DAVID HUME: THE POLITICAL THEORY OF COMMERCIAL MARKET SOCIETY

In his moral and political writings, David Hume perceives the economy of eighteenth-century Britain to be a full market society. This economic perception underlies Hume's thought. Hume directs his writings at the dominant strata of market society, "the middle station." The middle station serves as the subject of Hume's philosophy as well as the audience.; In his Treatise of Human Nature, Hume follows the scientific method of Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes used Galileo's resolutive-compositive method to analyse human nature into parts, then to synthesize the parts into a whole individual with moral and political obligations. Hume varies Hobbes's method slightly by applying Newtonian advances in science.; The first two books of the Treatise contain Hume's analysis of human nature into parts, reason and passion. Hume centers on two violent passions, pride and love. Property is the main cause of these violent passions. Hume relates moral virtue and vice to human nature: They are calm passions.; In Book III, Hume integrates the state of nature into Galileo's scientific method. The state of nature arises from the separation of passionate from rational man. Passionate individuals, without reason, are incapable of productive society. Reason assures rules of market justice, protecting individual private property and allowing productive social relations.; Hume uses assumptions of commercial market society to show the need for government to protect property distributions and market relations. Although Hume deduces from his model of human nature in the Treatise, he needs to bring in the social assumptions of large un-propertied masses to emphasize the property owner's need for government.; Hume's political writings show a preference for civilized monarchy as the form of government over commercial market society. Hume believes the middle station should acquiesce to any established government that protects property; he believes that the predominant avarice of the middle station could very possibly destabilize government, especially in Britain.; Hume devotes much of his later writing to re-educating the middle and upper stations to market virtues, and to destroying religious thought. For Hume, desire to possess luxuries (commodities) becomes the central virtue of commercial market society. It leads to all the goods characteristic of such societies.