Economists’ appreciation for the School of Salamanca, and the contribution that it made to their discipline, has grown in recent years. An economics professor has just released a podcast encapsulating the teachings of its best-known figure, the Jesuit theologian Juan de Mariana – and it takes just eight minutes of your time.
Lucas M. Engelhardt, an associate professor of economics at Kent State University’s Stark Campus, discusses the Spanish thinker’s distinction between rulers and tyrants, the immorality of inflation, and the reason he believed government officials do so poorly when trying to control key aspects of the economy.
“Some, like Jesús Huerta de Soto, have suggested that when you really look at the writings of the Spanish scholastics like Juan de Mariana,” Engelhardt concludes, “one must conclude that the Austrian School was founded ultimately, not in Austria, but in Spain, over 200 years before [Carl] Menger was even born.”
You can listen to his podcast here or download it here.
For more comprehensive information about the School of Salamanca, see Faith and Liberty: The Economic Thought of the Late Scholastics by Alejandro Chafuen, or a collection of texts by the Late Scholastics on monetary theory edited by Stephen J. Grabill. See also Juan de Mariana’s A Treatise on the Alternation of Money.
(Photo credit: Public domain.)
