Cooperation and Excellence: A Premodern Case for Capitalism.

• Author: Thrasher IV, John J.
• Position: Book review

* Cooperation and Excellence: A Premodern Case for Capitalism

By George Bragues

Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2017.

Pp. ix, 223. $100 hardcover.

Capitalism is a surprisingly recent invention. If we set the beginning of capitalism at the publication of Adam Smith's book The Wealth of Nations in 1776, it is only 242 years old. That is only somewhere between nine and twelve generations ago. In contrast, Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 B.C., more than 2,000 years ago. The difference in time between Caesar's assassination and the founding of capitalism is an order of magnitude.

Because of this distance in time, the ancients are different from us in many respects. Their views of morality, politics, religion, and even the family differ from ours in fundamental ways. For instance, all of their great moral and political thinkers advocated, or at least tolerated, slavery. In most of the ancient Greek city-states, pederasty was institutionalized, and women were treated horribly. Their scientific conception of the world is different in most ways from our own, and their religions were polytheistic. The list goes on.

There is a temptation to see the Romans in the way that Goethe claimed Shakespeare represented them--as Englishmen in togas. We should avoid this temptation while also avoiding the opposite error of thinking that the ancients are so different that there is nothing to learn from them. Wittgenstein, for instance, bragged that he had never read Aristotle (or presumably any Greek philosophy). The idea, held by many, is that because the ancients were "wrong" about virtually everything, there is no sense in studying them today.

Reading and learning about radically different views from our own, though, can be intellectually beneficial. Understanding different viewpoints can help us see the world in new and different ways. Nietzsche's study of classical drama and philosophy, for instance, led him to his radical "reevaluation of all values" and rejection of contemporary morality and philosophy. The American Founders were also crucially influenced by Roman republican thought.

Into this debate about the importance or irrelevance of ancients to modern problems comes George Bragues and his "premodern" case for capitalism. The idea of a premodern defense of capitalism initially seems hopeless. Capitalism is a modern invention, so it seems as if a premodern defense of capitalism would be about as plausible and useful as a premodern defense of the...