Depression. Our final comments in part five take the form of five general conclusions. The first relates to limits one and two and answers this question: 'why do we call the famine of 1845-1850 the Great Famine?'. The other four conclusions are relevant to the third and fourth limits and answer this question: 'what role did classical economics and classical economists play in fortifying the response of the British government to the unprecedented need of the Irish people during the Great Famine?'.

Forum for Social Economics, 1998

To be consistent with John Paul II's assertion of the primacy of the subjective dimension of ... more To be consistent with John Paul II's assertion of the primacy of the subjective dimension of work, of "being" versus "having," it is necessary to reject profit maximization as the primary objective of the firm. In its place the author proposes instead that the firm's foremost objective is the maximization of personalist capital. Properly understood, profits are a necessary condition for the firm's survival. Personalist capital in effect incorporates the subjective dimension of work into microeconomic theory without dismissing the objective dimension entirely. The author is deeply grateful to Dr. Megan Maloney for several very insightful comments while this article was in draft stage. Even so, he is solely and entirely responsible for any remaining lack of clarity or errors of omission or commission.

Social and Education History, 2016

In this article we address the following question: does culture play a role in economic behavior?... more In this article we address the following question: does culture play a role in economic behavior? We conclude that culture influences economic behavior in all three areas of economic activity: work, consumption, and leisure. Our proof lies not so much in replicating certain experimental results, but in documenting in real-world circumstances how culture influences economic behavior. Attention to the role of culture in economic affairs acknowledges that humans are more than the one-dimensional, autonomous, individuals, as premised in mainstream economics, whose very existence is temporal, whose role in economic affairs is strictly instrumental, and whose behavior is virtually the same across cultures. We have argued that humans are two-dimensional twice over. First, humans are individual beings and social beings: solitary and communal, self-made and culture-bound, autonomous and dependent, rational and emotional, self-centered and other-centered. Second, humans are both matter and sp...

Catholic Social Science Review, 2014

This article is concerned with four questions. How are decisions made in economic affairs? What r... more This article is concerned with four questions. How are decisions made in economic affairs? What role does freedom play in a market economy? How important is freedom in a market economy? How best to preserve freedom of economic initiative? Based on responses to those questions, we argue that a personalist economy with its reliance on intermediary groups and preservation of economic freedom represents an alternative to the individualism of capitalism and the collectivism of socialism. The evidence presented breaks the stereotype of private group decision-making as collusive and demonstrates that a personalist economy is a functioning reality in the United States. The individual today is often suffocated between two poles represented by the State and the marketplace.

mail: edoboyle@earthlink.net 2 Mainstream economics, instructed by Smith's Wealth of Nations ... more mail: edoboyle@earthlink.net 2 Mainstream economics, instructed by Smith's Wealth of Nations (1976a) and strengthened by Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom (1961), represents the economic agent as homo economicus, a strictly individual human being, and the firm as a profit-making enterprise serving the needs of its shareholders only. Everyone else is excluded on grounds that the shareholders alone own the firm. From this perspective, all existence is individual existence. Personalist economics, drawing upon Smith's Moral Sentiments (1976b) and inspired by Catholic social teaching, insists that community is inclusive of everyone with a stake in the company including managers, workers, and suppliers all of whom invest time, effort, skills and talents in the company's development. Also included are the customers of the company without whom it cannot exist as a viable enterprise and the communities where the company operates. Each one depends on the company and hopes for ...

The Linacre quarterly, 1982

Review of Social Economy, 1990

Review of Social Economy, 1991

Review of Social Economy, 1994

Review of Social Economy, 1992

Review of Social Economy, 1989

Review of Social Economy, 2000

... economic instrumentalities. ORIGINS AND LINEAGE The beginnings of personalist economics date ... more ... economic instrumentalities. ORIGINS AND LINEAGE The beginnings of personalist economics date from Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum. Some ... that encyclical. Forty years later Pope Pius XI calls Leo's encyclical "... the ...

Review of Social Economy, 2001

... stage of communication and, the author argues, are much better suited to the 21st century. ..... more ... stage of communication and, the author argues, are much better suited to the 21st century. ... Conventional economists characteristically are children of the 17-18th century Enlightenment (Waters 1988, p ... spirit but all too often lead to death and despair in addiction and homicides ...