Economics and Polity

In the discussions (in the "Introductory essay" and chapters 5, 6, 10, 11, and 12) of political arithmetic, economic development and policy, and meteorology, as well as in the work of Keith Baker and Charles Gillispie, we see signposts pointing to economics and polity as loci for the operation of the quantifying spirit. Vital statistics had economic value to tax collectors, conscription agents, and actuaries, and government bureaus and functionaries sought to police health as they managed princely coffers, coal, bread, and trees. The expanding literature on vital statistics and on public medicine in the 18th century thus promises a reasonable return on scholarly investment.^[38]

[38] Studies of medicine and public welfare include, but should scarcely be limited to, Theodore M. Brown, "J.P. Frank's 'Medical police' and its implications for medicalization in America," in Marten de Vries et al., eds., The use and abuse of medicine (New York: Praeger, 1982), 208–18; Othmar Keel, "The politics of health and the institutionalisation of clinical practices in Europe in the second half of the 18th century," in W.F. Bynum and Roy Porter, eds., William Hunter and the 18th-century medical world (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Mary E. Lindemann, Producing policed man: Poor relief, population policies, and medical care in Hamburg, 1750–1806 (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 1980; DAI 41/10A, 4474); Harvey Mitchell, "Politics in the service of knowledge: The debate over the administration of medicine and welfare in late 18th-century France," Social history, 6 (1981), 185–207; Jean-Pierre Goubert, "The medicalization of French society at the end of the Ancien Régime," in Lloyd G. Stevenson, ed., A celebration of medical history (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), 157–79. On vital statistics and demography, see J. Hoock, "Sciences camérales et statistique démographique en Allemagne aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles," Annales de démographie historique (1979), 145–55; Jacqueline Hecht, "Johann Peter Süssmilch. Point alpha ou omega de la science démographique naive," ibid. (1979), 101–34; Peter Buck, "People who counted: Political arithmetic in the 18th century," Isis, 73 (1982), 28–45; Thomas R. Forbes, "Births and deaths in a London parish: The record from the registers, 1654–1693 and 1729–1743," Bulletin of the history of medicine, 55 (1981), 371–91; Patricia Cline Cohen, "Death and taxes: The domain of numbers in 18th century popular culture," in Stephen H. Cutcliffe, ed., Science and technology in the 18th century: Essays of the Lawrence Henry Gipson Institute for 18th Century Studies (Bethlehem, Penn.: Gipson Institute, 1984) and her A calculating people (note 16); Pehr Wargentin, den svenska statisikens fader: En minnesskriff me sju originaluppsatser ur Kungl. Svenska Vetenskapsakademiens Handlingar för åren 1754, 1755 samt 1766 (Stockholm: Statistika Centralbyrån, 1983); J. Lecuir, "Deux siècles après: Montyon, véritable auteur des 'Recherches et considérations sur la population de la France' de Moheau," Annales de démographie historique (1979), 195–249; William Coleman, "Inventing demography: Montyon on hygiene and the state," in Everett Mendelsohn, ed., Transformation and tradition in the sciences: Essays in honor of I. Bernard Cohen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 215–33. On J.S. Mill's skepticism in the face of vital statistics, see Spencer Davis, "Scottish philosophy and political economy," in Donald C. Mell, Jr., et al., eds., Man, God, and nature in the Enlightenment (East Lansing, Mich.: Colleagues Press, 1988).

Cameralism and political economy, as they developed in theory and practice and in local and national settings, should not be ignored,^[39] nor studies of Adam Smith, influences on him, and impact of his ideas.^[40] The economic writings and policies of Physiocrats and Idéologues, especially as they relate to the philosophes and to intellectual movements in the Enlightenment, merit another look with the quantifying spirit in mind.^[41] The economic and political import of

[39] On political economy, Keith Tribe, "University teaching on cameralism in 18th-century Germany," Studi settecenteschi, 7–8 (1985–6), 55–69, and his Governing economy: The reformation of German economic discourse, 1750–1840 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Terence Hutchison, Before Adam Smith: The emergence of political economy, 1662–1776 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988); Sergio Cremaschi, Il sistema della ricchezza: Economia politica e problema del metodo in Adam Smith (Milan: Angeli, 1984); Girolamo Imbruglia, "Economia e politica nel De l'esprit di Helvétius," Naples, University, Facoltà di Lettere, Filosofia e Magistero, Annali, 20 (1977–8), 237–81; Hans Erich Bödeker, "Der staatswissenschaftliche Fächersystem im 18. Jahrhundert," in Wissenschaften im Zeitalter der Aufklärung, 143–62; F. Etner, "L'Ancien Régime et le calcul économique," Enconomy and society, 18:3 (1984), special issue on "Aspects de l'économie politique en France au XVIIIe siècle," and his book on "calcul économique" in France. On 18th-century appeals to quantification and classification in social analysis, P.J. Corfield, "Class by name and number in 18th-century Britain," History, 72 (1987), 38–61; Gianni Vaggi, "Social classes and income distribution in 18th-century economics," History of European ideas, 9 (1988), 171–82.

[40] Among them, Andrew S. Skinner, "Adam Smith: Rhetoric and the communication of ideas," in A.W. Coats, ed., Methodological controversy in economics: Historical essays in honor of T.W. Hutchison (Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1983), 71–88; Donald Winch, "Science and the legislator: Adam Smith and after," Economics journal, 93 (1983), 501–20; M. Dey, Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson: Philosophy, economic change, and class limitations in 18th-century Scotland (Ph.D. dissertation, Aberdeen University, 1985); Cremaschi, Il sistema della ricchezza (note 39); Norriss S. Hetherington, "Isaac Newton's influence on Adam Smith's natural laws in economics," Journal of the history of ideas, 44 (1983), 497–505; Adam Smith, Essays on philosophical subjects, ed. W.P.D. Wightman and J.C. Bryce (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), one in a set of recent scholarly editions of Adam Smith's writings; R.H. Campbell and A.S. Skinner, Adam Smith (London: Croom Helm, 1982); cf. Martha Bolar Lightwood, A selected bibliography of significant works about Adam Smith (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984).

[41] Gianni Vaggi, The economics of François Quesnay (Durham, N. Car.: Duke University Press, 1987); Christian Bordes and J. Morange, eds., Turgot, économiste et administrateur (Paris: PUF, [1981]); Marco Minerbi, "I presupposti dell'analisi economica del fisiocratici," in Lezioni sull'illuminismo (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1980); Daniel Klein, "Deductive economic methodology in the French Enlightenment: Condillac and Destutt de Tracy," History of political economy, 17 (1985), 51–71; Stephen F. Gudeman, "Physiocracy: A natural economics," American ethnologist, 7 (1980), 240–58; Leonora Cohen Rosenfield, "La Mettrie and Quesnay, physician-philosophes of the Enlightenment," in Alfred J. Bingham and Virgil W. Topazio, eds., Enlightenment studies in honour of Lester G. Crocker (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1979); cf. Hutchison, Before Adam Smith (note 39).

scientism and the place of mathematics in scientism have relevance as well.^[42]