The Scottish Enlightenment And The Challenges Of Commercial Society

Christopher Berry explains why Enlightenment thinkers considered commercial society to be wealthier and freer than earlier forms, looking at key works from Adam Smith, David Hume and Adam Ferguson alongside lesser-known figures.

A reassessment of the Scottish Enlightenment's remarkable contribution to modern economics and theories of capitalism.

This collection of essays provides a comprehensive view of the economic thought of the Scottish Enlightenment. Organized as a chronological account of the rise and progress of political economy in eighteenth century Scotland, each chapter discusses the way in which the moral and economic improvement of the Scottish nation became a common concern. Contributors not only explore the economic discourses of David Hume, James Steuart and Adam Smith but also consider the neglected economic writings of Andrew Fletcher, Robert Wallace, Francis Hutcheson, William Robertson, John Millar and Dugald Stewart. This book addresses the question of how these economic writings interacted with the moral, political and historical arguments of the time and shows how contemporary issues related to the union with England, natural jurisprudence, classical republicanism and manners and civilization all contained an economic dimension. Key chapters include: The ancient modern controversy in the Scottish Enlightenment The 'Scottish Triangle' in the shaping of political economy: David Hume, Sir James Steuart and Adam Smith Civilization and history in Lord Kames and William Robertson Adam Smith in Japan This view of the origin of economic science in Britain is markedly different from traditional accounts and will be of interest to economic, political and social historians.

Adam Smith is popularly regarded as the ideological forefather of laissez-faire capitalism, while Rousseau is seen as the passionate advocate of the life of virtue in small, harmonious communities and as a sharp critic of the ills of commercial society. But, in fact, Smith had many of the same worries about commercial society that Rousseau did and was strongly influenced by his critique. In this first book-length comparative study of these leading eighteenth-century thinkers, Dennis Rasmussen highlights Smith&’s sympathy with Rousseau&’s concerns and analyzes in depth the ways in which Smith crafted his arguments to defend commercial society against these charges. These arguments, Rasmussen emphasizes, were pragmatic in nature, not ideological: it was Smith&’s view that, all things considered, commercial society offered more benefits than the alternatives. Just because of this pragmatic orientation, Smith&’s approach can be useful to us in assessing the pros and cons of commercial society today and thus contributes to a debate that is too much dominated by both dogmatic critics and doctrinaire champions of our modern commercial society.

Preface -- Toward commercial order -- Foundations -- Neither angel nor beast -- The system of natural liberty -- The liberty of law -- Challenges -- The temptation of politics -- The dilemma of democracy -- Culture and the possibility of "non-spontaneous" commercial society.

Once relatively confined to parts of Europe and North America, commercial societies are now found in many other cultures and continents. Yet despite the international spread and growth of commercial order, the moral, economic, and legal foundations of commercial society remain poorly understood, especially in those countries where it first took root. Guided by the thoughts of Alexis de Tocqueville, Samuel Gregg's The Commercial Society identifies and explores the key foundational elements that must exist within a society for commercial order to take root and flourish. Gregg studies the challenges that have consistently impeded and occasionally undermined commercial order, including the persistence of 'corporatist' values and political movements seeking to equalize social conditions. This book offers a historically-grounded analysis for modern audiences interested in philosophy or the history of economics.

David Hume, Adam Smith, William Robertson, Adam Ferguson, Lord Kames, John Millar, James Dunbar and Gilbert Stuart were at the heart of Scottish Enlightenment thought. This introductory survey offers the student a clear, accessible interpretation and synthesis of the social thought of these historically significant thinkers. Organised thematically, it takes the student through their accounts of social institutions, their critique of individualism, their methodology, their views of progress and of moral and cultural values. By taking human sociality as their premise, the book shows how they produced important analyses of historical change, politics and morality, together with an assessment of their own commercial society.

Craig Smith explores Ferguson's thought and examines his attempt to develop a genuine moral science and its place in providing a secure basis for the virtuous education of the new elite of Hanoverian Britain. The Ferguson that emerges is much closer to the mainstream of the Scottish Enlightenment than previous studies have suggested.

The Scottish Enlightenment shaped a new conception of history as a gradual and universal progress from savagery to civil society. Whereas women emancipated themselves from the yoke of male-masters, men in turn acquired polite manners and became civilized. Such a conception, however, presents problematic questions: why were the Americans still savage? Why was it that the Europeans only had completed all the stages of the historic process? Could modern societies escape the destiny of earlier empires and avoid decadence? Was there a limit beyond which women's influence might result in dehumanization? The Scottish Enlightenment's legacy for modernity emerges here as a two-faced Janus, an unresolved tension between universalism and hierarchy, progress and the limits of progress.