Dispossession and Civil Society The Ambivalence of Enlightenment Political Philosophy

Dispossession and Civil Society: The Ambivalence of Enlightenment Political Philosophy
Author(s): Siraj Ahmed

Source: The Eighteenth Century , SUMMER/FALL 2014, Vol. 55, No. 2/3, Special Issue:
The Dispossessed Eighteenth Century (SUMMER/FALL 2014), pp. 153-174
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44729980
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Dispossession and Civil Society:
The Ambivalence of Enlightenment
Political Philosophy
Siraj Ahmed
Lehman College, City University of New York
By the late eighteenth century, the topos of colonial degeneration - or criolian

degeneracy - had become commonplace across western Europe: the work of
Henry Home, Lord Karnes, Guillaume Thomas François Raynal, and Johan
Gottfried Herder, not to mention countless less widely read authors, all de-
pended on it.1 In this topos, a European settler in the Americas, Africa, or Asia
reverses the stages of civil progress, returning to savagery or, more damningly,
to a state of "decomposed civil being."2 Though eighteenth-century writers
used this topos to comprehend the explosive growth of colonial settlement
and trade, its roots are in fact archaic. Aristotle had, for example, proclaimed
anyone capable of living outside state societies to be either a god or a beast:
"man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law
and justice, he is . . . the most unholy and the most savage."3 Christian writers
presented a parallel discourse in which people degenerated to an animal state
because of their sinfulness and were redeemed from their degenerate human-
ity by divine grace.4 In medieval legends, the uncultivated lands outside cit-
ies contained "wild men," a condition to which anyone who abandoned the
city's walls might degenerate.5 These historical strata - concerning the polis,
the church, and the boundaries of European civilization respectively - all in-
formed the topos of colonial degeneration, which of course also rearticulated
the ancient belief that climate determines race.6 Colonial degeneration ap-
peared, therefore, to illustrate the political, religious, moral, physiological, and
environmental superiority of European life over all other forms of life.7 Accord-
ing to the scholarly literature, it crystallizes the Enlightenment's apology for
metropolitan civility.
This essay argues instead that the topos of colonial degeneration reflects the
Enlightenment's profound ambivalence toward the origins of private property,
of civil society, and hence of European modernity itself. Without rejecting the
The Eighteenth Century, vol. 55, nos. 2-3 Copyright © 2014 University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

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154 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
scholarship already adduced, th

the civil self's metropolitan co
David Hume, and its colonial d
Adam Smith, and Nicolas de Co
Locke, and Hume, among many
the laws that protect property
primitive desire for possession
ship and improvement.8 These
manity's natural and universal
private property, which alone
nialism violates the convention
produces the degeneration of t
But on the other hand, when
deed makes it the very basis o
at its own heart an antisocial
and political domination. Even
nies, therefore, European civil
construct. Hobbes, Hume, and
knowledged that dispossession f
effaces and hence legitimizes t
true origin. According to each
far from either natural or con
conquest appears to violate prop
at the origins of this principle
generation is less an argument
exposition and critique of civi
even as these philosophers justif
instability of their own theore
For late eighteenth-century ob
preeminently European : they
ment's privileged domain.
Late Enlightenment philosoph
Condorcet used the figure of
the global consequences of Eur
scent world system as the hist
tial to spread economic and eth
conquest economy penetrates t
metropolis and of the non-Eur
lonial degeneration registers, a
toward its own extraordinaril
homo economicus and economic
lightenment resides for our ow
we need finally to acknowledg

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AHMED- DISPOSSESSION AND CIVIL SOCIETY 155
titude toward property and civil society, which th

face of dispossession.
1. FROM THE "MINUTE" TO THE HISTOIRE
The exemplary statement of the British Empire's civilizing mission,

