Imagining Interest in Political Thought ：Origins of Economic Rationality

Publication subTitle ：Origins of Economic Rationality

Author： Stephen G. Engelmann  

Publisher： Duke University Press‎

Publication year： 2003

E-ISBN: 9780822384946

P-ISBN(Paperback): 9780822331223

P-ISBN(Hardback):  9780822331353

Subject： D081 Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

Keyword： Bentham, Jeremy, -- 1748-1832., Liberalism., Self-interest., Public interest., Reason of state.

Language： ENG

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Description

Imagining Interest in Political Thought argues that monistic interest—or the shaping and coordination of different pursuits through imagined economies of self and public interest—constitutes the end and means of contemporary liberal government. The paradigmatic theorist of monistic interest is the English political philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), whose concept of utilitarianism calls for maximization of pleasure by both individuals and the state. Stephen G. Engelmann contends that commentators have too quickly dismissed Bentham’s philosophy as a crude materialism with antiliberal tendencies. He places Benthamite utilitarianism at the center of his account and, in so doing, reclaims Bentham for liberal political theory.

Tracing the development of monistic interest from its origins in Reformation political theory and theology through late-twentieth-century neoliberalism, Engelmann reconceptualizes the history of liberalism as consisting of phases in the history of monistic interest or economic government. He describes how monistic interest, as formulated by Bentham, is made up of the individual’s imagined expectations, which are constructed by the very regime that maximizes them. He asserts that this construction of interests is not the work of a self-serving manipulative state. Rather, the state, which is itself subject to strict economic regulation, is only one cluster of myriad "public" and "private"

Chapter

Contents

Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments

1 Introduction

1 Introduction

1 Introduction

2 Against the Usual Story

2 Against the Usual Story

2 Against the Usual Story

3 Virtuous Economies

3 Virtuous Economies

3 Virtuous Economies

4 Imagining Interest

4 Imagining Interest

4 Imagining Interest

5 State Rationality

5 State Rationality

5 State Rationality

6 The Public Interest

6 The Public Interest

6 The Public Interest

7 The Economic Polity

7 The Economic Polity

7 The Economic Polity

Notes

Notes

Notes

Index

Index

Index

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