Till Wahnbaeck
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199269839
- eISBN:
- 9780191710056
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199269839.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Economic History
This book charts the development of political economy in eighteenth-century Italy, and it argues that the focus on economic thought is characteristic of the Italian enlightenment at large. Through an ...
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This book charts the development of political economy in eighteenth-century Italy, and it argues that the focus on economic thought is characteristic of the Italian enlightenment at large. Through an analysis of the debate about luxury, it traces the shaping of a new language of political economy which was inspired by, and contributed to, European debate, but which offered solutions that were as much shaped by intellectual traditions and socio-economic circumstances as by French or Scottish precedent. Ultimately, those traditions were responsible for the development of very distinct ‘cultures of enlightenment’ across the peninsula -from the insertion of the economy into the edifice of enlightened Catholicism, to the development of physiocracy in Tuscany, to a new analytical approach to economics in the Milanese enlightenment. The author draws on treatises, academic debates, university lectures, sermons, letters, dictionaries, and personal sketches to trace the development of a public culture in Italy in the middle of the century, to establish the channels for the transmission of ideas between Italy, France, and Scotland, and the development of an analytical language of economy in Milan in the second half of the century. This work relates those developments to the socio-economic and political contexts in which they occurred and argues that the focus on the economy (especially in northern Italy) can be explained by a triple reason: against the background of a declining economy and a shift towards agriculture in a competitive European environment, economic thought addressed the region's most pressing needs; secondly, subjection to Habsburg rule meant that political reform was monopolized in Vienna, whereas economic policy was an area of developed government and hence offered a safe route to influence without infringing on Habsburg prerogatives; and finally, advances in economic thinking in Milan in particular provided a claim to power against the previous generation which had dominated the field of jurisprudence.Less
This book charts the development of political economy in eighteenth-century Italy, and it argues that the focus on economic thought is characteristic of the Italian enlightenment at large. Through an analysis of the debate about luxury, it traces the shaping of a new language of political economy which was inspired by, and contributed to, European debate, but which offered solutions that were as much shaped by intellectual traditions and socio-economic circumstances as by French or Scottish precedent. Ultimately, those traditions were responsible for the development of very distinct ‘cultures of enlightenment’ across the peninsula -from the insertion of the economy into the edifice of enlightened Catholicism, to the development of physiocracy in Tuscany, to a new analytical approach to economics in the Milanese enlightenment. The author draws on treatises, academic debates, university lectures, sermons, letters, dictionaries, and personal sketches to trace the development of a public culture in Italy in the middle of the century, to establish the channels for the transmission of ideas between Italy, France, and Scotland, and the development of an analytical language of economy in Milan in the second half of the century. This work relates those developments to the socio-economic and political contexts in which they occurred and argues that the focus on the economy (especially in northern Italy) can be explained by a triple reason: against the background of a declining economy and a shift towards agriculture in a competitive European environment, economic thought addressed the region's most pressing needs; secondly, subjection to Habsburg rule meant that political reform was monopolized in Vienna, whereas economic policy was an area of developed government and hence offered a safe route to influence without infringing on Habsburg prerogatives; and finally, advances in economic thinking in Milan in particular provided a claim to power against the previous generation which had dominated the field of jurisprudence.
TILL WAHNBAECK
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199269839
- eISBN:
- 9780191710056
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199269839.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Economic History
This chapter investigates the received wisdom that Tuscan thought was eclectic and that the undoubted inclination of Tuscan political economists towards physiocracy was merely a somewhat ...
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This chapter investigates the received wisdom that Tuscan thought was eclectic and that the undoubted inclination of Tuscan political economists towards physiocracy was merely a somewhat opportunistic echo of Peter Leopold's own preferences. It traces Tuscan economic thought back to the beginning of the century and shows its close relation with French thought that was a source of later physiocratic thinking. It notes that by the time the ideas of the physiocrats reached the grand duchy, it will be argued, they must have been perceived as almost genuinely Tuscan; their teachings also seemed especially relevant to Tuscany's agricultural economy.Less
This chapter investigates the received wisdom that Tuscan thought was eclectic and that the undoubted inclination of Tuscan political economists towards physiocracy was merely a somewhat opportunistic echo of Peter Leopold's own preferences. It traces Tuscan economic thought back to the beginning of the century and shows its close relation with French thought that was a source of later physiocratic thinking. It notes that by the time the ideas of the physiocrats reached the grand duchy, it will be argued, they must have been perceived as almost genuinely Tuscan; their teachings also seemed especially relevant to Tuscany's agricultural economy.
