British Modern International Thought in the Making: Politics and Economy from Hobbes to Bentham (International Political Theory)

This book articulates international political theory in dialogue with economics on several questions. It asks: how has modern international theory been adjusted and nourished by economic ideas, theories and practices? How far has the distinctive contribution of some theorists to international theory been informed by their views on economy? What has been the impact of the theory of the state for economic and international theory? What sort of economic thinking has led to revise the debates constitutive for the modern international realm? How have economic debates been rhetorically connected to political debates in the field of international relations? Acknowledgements Contents Notes on Contributors 1 Introduction 1 Methodological Remarks 2 Chapter Descriptions 2.1 Part I: Early Modern British International Thought 2.2 Part II: The Scottish School of Political Economy within International Thought 2.3 Part III: Bentham’s Political Economy and International Theory Bibliography Part I Early Modern British International Thought 2 Grotius Among the English Merchants: Mare Liberum and Anglo-Dutch Rivalry in the Early Seventeenth Century 1 Introduction 2 Mare Liberum and Anglo-Dutch Commercial Rivalry 3 The Fisheries Dispute 4 Mare Liberum vs Mare Clausum in the English Mercantile Literature 5 A Fishing Empire? Bibliography 3 Hobbes and the Problem of International Trade 1 Introduction 2 The World According to Hobbes 3 Economy and State in Hobbes’s Theory 4 Hobbesian State and Colonies in the International Realm 5 Why and How to Regulate International Trade 6 Conclusions Bibliography 4 Locke’s Conflicted Cosmopolitanism: Individualism and Empire 1 Introduction 2 Cosmopolitanisms Before Locke: Ciceronian and Pauline 3 Locke’s Ciceronian Natural Law 4 International Law as Natural Law: Individualism 5 Conquest: Individualism in Action 6 Colonialism: Individualism Betrayed 7 Conclusion: Which Locke? Bibliography Part II The Scottish School of Political Economy Within International Thought 5 “To Keep Industry Alive”: Hume on Freer International Trade as Moral Improvement 1 Introduction 2 Rhetoric and Method 3 Free Trade and Growth 4 Refinement and Moral Improvement 5 Conclusion: Gradual Improvements Towards a Better World Bibliography 6 Human Nature as the Foundation of Adam Smith’s International Theory 1 Introduction 2 Smith on Human Nature 3 International Economics 4 International Politics 5 Conclusions Bibliography 7 Colonization, Commerce and Global History: Adam Smith and Raynal’s Histoire des Deux Indes 1 Introduction 2 What Knowledge did Smith have of Raynal and of His HDI? 3 The HDI and Political Economy in Eighteenth-Century France 4 The HDI, a “Place of Debate”, an Ideal Representation of doux commerce and Impartiality? 4.1 Multiple Points of View and Impartiality: A “Philosophical” History of the Two Indies 4.2 The Celebration of “doux commerce” 5 Rhetoric in Raynal’s HDI and Smith’s WN 6 Raynal and Smith on Colonialism Bibliography 8 Remote Encounters of a Distant Kind: Natives and Westerners in Adam Smith’s International Thought 1 Introduction 2 A Remote Encounter: Smith's Comparisons Between Savage, Barbarous and Civilized Societies 2.1 Economic Disparities and the Four Stages Scheme 2.2 Moral Characters of the Savage and of the Civilized Man 2.3 The Military Power Relations Between Nations 3 Encounter of a Distant Kind: The Actual Confrontation Between Westerners and Natives 3.1 An Economic Progress Built on “Dreadful Misfortunes” 3.2 The Persecution of the Natives: An Accidental Event 3.3 Distance, National Pride and the Love of Domination 4 The Future Evolution of International Relations: Towards a Convergence? Bibliography Part III Bentham’s Political Economy and International Theory 9 One Conclusion and Two Explanations: Bentham’s Economic Analysis of International Trade 1 Introduction 2 From the Manual of Political Economy (1793–1795) to Observations on the Restrictive and Prohibitory Commercial System (1821a) 2.1 Bentham’s Early Views on International Trade: The Manual of Political Economy 2.2 Bentham’s Mature Views on International Trade 3 Challenging Security Within the Country: Commercial Policies and Undue Redistribution 4 Challenging Welfare Within the Country: The Prohibition of the Import of Foreign Goods 5 Providing Security Thanks to Trade Policies? The Case of Subsistence Goods 5.1 Bentham’s Hesitations Concerning the Desirability of Bounties on the Exportation of Corn (1793–1795) 5.2 The Rejection of the Corn Laws 6 Conclusions Bibliography 10 Bentham via Dumont on the Balance of Trade 1 Introduction 2 Textual Difficulties 3 In Smith’s Footsteps on the Balance of Trade 4 Gold, Paper and Inflation: Ricardo, Thornton and Bentham on the Neutrality of Money and Exogenous Shocks 5 Conclusions Bibliography 11 Jeremy Bentham’s Politics of Global Commerce as a Limit-Case 1 Introduction 2 Political Principles and General Rules for Global Commerce: A Cosmopolitan Agenda 2.1 A Minimalist System of International Cooperation: Pacification and Security for Global Commerce 2.2 The Principle “no more trade than capital” and Global Commerce 2.3 Free Trade, Democratic Utilitarian State and Global Commerce 3 Britain’s Interest and Economic Imperialism in Bentham’s Politics of Global Commerce 3.1 Bentham on War Finance 3.2 The Sacrifice of the Interests of Traders and International Trading Companies? 3.3 Britain’s Interests and Private International Companies: The Rise of Imperial Commerce? 4 Conclusions Bibliography 12 Women’s Misery and Women’s Rights in International Law and Literature: Wollstonecraft, Malthus, Bentham, and Shelley 1 Introduction: From Women’s Misery to Women’s Rights 2 Wollstonecraft Before Malthus 2.1 Wollstonecraft on the Sum of Human Misery 2.2 Malthus on the Miseries of Overpopulation 3 Mary Shelley’s Enlightenment Education 3.1 The Godwin-Shelley Family Ties to the Benthamite Circle 3.2 Frankenstein’s Creature as Humanoid Automaton and Surveillance Machine 4 The Surveillance Machine as the Founding Monster of Modern Political Thought 4.1 Bentham’s Panopticon as Surveillance Machine 4.2 Wollstonecraft as Critic of the Surveillance Machine 5 Shelley’s Wollstonecraftian Reversal of the Greatest Happiness Principle: The Lack of Love and Community as the Principal Causes of Misery 5.1 Shelley’s ‘Principal Causes of Misery’ Manuscript, c. 1822–1823 6 Conclusion: A Wollstopolitan Literature of the Rights of Woman and Other Creatures Bibliography Index This book articulates international political theory in dialogue with economics in several questions. It asks how modern international theory has been adjusted and nourished by economic ideas, theories and practices? How far has the distinctive contribution of some theorists to international theory been informed by their views on economy? What has been the impact of the theory of the state for economic and international theory? What sort of economic thinking has led to revise the debates constitutive for the modern international realm? How have economic debates been rhetorically connected to political debates in the field of international relations?