Love, Self-Deceit, and Money

"In Love, Self-Deceit, and Money, Koen Stapelbroek reconstructs the early Neapolitan Enlightenment debate on the morality of market societies, a debate that hinged on the preservation of Naples' independent statehood in a global arena of commercial and military competition. Galiani rejected the opinions of many of his contemporaries regarding the moral and economic dangers threatening Naples, and, in his Della moneta (1751), he justified the systems set in place by the Neapolitan government. With reference to early, previously unstudied lectures on self-deceptive 'Platonic love, ' Stapelbroek examines Galiani's role in the wider debate, arguing that his early work in moral philosophy and history suggests a great deal about his political-economic stance, including his assertion that money is the ultimate ordering principle in the universe."--Jacket.