----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- Published by EH.NET (May 2001) Richard Whatmore, _Republicanism and the French Revolution: An Intellectual History of Jean-Baptiste Say's Political Economy_. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. xiv + 248 pp.$70 (cloth), ISBN: 0-19-924115-5. Reviewed for EH.NET by William Baumol, Department of Economics, New York University. The central objective of this book is to describe, both in light of the writings of contemporaries and from internal evidence in Jean-Baptiste Say's own writings, the underlying orientation of that author -- the political philosophy by which he was guided. The author, a lecturer at the University of Sussex, is extraordinarily well informed about the pertinent literature of the time, and perhaps tells us more about this material than some readers may want to know. But, on the basis of those writings, he offers us insights into Say's predilections and, in particular, his views on political and social issues, that are likely to have escaped even careful readers of Say's best-known writings. In particular, the author emphasizes that Say was not a liberal in the tradition of the British classical economists, nor a full-fledged follower of the path of Adam Smith (though he points out in the very first page of Chapter 1 that Jean-Baptiste's own son, Horace Say, asserted that, contrary to Whatmore, such was indeed his father's orientation). Here, we are told, Say's position also did not favor full democracy or even the constitutional royalist regime of the United Kingdom at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Instead, Say's position was consistent and avid "republicanism." The term, however, is used in a sense very different from ours. The author describes eighteenth century "republican political economy" in the following passage: Republican political economy demanded the establishment and maintenance of a moderate level of wealth for all citizens. Ranks had to be abolished to prevent aristocracy or inequality from recurring. The sovereignty of the [propertied] people was to be coupled with the decentralization of political and administrative power to the citizens of a locality. Despite this, the republic was to remain a unified state. Its laws would embody the public good and its patriotic citizenry would be dedicated to defending and maintaining the state. The modern republic was a commercial society in the sense that wealth derived from trade and industry was to be encouraged as an antidote to the poverty of the state and the citizenry. Commercialization was to be welcomed as long as it remained compatible with republican morality and an egalitarian social structure. A republic was therefore not solely to be created by making laws that prevented domination and abolished monarchy, as many eighteenth-century British radicals supposed. Far more important was the creation of a republican political culture based on a blend of commercial with traditionally conceived virtuous manners. Without cultural transformation any projected political innovations would be doomed to failure. (p. 31) Implicit in this passage are the other goals that the author claims to have been Say's -- severely reduced inequality with moderate wealth for all, dedication to virtue and good manners on the part of the population, and education of the public as well as the members of government to the need for and benefits of such behavior, as well as the requirements of a well-functioning economy that is a necessary condition for achievement of these goals. All of this is entirely plausible, though the author provides us with remarkably little in Say's writings, at least after he had attained maturity, that makes these points explicitly. But Whatmore goes further than this. He implies that this is what Say's _TraitT_ and his other writings in economics are, essentially, all about. Even Say's law is not to be properly understood without this information: "In consequence, it isāmisleading to group him [Say] with exponents of classical political economy in Britain, as many historians of economic thought continue to do. Say's conception of utility must be seen as a product of a French discussion about public virtue rather than a partially-formed building block of a new science. Say's 'Law', by contrast with the use made of it by British Ricardians, was intended to combat fears of 'general gluts' by the introduction of specific ranks and manners" (p. 218). In taking this position, it seems clear to me, the author goes too far. Rereading of the _TraitT_ surely indicates that the author intended the book to be a work of political economy in the standard sense, and one completely divorced from political connotations. Indeed, Say emphasizes this in the first page of his introduction: "Since the time of Adam Smith, it appears to me, these two very distinct inquiries have been uniformly separated, the term _political economy_ being now confined to the science which treats of wealth, and that of _politics_, to designate the relations existing between a government and its people, and the relations of different states to each other" (_ A Treatise of Political Economy_, American translation of the fourth edition of the _TraitT_, Philadelphia, 1834, pp. xv-xvi). This is not to deny that Whatmore's observations are illuminating. They do help us to understand Say as author, just as Jacob Viner's emphasis (_The Role of Providence in the Social Order_, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972, p. 81) of the religious connotation of Adam Smith's invisible hand passage ("invisible hand" being a common eighteenth-century reference to the hand of Providence) helps us to understand what Smith meant in this passage. But a claim that _The Wealth of Nations_ is therefore to be interpreted as predominantly a religious tract would surely be misleading. And it seems to me equally misleading to interpret the _TraitT_ as a manual of republicanism rather than, primarily, as a work of political economy, as the title of the book tells us, and as Say tells us the term was conventionally interpreted at the time. William J. Baumol, Professor of Economics, New York University. is currently working on a book investigating the explanation of the superior growth record of free-market economies and, most recently, is co-author with Ralph Gomory of _Global Trade and Conflicting National Interests_, MIT Press, 2001. Copyright (c) 2001 by EH.Net. All rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit educational uses if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact the EH.Net Administrator ([log in to unmask]; Telephone: 513-529-2850; Fax: 513-529-3308). Published by EH.Net (May 2001). All EH.Net reviews are archived at http://www.eh.net/BookReview ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]