De-Centering Eighteenth-Century Political Economy: Rethinking Growth, Wealth and Welfare in the Swedish Empire

Introduction

The project reassesses the early history of European political economy. Historians of political economy have traditionally concentrated on the genesis of modern economics, tracing the emergence of economic models, methods, and ideas that are today recognized as 'economics' through 'classical political economy', neo-classicism, and on to the present.

New Approach

This new departure treats political economy as a discourse oriented to the improvement of conditions for human life and, as such, one of the Enlightenment's key contributions to Western thought. However, any direct association of Enlightenment discourse with political economy requires qualification.

Contemporary Literature

Therefore, this project explores a very extensive contemporary literature about growth, wealth, and welfare that has not fitted easily into the conventional retrospective history. Instead of converting past arguments into modern arguments about methods and models, the project investigates eighteenth-century political economy in terms of practical concerns, as measures and policies for betterment and improvement.

Historical Context

Only in this way can we reconstruct what political economy meant to its contemporaries in the early modern period. The Swedish empire, considered by contemporaries as the stronghold of 'oeconomia', functions as the primary case study, but is constantly compared with other cases, broadening the applicability of the findings.

Aim of the Project

The aim of the project is to study the ways in which the key concepts of improvement, wealth, growth, and welfare were articulated in the main sites of discursive production:

1. The University
2. The Diet
3. Local and colonial governments
4. Academic journals

The study of these five institutions is based on the hypothesis that in each of them, activities were directed towards improving the organization of state and society and the living conditions of the people.

Conclusion

This project represents a well-founded reassessment of the rise to predominance of economic argument during the eighteenth century.