A Philosopher’s Economist: Hume and the Rise of Capitalism by Margaret Schabas and Carl Wennerlind

Abstract

Reviewed by: A Philosopher’s Economist: Hume and the Rise of Capitalism by Margaret Schabas and Carl Wennerlind Ryu Susato Margaret Schabas and Carl Wennerlind. A Philosopher’s Economist: Hume and the Rise of Capitalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020. Pp. xv + 328. Cloth, $45.00. Hume scholarship in the history of economic thought has advanced since Eugene Rotwein’s 1955 collection Writings on Economics: David Hume, later reprinted with a new introduction by Margaret Schabas (New York: Routledge, 2006). However, as Schabas and Carl Wennerlind correctly observe, “There is as yet no monograph in English devoted to a [End Page 513] comprehensive study of Hume’s economics, let alone one that connects this body of thought to his philosophical tenets” (xiii). Hence the motivation for the two eminent historians of economic thought, both of whom have specialized in Hume for a long time, finally to put out an excellent and readable book on Hume’s economic thought. Chapter 1, a survey on Hume’s biography, claims that Hume had a lifelong interest in economic phenomena. Chapter 2 deals with Hume’s methodology in economics. Chapters 3 to 6 focus on individual but closely related topics, such as Hume’s ideas on property, moral effects of commerce, and his theories of money and credit. Chapter 7 surveys Hume’s influence on the history of economics. Schabas and Wennerlind are both specialists in Hume’s economic thought but work on different aspects of it. Schabas focuses on the methodology of economics and its relationship with that of natural science, whereas Wennerlind is more concerned with Hume’s monetary theory and the credit system in mercantilism. They make the best use of their respective interests to draw a broader picture of Hume as a philosopher-economist. At the same time, it is interesting that Schabas and Wennerlind record their “separate interpretations” (154–58) of Hume’s understanding of the specie-flow mechanism. This proves not only the authors’ academic honesty but also the richness of the possible interpretations of Hume’s economic writings and his philosophical texts. Potential readership is not limited to Hume scholars or specialists in the history of economic thought; the book will also appeal to readers interested in the relationship of philosophy and the social sciences, including economics, and in methodological issues. Moreover, this publication is all the more meaningful because of the further diversification and compartmentalization of economics. This book reveals that Hume’s economics may provide a fresher perspective than Adam Smith’s as regards the challenges of contemporary economics. This is because Smith’s Wealth of Nations laid the groundwork for modern economics as a discipline, whereas Hume’s economic, political, and historical writings, though seemingly unconnected and unmethodical, have resonated with the interests of recent economists in newly developed and related domains such as game theory or behavioral economics. As Schabas and Wennerlind note, “In sum, many of the efforts by mainstream economists since the late twentieth century to reclaim a more nuanced account of human behavior are to a large extent retrieving insights that were evident to Hume” (18). On some points, Philosopher’s Economist is a welcome counterpart to James A. Harris’s Hume: An Intellectual Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), both being excellent contributions to recent Hume scholarship. Harris’s Hume devotes space to Hume’s political economy but emphasizes the independence of each phase in Hume’s intellectual career. Accordingly, Harris carefully criticizes the conventional overemphasis on Hume’s proclamation of the supreme importance of the “Science of MAN” in his Treatise. On the other hand, Philosopher’s Economist reemphasizes the continuity and unity of Hume’s philosophy that permeate all his writings, including Political Discourses, by highlighting his strong and continual belief in “the epistemic standing of the moral sciences” rather than in that of the physical sciences (64). One of the numerous strengths of this book is the authors’ comprehensive attention to not only Hume’s major works, but also his minor works, letters, and unpublished manuscripts. Schabas and Wennerlind have duly evaluated Hume’s so-called Early Memoranda, which contains many extracts from various sources on politico-economic issues. The authors even mention Sister Peg...