

Politics in Commercial Society
Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith
Edited by Béla Kapossy and Michael Sonenscher
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ISBN 9780674967700
Publication date: 06/09/2015
Scholars normally emphasize the contrast between the two great eighteenth-century thinkers Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith. Rousseau is seen as a critic of modernity, Smith as an apologist. Istvan Hont, however, finds significant commonalities in their work, arguing that both were theorists of commercial society and from surprisingly similar perspectives.
In making his case, Hont begins with the concept of commercial society and explains why that concept has much in common with what the German philosopher Immanuel Kant called unsocial sociability. This is why many earlier scholars used to refer to an Adam Smith Problem and, in a somewhat different way, to a Jean-Jacques Rousseau Problem. The two problems—and the questions about the relationship between individualism and altruism that they raised—were, in fact, more similar than has usually been thought because both arose from the more fundamental problems generated by thinking about morality and politics in a commercial society. Commerce entails reciprocity, but a commercial society also entails involuntary social interdependence, relentless economic competition, and intermittent interstate rivalry. This was the world to which Rousseau and Smith belonged, and Politics in Commercial Society is an account of how they thought about it.
Building his argument on the similarity between Smith’s and Rousseau’s theoretical concerns, Hont shows the relevance of commercial society to modern politics—the politics of the nation-state, global commerce, international competition, social inequality, and democratic accountability.
Praise
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Istvan Hont [was] a terrifically gifted historian of political and economic thought… Politics in Commercial Society…outlines in capsule form his reconstruction of [Rousseau and Adam Smith], showing not only what they have in common but also how little modern political theory has advanced beyond their concerns… Eighteenth-century political theory, as Hont’s iconoclastic work shows, still has much to teach us.
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David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Adam Smith probed deeply into the moral and political dimensions of what has come to be known as capitalism. Istvan Hont’s beautifully executed lectures reaffirm why it is worthwhile to know and interpret Enlightenment thought and, in particular, grapple with the timeless question of the trade-off between economic growth and political stability.
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In exploring Smith’s and Rousseau’s thought to find lines of influence and points of agreement, Hont hopes to correct what he believes to be misinterpretations of these two thinkers. He certainly succeeds in forcing readers to rethink the relations between Smith and Rousseau and in deepening understanding of them.
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Hont’s lectures are exhilarating, and contain a quite extraordinary density of argument and reference. Hont was convinced that the eighteenth-century thinkers had exhausted the possibilities available to us for understanding modernity, and the deep seriousness with which he approached the subject comes through on every page.
Authors
- Istvan Hont was a Reader in the History of Political Thought at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of King’s College.
- Béla Kapossy is Professor in the Department of History at the University of Lausanne.
- Michael Sonenscher is a Fellow of King's College, University of Cambridge.
Book Details
- 160 pages
- 6-1/8 x 9-1/4 inches
- Harvard University Press
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