ABSTRACTS
From Reason of State to Commercial Reason
Keith Tribe (University of Jyväskylä)
In the study of early modern states "political economy" is today often treated as a fusion of political and economic discourse with real political and economic developments, drawing upon specialist work in the history of political thought, the history of economic thought, and economic history. However, conventional practice in these domains hinders any productive outcome. Each is in thrall to "theory" in the conceptualisation of politics, economics and the organisation of historical narratives of state function. HOPT prioritises the study of politics as theory, counsel and policy being its derivative; HET does the same, but works with a more deeply-embedded use of modern economics, lending it a veneer of complexity that serves to ward off close examination of its arguments; while the macroeconomics of "economic growth" has colonised the study of mainstream economic history. In any combination, only one of these dominates, and material from the other two is used as filler.
But a confrontation of theory with critique merely generates yet more theory. A more productive path would be to reconstruct the structures and processes of states in terms of the styles of reasoning employed, and the contingencies to which this reasoning is applied. We need not a different kind of theory, but a different kind of historical orientation that highlights the constraints, possibilities, failures and successes of political and economic reasoning and action. The existing literature has to be viewed primarily through the lens of historiography; the existing histories as historiographical products. Any starting point has to be determined by the contingencies of process and the interests to which they give rise in specific circumstances. Interests and their expression arise out of circumstance, and shift accordingly.
My aim is to outline the emergent commercial reason arising from the search for a consistent commercial policy in the transition of the British North American maritime colonies into the United States of America. I will demonstrate the centrality of Atlantic commerce to the stability of the new republic, and sketch a framework that helps us understand the pathway along which "American protectionism" eventually emerged after the close of the Napoleonic Wars. The American Revolution and its aftermath is today generally studied in terms of a story of political liberty. I will sketch out what this story looks like from the perspective of commercial reason. Central to my account will be the structure of the Atlantic economy and its shaping by competing nation states. In so doing, I hope to provide a framework for analysis of the Baltic economy of the eighteenth century.
Civil Society, Patriotism and Economic Improvement in Eighteenth-Century Europe
Jani Marjanen (University of Helsinki)
The Honourable Society of Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture was founded in 1723 in Scotland. Through a series of coincidences and adaptations, it gave rise to a tradition of societies aimed at improving the economic conditions of countries or regions. These societies are among the most widespread institutions associated with the Enlightenment as a movement for improvement in Europe and beyond. However, they do not share a common name, but are typically referred to as either improvement societies, patriotic societies or economic societies, depending on the local context. All three designations can be reasonably justified. This paper aims to demonstrate how the historical discourse of improvement, patriotism and economy became intertwined in the work of theses societies over the course of the eighteenth century by studying the programmatic texts of several paradigmatic cases. While the Society of Improvers in Scotland emphasized the discourse of improvement, it was less closely tied to the concepts of economy or patriotism. In contrast, societies founded in the last decade of the eighteenth century generally combined all three elements.
Parliamentary Mobilities: State Governance and Industrial Improvement in Eighteenth-Century Sweden
Måns Jansson (Uppsala University)
This paper engages with an element of early modern state administration that has recently attracted increasing attention in European scholarship, namely the interdependencies between supervisory mobility, the making of administrative knowledge infrastructures, and changing ideas of economic improvement. Focusing on the eighteenth-century Swedish state apparatus, the paper investigates how questions of industrial betterment were discussed, handled, and acted upon within the frame of an expanding parliamentary system. It traces the ways in which state bureaus, appointed delegacies, and individual civil servants involved themselves in supervisory tours, worksite inspections, and the evaluation of manufacturing methods during the recurring sessions of the Swedish Diet. Building on these observations, it also highlights how workforce migration, industrial espionage, and transfers of technical know-how were negotiated in various political fora. In doing so, the paper offers new perspectives to discussions on “state-related knowledge” and the “politicization of technology” during the early modern period, drawing attention to the everyday movements and work practices that laid the foundation for new forms of governance and modified visions of industrial improvement.
Benefit, welfare, and Estate interests in the 18th-century Swedish Diet
Joonas Tammela (University of Jyväskylä)
At the Swedish Diet during the 18th-century, terms such as benefit (nytta) and welfare (wälfärd) were most commonly used to define the improvement of living conditions. My paper examines the ways in which the concepts of benefit and well-being were used and perceived from the perspective of how the different Estates’ (i.e., Nobility, Clergy, Burgers, Peasants) self-understanding of their role in society was constructed. The meanings of the concepts were defined through the supposed interest of the given Estate. In this paper, I concentrate to study the patterns of the use of concepts of benefit and well-being by the Estates in their internal discussions (ståndens riksdagsprotokoll) from the years 1721–1800. There is a strong focus on the linguistic conventions of the Age of Liberty.
“To cure our sick society”: J. F. Kryger’s speech On the influence of laws and customs on civil trades (1767)
Laura Tarkka (University of Jyväskylä)
This paper examines a speech given by the former Manufacture Commissar Johan Fredrik Kryger at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, upon having completed his second tenure as the chair of the Academy in 1767. The subject of the speech, entitled Tal, Om Lagarnas och Sedernas verkan på Borgerliga Näringar, was the influence of laws and customs on civil trades. Significantly, Kryger himself connected this speech to the one which he had given when joining the Academy in 1755.
However, the starting point of my paper is that the roots of Kryger’s speech on the influence of laws and customs on civil trades run deeper, since Kryger had developed some of its arguments already in his early German work Untersuchung des Temperaments einer gantzen Nation (1737). Yet, Kryger’s 1767 speech also featured an important element that was new in relation to his previous work. This was the focus on improvement under “free governments”. As my paper argues, in 1767 Kryger suggested that education and legislation could create a positive cycle of improvement: by improving the society’s moral character, they also supported the development of trades, and the development of trades, in turn, helped to sustain a civilized society.
Natural History and Improvement: The Case of Linnaeus‘ Disciple Johann Beckmann.
Hans Erich Bödeker (Göttingen)
Johann Beckmann taught economics at Göttingen university from 1767 to 1811. Under the outstanding influence of Linnaeus, whose disciple he had been, he conceived of economics as applied natural history. Beckmann’s cognitive interest focused on the process of transforming raw materials into commodities. In addition to the extraction and cultivation of natural resources (in his theory of agriculture) he focused on the processing of raw materials, on the production of goods (in his technology) and incorporated the results of his research into macroeconomic considerations. He was concerned with more than the mere application of recognized insights or productive abilities; his arguments aimed at the combination of theory and practice directed towards innovation and reform. That he was able to think in the medium of reform was based on his partial overcoming of the idea of the productivity of nature by that of man. However, Beckmann’s reform orientation had its limits both in terms of economic theory and socio-political objectives.
Cameralism, Prosperity and the Question of Social Mobility
Juliane Engelhardt (University of Copenhagen)
This presentation will explore how private citizens and state officials implemented new ideas about economic prosperity through practical reforms in cities and regions throughout Denmark and Norway during the Enlightenment. The overall purpose was to increase the extraction of raw material, and the reforms were organised differently depending on the landscape of the particular region. Some of the reforms were aimed at increasing the willingness to work and productivity of the general population. German economic thinking, cameralism, was a significant source of inspiration for the reformers. In Denmark-Norway, cameralism was implemented in such a way where the state did not intervene directly in trade and industry, but rather focused on creating a large, healthy and relatively well-educated workforce. This marked the beginning of the establishment of public welfare institutions, which in a way anticipated the modern welfare state. However, many reformers were very concerned that rising levels of education and economic prosperity would inspire the population to seek occupations other than those they were born to perform. In other words, they feared that an unintended consequence of the modernisation process would be social mobility. Against this background, the presentation will discuss the modernising and conservative elements in economic thinking during the Scandinavian Enlightenment and whether there was a specifically Scandinavian path into the modern age.
From Sápmi to the Caribbean: Swedish Colonial Expansion and the Culture of Improvement
Vincent Roy-Di Piazza (University of Jyväskylä)
Abstract: This paper explores the relationship between Swedish colonialism and the discourse on improvement in early modern Sweden, by retracing its developments from the imperial Age of Great Power and the revanchist Age of Liberty to the Gustavian era’s involvement in the Caribbean slave trade. When expanding abroad, Swedish colonial efforts focused on acquiring overseas territories to expand its transatlantic influence, channel profits back to the mainland, and meet growing domestic demand for colonial goods. These efforts often failed or yielded mixed results, as in the case of the Caribbean island of St Barthélemy. Meanwhile, at home the Swedish administration of Sápmi, reconsidered here as an imperial expansionist project, reveals many tensions at play at the time surrounding resources extraction, food security, and population management. Despite commonalities between the two strands, I argue that the Swedish colonial discourse of improvement varied in line with the specific challenges posed by domestic settings versus overseas colonial ventures.
