B19 - History of Economic Thought through 1925: OtherReturn

ThDr. Bernard Bolzano (1781-1848) was not only a mathematician and logician of European stature, a theologian, philosopher, teacher and educator, but also a critical social thinker and reformer, whose work also has distinct economic dimensions. Economic aspects play an important role in Bolzano's vision, and this does not rest on foundations that are only naively fanciful. The star- ting point of his economic considerations is the category of property. In the work of Bolzano, one can trace the vision of the welfare state, the public sector, or the germs of elements of welfare economics. It is possible to appreciate the thoughtfulness, logic and precision of the purposefully established state project. Thanks to the work On the Best State - which Bolzano refused to publish during his lifetime, and which was created in parallel with the logical treatise Vědosloví and other works - he became the most famous Czech utopian. The work remains the first original, and to this day the only, comprehensive and systematic Czech utopia.

In this paper I am trying to provide the reader with a brief overview of contemporary discussion about recently frequently mentioned topic of economics and happiness. In the last few years the number of publications related to happiness from the economic perspective growth exponentially. As the importance of this topic seems to grow significantly, I modestly intend to provide Czech public with a very starting reference point for further research in this field. In the first part I sum up the basic terms of subjective well-being and Easterlin paradox and give an overview of the most striking empirical observations. The second part shortly describes approach to the happiness problem of selected key historical personalities, namely Aristotle, Smith and Genovesi. In the third part I outline present key challenge for the economic theory - tackling with the reciprocity phenomenon.