Commercial Society

Abstract

Abstract The term “commercial society” refers to attempts to theorize systematically the matrix of relationships and behaviors that emerged during the processes of rapidly evolving labor and goods markets, rising standards of living, and shifting class relations which occurred in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These processes occupied many of the pre‐eminent thinkers of the day, roused new lines of social scientific inquiry – in particular, what is today referred to as the study of political economy – and inspired many of the great figures of the Scottish Enlightenment. The most pre‐eminent of these theorists, Adam Smith, argued in book I of The Wealth of Nations (1776) that commercial society arises when the division of labor is “thoroughly established,” forcing highly specialized laborers to sell and barter their labor surplus in an increasingly intricate marketplace: “every man thus lives by exchanging, or becomes in some measure a merchant.” In addition to the division of labor, Smith and others pointed to a system of robust property rights, a rigorous application of the rule of law, relatively broad freedom of movement for economic actors (especially laborers), and expanding domestic and international markets as the hallmarks of commercial society.