======================= HES POSTING ================= Sorry to write yet another one on this topic, but I did want to respond to this -- Mary Schweitzer <[log in to unmask]> Anthony Brewer wrote: > I do disagree with the idea that the market was consciously constructed > and imposed (unless that is meant to mean the-market-as-a-concept). The > market was consciously opposed and obstructed by feudal institutions but > (fortunately) they lost. Let me direct you to my article, "Economic Regulation and the Colonial Economy: The Maryland Tobacco Regulation Acts of 1747," Journal of Economic History, September 1980; and Chapter Six of my monograph, _Custom and Contract: Household, Government, and the Economy in Colonial Pennsylvania_ (NY: Columbia University Press, 1987), regarding the flour inspection laws of mid-18th century Pennsylvania. The point of both works was that the provincial governments of British America "learned" that the staple export market, under certain situations, worked more efficiently when an inspection system could be used to guarantee the quality of the product. More germaine to this discussion, the pro-inspection discourse in New York State and Virginia had strong mercantilist tones, in the one case intended to promote the city of New York as opposed to the city of Albany; in the other to reduce the quantity of exported tobacco so as to increase the price. In contrast, theorists in Pennsylvania and Maryland "learned" from observation that inspection laws could be used to increase demand for their product -- permitting both quantity exported and price to rise at the same time. Reducing information costs could have the same effect on a market as reducing transportation costs. The debates in Maryland and Pennsylvania were very explicitly free-trade oriented. I found it interesting as well that the Tuesday Club in Maryland, where the debates there originated, was founded by an apothecary who had just returned from study in Scotland in the 1740s where he was a frequenter of the coffee houses (where, one presumes, the theories of the Scottish Enlightenment in general and those of young Adam Smith in particular were being developed and articulated). The Pennsylvanians set up a remarkable inspection system, beginning in the 1720s, that by the Revolution recognized several grades of flour -- the highest grade, Pennsylvania Super Fine, made using imported French-milled stones, sold for high prices abroad. Note: Pennsylvanians were not in the habit of obeying any laws that they found disagreeable -- the commonwealth was unable to collect state-wide taxes well into the Confederation period. But the records of merchants show that they made use of the inspection system (instead of paying someone off). Along with the land bank and paper money, the inspection system was an apple pie and motherhood issue in elections through the 1700s. In both cases, the Marylanders and Pennsylvanians discussed the problem of communicating the quality of a shipment of bulk export products -- the need for accurate information for a market to survive. A market cannot exist without structure. I found fascinating the process by which British American colonials "learned" this. Government was used to make the market for tobacco and flour exports work more efficiently, not less so. It was a conscious construction, involved a learning process, and there was disagreement among different polities as to whether or not this would work. There was explicit articulation of the difference between government regulation for mercantilist purposes and government regulation for free trade purposes -- though they tended to use the term commerce instead of free trade. Land distribution policies, monetary policies, trade policies, developmental policies, urban policies -- all had to be determined by different governments operating within different contexts in early British America -- the results were neither inevitable nor always predictable. And certainly not homogeneous. And some policies didn't work! But Rhode Island was a very different place in which to conduct business or be a farmer, than eastern Massachusetts, which was quite different from Western Massachusetts, in turn different from New York, different from New Jersey and Connecticut, different from Pennsylvania, different from Maryland, different from Virginia, different from North Carolina and different from South Carolina. And all different from the backcountry. And all different from the Iroquois, the Cherokee, the Susquehannocks, the Creek and Choctaw, the Seneca -- and they were in turn different from each other. And they all watched each other, and they learned from each other. But sometimes raw power just won out. Land distribution in Massachusetts was at first communal, centered on the Puritan Congregation. Then there was a speculative spree for western Mass. Penn tried to impose land ownership restrictions but was unsuccessful; individual fee simple farm ownership held in Pennsylvania from the beginning in most areas. Tenants in New York State and in Pennsylvania could sell the improvements upon their land -- it belonged to them -- but tenants in Maryland could not. African-Americans could legally be bought and sold in perpetuity, but European-Americans could only be sold within long-term labor contracts. The definition of a person vulnerable to bondage was set by the legal status of the mother -- as opposed to the law in other places. One half-brother could be bought and sold on the market, the other half-brother could not. This was a legal distinction, one created over the course of the 1600s in Virginia -- in the first decades of settlement, African-Americans were treated as other indentured servants and freed after seven years; it took over two generations to develop the laws that we all "know" governed slavery in British America. And slavery was illegal in Britain, yet legal in her colonies. Certainly this was a legal construct -- and certainly a legal construct dependent upon cultural constructs. Economic theories were used to justify all of these legal differences -- it is not merely the economic theories of the experts that matter, but also those of practitioners. Cultural and legal structure defined the possible within which the market functioned. Mary Schweitzer, <[log in to unmask]> ============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]