The Effect of Scottish Enlightenment on Development of Political Economy

Since economy’s emerge as a science to this day, there have been many important thinkers who contributed to political economy. However, contributions of Adam Smith, who created the basis of economics in literature, and thinkers who lived at the same time as Smith are especially important. In this aspect, Scottish Enlightenment is an important historical process, which started in the 18th century in Scotland and continued for nearly a
hundred years, in which intellectual and scientific developments to place. Further, Scotland became the birth place and cradle of the theory of political economy at that time. With David Hume, Francis Hutcheson, Adam Smith and Thomas Reid are the most important thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment period. Thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment showed the effects of especially industrial and economic improvements on ethical understanding. In addition, they focused on the conflict of pressure and stress created by economical developments on static organizations. However, this enlightenment movement was not just economic but also scientific, philosophical, historical, legal and political. In addition to adhering to economical individualism and liberal economic view, David Hume was interested in topics that are more related to operation of markets such as the theory of money, theory of interest, free trade and finance politics. Another important name of the time, Smith, contributed to political economy with his thoughts on social classes and different production areas, wealth and income sharing, trade, money circulation and economic growth process. Furthermore, Smith brought the idea that with division of labor and gaining expertise, effective use of resources will increase societies’ welfare, and the concept of the invisible hand expressing the the government’s interference in financial life should be limited, to the political economy. The aim of this study is to investigate the role of Scottish Enlightenment and hence the important thinkers of this process on economy’s development. Additionally, contributions of one of the most important names of the enlightenment, David Hume, and other representatives of that period on the economy politics will be discussed.

The Effect of Scottish Enlightenment on Development of Political Economy