Between Commerce and Empire: David Hume, Colonial Slavery, and Commercial Incivility

Eighteenth-century Enlightenment thought has recently been reclaimed as a robust, albeit short-lived, cosmopolitan critique of European imperialism. This essay complicates this interpretation through a study of David Hume’s reflections on commerce, empire and slavery. I argue that while Hume condemned the colonial system of monopoly, war and conquest, his strictures against empire did not extend to colonial slavery in the Atlantic. This was because colonial slavery represented a manifestly uncivil institution when judged by enlightened metropolitan sensibilities, yet also a decisively commercial institution pivotal to the eighteenth-century global economy. Confronted by the paradoxical ‘commercial incivility’ of modern slavery, Hume opted for disavowing the link between slavery and commerce, and confined his criticism of slavery to its ancient, feudal and Asiatic incarnations. I contend that Hume’s disavowal of the commercial barbarism of the Atlantic economy is part of a broader ideological effort to separate the idea of commerce from its imperial origins and posit it as the liberal antithesis of empire. The implications of analysis, I conclude, go beyond the eighteenth-century debates over commerce and empire, and more generally pertain to the contradictory entwinement of liberalism and capitalism

Response to Pieter C. Emmer’s ‘Reconsideration’

[First paragraph]
 Criticisms, however strongly expressed, are valuable where they extend and deepen debates. Pieter Emmer's critique, though, is so ill focused, ill informed, and intemperate, that it is difficult to know how to respond profitably, or even politely

Reshuffling the pack : the transition from slavery to other forms of labor in the British Caribbean, ca. 1790-1890

Analysis of a century of (evolutionary) socio-economic transition in the British Caribbean. According to the author, this process demonstrated aspects of a continuum, rather than sharply marked phases and abrupt changes. Before the abolition of slavery slaves behaved as proto-peasants and proto-proletarians and many aspects of slavery survived the abolition

Fifty shades of grey: concussion complexities and constructive conclusions

Concussion remains prominent in the medical and scientific literature but its assessment and management remain somewhat ‘grey’ and ill defined. The key issues related to concussion are widely discussed in the public arena. While these discussions should contribute to an improved understanding of concussion in the broader community, confusing messages are being driven by different agendas.http://bjsm.bmj.comhb2016Sports Medicin