TILL WAHNBAECK
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199269839
- eISBN:
- 9780191710056
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199269839.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, Economic History
This chapter investigates the treatment of luxury by Ferdinando Paoletti, who was influenced by the issue of economic stagnation, peasant ministry, and improvement of the countryside. It explains ...
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This chapter investigates the treatment of luxury by Ferdinando Paoletti, who was influenced by the issue of economic stagnation, peasant ministry, and improvement of the countryside. It explains that Paoletti argues that luxury detracts from efforts to make agriculture profitable and that the inspiration that he drew from physiocratic writings was visible enough. It discusses how the pragmatic tradition of Tuscan thought together with the powerful influence of French economic thinking had substantially altered the discussion. It stresses that even the enlightened Catholic tradition had to accept the vocabulary and the concepts of the pragmatic school in order to say their moral concerns.Less
This chapter investigates the treatment of luxury by Ferdinando Paoletti, who was influenced by the issue of economic stagnation, peasant ministry, and improvement of the countryside. It explains that Paoletti argues that luxury detracts from efforts to make agriculture profitable and that the inspiration that he drew from physiocratic writings was visible enough. It discusses how the pragmatic tradition of Tuscan thought together with the powerful influence of French economic thinking had substantially altered the discussion. It stresses that even the enlightened Catholic tradition had to accept the vocabulary and the concepts of the pragmatic school in order to say their moral concerns.
Dan Edelstein
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226588988
- eISBN:
- 9780226589039
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226589039.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas
This book argues that the history of human rights can be meaningfully extended from the present all the way back to the late medieval period. It further claims that the key question up until the Age ...
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This book argues that the history of human rights can be meaningfully extended from the present all the way back to the late medieval period. It further claims that the key question up until the Age of Revolutions was not whether or not all individuals possessed rights, but rather what happens to our rights when we enter into a political society. Our contemporary rights regime holds that we preserve human rights under all conditions. But in the period between the Wars of Religion and the late Enlightenment, most theorists argued that we had to either give up our rights, or transfer them to government. I show in this book how, why, when, and where the “preservation regime” of rights imposed itself over its rivals. In conclusion, I demonstrate how this earlier history is relevant for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), by showing how the French Declarations of the Rights of Man (1789, 1793) were re-interpreted and repeated in the 150 years after their promulgation.Less
This book argues that the history of human rights can be meaningfully extended from the present all the way back to the late medieval period. It further claims that the key question up until the Age of Revolutions was not whether or not all individuals possessed rights, but rather what happens to our rights when we enter into a political society. Our contemporary rights regime holds that we preserve human rights under all conditions. But in the period between the Wars of Religion and the late Enlightenment, most theorists argued that we had to either give up our rights, or transfer them to government. I show in this book how, why, when, and where the “preservation regime” of rights imposed itself over its rivals. In conclusion, I demonstrate how this earlier history is relevant for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), by showing how the French Declarations of the Rights of Man (1789, 1793) were re-interpreted and repeated in the 150 years after their promulgation.
Ernesto Screpanti and Stefano Zamagni
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- October 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780199279142
- eISBN:
- 9780191602887
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199279144.001.0001
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, History of Economic Thought
Provides a comprehensive and analytical overview of the development of economic theory from its beginnings, at the end of the Middle Ages, up to contemporary contributions. Traditional theories are ...
More
Provides a comprehensive and analytical overview of the development of economic theory from its beginnings, at the end of the Middle Ages, up to contemporary contributions. Traditional theories are presented as living matter and modern theories as part of a historical process and not as established truths. In this way, the book avoids the dangerous dichotomy between the 'pure' historians of thought, who dedicate themselves exclusively to studying 'facts', and the 'pure' theorists, who are interested only in the evolution of the logical structure of theories. An unconventionally large amount of space is reserved for the thought of the last 50 years of the twentieth century, for more than 50% of scientific knowledge has been produced in this time span. The book is not directed to a specialist public nor solely to a student audience. It aims to reach the educated person who has an interest in understanding the context in which economic ideas were formed.The second edition contains several changes and additions. Among them: a look at the ‘civil economy’ perspective in Humanism and Renaissance; an interpretation of Adam Smith as an institutionalist; a hint at the social ontology of Karl Marx; a new treatment of post-Keynesian and new Keynesian approaches; a final chapter on contemporary institutionalist thought in the light of globalization and postmodernism.Less
Provides a comprehensive and analytical overview of the development of economic theory from its beginnings, at the end of the Middle Ages, up to contemporary contributions. Traditional theories are presented as living matter and modern theories as part of a historical process and not as established truths. In this way, the book avoids the dangerous dichotomy between the 'pure' historians of thought, who dedicate themselves exclusively to studying 'facts', and the 'pure' theorists, who are interested only in the evolution of the logical structure of theories. An unconventionally large amount of space is reserved for the thought of the last 50 years of the twentieth century, for more than 50% of scientific knowledge has been produced in this time span. The book is not directed to a specialist public nor solely to a student audience. It aims to reach the educated person who has an interest in understanding the context in which economic ideas were formed.
