Introductions--concepts,+theories,+big+picture+issues

=Class 1 Thoughts= The outline for the first class is [|here at my main website.] Note that we didn't cover the historical material in great depth in class, so we'll revisit this next Tuesday before moving on to Lindblom's discussion of the market system. However, I'm pleased that we seem to have students with a diverse array of perspectives (if I may read into what you all said in class).

=The //doux commerce//?= After class one of you suggested that it's too simplistic to suggest that capitalism (or at least commerce in its early days) is or was a force for peace--if not tranquility. I take the point. We can easily point to the depredations of early, middle, and late capitalists both at 'home' (enclosure of commons, strengthening of property crime laws in the 17th C, union busting, various exercises in economic imperialism around the world, ecological damage, war profiteering, etc).

BUT I think it's important to see the flowering of commerce as it was seen by literate classes during the Enlightenment and early Industrial Revolution. Thus, Montesquieu wrote of the doctrine of the //doux commerce//: "it is almost a general rule that wherever the ways of man are gentle there is commerce; and wherever there is commerce, there the ways of men are gentle" (quoted in HIrschman's The Passions and the Interests, 1977, p60). Others agreed, noting that commerce "softens and polishes the manners of men" (William Robertson, ibid).

The key thing to note is the comparison is to feudal norm of constant warfare, in which landed elite fought battles in search of glory and honor. The commentators of the day are not referring to what ordinary men do, nor their experience of life in a traded, capitalist society. This is all going on at a time when people kept to their place and the common men didn't really matter. But societies as a whole were seen to be more peaceful where commerce spread.

And actually you could compare the amount of warfare in Europe during the relevant periods (I don't have time to do a careful analysis--I'm sure it's out there and easily found) and see that commerce promoted relative peace--among the trading nations. This is also true of the capitalist empires (Britain) compared to the mercantilist empires (eg Spain). Which is not to understate the problems caused by capitalist imperialism.

Any thoughts?