Thank the Bourgeoisie

In an exhaustive history of English-language economics prior to Adam Smith, Jacob Viner wrote: “A constant note in the writings of the merchants was the insistence upon the usefulness to the community of trade and the dignity and social value of the trader, and in the eighteenth century it appears to have become common for others than the traders themselves to accept them at their own valuation” (Studies in the Theory of International Trade [New York: Harper & Bros., 1937], p. 107). Most economists see nothing especially interesting in this statement. It reports, at best, a forgettable historical tidbit. A comment merely about how people wrote (and presumably spoke) about commerce and merchants is economically irrelevant sociology, containing nothing worthy of an economist’s attention.