Commerce, Culture, and Liberty

by Clark, Henry C.

• ISBN13: 9780865973787
• ISBN10: 0865973784
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-04-01
• Publisher: Liberty Fund

Summary

Presents rich and provocative writings on the relationship between commerce and luxury, virtue, nobility, agriculture, the state, religion, civility, and liberty. The book restores the voice of a rich body of reflections on the larger import of the birth of the modern economy that has been largely silent in academic discourse on the topic. Moreover, it presents significant though hard-to-find writings by a host of well-known authors, including a little-known essay by Rousseau. It also presents important writings that have been pre-empted by Adam Smith, writings that say as much about our age as about the age in which they were written. Commerce, Culture, and Liberty presents rich and provocative writings on the relationship between commerce and luxury, virtue, nobility, agriculture, the state, religion, civility, and liberty. The book restores the voice of a rich body of reflections on the larger import of the birth of the modern economy that has been largely silent in academic discourse on the topic. Moreover, it presents significant though hard-to-find writings by a host of well-known authors, including a little-known essay by Rousseau. It also presents important writings that have been pre-empted by Adam Smith, writings that say as much about our age as about the age in which they were written.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Editor's Note	xix
Translator's Note	xxi
Acknowledgments	xxiii
Conceptions for a Free Trade	1	(8)
William Walwyn
Political Maxims of the State of Holland	9	(28)
Pieter de la Court
A New Discourse of Trade	37	(17)
Josiah Child
Moral Essays	54	(12)
Pierre Nicole
A Discourse of Trade	66	(34)
Nicholas Barbon
Discourses upon Trade	100	(28)
Dudley North
Second Discourse on the Affairs of Scotland	128	(27)
Andrew Fletcher
The Spectator	155	(23)
Richard Steele
``General Idea of the New System of Finances,''	178	(15)
John Law
Cato's Letters	193	(10)
John Trenchard
The Fable of the Bees	203	(16)
Bernard Mandeville
An Enquiry Whether a General Practice of Virtue Tends to the Wealth or Poverty, Benefit or Disadvantage of a People	219	(21)
George Blewhitt
The Complete English Tradesman	240	(11)
Daniel Defoe
Plan for the Improvement of Commerce	251	(3)
Charles Irenee Castel de Saint-Pierre
A Political Essay upon Commerce	254	(11)
Jean-Francois Melon
``The Worldling,''	265	(6)
Voltaire
``The Man of the World,''	271	(5)
Voltaire
``On Commerce and Luxury,''	276	(6)
Voltaire
Spectacle of Nature	282	(6)
Noel-Antoine Pluche
Spirit of the Laws	288	(19)
Montesquieu
On Money	307	(22)
Ferdinando Galiani
``An Enquiry into the Causes of the Late Increase of Robbers,''	329	(29)
Henry Fielding
``Of Refinement in the Arts,''	358	(13)
David Hume
``Memoire,''	371	(21)
Jacques-Claude-Marie-Vincent de Gournay
``Luxury, Commerce, and the Arts,''	392	(11)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
A View of the Manner in Which Trade and Civil Liberty Support Each Other	403	(14)
William Hazeland
The Commercial Nobility	417	(7)
Gabriel Francois Coyer
An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times	424	(24)
John Brown
``In Praise of Gournay,''	448	(29)
Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot
``Luxury,''	477	(25)
Jean-Francois Saint-Lambert
A View of the Progress of Society in Europe	502	(16)
William Robertson
Reflections on the Formation and the Distribution of Wealth	518	(46)
Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot
On the Origin and Progress of a New Science	564	(34)
Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours
Dialogues on the Grain Trade	598	(12)
Ferdinando Galiani
``A Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies,''	610	(14)
Guillaume-Thomas-Francois Raynal
On the Origin of the Distinction of Ranks	624	(14)
John Millar
Commerce and Government Considered in Their Mutual Relationship	638	(19)
Etienne Bonnot de Condillac
Glossary	657	(4)
Index	661