ABSTRACT
ONE VICTORIAN MODEL, HOMO ECONOMICUS, IS FAMILIAR TO EVERYONE and it may be the only safe ground from which to begin this chapter. 1 Homo Economicus was endowed with constant but conflicting positive and negative economic motives. In the model the positive desire for wealth was opposed by the negative aversion for labor and by the negative desire for the present enjoyment of costly indulgences. Good Homo Economicus resolved his economic conflict positively, that is, virtuously. He habitually practised the ascetic economic virtues, being a paragon of calculation, industry, thrift, sobriety, temperance, and continence. The economic virtues were an outward, visible sign of an inward condition of good character.
