For those of us who are actually educated in the economic progress of western civilization as opposed to indoctrinated in the Neidgesellschaft (social envy) of the pseudo intellectual socialist-progressive left, here is someone truly looking into. I have to admit Joseph Addison wasn't on any reading list OI ever had. Will be looking into him for sure.
Old Mr. Spectator Stood Up for Merchants
The founder of Britain’s most influential magazine understood the power of commerce early on.
By
Stephen Miller
April 30, 2017 4:27 p.m. ET
10 COMMENTS
May Day, also called International Workers’ Day and traditionally celebrated on May 1, is a holiday for socialists and communists. But it also happens to be the birthday of the first English writer to discuss the benefits of a commercial society. This writer, one scholar says, “was regarded for many generations as one of the most significant English writers of his time.” I’m referring to Joseph Addison, who in 1711 founded the Spectator, which has been called the most influential magazine in British history.
Joseph Addison. PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
Writing under the persona of Mr. Spectator (as did his collaborator Richard Steele ), Addison talked about the pleasures of walking in London. In one essay, he praised the Royal Exchange, a two-level structure, built in 1669 around a great courtyard, that housed shops and boutiques. The Exchange, Addison said, made “this Metropolis a kind of Emporium for the Whole earth.”
Addison implied that the many immigrants he met there had helped transform London into a bustling commercial center. “Sometimes I am jostled among a Body of Armenians; sometimes I am lost in a Crowd of Jews; and sometimes make one in a Groupe of Dutch-men. I am a Dane, Swede or French-Man at different times.” He was “wonderfully delighted to see such a Body of Men thriving in their own private Fortunes, and at the same time promoting the Publick Stock.” Addison was saying what Adam Smith would 65 years later: The self-interested pursuit of profit in most cases benefits the nation as a whole.
It’s clear in Addison’s writing that he was impressed by the globalization of Britain’s food supply: “The Food often grows in one Country, and the Sauce in another.” The expansion of trade, he argued, increased the range of products available to Britons and created wealth by expanding the market for the products they produced. Even members of the landed interest, who generally opposed the political influence of merchants and financiers, benefited from the expansion of trade, since the owners’ estates now had an international market for their products.
Addison’s praise for merchants and traders went against a long literary tradition of contempt for men of commerce. “There are not more useful Members in a Commonwealth than Merchants,” Addison wrote. “They knit Mankind together in a mutual Intercourse of good Offices, distribute the Gifts of Nature, find Work for the Poor, add Wealth to the Rich, and Magnificence to the Great.”
A leading American scholar dismissed Addison as a lightweight “writer for a middle class.” Addison was writing not for the middle class, but in hope of expanding it. He wanted to persuade the upper class that it was foolish to reject trade as a profession for their children. Many aristocrats, he said, would “rather see their Children starve like Gentlemen, than thrive in a Trade or Profession that is beneath their Quality. This Humor fills several Parts of Europe with Pride and Beggary.” Promoting commerce, Addison made a radical suggestion: English aristocrats should emulate Jews, whom Addison praised for being industrious men of commerce.
Addison will never be as highly regarded as his friends Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope (the latter eventually an ex-friend), but he understood the forces driving 18th-century Britain better than they did.
Mr. Miller is author of “Walking New York: Reflections of American Writers from Walt Whitman to Teju Cole ” (Fordham, 2014).
Old Mr. Spectator Stood Up for Merchants
The founder of Britain’s most influential magazine understood the power of commerce early on.
By
Stephen Miller
April 30, 2017 4:27 p.m. ET
10 COMMENTS
May Day, also called International Workers’ Day and traditionally celebrated on May 1, is a holiday for socialists and communists. But it also happens to be the birthday of the first English writer to discuss the benefits of a commercial society. This writer, one scholar says, “was regarded for many generations as one of the most significant English writers of his time.” I’m referring to Joseph Addison, who in 1711 founded the Spectator, which has been called the most influential magazine in British history.
Joseph Addison. PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
Writing under the persona of Mr. Spectator (as did his collaborator Richard Steele ), Addison talked about the pleasures of walking in London. In one essay, he praised the Royal Exchange, a two-level structure, built in 1669 around a great courtyard, that housed shops and boutiques. The Exchange, Addison said, made “this Metropolis a kind of Emporium for the Whole earth.”
Addison implied that the many immigrants he met there had helped transform London into a bustling commercial center. “Sometimes I am jostled among a Body of Armenians; sometimes I am lost in a Crowd of Jews; and sometimes make one in a Groupe of Dutch-men. I am a Dane, Swede or French-Man at different times.” He was “wonderfully delighted to see such a Body of Men thriving in their own private Fortunes, and at the same time promoting the Publick Stock.” Addison was saying what Adam Smith would 65 years later: The self-interested pursuit of profit in most cases benefits the nation as a whole.
It’s clear in Addison’s writing that he was impressed by the globalization of Britain’s food supply: “The Food often grows in one Country, and the Sauce in another.” The expansion of trade, he argued, increased the range of products available to Britons and created wealth by expanding the market for the products they produced. Even members of the landed interest, who generally opposed the political influence of merchants and financiers, benefited from the expansion of trade, since the owners’ estates now had an international market for their products.
Addison’s praise for merchants and traders went against a long literary tradition of contempt for men of commerce. “There are not more useful Members in a Commonwealth than Merchants,” Addison wrote. “They knit Mankind together in a mutual Intercourse of good Offices, distribute the Gifts of Nature, find Work for the Poor, add Wealth to the Rich, and Magnificence to the Great.”
A leading American scholar dismissed Addison as a lightweight “writer for a middle class.” Addison was writing not for the middle class, but in hope of expanding it. He wanted to persuade the upper class that it was foolish to reject trade as a profession for their children. Many aristocrats, he said, would “rather see their Children starve like Gentlemen, than thrive in a Trade or Profession that is beneath their Quality. This Humor fills several Parts of Europe with Pride and Beggary.” Promoting commerce, Addison made a radical suggestion: English aristocrats should emulate Jews, whom Addison praised for being industrious men of commerce.
Addison will never be as highly regarded as his friends Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope (the latter eventually an ex-friend), but he understood the forces driving 18th-century Britain better than they did.
Mr. Miller is author of “Walking New York: Reflections of American Writers from Walt Whitman to Teju Cole ” (Fordham, 2014).
