HISTORIA MAGISTRA VITAE – AD ACTA ODER AD NAUSEAM?

Recent decades have seen the rise of neoliberal interpretations in the economic history of capitalism, development and economic growth. Free trade and free markets are said to have been the epitome of good economic development, whilst protectionism and mercantilism are seen as the antinomy of economic modernity. The economic historyofearlymodernEurope,including processesofglobaleconomic divergence have often been written accordingly. The present paper, whilst not laying any judgemental claims to the right or wrongs of neoliberalism, wishes to tracethe influence of neoliberal philosophy on writing early modern economic histories and the history of capitalism. It studies some of its most obvious implications, including Eurocentrism, economic determinism and the new historical materialism inherent in cliometrics and the New Economic History as it emerged in the 1960 s and 1970 s in the West. The first section surveys broad trends in writing „neoliberal“ economic histories in the last forty years. The second section discusses three concrete examples, namely the contribution of Martin Luther to the modern economic mind, the positive contributions of protectionism and regulation to the making of European capitalism and modern economic growth during the centuries of capitalism’s ascendancy in late medieval and early modern Europe, as well as the contribution of early modern economic ideas and theories – namely cameralism and mercantilism – to the modern economic mind. They all runagainstthe neoliberalparadigmbutoffer, by waysofhistorical empiricism,ways and means of overcoming this paradigm. A third section offers possibilities of refocusing and re-interpreting the economic history of early modern Europe through a post-neoliberal lens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]