Daniel Rolander (1723–1793) and his Diarium surinamicum: How to profit from his Termes arbicola and Vespa arborea
James Dobreff (Stockholm)
After publishing four entomological articles, Daniel Rolander served as Linnaeus’s assistant and tutor to his son. He conducted a natural-history expedition from Stockholm to Suriname and back (1754–1756). His 700-page Diarium surinamicum includes numerous exquisitely crafted observations on the behavior of insects, which often conclude with an exploration of the potential economic exploitation of the species described. Here, I present two examples: his Termes arbicola and Vespa arborea. The former advocates for profit by limiting insect damage, while the latter proposes the industrial exploitation of the wasp.
“The Noblest Commodity”: Copper, Money, and Governance in Early Modern Sweden
Danila Raskov (Uppsala University/JYU Visiting Fellow)
Early modern Sweden actively advanced governance and extraction of resources and their transformation into commodities, wealth and power. Pioneering experiments in monetary circulation were accompanied by innovations, though sometimes ending in failure. By the early seventeenth century, Sweden had become the largest producer of copper in Europe – in the 1650s, annual output at Falun exceeded 2,000 tons. Copper emerged as a crucial commodity underpinning the finances of the so-called fiscal-military state (Glete 2002, Godsey 2018, Winton 2020). Such large-scale production required constant improvements in roasting, smelting, and refining technologies, supported by the recruitment of foreign masters, institutional experimentation, the accumulation of technical knowledge, and ongoing debates about innovations and its outcomes. Equally important were large-scale experiments in the institutions of monetary circulation.
In 1624 copper was introduced as a monetary standard alongside gold and silver (Wallroth 1918, Wolontis 1936). The aim was to enhance the demand and support export prices. From 1624 to 1776, complex trimetallic system functioned (Edvinsson 2012).By 1630, Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna, in his Memorandum on the Copper Trade and the Minting of Copper Coin, had acknowledged that the coinage of copper money and monopoly had not raised export prices and even increased monetary instability. Even so, the Chancellor remained convinced that copper was the “noblest commodity” and the foundation of the welfare and power of the Crown (af Cronones välfärdh består) (Oxenstierna [1630] 1888).
In our article and presentation, I place copper at the center of the analysis both as a commodity and as a form of money. The materiality of copper serves as the point of departure for addressing a series of major questions concerning the governance and regulation of copper mining, trade, and coinage. Improvements in technologies, as well as institutional experiments in governance, expanded production capacity. Regulations, privileges, prohibitions, and the institution of the Copper Company all shaped the copper trade (Heckscher 1938, Stryker 2024). The copper plate production (Tingström 1984) gave rise to a monetary experiment in which full-bodied coinage was combined with fiat money. I will show the dialectics of change, accompanied by nonlinearity. Experiments often produced unintended consequences that no one had anticipated in advance. For instance, the minting of copper plates weighing more than 19 kilograms encouraged the use of bills of exchange and the issue of sedlar, a prototype of the modern banknote (Ögren 2024). A second important aspect of study is the simultaneous improvement in technology, organization, and regulation of copper market and monetary circulation.
The Northern Treasure – The Proper Use of Forests
Ella Viitaniemi (Tampere University)
Early economists turned their attention, on the one hand, to the creation of new forms of early industry and to improving the conditions for trade. On the other hand, they also sought to improve and develop the use of existing resources. Their focus extended to the grassroots level and to the improvement of society’s most important livelihood, traditional agriculture. In this context, attention was also paid to the peasantry’s use of forests and timber.
This presentation examines the ideas, instructions, and advice that early economists put forward concerning the proper and improved, that is, more efficient and economical, use of forest resources. The study focuses particularly on the ideas of Johan Kraftman (1713–1791), who served as the first lecturer in economics at the Academy of Turku 1747. Kraftman sought to reform traditional agriculture. At the same time, he examined the ways in which peasants used forest resources and proposed various improvements.
I this paper I ask, how the Enlightenment thinker Kraftman viewed peasant forest use, how it differed from the ideals of the Age of Utility, and what kinds of changes and practical measures he proposed for everyday forest use.
