Is God an Economist?: An Institutional Economic Reconstruction of the Old Testament Book

List of Figures xii

Preface xiii

Acknowledgements xv

Copyright Acknowledgements xvi

Introduction 1

1 The Economic Approach to Reconstructing the Bible 11

1.1 How to read Old Testament stories in institutional economic terms 12

On the textual nature of Old Testament deconstruction 12

Incentive structures and the societal contract 18

From positive to normative institutional economics: Analysing and achieving mutual gains 23

Interactions over capital contributions and capital distributions 25

Dilemma structures and economic man and intervention with the incentive compatibility of the situation 26

1.2 Differences to previous economic and theological research on the Old Testament 28

The theological approach to understanding the Bible 29

The religious economic approach to Bible studies 32

1.3 On the permissibility of economic and other scientific research on the Bible 38

Economic research on the Bible: Ontological issues or a matter of approach? 38

Does economics entertain an unrealistic and dark image of human nature? 40

1.4 Concluding remarks 42

2 The Eden Story and Dilemma Analysis-A Paradise Lost? 45

2.1 The heuristic role of the commons dilemma and the prisoner's dilemma in institutional economic reconstruction 45

2.2 The original sin and a rational fools' dilemma in Paradise 49

Capital scarcities and capital contribution issues in Paradise 50

Capital scarcities and capital distribution issues in Paradise 51

A constitutional economic reading of scarcity problems and interaction conflict in Paradise 53

Contested 'good x' and the natural distribution state in the Paradise story 56

Rationally foolish interaction outcomes for God andAdam & Eve 58

The original sin as analytical driver of Bible stories 60

2.3 The first encounter with 'economic man' in the Paradise story: The portrayal of human nature or methodological fiction? 63

On the heuristic purpose of economic man 64

Economic man in the Paradise scenario and the snake metaphor 65

2.4 Concluding remarks 70

3 On the Genesis of the Wealth of Nations 73

3.1 Evidence of behavioural economics in the early stories of Genesis: Social ordering in value homogeneous settings 74

The early societal contract: Value contracts with God as sovereign 75

Behavioural economic ordering in the early stories of Genesis 78

3.2 Towards institutional economic order in Genesis: Capital scarcities, dilemmatic capital exchange, incentive structures and mutual gains 82

Scarcities in capital as starting point of biblical storytelling 82

A dilemmatic conflict model of capital contributions and capital distributions 84

Incentive structures and institutional ordering in the early biblical society 94

Wealth of nations (mutual gains) as goal of conflict resolution 97

Pluralism as a rising interaction condition in Genesis: Towards an economic societal contract 99

3.3 The prevalence of economic man in Genesis after the Paradise story 109

Self-interest, wealth accumulation and wealth creation 109

Darker shades of self-interest: The behavioural punishment of 'bad', opportunistic behaviour 111

Biblical characters getting away with opportunistic behaviour? 113

3.4 Economic ordering in complex, multicultural settings: Joseph and the Israelites in Egypt 118

Dilemmatic scarcities as interaction conditions in the Joseph story 120

Pluralism as an interaction condition in the Joseph story 121

Egypt's economic policies under Joseph's reign 123

Joseph: Hero by thesis, Moses: Non-hero by anti-thesis 128

3.5 Concluding remarks 135

4 On the Exodus of the Wealth of Nations 140

4.1 The breakdown of cooperation and rational foolishness as outcome of Moses' and the pharaoh's interactions 141

The commons dilemma and uncontrolled population growth 142

Further cooperation dilemmas and unresolved industrial relations problems 145

A modern parallel of industrial relations problems in an Exodus-like scenario 148

The failure to intervene with economic institutions in a dilemma structure 150

Mutual loss as interaction outcome 154

4.2 Economic man in the Exodus scenario 157

Moses and the pharaoh acting like economic men 157

The snake metaphor in Exodus 159

4.3 Prisoners and prosecutor: God's intervention in the Exodus 161

Cooperation failures driven by God 161

Godly intervention in Exodus and the failure to master pluralism as interaction condition 165

4.4 Concluding remarks 166

5 Institutional Ordering after the Exodus 169

5.1 Institutional ordering during the Exodus journey 170

Dilemmatic interest conflicts during the Exodus journey and the Levites' economic man-like, opportunistic acquisition of influence 170

Incentive structures, biblical laws and new societal contracting 175

Economic organization structures for the Exodus journey 179

Capital exchange in social interactions 181

Mutual gains as interaction outcome 182

The loss of pluralism as interaction condition 183

5.2 Institutional ordering after the Exodus journey 185

Dilemmatic interest conflicts after the first settlements: The 'war of all' breaking out 186

Incentives structures in the resettlement phase 189

Capital exchange in the resettlement phase 194

Mutual gains: Zero-sum and nonzero-sum games after the Exodus journey 195

Resettlement crusades, institutional ordering and the instrumental role of economic man 197

The loss of pluralism as interaction condition 199

5.3 Concluding remarks 200

6 Economic and Non-Economic Interpretations of God in the Old Testament 203

6.1 God as player contractor: Economic and non-economic societal contracts with humans 205

God as value contractor: Loser in the Paradise story 205

God as value contractor after the Paradise story: New value contracts with humans 207

God's struggle with Jacob: The value contractor losing to economic man 209

6.2 God as rule-maker, interventionist with the moves of the game and source of human capital 212

God as interventionist, ruler and value fundamentalist prosecutor 212

God as inspirational source of intellectual capital 215

6.3 Abstracting the notion of God for economic principles of social ordering 217

God as principle of creative social ordering 218

God and the principle of mutuality of gains as interaction outcome 219

God as a reflection of the principle of maintaining pluralism as an interaction condition 221

6.4 God as a metaprinciple and reference to the Unexplained in general 222

The idea of God as a solution for everything? 222

God as a reference to the Unexplained in general 224

Abstracting the restfrage: On the reduction of schisms between religion and the sciences 225

6.5 Concluding remarks 227

7 Conclusions and After thoughts on the Economic Reconstruction of the Old Testament 232

7.1 The Old Testament and economic role models for societal contracting, international relations and nation-building 234

7.2 Organization structures, transactions cost efficiencies and environmental conditions 238

7.3 The onset of modernity in the Old Testament: Pluralism as interaction condition 239

7.4 Encountering dilemma structures and economic man in the Old Testament 241

7.5 A brief note on the question of authorship of the Old Testament 244

7.6 On the capitalist ethics of the Old Testament: Revisiting the Weber thesis 245

7.7 So, is God an economist? 248

Bibliography 253

Author Index 264

Subject Index 269