On the Genesis of the Wealth of Nations

The book of Genesis starts the analysis of social conflict with the Paradise story. Chapter 2 argued that the Paradise story heuristically sets up the analysis of the institutional problem in the Old Testament, that is, cooperation problems and problems of societal contracting. This chapter critically reconstructs in economic terms some of the key stories that follow the Paradise story. The chapter traces social conflicts, even anarchy, in the book of Genesis that concern incentive structures, dilemmatic interactions regarding capital contributions and distributions, mutual gains and economic man. In relation to the absence or presence of these ideas, I examine how far behavioural, theological models of societal contracting can be found in the Old Testament or whether economic modes for resolving social conflict and organizing cooperative behaviour were pursued. The thesis emerges that, as the stories of Genesis unfold, economic modes increasingly replaced behavioural ones.