A natural order onto its own

This chapter recounts how between a moral, communal economy and a state-managed national economy in early modern Europe the idea developed of the economy as a natural order. It was emphasised that the market creates logic and order of its own, which is impaired if subjected to a strict regulatory regime. Economic phenomena operated on certain natural principles and their relations could be described in terms of cause and effect. These ideas inspired inquiry into the logic of this natural order, the price-making mechanisms, as well as into the good of this natural order. The expectation of growth of wealth through a natural system run on self-interest, competition and private property suggested that to secure provision people would be better off to depend upon self-interest and liberal markets than on the traditional right to subsistence and charity. Really?