@article{Ballor2020b,

title = {Interdisciplinary Dialogue and Scarcity in Economic Terminology},

author = {Jordan J. Ballor },

url = {https://www.moralmarkets.org/wp-content/uploads/Ballor-Interdisciplinary-Dialogue-and-Scarcity-in-Economic-Terminology-ESSAY.pdf},

year  = {2020},

date = {2020-05-01},

journal = {Journal of Markets & Morality},

volume = {23},

number = {1},

pages = {131–137},

abstract = {"As an illustration of the various challenges in interdisciplinary dialogue, particularly with respect to theology and economics, the remainder of this essay will focus on the economic concept of scarcity and its typical reception and use by theologians. One of the most common errors in interdisciplinary dialogue is to take a technical term used in one field and apply to it a nontechnical or mundane meaning. In the case of scarcity, this would take the form of understanding its meaning to be simply something like 'lack' or 'poverty.' When theologians think of scarcity, we, perhaps like most people, commonly conceive of a scorchedearth vista, starvation, or deprivation. The immediate reaction is one of horror and sorrow: Scarcity is a result of sin and thus is not the way the world is supposed to be. The answer to the problem of scarcity is thus clear: God is the source of all good things and he gives bounteously, first in creation and, after the fall into sin, in the context of his ongoing providential care. The basic distinction in this case is between economics as a science of scarcity, which is concerned with material deprivation and poverty, and a broader understanding offered by theology, which emphasizes divine abundance."},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Graafland2020b,

title = {In Adam Smith’s Own Words: The Role of Virtues in the Relationship Between Free Market Economies and Societal Flourishing, A Semantic Network Data‑Mining Approach},

author = {Johan Graafland and Thomas Wells},

url = {https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10551-020-04521-5.pdf},

doi = {https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-020-04521-5},

year  = {2020},

date = {2020-04-29},

journal = {Journal of Business Ethics},

abstract = {Among business ethicists, Adam Smith is widely viewed as the defender of an amoral if not anti-moral economics in which individuals’ pursuit of their private self-interest is converted by an ‘invisible hand’ into shared economic prosperity. This is often justified by reference to a select few quotations from The Wealth of Nations. We use new empirical methods to investigate what Smith actually had to say, firstly about the relationship between free market institutions and individuals’ moral virtues, and secondly about the further relationship between virtues and societal flourishing. We show with more quantitative precision than traditional scholarship that the invisible hand reading dramatically misrepresents both the nuance and the sum of Smith’s analysis. Smith paid a great deal of attention to a flourishing society’s dependence on virtues, including the non-self-regarding virtues of justice and benevolence, and he worried also about their fragility in the face of the changed incentives and social conditions of commercial society.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Ballor2019,

title = {The Moral Status of Wealth Creation in Early-Modern Reformed Confessions},

author = {Jordan J. Ballor and Cornelis van der Kooi},

url = {https://doi.org/10.1080/14622459.2019.1673941},

year  = {2019},

date = {2019-10-03},

journal = {Reformation & Renaissance Review },

volume = {21},

number = {3},

pages = {188-202},

abstract = {This article examines the moral status of wealth creation, particularly within its theological and religious contexts, across Reformed confessions from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These confessional standards are a key source for the moral teaching of Reformed churches, and their treatments of the eighth commandment demonstrate a relatively nuanced and sophisticated view of wealth. Rather than simply denouncing wealth itself as intrinsically evil, these confessional standards, from a variety of national and ecclesial contexts, both on the European continent and Britain, provide a basis for viewing wealth creation as a moral good, even while warning against excess, temptation, and vices such as avarice and envy. This survey of the treatments of wealth from a diverse set of Reformed confessional standards provides a foundation for understanding a critical element in the formation of Reformed, and more broadly Protestant, economic ethics in the early-modern period.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Graafland2019h,

title = {Marktwerking, eigenbelang en … deugden; Adam Smith en recent onderzoek},

author = {Johan Graafland},

url = {https://www.geloofenwetenschap.nl/index.php/artikelen/item/download/114_813114037681a30a9889e93bb1a04a6d},

year  = {2019},

date = {2019-04-01},

journal = {Radix (tijdschrift over geloof en wetenschap)},

volume = {45},

number = {1 (april 2019)},

pages = {31-43},

abstract = {Het belang van deugden in de economie is niet vanzelfsprekend. Veel economen gaan uit van het calvinistische mensbeeld dat de mens geneigd is tot het kwade en alleen eigenbelang nastreeft. Maar dat eigenbelang wordt steeds problematischer. Toch is het de vraag of economen deze les ter harte nemen. De gedachte dat het nastreven van het eigenbelang goed is voor de economie heeft immers al oude papieren. Deze gedachte gaat onder andere terug tot de Wealth of Nations van Adam Smith, de vader van de economische wetenschap. Maar het vreemde is dat Adam Smith in zijn andere boek, \emph{A Theory of Moral Sentiments}, betoogt dat een samenleving alleen maar gelukkig kan zijn als mensen deugdzaam handelen. In dit artikel analyseer ik hoe deze tweespalt in het denken van Adam Smith wortelt in zijn godsbeeld. Daarna presenteer ik recent onderzoek in het kader van het project What good markets are good for dat inzicht biedt of en hoe deugden in de economie van belang zijn voor het menselijk floreren.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Ballor2017,

title = {A Biblical Myth at the Origin of Smith's The Wealth of Nations},

author = {Jordan J. Ballor },

url = {https://doi.org/10.1017/S1053837216000286},

doi = {10.1017/S1053837216000286},

issn = {1053-8372},

year  = {2017},

date = {2017-06-01},

journal = {Journal of the History of Economic Thought },

volume = {39},

number = {2},

pages = {223–38},

abstract = {There is a subset of scholarly literature that asserts that the title of Adam Smith’s famous work, The Wealth of Nations, is an allusion to passages from the Bible, such as Isaiah 60:5. Strong forms of the claim of this relationship between Smith and Scripture argue for a direct reliance of the former upon the latter. Weaker forms of the claim merely raise the possibility of the relationship or point more broadly to the significance and relevance of scriptural passages. This article sets these claims against the historical context of Smith and his work, finding that the relationship among “the wealth of nations,” Adam Smith, and English translations of the Bible demonstrates that Smith did not, in fact, allude to the passages in Isaiah. Thus, the rise of political economy itself, of which Smith’s work was an important element, was part of the background for, and preceded the appearance of, the phrase in English bibles.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}