The second edition contains several changes and additions. Among them: a look at the ‘civil economy’ perspective in Humanism and Renaissance; an interpretation of Adam Smith as an institutionalist; a hint at the social ontology of Karl Marx; a new treatment of post-Keynesian and new Keynesian approaches; a final chapter on contemporary institutionalist thought in the light of globalization and postmodernism.
Andrew Stewart Skinner
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198233343
- eISBN:
- 9780191678974
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198233343.003.0007
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Economic History
Adam Smith's early writings on economics (apart from two short fragments on the division of labour) are contained in the two sets of lecture notes currently available to us and in the document first ...
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Adam Smith's early writings on economics (apart from two short fragments on the division of labour) are contained in the two sets of lecture notes currently available to us and in the document first discovered by W. R. Scott and described by him as an ‘Early Draft’ of the Wealth of Nations. The account that Smith provides in the second set of lecture notes is concerned with an economic system featuring the activities of agriculture, manufacture, and commerce where these activities are characterized by a division of labour, with the patterns of exchange facilitated by the use of money. There are three main features of the central analysis: the treatment of the division of labour, the analysis of price and allocation, and the exposure of the mercantile fallacy. This chapter also discusses Smith's account of the physiocratic system, which consists of proprietors, cultivators, manufacturers, and merchants. It also considers Smith's application of the basic principles of the system to a relatively neglected area of physiocracy — international trade.Less
Adam Smith's early writings on economics (apart from two short fragments on the division of labour) are contained in the two sets of lecture notes currently available to us and in the document first discovered by W. R. Scott and described by him as an ‘Early Draft’ of the Wealth of Nations. The account that Smith provides in the second set of lecture notes is concerned with an economic system featuring the activities of agriculture, manufacture, and commerce where these activities are characterized by a division of labour, with the patterns of exchange facilitated by the use of money. There are three main features of the central analysis: the treatment of the division of labour, the analysis of price and allocation, and the exposure of the mercantile fallacy. This chapter also discusses Smith's account of the physiocratic system, which consists of proprietors, cultivators, manufacturers, and merchants. It also considers Smith's application of the basic principles of the system to a relatively neglected area of physiocracy — international trade.
Joachim Whaley
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199693078
- eISBN:
- 9780191732256
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199693078.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
The Aufklärung did not reject the governmental forms and institutions of the past but sought to give them a new purpose. Discussion of Aufklärung ideas was fostered by the explosive growth of the ...
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The Aufklärung did not reject the governmental forms and institutions of the past but sought to give them a new purpose. Discussion of Aufklärung ideas was fostered by the explosive growth of the print media. Aufklärung was defined by Kant and others; it suffused Protestant and Catholic thinking and many Jewish communities. The reforms of the period often responded to the problem of reconstruction after the Seven Years War, but they were shaped by new cameralist and physiocratic ideas. ‘Improvement’ soon became a general watchword leading to important new developments in administrative practice, law and justice, schools and universities, thinking about religious toleration and in the culture of the German courts. There is some evidence to suggest that the reforms in the German territories helped them avoid the kind of societal crisis that exploded in France in 1789.Less
The Aufklärung did not reject the governmental forms and institutions of the past but sought to give them a new purpose. Discussion of Aufklärung ideas was fostered by the explosive growth of the print media. Aufklärung was defined by Kant and others; it suffused Protestant and Catholic thinking and many Jewish communities. The reforms of the period often responded to the problem of reconstruction after the Seven Years War, but they were shaped by new cameralist and physiocratic ideas. ‘Improvement’ soon became a general watchword leading to important new developments in administrative practice, law and justice, schools and universities, thinking about religious toleration and in the culture of the German courts. There is some evidence to suggest that the reforms in the German territories helped them avoid the kind of societal crisis that exploded in France in 1789.
