Economics is not a science, no matter how much it wants to wear the clothes of a scientific endeavour. It is a cultural product, of a time and even of a place. Who would have thought that the religious wars of the 15th / 16th century would produce the Dutch Republic, whose entrepreneurial ethos would produce the first corporation, the
first stock market, and even the first stock market bubble? As we approach the another era of profound change, it is worth reminding ourselves that ideologies and institutions are artefacts of their time, and will both one day pass into history.