IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-07a20004.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Plato's Republic and liberal economic education for the twenty-first century

Author

Listed:
  • Jeffrey Wagner

    (Economics Department, Rochester Institute of Technology)

Abstract

Much of the insight economists would like to share with non-economists derives from two fundamental concepts: division of labor and intrinsic versus extrinsic incentives. As Plato's Republic offers concise treatment of both concepts, it provides an excellent complement to standard principles of economics texts. Indeed, utilizing Republic enables a richer understanding of these two central economic concepts, in the process of promoting the importance of liberal education in general, and the ethical dimensions of economic policy design in particular.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeffrey Wagner, 2007. "Plato's Republic and liberal economic education for the twenty-first century," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 1(2), pages 1-10.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-07a20004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/pubs/EB/2007/Volume1/EB-07A20004A.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Laffont, Jean-Jacques, 1975. "Macroeconomic Constraints, Economic Efficiency and Ethics: An Introduction to Kantian Economics," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 42(168), pages 430-437, November.
    2. Robin L. Bartlett, 1996. "Discovering Diversity in Introductory Economics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 141-153, Spring.
    3. W. Lee Hansen & Michael K. Salemi & John J. Siegfried, 2002. "Use It or Lose It: Teaching Literacy in the Economics Principles Course," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 463-472, May.
    4. George A. Petrochilos, 2002. "Kalokagathia: The Ethical Basis of Hellenic Political Economy and Its Influence from Plato to Ruskin and Sen," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 34(3), pages 599-631, Fall.
    5. Frey, Bruno S & Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, 1997. "The Cost of Price Incentives: An Empirical Analysis of Motivation Crowding-Out," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(4), pages 746-755, September.
    6. Karl E. Case, 2002. "Reconsidering Crucial Concepts in Micro Principles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 454-458, May.
    7. Bruno S. Frey, 1994. "How Intrinsic Motivation is Crowded out and in," Rationality and Society, , vol. 6(3), pages 334-352, July.
    8. Frank D. Tinari & Kailash Khandke, 2000. "From Rhythm and Blues to Broadway: Using Music to Teach Economics," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(3), pages 253-270, September.
    9. Bilodeau, Marc & Gravel, Nicolas, 2004. "Voluntary provision of a public good and individual morality," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(3-4), pages 645-666, March.
    10. Bewley, Truman F, 1995. "A Depressed Labor Market as Explained by Participants," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 250-254, May.
    11. Frey, Bruno S, 1997. "A Constitution for Knaves Crowds Out Civic Virtues," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(443), pages 1043-1053, July.
    12. Forde, Steven, 1997. "Gender and Justice in Plato," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 91(3), pages 657-670, September.
    13. Michael Wattsee, 2002. "How Economists Use Literature and Drama," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(4), pages 377-386, December.
    14. Donna M. Kish-goodling, 1998. "Using The Merchant of Venice in Teaching Monetary Economics," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(4), pages 330-339, January.
    15. Sam Allgood & William Bosshardt & Wilbert van der Klaauw & Michael Watts, 2004. "What Students Remember and Say about College Economics Years Later," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 259-265, May.
    16. Harberger, Arnold C, 1993. "The Search for Relevance in Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(2), pages 1-16, May.
    17. Anon, 2002. "The Economy of Influence," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 34(8), pages 1331-1332, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wagner, Jeffrey, 2017. "Humanities as technology in teaching economics," International Review of Economics Education, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 35-40.

    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. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:1:y:2007:i:2:p:1-10 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Claudia Keser & Andreas Markstädter & Martin Schmidt, 2014. "Mandatory minimum contributions, heterogeneous endowments and voluntary public-good provision," CIRANO Working Papers 2014s-47, CIRANO.
    3. Sverre Grepperud & Pål Andreas Pedersen, 2001. "The Crowding-out of Work Ethics," Studies in Economics 0102, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    4. Bruno S. Frey & Reto Jegen, "undated". "Motivation Crowding Theory: A Survey Of Empirical Evidence, Revised Version," IEW - Working Papers 049, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    5. Keser, Claudia & Markstädter, Andreas & Schmidt, Martin, 2014. "Mandatory minimum contributions, heterogenous endowments and voluntary public-good provision," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 224, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    6. Jeffrey Wagner & Luiz Freitas, 2007. "Capturing moral economic context," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 4(14), pages 1-10.
    7. Bruno S. Frey & Alois Stutzer, 2006. "Environmental Morale and Motivation," CREMA Working Paper Series 2006-17, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    8. Nikil Mukerji & Adriano Mannino, 2023. "Nudge Me If You Can! Why Order Ethicists Should Embrace the Nudge Approach," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 186(2), pages 309-324, August.
    9. Damiano Fiorillo, 2011. "Do Monetary Rewards Crowd Out The Intrinsic Motivation Of Volunteers? Some Empirical Evidence For Italian Volunteers," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 82(2), pages 139-165, June.
    10. Chad M. Baum & Christian Gross, 2017. "Sustainability policy as if people mattered: developing a framework for environmentally significant behavioral change," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 53-95, April.
    11. Kurz, Konstantin & Bock, Carolin & Knodt, Michèle & Stöckl, Anna, 2022. "A Friend in Need Is a Friend Indeed? Analysis of the Willingness to Share Self-Produced Electricity During a Long-lasting Power Outage," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 136773, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    12. Rodríguez-Planas, Núria, 2010. "Longer-Term Impacts of Mentoring, Educational Services, and Incentives to Learn: Evidence from a Randomized Trial," IZA Discussion Papers 4754, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Bruno Deffains & Claude Fluet, 2013. "Legal Liability when Individuals Have Moral Concerns," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 29(4), pages 930-955, August.
    14. Andreas P. Kyriacou, 2010. "Intrinsic Motivation and the Logic of Collective Action: The Impact of Selective Incentives," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(2), pages 823-839, April.
    15. Ernst Fehr & John A. List, 2004. "The Hidden Costs and Returns of Incentives-Trust and Trustworthiness Among CEOs," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(5), pages 743-771, September.
    16. Miljkovic, Dragan, 2008. "The pitfalls of transition: Crowding out the "National Virtues"," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 2107-2113, October.
    17. van den Bergh, Jeroen C.J.M. & Gowdy, John M., 2009. "A group selection perspective on economic behavior, institutions and organizations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 1-20, October.
    18. Bowles, Samuel & Hwang, Sung-Ha, 2008. "Social preferences and public economics: Mechanism design when social preferences depend on incentives," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(8-9), pages 1811-1820, August.
    19. Bruno S. Frey & Lorenz Goette, "undated". "Does Pay Motivate Volunteers?," IEW - Working Papers 007, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    20. Pamela R. Murphy & Michael Wynes & Till‐Arne Hahn & Patricia G. Devine, 2020. "Why Are People Honest? Internal and External Motivations to Report Honestly†," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(2), pages 945-981, June.
    21. Konstantin Kurz & Carolin Bock & Michèle Knodt & Anna Stöckl, 2022. "A Friend in Need Is a Friend Indeed? Analysis of the Willingness to Share Self-Produced Electricity During a Long-lasting Power Outage," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 74(4), pages 727-761, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Division of Labor;

    JEL classification:

    • A2 - General Economics and Teaching - - Economic Education and Teaching of Economics
    • A0 - General Economics and Teaching - - General

    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:ebl:ecbull:eb-07a20004. 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: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.