Christian Marouby
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780823281725
- eISBN:
- 9780823284870
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823281725.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
In the context of the book’s emphasis on “Systems of Life” in the social sciences in the eighteenth century, this chapter seeks to interrogate the conception of growth, an evidently biological ...
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In the context of the book’s emphasis on “Systems of Life” in the social sciences in the eighteenth century, this chapter seeks to interrogate the conception of growth, an evidently biological analogy, in the work of two major founders of the discipline of economics, François Quesnay and Adam Smith.
Taking its cue from a famous passage in the Wealth of Nations, the first part investigates the surprisingly discreet physiological conceptions in the non-medical writings of the theorist of physiocracy. While recognizing significant parallels between the biological and economic systems developed by Quesnay, particularly with regards to circulation, this first investigation fails to produce a model of economic growth based on physiological principles. The second part turns to the thought of Adam Smith himself, in which can be found not only an explicit analogy between physical health and that of the economy, but a clear conception of economic growth. But if it is tempting to find in Smith’s economics a system akin to that of life, a close examination of his theory of growth makes it even clearer than with Quesnay that its fundamental principle is not physiological, but sociological, grounded as it is in a stage theory of historical development.Less
In the context of the book’s emphasis on “Systems of Life” in the social sciences in the eighteenth century, this chapter seeks to interrogate the conception of growth, an evidently biological analogy, in the work of two major founders of the discipline of economics, François Quesnay and Adam Smith.
Taking its cue from a famous passage in the Wealth of Nations, the first part investigates the surprisingly discreet physiological conceptions in the non-medical writings of the theorist of physiocracy. While recognizing significant parallels between the biological and economic systems developed by Quesnay, particularly with regards to circulation, this first investigation fails to produce a model of economic growth based on physiological principles. The second part turns to the thought of Adam Smith himself, in which can be found not only an explicit analogy between physical health and that of the economy, but a clear conception of economic growth. But if it is tempting to find in Smith’s economics a system akin to that of life, a close examination of his theory of growth makes it even clearer than with Quesnay that its fundamental principle is not physiological, but sociological, grounded as it is in a stage theory of historical development.
Dan Edelstein
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226588988
- eISBN:
- 9780226589039
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226589039.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas
In France, with the exception of the exiled Huguenots, natural rights were rarely discussed before 1750. Even then, their revival at the hands of the philosophes was slow and weak. Stylistically, the ...
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In France, with the exception of the exiled Huguenots, natural rights were rarely discussed before 1750. Even then, their revival at the hands of the philosophes was slow and weak. Stylistically, the erudite works of the seventeenth-century natural lawyers offended Enlightenment sensibilities; these earlier texts were granted little attention. It was a group of economists, the Physiocrats, who ultimately did the most to revive the preservation regime of rights. For François Quesnay, the key right to retain in political society was property. But through their ties with philosophes in the salon of the baron d’Holbach, this economic focus gave way to a political one. By the 1770’s, nearly all the philosophes were criticizing states and laws that violated our natural rights. Another idea of rights also gained prominence in the 1770’s. This was the older constitutional theory of national rights, which members of the Paris Parlement brandished in opposition to Maupeou’s coup. This collective theory of rights rested on an idea of the nation as a natural entity. National rights were not produced through a transfer of individual rights, but had their own autonomy. These two concepts of rights were not incompatible, but there was a tension between them.Less
In France, with the exception of the exiled Huguenots, natural rights were rarely discussed before 1750. Even then, their revival at the hands of the philosophes was slow and weak. Stylistically, the erudite works of the seventeenth-century natural lawyers offended Enlightenment sensibilities; these earlier texts were granted little attention. It was a group of economists, the Physiocrats, who ultimately did the most to revive the preservation regime of rights. For François Quesnay, the key right to retain in political society was property. But through their ties with philosophes in the salon of the baron d’Holbach, this economic focus gave way to a political one. By the 1770’s, nearly all the philosophes were criticizing states and laws that violated our natural rights. Another idea of rights also gained prominence in the 1770’s. This was the older constitutional theory of national rights, which members of the Paris Parlement brandished in opposition to Maupeou’s coup. This collective theory of rights rested on an idea of the nation as a natural entity. National rights were not produced through a transfer of individual rights, but had their own autonomy. These two concepts of rights were not incompatible, but there was a tension between them.
