The vigorous and doux soldier: David Hume’s military defence of commerce

ABSTRACT

If war is an inevitable condition of human nature, as David Hume suggests, then what type of societies can best protect us from defeat and conquest? For David Hume, commerce decreases the relative cost of war and promotes technological military advances as well as martial spirit. Commerce therefore makes a country militarily stronger and better equipped to protect itself against attacks than any other kind of society. Hume does not assume commerce would yield a peaceful world nor that commercial societies would be militarily weak, as many contemporary scholars have argued. On the contrary, for him, military might is a beneficial consequence of commerce.

KEYWORDS:

• Trade and conflict
• commercial peace
• David Hume
• doux commerce
• cost of war
• martial spirit

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the following persons for their very helpful feedback while we were working on this paper: Tyler Cowen, Paul Dudenhefer, Craig Smith, the participants of the 2015 Japanese Society for the History of Economic Thought and European Society for the History of Economic Thought Joint Conference in Otaru, the participants of the lectures at Universidade de Sao Paulo (Brasil) in 2016 and at Cedeplar, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (Brasil) in 2016, as well as the participants of the research seminar of the Centre Walras Parteo at the University of Lausanne in 2016, and at Colloquium on Market Institutions & Economic Processes at New York University.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Reinhard Schumacher http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7260-1321

Notes

1 The term doux commerce is derived from the French word douceur, which “conveys sweetness, softness, calm, and gentleness and is the antonym of violence” (Hirschman 1997 [1977]: 59).

2 Montesquieu does not use the term doux commerce, but he describes that commerce leads to “gentle mores” (“mœurs douces”) and that “it polishes and softens barbarous mores” (“il polit & adoucit les mœurs barbares”) (1989 [1748]: 338; 1950 [1748]: 445–6).

3 The doux commerce thesis is often seen as an addition or supplement to the democratic peace theory, which dates back to Immanuel Kant and states that democratic societies do not engage in war with each other. In contrast to this view, some scholars have suggested that both are not complementary, but that the trade and free markets can explain the peaceful relationship between democracies. These scholars suggest that there is no democratic peace, only a commercial peace (see, e.g., Gartzke 2007; Gartzke and Hewitt 2010; Polachek and Seiglie 2007)). A critique of this position can be found in Dafoe (2011). For an overview of recent empirical studies on commercial peace see Barbieri (2002: 43–8), Copeland (2015: 51–69), Mansfield and Pollins (2001), and Schneider, Barbieri and Gleditsch (2003). For a discussion of the democratic peace theory, see Cavallar (2001), Jakobsen, Jakobsen and Ekevold (2016), and MacMillan (2004).

4 For a discussion of the ideas on commercial and perpetual peace in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Enlightenment, see the volume Commerce and Peace in the Enlightenment (Kapossy, Nakhimovsky and Whatmore 2017). On the relation between trade and war see also Hont (2005).

5 The abbreviations of the references to Hume’s work are as follows: A Treatise of Human Nature (THN) (Hume 2007 [1739-40]), Essays Moral, Political, and Literary (E) (Hume 1987 [1777]), An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (EPM) (Hume 2003 [1772]), The History of England (H) (Hume 1983 [1778]) and Letters of David Hume (L) (Hume 1932).

6 Hont (2009: 137–50; 2015: 51–2) and Whelan (2004: esp. 200-9) discuss on Hume’s rejection of contractualism/contractarianism in general, and Simmons (1993: 197–217) discusses Hume rejection of Locke’s theory of consent in particular.

7 On war in Ferguson’s theory, see also Buchan (2006); on Ferguson and conflict sociology, see Hill (2001).

8 For a discussion of Hume’s view on (the politics of) balance of power, see Whelan (1995); 2004: 226–9).

9 Maybe to distance himself from both wide-spread positions, he, in 1760, changed the title of his essay “On Luxury” to “Of Refinements in the Arts.” The effects of luxury for a society were widely debated in Europe in the eighteenth century. There were “several hundred writers at all levels of eighteenth-century discourse” (Berg and Eger 2003: 10) that participated in the broader debate on luxury. Arguments were not restricted to martial virtues, but included how luxury affected all kinds of aspects of a society. Such discussion thus took place among “hundreds of philosohpes, political economists, literary figures, agriculturalists, priests, academicians, and administrators across Europe” (Wahnbaeck 2004: 1–2). On the luxury debate in the Scottish Enlightenment, see also Berry (1994: 126–76; 2013: 150–93).

10 Walter Wyatt-Walter (1996) and Istvan Hont (2015: 111–32) discuss Smith’s position in this regard.

11 Hume does qualify his statement, because there might be exceptional cases, at least in theory: “I cannot forbear thinking, that it may possibly admit of exceptions, and that we often establish it with too little reserve and limitation. There may be some circumstances, where the commerce and riches and luxury of individuals, instead of adding strength to the public, will serve only to thin its armies, and diminish its authority among the neighbouring nations. Man is a very variable being, and susceptible of many different opinions, principles, and rules of conduct. What may be true, while he adheres to one way of thinking, will be found false, when he has embraced an opposite set of manners and opinions” (E, pp. 255–256). After discussing the historical exceptions, he gets back to his rule, arguing that “in the common course of human affairs” (E, p. 260) his maxim is true.

12 In contrast, this opposition was not resolved accordingly in the republics in ancient Greece and Rome. Their strengths were rather due to the “want of commerce and luxury” (E, p. 257). Such a situation was due to historical circumstances and forms an exception. A repetition of this situation in modern times is not feasible for Hume (E, pp. 257–260).

13 Adam Smith would repeat this exact point, attributing it to Hume: foreign wars are extremely difficult to finance in pre-commercial societies because the economy produces too little to spare from home consumption. So, differently from today, in ancient times, it was very difficult to have long uninterrupted wars (Smith 1976 [1776]: 445–6, IV.i.30).

14 For the Scottish debate about the “militia vs. standing army”-issue, which resulted from the fear of weaker soldiers due to commerce, see Robertson (1985), Montes (2009), and Berry (2013: 167–72); for Smith’s point of view on this issue, see Harpham (1983: 768–70) and Montes (2004: 61–9; 2009). for Hume’s point of view on this issue, see Stewart (1992: 288–9) and Whelan (2004: 217–21).

15 Cf. Adam Ferguson; see also Robertson (1985) and Sher (1989).

16 On the related issue of patriotism in Hume’s thought, see Hont (2005: 111–23).

17 The Roman Empire forms an exception regarding this point for Hume: “ROMANS, by applying themselves solely to war, were almost the only uncivilized people that ever possessed military discipline.” Contemporary Italy also forms an exception, or a “degeneracy” as Hume writes: “the modern ITALIANS are the only civilized people, among EUROPEANS, that ever wanted courage and a martial spirit” (E, 275).

18 This led also to a reappraisal of women in general. As Maxine Berg and Elizabeth Eger note, Hume and Smith in their search for “new defences of commercial culture […] began to acknowledge women’s important role in carrying out the civilizing process” (2003: 19).

19 Hume notes that the fury, with which armies in antiquity invaded a country, was so strong that people preferred suicide to falling into the hands of the enemy: “Instances are frequent, in ancient history, of cities besieged, whose inhabitants, rather than open their gates, murdered their wives and children, and rushed themselves on a voluntary death, sweetened perhaps by a little prospect of revenge upon the enemy” (E, p. 406).