Politics and the Public Interest in the Seventeenth Century (Rle Political Science Volume 27) by J. A. W. Gunn

Author:J. A. W. Gunn [Gunn, J. A. W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Reference, Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781135026578
Google: tRKOBI1vwfoC
Goodreads: 18150577
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1969-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

V

ECONOMIC ARGUMENT: THE PUBLIC INTEREST QUANTIFIED

COMMERCE, MAINLY DOMESTIC

THE CLASH BETWEEN national power and private interest touched economic as well as constitutional issues, although modern misconceptions about mercantilist thought have somewhat obscured the parallel. The tyrant’s plea of necessity might find its equivalent in economic paternalism, while economic individualists sought to use that property sanctioned by civil rights. The necessary conditions for such a state of tension were the same in both spheres of activity; before it could exist, some measure of legitimacy had to be accorded to private interests. If ordinary men were largely excluded from the avenues of political power and so unable to protect their interests by political means, the public interest might well seem adequately described in terms of national power. Should economic life be conceived as the fulfilment of mutual duties for the betterment of an organic community, private and public interest were likewise in different and incompatible spheres.

As soon as the inevitability of self-interest in economic life came to be appreciated, the basis for individualism was laid. A recognition of its all-pervasive character did not necessarily constitute approval, but it did make it increasingly difficult for moralists to demand a degree of community spirit that was obviously absent in the real world. It was easy to see in necessary behaviour, respectability. Moralists might reject self-interest and all its works, but they were not concerned with describing social processes. When seventeenth-century writers began to treat economic life in terms of causal relationships, few assumed any other mode of behaviour than that of the economic man. That model alone provided some degree of predictability.

The relationship between private and public interest has traditionally been described in terms either of an artificial or a natural harmony of interests. Before the seventeenth century it would scarcely be relevant to speak of either form of harmony, since legitimate private interest was not yet part of the picture. Students of early moral dicta regarding economic life have been unanimous in observing that the public good was then removed from the plane of private interest, so that, as one has put it:

‘The idea that, after all, private good makes for public good seems not to have occurred to these critics of their time. Private interest, to them, could only be the foe of public interest.’1

Though emphasis varied, some of the earliest surviving remarks about the common weal preached a most uncompromising ethic. The farther removed the authors were from commercial life, the more rigorous were their demands. Laud once said:

‘… if any man be so addicted to his private interest that he neglects the common state … he wishes peace and happiness for himself in vain. For … he must live in the body of the commonwealth and in the body of the church.’2

This certainly emphasized duty rather than profit, but it was irresponsibly permissive in comparison with some statements. Many writers suggested not only that one had to have a care for the public but that one should have no other. Indeed, personal concerns might appear quite unreasonable.

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