This volume argues that economic thought has long been shaped by deeply human forms of attachment, anxiety, desire, fear of suffering and death, and even historical speculation about the ultimate destiny of humanity. Starting in the 17th century, modern economics began to incorporate patterns of speculation and rhetoric that mirror postulates found in religion and the philosophy of history. This text demonstrates that the political significance of economic theory can only be fully understood when the existential commitments that motivated its seminal thinkers, from Smith and Marx to Hayek and...