Educating in economic calculus: the invention of the enlightened peasantviamanuals of agriculture, 1830–1870

Abstract

This article is concerned with the process of agriculture's economic normalisation in nineteenth-century France. The manuals published for rural inhabitants and for use in primary schools between the July Monarchy and the end of the Second Empire are taken here as a means of analysing a process of economic rationalisation underway during this period, in particular as it would affect the peasantry. Drawing attention to the content of agricultural manuals-with a specific focus on those awarded prizes within a competition for agriculturalmanual writing announced in 1837-this article sheds light on the educational forms in which economic precepts and accounting techniques were presented and the manner in which those techniques were employed to promote 'best practices', thus orienting and rationalising farm management and the farmer's decisions. It highlights the social work of ideological production and behavioural guidance that unfolded in the first part of the nineteenth century. It stresses the ethic embodied in these agricultural manuals, one directed toward a greater rationality of economic behaviour on the part of the small and medium-scale peasantry in tandem with an idea of disciplined and prudent personal and professional conduct.

Economic Calculus Qua an Instrument to Support Sustainable Development under Increasing Risk

“…There are many studies on the economic calculus of a company (Bosch and Newton 1995;Heal 1998;Donici and Încalt , ărău 2010;Joly 2016;Ziegler 2017;Baecker 2019;Boettke and Piano 2019). However, little is known about how to use variable interest rate economic calculus in the theory of sustainable development.…”

Economic Calculus and Weak Signals: Prevention Against Foggy Bottom

“…This interest is closely related to the management process, within which one may distinguish management goals; resources, the number of which is always limited; methods of the most appropriate use of resources to achieve the assumed goals (Rajkovic, 2020). There are many studies on the economic calculus of a company (Bosch and Newton, 1995;Donici and Încalțărău, 2010;Joly, 2016;Ziegler, 2017;Boettke and Piano, 2019) and study on different factors of business operations (Akerlof, 1970;Williamson, 1988;Billingsley and Smith, 1996;Bradley et al, 1984;Brennan and Kraus, 1987;Stewart and Hitt, 2012;Tabor et al, 2018;Dobrowolski, 2020;Dobrowolski and Sułkowski, 2020;Dobrowolski and Dobrowolska, 2020;Dobrowolski and Sułkowski, 2020a;Dobrowolski, 2021Dobrowolski, , 2021aDobrowolski et al, 2021).…”

The Roles of Accounting in Agro-Pastoral Settings: The Case of the Landed Estates of Prince Sambiase in the Mid-Eighteenth Century

“…In recent years, studies in agriculture have sought to analyze accounting practices beyond their technicalities and to understand how these could have been used in the achievement of outcomes which were not necessarily limited to promoting efficiency. Agricultural accounting can therefore be both a power/knowledge mechanism and a tool to improve profitability (Oldroyd 1999), a technique which can promote profit maximization and at the same time emphasize the importance for laborers of a disciplined and prudent personal and professional conduct (Joly 2016). Moreover, accounting practices could be mobilized to measure and manage human performance rather than to investigate financial performance (McLean 2009), or they may focus on labor control as the principal means to maximize profit and sustain the payment of conspicuous dividends to shareholders (Irvine 2012).…”

“…Moreover, it enables the possibility to evaluate the performance of an organization or of single persons, and is quintessentially a tool for the exercise of influence over individuals (Miller and Power 2013). Within the agricultural domain, although literature has focused on how accounting can be used to discipline laborers (Hooper and Pratt 1993;Irvine 2012;McLean 2009;Joly 2016), as a power/knowledge device (Oldroyd 1999), or to perpetrate racism and slavery Tyson and Davie 2009;Dyball and Rooney 2012;Oldroyd, Fleischman, and Tyson 2008), the roles of accounting have not been holistically explored. The paper seeks to address this gap by considering the non-Anglo-Saxon context of Southern Italy to investigate the roles accounting played within large landed estates in a peculiar socioinstitutional context.…”