The Idea of Commercial Society in the Scottish Enlightenment

The most arresting aspect of the Scottish Enlightenment is its conception of commercial society as a distinct and distinctive social formation. Christopher Berry explains why Enlightenment thinkers considered commercial society to be wealthier and freer than earlier forms, and charts the contemporary debates and tensions between Enlightenment thinkers that this idea raised. The book analyses the full range of literature on the subject, from key works like Adam Smith's ‘Wealth of Nations', David Hume's ‘Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects'and Adam Ferguson's ‘Essay on the History of Civil Society'to lesser-known works such as Robert Wallace's ‘Dissertation on Numbers of Mankind'. The book examines the writings of the Scottish Enlightenment, focusing on their conception of a commercial society. This focus captures both what the Scottish Enlightenment is now best known for as well as what contemporaneously most engaged its participants. This engagement critically involved a re-calibration of social norms and that, in turn, entailed a re-thinking of the constituents (institutions, behaviour and so on) of ‘society’. Central to this re-thinking was the Scots’ appreciation that the present had to be understood via the past. Among the book's key themes is the argument that the Scots’ idea of a commercial society represents simultaneously their diachronic analysis, where it is the latest stage in development from a society of hunter-gatherers, and their synchronic analysis of it as a society with a set of interlocking institutions. The book pays full attention to internal debates and conveys thereby some of the intellectual excitement that the development of these arguments occasioned. While the work of Adam Smith, David Hume, Adam Ferguson, John Millar, William Robertson and Lord Kames feature prominently other thinkers and pamphleteers are discussed Title Page 4 Copyright 5 Table of Contents 6 Preface 7 Abbreviations 9 1. Scotland, Improvement and Enlightenment 14 2. Commerce, Stages and the Natural History of Society 45 3. Prosperity and Poverty 79 4. Markets, Law and Politics 103 5. Liberty and the Virtues of Commerce 137 6. The Dangers of Commerce 163 7. The Idea of a Commercial Society 207 References 224 Index 252 Explains why Enlightenment thinkers considered commercial society to be wealthier and freer than earlier forms, and charts the arguments Scottish philosophers put forward for and against the idea. This book focuses on the Scottish Enlightenment's conception of commercial society, revealing it to be the movement's core idea.