Republican Political Economy

Abstract

Abstract In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, as the industrial revolution and rise of the working classes upended well-worn debates about sovereignty, the separation of powers, representative government, and so forth, political economy was becoming a central area of concern amongst the early modern or ‘classical’ republicans. Unfortunately, it was precisely around this time that the republican tradition fell into decline. As a result, classical republicans failed to produce a comprehensive account of political economy. It has largely fallen to contemporary republicans, reviving the tradition after a century and a half of relative neglect, to develop a republican theory of political economy. This chapter suggests what a republican political economy at its best and most persuasive might look like, illustrating how it represents a natural development from various suggestive hints left by classical republicans. Thus, contemporary republican political economy offers something similar to what the classical republicans might themselves have produced.