Enlightenment and Exchange

Abstract

This essay explores a link made in the late eighteenth century between social critique and economic progress. At the intersection of enlightenment and capitalist exchange a series of assumptions about social development and social tutelage are made. While national development driven by exchange was understood to homogenize people, and peoples, over time, I argue that this homogenizing effect depended on a constant application of economic tutelage. According to Adam Smith the propensity to exchange is a universal human attribute driving economic progress, but in practice the adoption of technical change could not be guaranteed by the propensity to exchange alone. As both Jane Austen and Maria Edgeworth recognized, the implication was clear: without critique of old technical forms, no general increase in wealth. A tutor specifying the appropriate stance toward technical progress was forever needed. The form of enlightenment that was good for individuals, to think for yourself, was thus not extended to social groups in the economic realm.