Economic Writings

Locke's writings on economic subjects do not rank in importance with his treatises on government. They deal with particular questions raised by the necessities of the political situation. No attempt had yet been made to isolate the fact of wealth and make it the subject of a special science. The direction of industry and commerce was held to be part of the statesman's duty; but, in the seventeenth century, it began to be carried out with less thoroughness than before; and at the same time new problems were opened up by the growth of the national life. The American colonies, the enterprise of the East India Company, the planting of Ireland, the commercial rivalry with Holland and withy France, as well as questions regarding the rate of interest and the currency, occupied the attention of a crowd of writers in the second half of the century. Locke's own contributions were occasioned be the financial problems which faced the new government after the revolution. His reflections on the rate of interest show the growing disfavor with which appeals for state interference were beginning to be met. He points out the obstacles to trade that are caused when the rate of interest is fixed by law, and he argues in favor of freedom for what he calls, in words which suggest Adam Smith, "the natural interest of money." Money "turns the wheels of trade"; therefore its course should not be stopped. At the same time, he holds no general brief against the interference of the state in matters of commerce; nor is the language of the mercantilist foreign to him. Riches consist in plenty of gold and silver, for these command all the conveniences of life. Now, "in a country not furnished with mines, there are but two ways of growing rich, either conquest or commerce." For us commerce is the only way; and Locke condemns "the amazing politics of some late reigns" which had "let in other competitors with us for the sea." In the concluding portion of Some Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest and Raising the Value of Money (1691), Locke laid stress on the importance of a uniform and stable measure of values; four years later, in his Further Considerations he defended his view against the proposals involving a depreciation of the standard, which William Lowndes, secretary of the treasury, had set forth in An Essay for the amendment of the silver coins (1695).