Jeremy L. Caradonna
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801450600
- eISBN:
- 9780801463907
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801450600.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter examines the concours académique in relation to French political culture and the public sphere. In The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Jürgen Habermas explained how the ...
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This chapter examines the concours académique in relation to French political culture and the public sphere. In The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Jürgen Habermas explained how the enlightened public sphere provided a range of venues for private individuals to join together, criticize sociopolitical institutions, and exert their collective or respective wills on the government through the new concept known as “public opinion.” This chapter argues that academic prize contests became an increasingly critical forum of exchange in the eighteenth century. It also considers how the academies transformed the concours into a collective problem-solving operation rooted in the collaborative ethos of the Republic of Letters, stimulated by competition and the hunt for cultural capital. Finally, it discusses various subjects tackled in prize contests, including slavery and serfdom; poverty, begging, and poor relief; and physiocracy and the liberalization of the grain trade.Less
This chapter examines the concours académique in relation to French political culture and the public sphere. In The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Jürgen Habermas explained how the enlightened public sphere provided a range of venues for private individuals to join together, criticize sociopolitical institutions, and exert their collective or respective wills on the government through the new concept known as “public opinion.” This chapter argues that academic prize contests became an increasingly critical forum of exchange in the eighteenth century. It also considers how the academies transformed the concours into a collective problem-solving operation rooted in the collaborative ethos of the Republic of Letters, stimulated by competition and the hunt for cultural capital. Finally, it discusses various subjects tackled in prize contests, including slavery and serfdom; poverty, begging, and poor relief; and physiocracy and the liberalization of the grain trade.
Michael Sonenscher
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691180809
- eISBN:
- 9781400829026
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691180809.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
This chapter explores the problems of reform in eighteenth-century French thought, beginning with an examination of the origins of a new, theologically heterodox, interest in the human body, and its ...
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This chapter explores the problems of reform in eighteenth-century French thought, beginning with an examination of the origins of a new, theologically heterodox, interest in the human body, and its bearing on the moral and political thought of François de Salignac de la Mothe Fénelon and his followers. Its aim is to present some idea of the intellectual context that made it possible to align Rousseau's moral and political thought either with Thomas Hobbes or with Fénelon, and, ultimately, with both. With this established, it may then be easier to see why the advocates of the ambitious programme of economic and social reform that came to be known as Physiocracy were able to associate Rousseau, Hobbes, and Fénelon with something like the same, rather sober, set of moral and political arrangements.Less
This chapter explores the problems of reform in eighteenth-century French thought, beginning with an examination of the origins of a new, theologically heterodox, interest in the human body, and its bearing on the moral and political thought of François de Salignac de la Mothe Fénelon and his followers. Its aim is to present some idea of the intellectual context that made it possible to align Rousseau's moral and political thought either with Thomas Hobbes or with Fénelon, and, ultimately, with both. With this established, it may then be easier to see why the advocates of the ambitious programme of economic and social reform that came to be known as Physiocracy were able to associate Rousseau, Hobbes, and Fénelon with something like the same, rather sober, set of moral and political arrangements.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226184388
- eISBN:
- 9780226184401
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226184401.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
During the first year of the French Republic, it was commonplace to compare the nascent government to “those days that can be called the true golden age,” a time “when each nation determined on its ...
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During the first year of the French Republic, it was commonplace to compare the nascent government to “those days that can be called the true golden age,” a time “when each nation determined on its own its rights and duties” and when the people “shared more or less equally the advantages of a collective administration.” The myth of the golden age had been naturalized, escaping from the confines of poetry and royalist rhetoric to enter the authoritative narratives of history and ethnography. Perhaps the most eloquent and intriguing proponent of natural republicanism of the pre-revolutionary decades in France was Sylvain Maréchal, who demonstrated how the belief in a society governed solely by natural right was wholly assimilated into the discourse of sensibilité. This chapter examines three critical shifts with respect to natural right: Orientalist studies, new voyages of discovery (in particular French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville's visit to Tahiti), and physiocracy.Less
During the first year of the French Republic, it was commonplace to compare the nascent government to “those days that can be called the true golden age,” a time “when each nation determined on its own its rights and duties” and when the people “shared more or less equally the advantages of a collective administration.” The myth of the golden age had been naturalized, escaping from the confines of poetry and royalist rhetoric to enter the authoritative narratives of history and ethnography. Perhaps the most eloquent and intriguing proponent of natural republicanism of the pre-revolutionary decades in France was Sylvain Maréchal, who demonstrated how the belief in a society governed solely by natural right was wholly assimilated into the discourse of sensibilité. This chapter examines three critical shifts with respect to natural right: Orientalist studies, new voyages of discovery (in particular French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville's visit to Tahiti), and physiocracy.
Elizabeth Hewitt
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- August 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198859130
- eISBN:
- 9780191891694
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198859130.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 18th Century and Early American Literature
This chapter argues that resistance to Hamiltonian finance was both an economic and literary critique. The familiar opposition between Hamiltonian finance and Jeffersonian agrarianism has put the ...
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This chapter argues that resistance to Hamiltonian finance was both an economic and literary critique. The familiar opposition between Hamiltonian finance and Jeffersonian agrarianism has put the stress on the rural setting—an emphasis that has led scholars to talk about economic policy with the literary term, “pastoralism.” This chapter argues that the importance of the pastoral to Jeffersonian writers is not found in agrarianism, but on the formal structure of simplification that is essential to pastoral poetics. This same imperative toward simplicity is also located in the eighteenth-century economic science that was crucial to the Jeffersonians: French physiocracy. The chapter explains the importance of physiocracy and pastoralism to the political-economic writing of Thomas Jefferson, George Logan, and John Taylor of Caroline.Less
This chapter argues that resistance to Hamiltonian finance was both an economic and literary critique. The familiar opposition between Hamiltonian finance and Jeffersonian agrarianism has put the stress on the rural setting—an emphasis that has led scholars to talk about economic policy with the literary term, “pastoralism.” This chapter argues that the importance of the pastoral to Jeffersonian writers is not found in agrarianism, but on the formal structure of simplification that is essential to pastoral poetics. This same imperative toward simplicity is also located in the eighteenth-century economic science that was crucial to the Jeffersonians: French physiocracy. The chapter explains the importance of physiocracy and pastoralism to the political-economic writing of Thomas Jefferson, George Logan, and John Taylor of Caroline.
Ernesto Screpanti and Stefano Zamagni
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198774556
- eISBN:
- 9780191717383
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198774559.001.0001
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, History of Economic Thought
Provides a comprehensive and analytical overview of the development of economic theory from its beginnings, at the end of the Middle Ages, up to contemporary contributions. Traditional theories are ...
More
Provides a comprehensive and analytical overview of the development of economic theory from its beginnings, at the end of the Middle Ages, up to contemporary contributions. Traditional theories are presented as living matter and modern theories as part of a historical process and not as established truths. In this way, the book avoids the dangerous dichotomy between the ‘pure’ historians of thought, who dedicate themselves exclusively to studying ‘facts’, and the ‘pure’ theorists, who are interested only in the evolution of the logical structure of theories. An unconventionally large amount of space is reserved for the thought of the last 50 years of the twentieth century, for more than 50% of scientific knowledge has been produced in this time span. The book is not directed to a specialist public nor solely to a student audience. It aims to reach the educated person who has an interest in understanding the context in which economic ideas were formed.Less
Provides a comprehensive and analytical overview of the development of economic theory from its beginnings, at the end of the Middle Ages, up to contemporary contributions. Traditional theories are presented as living matter and modern theories as part of a historical process and not as established truths. In this way, the book avoids the dangerous dichotomy between the ‘pure’ historians of thought, who dedicate themselves exclusively to studying ‘facts’, and the ‘pure’ theorists, who are interested only in the evolution of the logical structure of theories. An unconventionally large amount of space is reserved for the thought of the last 50 years of the twentieth century, for more than 50% of scientific knowledge has been produced in this time span. The book is not directed to a specialist public nor solely to a student audience. It aims to reach the educated person who has an interest in understanding the context in which economic ideas were formed.
Albert L. Park
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824839659
- eISBN:
- 9780824869434
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824839659.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
Chapter 4 outlines the organization of the three rural movements and especially introduces Chosŏn nongminsa, which was the main arm of Ch’ŏndogyo to design and carry out its rural campaign. This ...
