Popularizing economics

Abstract

This article explores pre-modern moral economy from an unconventional perspective. Instead of focusing on major thinkers and celebrated texts, it addresses lesser known sources and unoriginal authors, shifting the analysis from the production of economic ideas to their transmission and reception. Two specific domains are targeted. On the one side, an exemplary set of minor and unedited works made of short compositions, abridgments, and collations; on the other, texts deviating from academic canons by writing about moral economy in vernacular instead of Latin. These sources provide insights on how economic vocabularies and conceptualizations developed within the intellectual sphere, when coming into contact with a larger public, were reworked and adapted.