{"title":"Financial Wealth, Value and Moral Corruption in Seneca's Economic Thinking","authors":"M. G. Morcillo","doi":"10.3366/cult.2024.0297","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This article scrutinises Seneca’s moral engagement with complex financial accounting as a speculative form of wealth and moneymaking that challenged social norms and subverted systems of value. The contribution discusses Seneca’s construction of a form of greed and corruption that is often anticipated by psychological biases, such as loss aversion and self-deception. This degenerating process is exemplified by the misuse of financial ledgers, and specifically of the kalendarium, an account book associated with moneylending that Seneca describes as a suspect instrument of avarice that provoked the ruin of fortunes.","PeriodicalId":41779,"journal":{"name":"Cultural History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Cultural History","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3366/cult.2024.0297","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"HISTORY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This article scrutinises Seneca’s moral engagement with complex financial accounting as a speculative form of wealth and moneymaking that challenged social norms and subverted systems of value. The contribution discusses Seneca’s construction of a form of greed and corruption that is often anticipated by psychological biases, such as loss aversion and self-deception. This degenerating process is exemplified by the misuse of financial ledgers, and specifically of the kalendarium, an account book associated with moneylending that Seneca describes as a suspect instrument of avarice that provoked the ruin of fortunes.