Early Debates about Industry : Voltaire and His Contemporaries

by Schui, Florian

• ISBN13: 9781403947994
• ISBN10: 1403947996
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-03-17
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Industry has been at the centre of some of the most formidable political and economic debates of the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This book explores the pivotal decades of the eighteenth-century in which the modern concept of industry was, for the first time, at the heart of heated debates in France and other European countries. The close reading of contemporary debates illuminates the origins of an economic key concept and suggests a fresh perspective on the rise of industry in the eighteenth-century.

Author Biography

Florian Schui is a historian of political and economic thought at the University of Cambridge

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	ix
Introduction	1	(1)
The enlightenment	2	(2)
The rise of industry	4	(3)
The development of the concept of industry	7	(6)
Eavesdropping on Voltaire and his contemporaries	13	(5)
Industry in Voltaire's Time	18	(17)
Industrial growth in eighteenth-century France	20	(1)
The principal branches of industry: textiles and iron	20	(2)
The French concentration on high quality products	22	(1)
No mechanisation of labour	23	(1)
State and industry in France	24	(2)
Intellectual context: the term `industry' up to the 1750s	26	(2)
The use of the term industry	28	(2)
The transformation of the 1750s	30	(5)
Voltaire, Prussia and Industry	35	(44)
Voltaire's departure from Paris	35	(5)
The journey through industry-less Westphalia	40	(2)
Industry in Westphalia	42	(4)
The arrival in Berlin: `The fairy-land'	46	(2)
The highlight of Voltaire's first weeks in Berlin: a carrouzel	48	(3)
Frederick's thought on art and industry	51	(2)
Modern perspectives on Prussian industry under Frederick II	53	(2)
Merchant industry in Prussia: the new Asiatic trade company	55	(16)
`A new industry' in Prussia: the silk manufactures	71	(8)
A European Debate about Colbert	79	(33)
The concept of industry in the debate about Colbert	81	(3)
Voltaire's defence of Colbert during the stay in Prussia	84	(1)
Voltaire's response to Boisguilbert	85	(2)
`Nothing could be more wrong'	87	(2)
French and Prussian anecdotes about administrators and merchants	89	(4)
Two different keys to industry	93	(3)
Self-love and the branches of industry	96	(4)
Enter La Beaumelle	100	(1)
La Beaumelle between Voltaire and Montesquieu	101	(2)
Frederick, Voltaire and La Beaumelle's edition of the Age of Louis XIV	103	(9)
How Much Industry Does a Nation Need?	112	(36)
Saint-Pierre's critique of the reign of Louis XIV	114	(1)
`Half fool and half philosopher': ambiguous perceptions of Saint-Pierre	115	(2)
Voltaire's response to the Political Annals	117	(1)
Saint-Pierre's political economy argument	118	(3)
Saint-Pierre's moral argument	121	(3)
A revolt against Fenelon's frugality	124	(3)
Physiocratic industry and Voltairean industry	127	(1)
Industry: source or consumer of riches	128	(3)
Pro and contra laissez-faire in industry	131	(1)
`A minister of the last century': industry, war and peace	132	(4)
The debate about the Compagnie des Indes	136	(3)
Voltaire and the Hercule	139	(3)
Jacques Necker's defence of Colbert	142	(6)
A Political Campaign for Industry	148	(26)
The essay competition of the Societe Œconomique in Petersburg	150	(3)
Voltaire's essay: serfdom as an institutional obstacle to industry	153	(2)
The social implications of the rise of industry	155	(2)
Voltaire's campaign against serfdom in France	157	(4)
The campaign against serfdom under the ministry of Turgot	161	(3)
`Industry will be harmed even more'	164	(2)
Vexatious feudal privileges	166	(2)
The progress of industry: a common concern of Turgot and Voltaire	168	(3)
The campaign against serfdom after the fall of Turgot	171	(3)
Conclusion	174	(13)
Notes	187	(37)
Bibliography	224	(11)
Index	235