tailieunhanh - History of Economic Analysis part 12

History of Economic Analysis part 12. At the time of his death in 1950, Joseph Schumpeter-one of the major figures in economics during the first half of the 20th century-was working on his monumental History of Economic Analysis. A complete history of humankind's theoretical efforts to understand economic phenomena from ancient Greece to the present, this book is an important contribution to the history of ideas as well as to economics. | History of economic analysis 72 it not that historiography inspired by a popular version of Marxian sociology may easily create the impression to put it in the crudest possible way that medieval thought was merely the ideology of a landholding warrior class verbalized by its chaplains. This impression would be wrong not only from the standpoint of those who refuse to accept the Marxian sociology of ideas but also from the standpoint of Marx himself even if we chose to interpret the Catholic system of thought as an ideology it would still remain the ideology of the clergy and never merge with that of the warrior class. It is important to keep this in mind because of the practically complete monopoly of learning that the Catholic Church enjoyed until the Renaissance. This monopoly was due primarily to the spiritual authority of the Church. But it was greatly reinforced by the conditions of those ages in which there was neither room nor security for professional scholars except within a convent. In consequence almost all intellectuals of those times were either monks or friars. Let us briefly consider some implications of this. All those monks and friars spoke the same unclassical Latin they heard the same Mass wherever they went they were formed by an education that was the same in all countries they professed the same system of fundamental beliefs and they all acknowledged the supreme authority of the Pope which was essentially international their country was Christendom their state was the Church. But this is not all. Their internationalizing influence was strengthened by the fact that feudal society itself was international. Not only the Pope s but also the Emperor s authority was international in principle and to some varying degree in fact. The old Roman Empire and that of Charlemagne were no mere reminiscences. People were familiar with the idea of a temporal as well as of a spiritual superstate. National divisions did not mean to them what they came to mean .