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Chapter 4 outlines the organization of the three rural movements and especially introduces Chosŏn nongminsa, which was the main arm of Ch’ŏndogyo to design and carry out its rural campaign. This chapter also analyzes the three organizations’ criticisms of urbanization and industrial capitalism and their support for a pastoral life, which they believed promised the cultivation of personality, social harmony, authentic wealth, a lasting national identity, and a sacred life.Less
Chapter 4 outlines the organization of the three rural movements and especially introduces Chosŏn nongminsa, which was the main arm of Ch’ŏndogyo to design and carry out its rural campaign. This chapter also analyzes the three organizations’ criticisms of urbanization and industrial capitalism and their support for a pastoral life, which they believed promised the cultivation of personality, social harmony, authentic wealth, a lasting national identity, and a sacred life.
Peter M. Jones
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- December 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780198716075
- eISBN:
- 9780191784293
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198716075.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas, Social History
This chapter sets the scene in a Europe which is coming to terms with the debt burden and in some regions the physical devastation left in the wake of the Seven Years’ War (1756–63). It depicts ...
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This chapter sets the scene in a Europe which is coming to terms with the debt burden and in some regions the physical devastation left in the wake of the Seven Years’ War (1756–63). It depicts agriculture, industry, and commerce as activities that were still closely connected. The new economic discourses that start to take shape around 1750 are identified and analysed: physiocracy, cameralism, political economy, and agronomy. The role of the movement of ideas known as the Enlightenment in the crystallization of these discourses and their dissemination in Europe is outlined. So, too, is the role of the State which made use of, and even adopted, the new discourses in order to buttress the economic policy objectives pursued by ancien régime rulers and their bureaucracies.Less
This chapter sets the scene in a Europe which is coming to terms with the debt burden and in some regions the physical devastation left in the wake of the Seven Years’ War (1756–63). It depicts agriculture, industry, and commerce as activities that were still closely connected. The new economic discourses that start to take shape around 1750 are identified and analysed: physiocracy, cameralism, political economy, and agronomy. The role of the movement of ideas known as the Enlightenment in the crystallization of these discourses and their dissemination in Europe is outlined. So, too, is the role of the State which made use of, and even adopted, the new discourses in order to buttress the economic policy objectives pursued by ancien régime rulers and their bureaucracies.
Nancy Shields Kollmann
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780199280513
- eISBN:
- 9780191822803
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199280513.003.0017
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History, Cultural History
This chapter explores the empire’s fiscal institutions and policies in the eighteenth century. Given the diversity of Russia’s economy, its policies were flexible and expedient, reflecting ...
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This chapter explores the empire’s fiscal institutions and policies in the eighteenth century. Given the diversity of Russia’s economy, its policies were flexible and expedient, reflecting mercantilist, protectionist, and Physiocratic tendencies as appropriate. The century witnessed vigorous economic growth, linked with a demographic boom, expansion into the fertile black earth steppe, and growing investment in productivity by private individuals and the state. Mining and metallurgy in the Urals and Siberia, export trade through St. Petersburg and the newly acquired Baltic and eventually even Black Sea ports produced wealth and economic growth. The state’s tariffs and taxation policies are surveyed, contrasting the capitation tax obligation on East Slavic peasantry with the different types and rates of direct taxation on non-Slavic subject peoples (iasak and other forms). The chapter concludes with the state’s indiscriminate use of assignats, mounting state debt, and economic stress by the end of century.Less
This chapter explores the empire’s fiscal institutions and policies in the eighteenth century. Given the diversity of Russia’s economy, its policies were flexible and expedient, reflecting mercantilist, protectionist, and Physiocratic tendencies as appropriate. The century witnessed vigorous economic growth, linked with a demographic boom, expansion into the fertile black earth steppe, and growing investment in productivity by private individuals and the state. Mining and metallurgy in the Urals and Siberia, export trade through St. Petersburg and the newly acquired Baltic and eventually even Black Sea ports produced wealth and economic growth. The state’s tariffs and taxation policies are surveyed, contrasting the capitation tax obligation on East Slavic peasantry with the different types and rates of direct taxation on non-Slavic subject peoples (iasak and other forms). The chapter concludes with the state’s indiscriminate use of assignats, mounting state debt, and economic stress by the end of century.
Rafe Blaufarb
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- June 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199778799
- eISBN:
- 9780190607159
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199778799.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
Chapter 1 explores the intellectual roots of the revolutionaries’ vision of demarcated spheres of property and power, on the one hand, and full, independent property-ownership, on the other. It shows ...
