⤴ On the commerce-loving West: A Quick Q&A with … Samuel Gregg
'Part of our problem today is the association of commerce in many people’s minds with materialism.'
Economic growth isn't just about "more stuff" — as awesome as that it — but also a catalyst for social and moral progress. Abundance often leads to more open, tolerant, and democratic societies, fostering advancements in civil rights and social justice. It’s pattern that’s evident throughout American history, as Benjamin M. Friedman explains in The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth.
And contrary to critics' tired claims, market capitalism — a key element of my Up Wing conservative futurism — can cultivate virtues like prudence, justice, and even love. The Founding Fathers believed commerce could create social harmony. Historian Gordon Wood explains that they saw "people's natural instinct to be sociable and benevolent" as key to the new Republic. Even mundane activities like "mingling in drawing rooms, clubs, coffeehouses, and commercial exchanges" were seen as fostering the "friendship and sympathy that helped to hold society together.
In a recent essay for Profectus, Samuel Gregg agues that the vision of commercial civilization, later elaborated by economist Friedrich Hayek, provides a framework for understanding how free markets, rule of law, and personal liberty contribute to societal progress. He presents the Scottish Enlightenment perspective as a counterpoint to classical views that saw wealth and luxury as corrupting influences.
Gregg is the Friedrich Hayek Chair in Economics and Economic History at the American Institute for Economic Research, as well as an affiliate scholar at the Acton Institute. His work centers on political economy, classical liberalism, and natural law theory, among other topics. Gregg was awarded the 2024 Bradley Prize by The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. He also author of the 2022 book The Next American Economy: Nation, State, and Markets in an Uncertain World.
1/ How did Hayek define civilization, and does that definition still hold true, in your view?
There were two dimensions to Hayek’s understanding of civilization. The first are the principles and institutions commonly associated with Western civilization. That especially includes commitments to liberty, rule of law, constitutionalism, etc., and understanding how these have been shaped by the West’s classical, religious, and Enlightenment heritages.
The second dimension of civilization for Hayek is the idea of knowledge being accumulated over time. The sum total of this information cannot be fully known by any one individual. But, Hayek stressed, much of it is embodied in the cultural norms, traditions, and institutions that surround us. Hayek called this “civilization,” not least because it helps us overcome much of what Hayek famously called the knowledge problem and provides us with foundations that permit us to pursue our chosen goals freely.
These two understandings of civilization reflect Hayek’s rather Burkean view of the world, one that became more pronounced as he got older. It brings together a deep appreciation of the history of the West, especially its Anglo-American expression, with the knowledge conveyed through time by traditions and institutions alongside a respect for liberty and the openness to change and development which goes along with freedom. Hayek’s understanding of civilization thus remains highly relevant for anyone who wants to live in a free society.
2/ Were the ideas expressed in the Scottish Enlightenment the inevitable result of modernization, or can we attribute them to a few great minds?
Certainly, Scottish Enlightenment thinkers were reacting to the changing economic, social, and political conditions around them, especially the rise of commercial society in Western Europe and North America. We shouldn’t, however, imagine that ideas expressed in writings penned by figures like Adam Smith were simply a byproduct of these changes, or that they would necessarily have assumed the prominence that they did. After all, some prominent Enlightenment thinkers of the time—most notably, Sir James Steuart—provided highly mercantilist explanations of the changes occurring around them that contrasted with Smith’s account of the significance of the growing dominance of commerce in human affairs.
I also think that one reason why Scottish Enlightenment thinkers like Smith, Adam Ferguson, David Hume, Francis Hutcheson, Lord Kames, and William Robertson made such advances was their conscious choice to take the empirical approach associated with the natural sciences and Isaac Newton and then apply it to human affairs. Hume called this “the science of man.” It wasn’t that they thought the empirical method was the only way to access knowledge. But they did believe that it would reveal new things about the human condition.
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