Commerce, Culture, and Liberty: Readings on Capitalism Before Adam Smith

by Henry C. Clark (Editor)

Overview

This collection of thirty-seven readings (from thirty-three writers) brings together some of the most significant pre–Adam Smith writings on the political and cultural dimensions of capitalism. To modern readers, these seventeenth- and eighteenth-century discussions of commerce and economic life in general are surprising because they are so closely integrated with current moral and cultural issues. Part of the value of this book is in reminding us that many of our own concerns are not without precedent and earlier reflection.

The selections come both from now-unfamiliar authors who were influential in their own time, as well as from such well-known writers as Rousseau, Defoe, Fielding, Montesquieu, and Voltaire. The essays emphasize the human meaning of the market; they were selected to provide a sense of the range of opinion that prevailed on the broader significance of the market economy before it became a pervasive feature of modern life.

Henry C. Clark is a Visiting Professor in the Political Economy Project at Dartmouth College. He has written two books and numerous articles, mainly on the French and Scottish Enlightenments.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780865973787
Publisher:	Liberty Fund, Incorporated
Publication date:	04/25/2003
Pages:	703
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.85(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

Table of Contents

Foreword ix Editor’s Note xix Translator’s Note xxi Acknowledgments xxiii 1. Conceptions for a Free Trade, William Walwyn 1
2. Political Maxims of the State of Holland, Pieter de la Court 9
3. A New Discourse of Trade, Josiah Child 37
4. Moral Essays, Pierre Nicole 54
5. A Discourse of Trade, Nicholas Barbon 66
6. Discourses upon Trade, Dudley North 100
7. Second Discourse on the Affairs of Scotland, Andrew Fletcher 128
8. The Spectator, Richard Steele 155
9. “General Idea of the New System of Finances,” John Law 178
10. Cato’s Letters, John Trenchard 193
11. The Fable of the Bees, Bernard Mandeville 203
12. An Enquiry Whether a General Practice of Virtue Tends to the Wealth or Poverty, Benefit or Disadvantage of a People, George Blewhitt 219
13. The Complete English Tradesman, Daniel Defoe 240
14. Plan for the Improvement of Commerce, Charles Irénée Castel de Saint-Pierre 251
15. A Political Essay upon Commerce, Jean François Melon 254
16. “The Worldling,” Voltaire 265
17. “The Man of the World,” Voltaire 271
18. “On Commerce and Luxury,” Voltaire 276
19. Spectacle of Nature, Noël-Antoine Pluche 282
20. Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu 288
21. On Money, Ferdinando Galiani 307
22. “An Enquiry into the Causes of the Late Increase of Robbers,” Henry Fielding 329
23. “Of Refinement in the Arts,” David Hume 358
24. “Mémoire,” Jacques-Claude-Marie-Vincent de Gournay 371
25. “Luxury, Commerce, and the Arts,” Jean-Jacques Rousseau 392
26. A View of the Manner in Which Trade and Civil Liberty Support Each Other, William Hazeland 403
27. The Commercial Nobility, Gabriel François Coyer 417
28. An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times, John Brown 424
29. “In Praise of Gournay,” Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot 448
30. “Luxury,” Jean-François Saint-Lambert 477
31. A View of the Progress of Society in Europe, William Robertson 502
32. Reflections on the Formation and the Distribution of Wealth, Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot 518
33. On the Origin and Progress of a New Science, Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours 564
34. Dialogues on the Grain Trade, Ferdinando Galiani 598
35. “A Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies,” Guillaume-Thomas-François Raynal 610
36. On the Origin of the Distinction of Ranks, John Millar 624
37. Commerce and Government Considered in Their Mutual Relationship, Étienne Bonnot de Condillac 638 Glossary 657
Index 661

Editorial Reviews

"Contemporary opinion in Western Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as shown in the anthology Commerce, Culture, and Liberty reveals a wealth of ‘modern’ ideas about economic life and commercial culture. Editor Henry C. Clark did not select readings that reflect a single doctrine. Yet, most of these authors in their time appear to have participated in the same conversation about the same general topics."

Itinerario
2005



"Deftly compiled and edited for contemporary readers by Henry C. Clark, Commerce, Culture, and Liberty: Readings On Capitalism Before Adam Smith is an amalgamation of significant writings published before Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" (1776) impacted the world's perceptions on economics. A wide variety of authors ranging from Voltaire, to Ferdinando Galiani, to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, contribute to this absorbing source of pre-Adam Smith perceptions and judgments about economic matters prior to the birth of the American nation as a capitalist beacon to the nations of the world."

Wisconsin Bookwatch
July 2003



"It turns out that Smith did not in fact emerge naked from the sea foam with his 1776 classic Wealth of Nations to found capitalism. The 37 essays and articles, about a quarter translated from French, reveal the thinking about commerce by some well known and less well known writers of the 17th and 18th centuries, and particularly highlight the moral and ethical contexts and concerns that have fallen by the wayside since."

Reference & Research Book News
August 2003

From the Publisher