IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ers/journl/vivy2001i3-4p5-18.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

"No Wealth but Life" When Does Mercantile Wealth Create Ruskinian Wealth?

Author

Abstract

Ruskin's famous dictum, "There is no Wealth but Life", offers a radically different view of the purposes of economic growth. This paper explores the relationship between mercantile wealth (as Ruskin called it), and his higher concept of wealth as life. After a brief review of Ruskin's writings about wealth and political economy, the paper develops a model of this relationship. We find an inverse u-shaped relationship between mercantile wealth and Ruskinian wealth, suggesting an optimum level of technological advance. Beyond that, while striving to increase the contribution of material wealth to overall wealth, we may actually reduce Ruskinian wealth.

Suggested Citation

  • Swann P., 2001. ""No Wealth but Life" When Does Mercantile Wealth Create Ruskinian Wealth?," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(3-4), pages 5-18, July - De.
    • Handle: RePEc:ers:journl:v:iv:y:2001:i:3-4:p:5-18
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ersj.eu/repec/ers/papers/01_34_p2.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sen, Amartya, 1999. "Commodities and Capabilities," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195650389.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anna Fabry & Goedele Broeck & Miet Maertens, 2022. "Gender Inequality and Job Satisfaction in Senegal: A Multiple Mediation Model," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 23(5), pages 2291-2311, June.
    2. Jitender Singh, 2016. "Quality of Public Goods, Public Policy and Human Development: A State-wise Analysis," Indian Journal of Human Development, , vol. 10(2), pages 215-235, August.
    3. Yoshifusa Kitabatake, 2007. "Sen’s capability approach applied to the identification of new heritage value: empirical study on the effects of flood control project," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 8(4), pages 295-313, December.
    4. McGrath, F.L. & Carrasco, L.R. & Leimona, B., 2017. "How auctions to allocate payments for ecosystem services contracts impact social equity," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 44-55.
    5. Zhang, Yingqiang & Eriksson, Tor, 2010. "Inequality of opportunity and income inequality in nine Chinese provinces, 1989-2006," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 607-616, December.
    6. Aydın, Cem İskender, 2020. "Nuclear energy debate in Turkey: Stakeholders, policy alternatives, and governance issues," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    7. Yuting Sun & Shu-Nung Yao, 2022. "Sustainability Trade-Offs in Media Coverage of Poverty Alleviation: A Content-Based Spatiotemporal Analysis in China’s Provinces," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-26, August.
    8. Stefan Schleicher, 2015. "Deepening the Scope of the "Economic Model": Functionalities, Structures, Mechanisms, and Institutions. WWWforEurope Policy Paper No. 24," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 58263, February.
    9. Suh, Sangwon, 2004. "Functions, commodities and environmental impacts in an ecological-economic model," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 451-467, April.
    10. A. Tidu, 2023. "Dissecting inequality: conceptual problems, trends and drivers," Working Paper CRENoS 202313, Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia.
    11. Chaton, Corinne & Lacroix, Elie, 2018. "Does France have a fuel poverty trap?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 258-268.
    12. Parikh, Priti & Fu, Kun & Parikh, Himanshu & McRobie, Allan & George, Gerard, 2015. "Infrastructure Provision, Gender, and Poverty in Indian Slums," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 468-486.
    13. Sotomayor, Orlando, 2004. "Development and Income Distribution: The Case of Puerto Rico," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(8), pages 1395-1406, August.
    14. Matthys, Marie-Luise & Acharya, Sushant & Khatri, Sanjaya, 2021. "“Before cardamom, we used to face hardship”: Analyzing agricultural commercialization effects in Nepal through a local concept of the Good Life," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    15. Masudul Alam Choudhury & Mohammad Zakir Hossain & Mohammad Shahadat Hossain, 2011. "Estimating an Ethical Index of Human Wellbeing," Journal of Developing Areas, Tennessee State University, College of Business, vol. 45(1), pages 375-409, July-Dece.
    16. James J. Heckman & Chase O. Corbin, 2016. "Capabilities and Skills," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(3), pages 342-359, July.
    17. Galiani, Sebastián & Gertler, Paul J. & Undurraga, Raimundo & Cooper, Ryan & Martínez, Sebastián & Ross, Adam, 2017. "Shelter from the storm: Upgrading housing infrastructure in Latin American slums," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 187-213.
    18. Betzelt, Sigrid, 2008. "Activation policies from a gender-sensible citizenship perspective: a tentative analytical framework," Working papers of the ZeS 03/2008, University of Bremen, Centre for Social Policy Research (ZeS).
    19. Ricardo Martínez & Juan D. Moreno‐Ternero, 2024. "Redistribution with needs," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 26(1), February.
    20. Scheidel, Arnim, 2013. "Flows, funds and the complexity of deprivation: Using concepts from ecological economics for the study of poverty," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 28-36.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ers:journl:v:iv:y:2001:i:3-4:p:5-18. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Marios Agiomavritis (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://ersj.eu/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.