8. Moral Economists: The Jesuit Mission in Paraguay and the Idea of Economic Growth in Early Modern Times

This essay will investigate the role of the Society of Jesus, in particular in the Paraguayan province, in the development of semantics on economic growth that emerged in the early modern period. Our thesis proposes that the Jesuits established with their ideas of mission a hitherto unknown concept of perpetual growth within the premodern economy. First, we will show how the Jesuits and capitalism have been linked in historiography. Then we will discuss the concept of moral economy and the benefits of using this approach to study the Jesuit’s ideas of growth. The third and fourth chapters will present the connections between the concepts of mission and economic growth and will describe how the Jesuits in Paraguay implemented these ideas in their economic practices.