El buen gobierno económico en la literatura española de “espejo de príncipes” de la primera mitad del siglo XVII

Good economic governance in the Spanish “mirror of princes” literature of the first half of the 17th century

Abstract

A comparative analysis is made of the economic content of four outstanding examples of the “mirror of princes” literature of Spain in the first half of the seventeenth century, written by Juan de Mariana, Jerónimo Ceballos, Mateo López Bravo and Diego Saavedra Fajardo. Breaking with the usual pattern of the genre, these texts did pay significant attention to aspects such as currency, tributes, idleness, poverty, productive sectors, etc. The aim is, on the one hand, to examine what role the idea of Reason of State played in these four works when dealing with economic issues. On the other hand, the aim is to study what thematic connections exist between these mirror works and arbitrism, and to see to what extent these works dealt with economic issues that were not included in the aforementioned arbitristic current, but in other currents such as scholasticism. Although the Spanish “mirror of princes” literature has been examined from different points of view, it has received little attention from an economic perspective. Therefore, this paper attempts to make a contribution in a field still little explored.