----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- Patric Gunning wrote: [ ..."Holism" in such a world of uncertain economic process would refer to the image that we build to enable us to conceptualize that interaction. Adam Smith's invisible hand was one of the first steps along the lines of building such an image. In the late 19th century, economists built a more complete image of "an economy" [ my emphasis] in which the concept of economic class was replaced by the concept of functions and roles....] Some months ago I read a paper by Timothy Mitchell - "Origins and Limits of the Modern Idea of the Economy" ( the paper to be presented at the workshop on University of Chicago). It seems that Patric's comment gives me a chance to check with the HES list's members as to the paper's central idea. Here is a short summary of it: The concept of "the economy," like everything else, is a mere construct, a mere representation, not something natural. "The economy" today plays such a powerful role in political discourse it is difficult to imagine that it emerged so recently - that only since the middle third of the twenieth century has it been imagined to exist. Adam Smith, never once refers in WN to a structure or whole of this sort. When he uses the term economy, the word carries the older meaning of frugality or the prudent use of resources. From the works of Munn and Petty in the seventeenth century to Smith in the late eighteenth, political economy was not concered with structure of production or exchange within an economy, but with goverment of the community's affairs. As recently as the 1920s, _Palgrave's Dictionary of Political Economy_ contained no separate entry for or difinition of the term economy. In 1932, Robbins' classic_ Essay on the Nature and Significant..._ never employed the term economy in its novel mid-twentieth -century sense. The economy came into being between the 1930s and 1950s as the field of operation for novel powers of planning, regulation, statistical enumeration and representation. Through these forms of political rationality and practice it become possible to imagine the economy as a self-contained sphere, distinct from the social, the cultural, and other spheres. Regards, Mohamma Maljoo ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]