John Law A Scottish Adventurer of the Eighteenth Century

Abstract

Historical biography usually builds and develops on the shoulders of previous authors who have worked in the field. As such acknowledgements to researchers, or alternatively, disagreements with previous interpretations are part and parcel of historical debate and discourse. James Buchan in this new book on the 18thth century economist and financier, John Law, does not play by these rules. Rather selectively he presents this book with very few acknowledgements of others who have worked in this area. Books and biographies on John Law most notably those of Levasseur (Recherches Historiques sur le Système de Law, 1854), Oudard (La Très Curieuse Vie de Law Aventurier Honnête Homme, 1927) Montgomery Hyde (John Law: The History of an Honest Adventurer, 1969), Faure (La Banqueroute de Law, 1977), and Murphy (John Law Economic Theorist and Policy-Maker, 1996) are not even cited. The title that Buchan adopts is John Law A Scottish Adventurer of the Eighteenth Century. This is not a new title as it has already been used by Oudard (1927) and Hyde (1969). Unfortunately, it is a title that limits many of the dimensions of John Law. In attempting to show the many colourful adventurer aspects of Law’s career—duellist, lottery projector, gambler, banker, art dealer, etc.—Buchan leaves aside one of the most important characteristics of John Law namely his contributions to economic theory and policy. In my view, and here I profess my own printed views, Law was an outstanding economist, particularly in the area of monetary theory. I am not alone in expressing this view as Joseph Schumpeter, the doyen of historians of economic thought, wrote, in A History of Economic Analysis, that John Law was one of the outstanding monetary theorists of all time. Buchan’s unwillingness to analyse Law as a monetary theorist is all the more surprising given that he has already written a book on money Frozen Desire: The Meaning of Money (1997).