Economy, Empire, and Identity: Rethinking the Origins of Political Economy in Sir James Steuart's Principles of Political Economy

Sir James Steuart wrote the first English language work on economics as a separate subject, introduced the phrase political economy into English, and published The Principles of Political Economy (1767) nine years before the Wealth of Nations. Why then is Adam Smith considered in standard histories of thought to be the father of economics and Steuart an antiquated mercantilist and lesser Smith at best, and a command socialist at worst? Standard histories of economic thought tend to place these two works in isolation from their eighteenth century Scottish and Continental context.

The dissertation seeks to rectify the imbalance by examining both the economic and social history of Scotland, as well as both authors' positions in those histories and how they influenced their works. Specifically, the dissertation presents a new interpretation of Steuart as a Scottish patriot who conceived of political economy as a new tool with which smaller, dispossessed nations could forge a new identity. Based on archival research, the work also traces the impact of Steuart's family and personal allegiances with the Jacobite rebellion on his life and economic ideas. Using historical and literary criticism to recast Steuart in his proper social, cultural, and political background his Principles can be read as a policy handbook for smaller nations struggling with political identity and economic survival in the face of the rise of the imperial power of Britain and France.Through the application of ideas from the sociology of scientific knowledge on how scientific communities and canons are formed, the dissertation also places Steuart in his proper Enlightenment context, and acknowledges that his work, which is reliant on local oversight and knowledge, is anathema to nineteenth century British needs for universal economic policies, and, in doing so, explores the political and intellectual reasons why he was written out of the canon of economics. The dissertation also seeks to show what was lost to economic theory thereby, namely Steuart's alternative and complex vision of a more 'people-centered' economics that is concerned more with respect for a community's local history, culture, and consumption than with universal principles, capital accumulation, profit, and production.