David Hume and the Balance of Property

• In Event: Inequality in the Enlightenment: New Work on the “Jealousy of Trade”

Abstract

Istvan Hont often described the “jealousy of trade” as a “post-Hobbesian” phenomenon. At other times, he said it was “post-Machiavellian.” Jealousy of trade was post-Hobbesian because it applied the logic of state competition to the realm of modern economic policy. And it was post-Machiavellian because it extended the defensive posture of ancient republics to the enrichment of much larger territorial states. This paper draws both strands together by reexamining some of the ways in which David Hume—the thinker who coined the phrase “jealousy of trade”—responded to Hobbes and Machiavelli.

More specifically, I examine Hume’s repeated engagement with James Harrington’s Commonwealth of Oceana, a work which aimed to synthesize the ideas of Machiavelli and Hobbes into an “equal commonwealth” of self-armed landowners. Hume believed that Harrington had gone “too far” in making the balance of property the foundation of government. Yet Hume explicitly modeled his own “Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth” after the Commonwealth of Oceana. He adapted Harrington’s theory of balanced sovereignty in several early Essays, as well as in The History of England. Hume’s debts to Oceana are evident in his discussion of political force, the public interest, and constitutional authority. His solution to the jealousy of trade was, in part, Harringtonian.

Author

• Danielle Charette James, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill