History of Economic Analysis part 15. At the time of his death in 1950, Joseph Schumpeter-one of the major figures in economics during the first half of the 20th century-was working on his monumental History of Economic Analysis. A complete history of humankind's theoretical efforts to understand economic phenomena from ancient Greece to the present, this book is an important contribution to the history of ideas as well as to economics. | History of economic analysis 102 But what if that be so becomes of the great battle on interest between scholastic and anti-scholastic writers that is supposed to have raged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries So far as the history of economic analysis is concerned the only answer is that there was no battle. No analytic progress was made and no new analytic ideas on interest were proffered for a long time to come. Even the most famous leaders on the antischolastic side such as Molinaeus or Salmasius33 had nothing new to say Molinaeus and Navarrus contemporaries roughly speaking were about on a par in theoretical grasp of the interest problem. Salmasius only reformulated the scholastic theory about lucrum cessans from available business opportunities that we find in Molina. So far as the moral issue was concerned the Protestant theologians and the laic lawyers differed among themselves on the subject of interest but were also content to repeat arguments forged by the scholastics whichever side they But in addition there was a legislative or administrative issue and it is this that accounts for the controversy in question. As we have seen the scholastics held that interest had to be justified on grounds not inherent in the loan contract mutuum as such. But this amounted to saying that each case or at least each type of case was on trial and not to be approved without investigation. Though they 33 Molinaeus Charles Dumoulin has been discussed above. Salmasius Claude de Saumaise 1588-1653 wrote a number of tracts on interest of which it is sufficient to mention two De usuris 1638 but there seems to have been a previous ed. 1630 and De foenore trapezitico 1640 . 34 We may as well dispose of this matter once for all. Scholastic doctrine was taught by Richard Baxter 1615-91 see . his Christian Directory . On a lower level the same holds for the considerable literature on interest that representing the popular reaction to the financial aspects of .
