The Economic Turn: Recasting Political Economy in Eighteenth-Century Europe

Steven L. Kaplan; Sophus A. Reinert

Book | 2019

The Economic Turn: Recasting Political Economy in Eighteenth-Century Europe

by Steven L. Kaplan and Sophus A. Reinert

Abstract

The mid-eighteenth century witnessed what might be dubbed an “economic turn” that resolutely changed the trajectory of world history. From the birth of new agricultural practices and the foundation of private societies to the sustained and popular theorization of social and material phenomena, the period experienced an unprecedented interest in “economic” concerns across a wide spectrum of human activities and social strata alike.

The discipline of economics itself emerged amidst this turn, and it is frequently traced back to the work of François Quesnay and his school of Physiocracy (literally the “Rule of Nature”). The school or, as it was called at the time, sect of économistes spearheaded a theoretically sophisticated form of economic analysis that postulated the virtues of laissez-faire and the unique ability of agriculture to generate wealth. Though lionized by the subsequent historiography of economics, the theoretical postulates and policy consequences of Physiocracy were disastrous at the time, resulting in veritable subsistence trauma in France. This galvanized relentless and diverse critiques of the doctrine not only in France but also throughout the European world that have, hitherto, been largely neglected by scholars.

Though Physiocracy was an integral part of the economic turn, it was rapidly overcome both theoretically and practically, with durable and important consequences for the history of political economy. The Economic Turn brings together some of the leading historians of that moment to fundamentally recast our understanding of the origins and diverse natures of political economy in the Enlightenment.

Keywords: Economic Systems; Trade; History; Markets; Society; France; Europe;

Format: Print

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Kaplan, Steven L., and Sophus A. Reinert, eds. The Economic Turn: Recasting Political Economy in Eighteenth-Century Europe. London: Anthem Press, 2019.

The continent of Europe seemed in the spring of 2015 to be in a weaker position relative to other world regions than it had in centuries. Though comparatively small, it had long played a disproportionate role in world history, to the extent that the modern world system of states itself in large parts had been created in the wake of European imperialism. This case examines the deep history of Europe’s so-called “Great Divergence,” the means by which it achieved “modern economic growth” and conquered large parts of the known world, and the consequences of this moment for the past, present, and future of capitalism.

In the fall of 2018, Serbia found itself at a crossroads yet again. Following the Balkan Wars of the 1990s and the collapse of Yugoslavia, the country had embarked on a slow and arduous process of accession to the European Union (EU). This had been further hampered by the country’s tortuous relations to its breakaway province of Kosovo, one of several regions fighting for political independence at a time when the continent itself was seeking greater economic and political integration in the form of the EU. Support for the EU accession was falling in Serbia, however, also in light of the increasing presence in the country of Russian and Chinese interests and investments. But would the country eventually have to pick a side amidst the rapidly changing geopolitics of the early twenty-first century?

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The Economic Turn: Recasting Political Economy in Eighteenth-Century Europe

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