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A Factory Afield: Capitalism and Empire in John Locke's Political Economy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2020

Lucas G. Pinheiro
Lucas G. Pinheiro*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Chicago
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Since the 1950s, interpreters of John Locke have debated whether his ideas about political economy figured among the intellectual sources of capitalist development. While some have labeled Locke a mercantile or agrarian “capitalist thinker,” others have insisted that, although a mercantilist, he was in no sense a theorist of capitalism. By reconstructing the relationship between Locke's ideas and the capitalist society of his day, this article challenges the prevailing terms through which commentators have traditionally interpreted his political economy and its place in the history of capitalism. I interpret Locke's perspectives on capital accumulation, foreign trade, and labor discipline throughout the 1690s as a reflection of the historical rise of export-oriented cycles of commodity manufacturing in the English countryside known as “proto-industrialization.” Moreover, I claim that, because proto-industrialization was tied to the expansion of England's colonial economy, this neglected context of Locke's economic doctrine sheds new light on his vision of empire. Looking to his writings on Ireland, I argue that Locke pursued proto-industrial economic reform by combining a hierarchical, stadial theory of progress with an imperial policy aimed at “improving” the colonies through decreed patterns of production and exchange that favored metropolitan trade.

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Modern Intellectual History , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , March 2022 , pp. 1 - 28
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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89 In 1696, Poor Law reform became the focus of the newly founded Board of Trade. See Macfarlane, Stephen, “Social Policy and the Poor in the Later Seventeenth Century,” in Beier, A. L. and Finlay, Roger, eds., London, 1500–1700: The Making of the Metropolis (London, 1986), 252–77, at 261Google Scholar.

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97 As Stephen Macfarlane notes, the board's final report to the Lords Justices “made no mention of the City or the suburbs.” See Macfarlane, “Social Policy and the Poor,” 261.

98 Locke, “Essay on the Poor Law,” 193.

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103 Tully, An Approach to Political Philosophy, 65.

104 According to H. R. Bourne, the report was “substantially altogether Locke's work.” See Locke, “Encouragement of Irish Linen Manufacture,” 363.

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118 Ibid., 366, emphasis mine.

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120 Locke, Two Treatises, 289.

121 Mann, The Cloth Industry, 98. By the late 1600s, the increase in supply of finished and colored fabric in England demanded greater quantities of skilled labor. See Ramsay, The Wiltshire Woollen Industry, 130; Kriedte, Medick, and Schlumbohm, Industrialization before Industrialization, 95; Hudson, “Proto-industrialization in England,” 54.

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129 Locke, Some Considerations, 222. I thank the anonymous reviewers, Duncan Kelly, and Adom Getachew for their helpful comments regarding Ireland's place in Locke's theory of imperial commerce.

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131 While Locke proposed establishing manufactures in Virginia in 1697, this was a strategy to increase the colony's wealth by attracting skilled English emigrants rather than a comprehensive scheme for industrial development. See Ashcraft, Richard, “Political Theory and Political Reform: John Locke's Essay on Virginia,” Western Political Quarterly 22/4 (1969), 742–58, at 747CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In suggesting that manufactures were also important to the colonies, Locke's ideas about imperial policy were uncommon at the time. See Reinert, Sophus, Translating Empire: Emulation and the Origins of Political Economy (Cambridge, 2011), 111CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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140 On Locke's proposal to establish ports, shipyards, cities, and merchant privileges in Virginia as a means to bolster the colony's trade with England see Ashcraft, “Locke's Essay on Virginia,” 747.

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150 Ibid., 98, emphasis mine.

151 Ibid., 101–10. Cary backed the revocation of the Cattle Acts banning Irish cattle exports to England.

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154 Davenant, Discourses on the Publick Revenues, and on the Trade of England (London, 1698), 225–7.

155 Locke, “Encouragement of Irish Linen Manufacture.” For Locke's correspondence with Molyneux on the Irish linen trade see de Beer, The Correspondence of John Locke, 5: 701–5; 6: 4–9, 189–93, 219–22, 229–32, 292–7. On Locke, England, and Irish linen see Hont, “Free Trade,” 79–90; Armitage, “The Political Economy of Britain and Ireland,” 239–41.

156 Locke, “Encouragement of Irish Linen Manufacture,” 365–9.

157 Ibid., 367–72. On rewards and punishments in Locke's thinking about labor see Tully, An Approach to Political Philosophy, 64–8.

158 Locke neither supported a union with Ireland nor considered it a kingdom (such as Scotland). See Armitage, “The Political Economy of Britain and Ireland,” 240–43; Armitage, Ideological Origins, 156–7.

159 Although Locke never endorsed Ireland's full economic independence, as Daniel Defoe, Thomas Prior, and Arthur Dobbs did, they all agreed that England's development of Irish consumer industries could benefit England and Ireland alike. See Livesey, Civil Society and Empire, 68–9.

160 Armitage, “John Locke,” 90–93.

161 Bell, Reordering the World, 91.

162 Tully, James, Public Philosophy in a New Key: Imperialism and Civic Freedom, vol. 2 (Cambridge, 2008), 195–221CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mantena, Karuna, Alibis of Empire: Henry Maine and the Ends of Liberal Imperialism (Princeton, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bell, Reordering the World, 107–10.

163 Prasannan Parthasarathi, “Trade and Industry in the Indian Subcontinent, 1750–1913,” in Horn, Rosenband, and Smith, Reconceptualizing the Industrial Revolution, 271–90, at 272.

164 Tully, “Lineages of Contemporary Imperialism,” 10–11.

165 Berg, The Age of Manufactures, 66, 74; Kriedte, Medick, and Schlumbohm, Industrialization before Industrialization, 17.

166 See Freudenberger, Herman and Redlich, Fritz, “The Industrial Development of Europe: Reality, Symbols, Images,” Kyklos 17/3 (1964), 372–400, at 386–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tribe, Keith, Genealogies of Capitalism (London, 1981), 107–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Berg, Maxine, Hudson, Pat, and Sonenscher, Michael, eds., Manufacture in Town and Country before the Factory (Cambridge, 2002; first published 1983)Google Scholar; Freeman, Joshua, Behemoth: A History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World (New York, 2018)Google Scholar.

167 Locke, Two Treatises, 297–8.

168 For an insightful reading of this passage as evidence of Locke's espousal of increasing “hands” (working population) over “lands” (territory) see Smith, “Hands, Not Lands.”

169 Milton, John, Paradise Lost (Oxford, 2005; first published 1667), 112Google Scholar.

170 Blake, William, Milton: A Poem in 2 Books, ed. Maclagan, E. D. and Russel, A. B. (London, 1907; first published 1804–10), xixGoogle Scholar.