 Religion and the sociological critique of political economy: Altruism and giftPhilippe Steiner The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2017, vol. 24, issue 4, 876-906 Abstract: This article shows that there is a strong connection between the religious component of French sociology and the critique of political economy. In the first section, I consider how selfish behaviour, or egoism, became treated as a major threat endangering the creation of industrial society by those concerned about the diffusion of political economy. I then summarise the methodological critique set forth in the Cours, before connecting this critique to the economic content of the Système and the concept of altruism. In the following section, Spencer's view of altruism is contrasted to that held by Comte, and then I consider the reaction of French political economists, defending the moral value bought about by their science. In the final section, I explain how the Comtean approach was re-enacted by Durkheim and then by Mauss, at the head of the “sociology of religion” section of L'Année sociologique, the Durkheimian journal, to give birth to the theory of gift-giving behaviour that Mauss used to critique political economy in the 1920s. Date: 2017 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:eujhet:v:24:y:2017:i:4:p:876-906 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/09672567.2017.1332664 Access Statistics for this article The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought is currently edited by José Luís Cardoso More articles in The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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