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petrea_mitchellThis section is a whole lot of sweeping generalizations with little in the way of supporting facts and figures, but it does provide a useful window into how the educated classes saw things in the 1770s.
Chapter I: Agriculture develops before industry, which develops foreign trade, and any place which allows foreign trade to take the lead in powering its economy is WRONG.
Chapter II: Laws and customs that allow land to be kept off the free market and farmers from acting as free men are wrong too.
Chapter III: Peace and stable institutions are good for towns.
Chapter IV: Towns benefit the countryside by creating a market for produce. They further benefit each other by providing larger and larger markets. When people accumulate too much wealth for their money to do anything useful, they waste it on fancy parties and luxury goods.
So there you at least get a taste of the zeitgeist in which the Founding Fathers set up a government which was supposed to privilege agricultural landowners over everyone else. Appropriately enough, the next book is going to be about politics.
Chapter I: Agriculture develops before industry, which develops foreign trade, and any place which allows foreign trade to take the lead in powering its economy is WRONG.
Chapter II: Laws and customs that allow land to be kept off the free market and farmers from acting as free men are wrong too.
Chapter III: Peace and stable institutions are good for towns.
Chapter IV: Towns benefit the countryside by creating a market for produce. They further benefit each other by providing larger and larger markets. When people accumulate too much wealth for their money to do anything useful, they waste it on fancy parties and luxury goods.
So there you at least get a taste of the zeitgeist in which the Founding Fathers set up a government which was supposed to privilege agricultural landowners over everyone else. Appropriately enough, the next book is going to be about politics.