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Chapter 1 explores the intellectual roots of the revolutionaries’ vision of demarcated spheres of property and power, on the one hand, and full, independent property-ownership, on the other. It shows how these ideas first emerged in the writings of legal humanist jurists in the sixteenth century. These jurists progressively elaborated a legal conception of property that tended to redefine public power as a thing that could not be owned by individuals, but rather belonged exclusively to the sovereign. The chapter then follows the elaboration of these ideas in seventeenth-century conflicts over royal claims to universal property rights, eighteenth-century Enlightenment debates over the constitution of France, and physiocracy. It shows how the question of the proper relationship between property and power was at the heart of early modern French constitutional reflection.Less
Chapter 1 explores the intellectual roots of the revolutionaries’ vision of demarcated spheres of property and power, on the one hand, and full, independent property-ownership, on the other. It shows how these ideas first emerged in the writings of legal humanist jurists in the sixteenth century. These jurists progressively elaborated a legal conception of property that tended to redefine public power as a thing that could not be owned by individuals, but rather belonged exclusively to the sovereign. The chapter then follows the elaboration of these ideas in seventeenth-century conflicts over royal claims to universal property rights, eighteenth-century Enlightenment debates over the constitution of France, and physiocracy. It shows how the question of the proper relationship between property and power was at the heart of early modern French constitutional reflection.
Dan Edelstein
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190674793
- eISBN:
- 9780190674830
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190674793.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History, European Modern History
The century that was capped off by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen showed little indication, during its first fifty years, that it would come to care so much about natural ...
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The century that was capped off by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen showed little indication, during its first fifty years, that it would come to care so much about natural rights, or believe that the purpose of society was to conserve “the natural and imprescriptible rights of man.” So how did this particular rights regime come to hold such sway? As the author shows in this essay, the Enlightenment did not invent the idea of inalienable rights, which had already been forcefully expressed as far back as the sixteenth century. But a century of absolutist politics had silenced this discourse, despite its flourishing across the Channel. Its rediscovery, in the eighteenth century, does not appear to have been triggered by cross-cultural currents, or the rereading of older documents. Rather, it is argued that it was thanks to the Physiocrats that inalienable natural rights became once again a cornerstone of political discourse.Less
The century that was capped off by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen showed little indication, during its first fifty years, that it would come to care so much about natural rights, or believe that the purpose of society was to conserve “the natural and imprescriptible rights of man.” So how did this particular rights regime come to hold such sway? As the author shows in this essay, the Enlightenment did not invent the idea of inalienable rights, which had already been forcefully expressed as far back as the sixteenth century. But a century of absolutist politics had silenced this discourse, despite its flourishing across the Channel. Its rediscovery, in the eighteenth century, does not appear to have been triggered by cross-cultural currents, or the rereading of older documents. Rather, it is argued that it was thanks to the Physiocrats that inalienable natural rights became once again a cornerstone of political discourse.
Kent Deng
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780199499717
- eISBN:
- 9780199099269
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199499717.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, Economic History
The rise of the industrial and commercial sectors in Song China was a result of historical contingency rather than an organic growth from the pre-Song past, which was marked by the ...
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The rise of the industrial and commercial sectors in Song China was a result of historical contingency rather than an organic growth from the pre-Song past, which was marked by the physiocracy-cum-farming that China was famous for. The right amount of external pressure from China’s northern and western borders served as a catalyst while the switch to mercantilism was the key of the Song state-led growth. Without a doubt, by 1100 CE, China was on a track to a quasi-modern structure with profit-making commercialization and proto-industrialization. However, the Song capitalist model did not lead to military supremacy in East Asia. As a result, it lost its northern territory in 1127 to the Jurchens and then its southern territory in 1279 to the Mongols, whereby the capitalist experiment ended by external violence.Less
The rise of the industrial and commercial sectors in Song China was a result of historical contingency rather than an organic growth from the pre-Song past, which was marked by the physiocracy-cum-farming that China was famous for. The right amount of external pressure from China’s northern and western borders served as a catalyst while the switch to mercantilism was the key of the Song state-led growth. Without a doubt, by 1100 CE, China was on a track to a quasi-modern structure with profit-making commercialization and proto-industrialization. However, the Song capitalist model did not lead to military supremacy in East Asia. As a result, it lost its northern territory in 1127 to the Jurchens and then its southern territory in 1279 to the Mongols, whereby the capitalist experiment ended by external violence.