Hobbes and the Political Economy of Population

Bibliographic Data

ID4889007
AuthorsBrian Smith (0000-0002-6523-2019, Department of Political Science and International Relations, Nazarbayev University, Qabanbay Batyr Ave. 53, Astana, Kazakhstan([email protected]), corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume55
Issue2
Pages249-277
Publication date2023-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistory of Political Economy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0018-2702 • E-ISSN: 1527-1919
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00182702-10327308
OpenAlexW4311270817
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited27

This article argues that Hobbes was actively engaged in the debates about population size as a component of his broader approach to political economy. By the seventeenth century, beliefs about economic well-being routinely turned back onto the question of population size. This article situates Hobbes's arguments about populations in and among the common arguments for the movement of people in the seventeenth century. Hobbes rejected the natural law tradition of hospitality, which required that states take care of foreigners, and populationist arguments, which assumed that economic progress was predicated on rapid population growth. Specifically, this article will show that Hobbes held a view common to the late Tudor period; namely, a wise sovereign should be actively engaged in regulating population inflows and outflows. Not only did this require careful management of domestic procreative policies, but it also had implications for colonization and war-making

Economics · Economy · Hospitality · Natural (archaeology · Period (music · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Population · Population growth · Sociology · Sovereignty · Tourism · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Demography · Historical Economic and Legal Thought · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Law · Philosophy

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