It Was Their Business to Know
British Merchants and Mercantile Epistemology in the Eighteenth Century
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4298422 |
|---|---|
| Authors | William Deringer (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 49 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 177-206 |
| Publication date | 2017-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | History of Political Economy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0018-2702 • E-ISSN: 1527-1919 |
| Publisher | Duke University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1215/00182702-3876445 |
| OpenAlex | W2622891594 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 42 |
This article explores the history of commercial epistemology during the first half of the eighteenth century in Britain. During that period, questions about the character of commerce as a field of knowledge-whether it was a simple or complex, how it related to commercial "interest," and especially who possessed it-lay at the heart of political-economic debate. This article looks specifically at one set of attitudes about commercial epistemology, what I call mercantile epistemology, which came to dominate economic thinking from 1714 to roughly 1750. Mercantile epistemology was based on two pillars. The first was that commerce was a straight-forward, "common sense" field of knowledge; the second was that, though commerce was not an abstruse field, it was businesspeople who understood it best. At the heart of this mercantile epistemology was the sense that the nation had one coherent business community who shared common goals and agreed upon a set of commercial "maxims." This mercantile epistemology first attained its position of authority in British economic thinking following the heated debate over the Anglo-French Commerce Treaty in 1713-14. This mercantile epistemology maintained a strong hold on British economic thinking until roughly 1750, when its keys pillars began to be challenged from various directions. Focusing on epistemology offers a powerful way to rethink the history of what Adam Smith dubbed the "Mercantile System
Epistemology · Field (mathematics · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Economic Theory and Institutions · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Historical Philosophy and Science · Law · Philosophy
Britons
Economic thought and ideology in seventeenth century England
The Invention of Improvement
Shaftesbury and the Culture of Politeness
Common Sense
Translating Empire
Designs on Nature
Casualties of Credit
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times
Too Much to Know
The First Modern Revolution
Addison's Empire
Adam Smith, businessmen, and the mercantile system in England
Between Utrecht and the War of the Austrian Succession
The Anglo-French Treaty of Commerce of 1713
British Mercantilist Doctrines Concerning the "Exportation of Work" and "Foreign-Paid Incomes
Accounting for Government
Representation and Misrepresentation in Later Stuart Britain
Predecessors of Adam Smith. The Growth of British Economic Thought
An Essay on the Causes of the Decline of Foreign Trade, Consequently of the Value of Lands of Britain, and of the Means to Restore Both. Begun in the Year 1739
Mercantilism
Trade, Government and Economy in Pre-Industrial England
Civic Epistemologies
Beyond the Treaty of Utrecht
The Contexts and Contours of British Economic Literature, 1660-1760
Interest Will Not Lie
Rethinking Mercantilism
Guide to English Commercial Statistics, 1696-1782
Party politics, political economy, and economic development in early eighteenth-centuryBritain
Reconstructing Mercantilism
The Power of Commerce
The Social Structure in the Eighteenth Century
Anglo-french Trade and the 'Unfavourable Balance' Controversy, 1660-1685
Revisions in Mercantilism
A History of the Modern Fact
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,63 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2024 (7) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |