Lehrbuch Der NationalÖkonomie / Teaching Guide to Economics: Volume I/ Book 1: Foundations for Economic Life

This is the first English translation of the works of Heinrich Pesch, SJ (1854-1926). Pesch, a German Jesuit scholar and economist, wrote the longest, most exhaustive economics text ever written, one that deserves to be regarded as a kind of Summa Economica. The five-volume Lehrbuch der Nationalökonomie examines all serious economic thinking up until Pesch’s time, culling what was deficient, retaining what was worthwhile, and filling in what its author perceived to be lacking. The result was a design for an economic system that is opposed to both classically liberal capitalism and state socialism, based instead on Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophical premises. Pesch developed many of the basic principles which emerged in the social encyclicals of the Catholic Church.

Pesch establishes human work as the principle source of economic wealth and prosperity. He presents three principal pillars of social order: the family, the state, and the institution (private ownership). There follows a refutation of the individualistic and collectivistic social philosophies as underlying free market capitalism and socialism respectively. In place of these, Pesch presents for the first time solidarism based on mutual support and interdependence among workers and owners. Concludes with a distinctive methodological preparation for his analysis of the economy. He points out the flaws of a mechanistic approach to what is inherently a human and social science and in the attempt to isolate economic activity values are neglected such as ethics and religion.