Babington Macaulay's "Minute on Indian Education" (1835), called on t
India Company's Committee on Public Instruction to make the Englis
guage and British literature, rather than native religious traditions, th
of education in British India. Macaulay declared: "what the Greek and
were to the contemporaries of More and Ascham, our tongue is to the
of India. The literature of England is now more valuable than that of
cal antiquity."10 Macaulay understood Britain's civilizing mission in t
the Enlightenment concept of civil progress. Colonial rule must take th
from his contemporary condition, "ignorant and barbarous," and educa
so that he will be qualified to "serve the state in the highest functio
other words, from a condition in which he is unable to see beyond his par
interests to a condition in which public conscience motivates him. Mac
intention was to create a class of civil servants capable of self-governm
would be the transitional type between barbarous natives and fully c
Europeans.
Macaulay presupposed that the imperatives of modern civil soci
which private individuals must be trained suddenly to participate in
life, necessitated instruction in Western languages and literatures. He c
cent Russian history as his model: "the languages of Western Europe ci
Russia. I cannot doubt that they will do for the Hindoo what they hav
for the Tartar."11 English studies would disseminate the principles of t
self even in the absence of the economic and political institutions that h
thought its preconditions in eighteenth-century philosophy.12 According
caulay, English "abounds . . . with historical compositions [that], consid
vehicles of ethical and political instruction, have never been equalled.
"Minute" imagines colonial education becoming a laboratory for the co
tion of civil selves.
But Macaulay's vision of colonial rule's relationship to the civil self

in diametric opposition to eighteenth-century accounts.14 Take, for ex
Diderot's contributions to the Enlightenment's encyclopedia of imper
the Histoire des Deux Indes (1770):
The capitals of empire are the homes of the national character, that is to say
places in which it is displayed with the most energy in words and disregard
most completely in deed. . . . The greater the distance from the capital the lo
the mask becomes. . . . Beyond the Equator a man is neither English, Du
French, Spanish, nor Portuguese. He retains only those principles and prejud

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of his native country which justif

crime which will lead him most qu
ing to the forest; the thirst for bl
Europeans, every one of them, in
New World.15
While in Macaulay's early nine

the civil self, in Diderot's late
solves it. Diderot's civil self is
supports of the nation-state a
Western languages and literatu
claimed instead that Western li
the civil self is the mask of viol
reveals civil society's real basis
Diderot's entry on national ch
tension at the heart of eightee
ety.17 Though civil society is d
all its members can serve in pu
rise above their historically pr
people's ruling body] who woul
ruin."18 Diderot articulates civil
private interests that serve as th
society but which nonetheless h
The tension inherent in Enlig
ety, which generates the energ
Macaulay's "Minute." In the lat
nihilo, that produces the civil se
sance giving "a great impulse ..
"prejudices," diffusing "knowle
and sciences" in "ignorant and
stands civil progress to be in th
prosperity through public ruin
tradiction, the uncomplicated,
ment from ignorance and barb
To understand Diderot's idea o
Enlightenment concepts of pro
2. EMPIRE
In early modern civil theory, "empire" connotes the violent, but now con
origins of civil society. In The Second Treatise of Government (1689), though
referred to various empires - Biblical, classical, and medieval - to illustr
arguments about legitimate and illegitimate authority, the word "empire"

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has a particular denotation, referring to the ind

sovereignty over his possessions before the establ
used "empire" in this sense, for instance, when h
a common objection to his own theory of the soci
If Man in the State of Nature be so free, as has been said
own Person and Possessions, equal to the greatest, and s

he part with his Freedom? Why will he give up this Empir
Dominion and Controlli of any other Power? To which
though in the state of Nature he hath such a right, yet th
certain, and constantly exposed to the Invasion of others.
he, every man his equal, and the greater part no strict Ob
the enjoyment of the property he has in this state is very
When the individual consents to the social contrac

pire he enjoys in the state of nature in order to s
laws and institutions. In Locke's narrative, civil s
empire in this sense. Society based on contract is
that it replaces the violent competition that had
number of personal empires, a condition in whi
meaning between individuals.
This sense of "empire" inscribes a particular con
Locke shared with Hobbes. Although we conventi
of nature to Hobbes's "state of warre," Locke al
humanity's most universal passion. While he arg
Human Understanding (1689) that people do not
cluding, of course, those that serve as civil soci
people do possess "innate appetites."22 In the Seco
include "the desire of having more than Men nee
son has called "the boundless desire for possessi
essentially excessive desire for wealth and proper
appetite. In his view, therefore, the basis of hum
freedom and equality but rather toward empire.
Whereas Hume's arguments often dismantle L
stance Hume acceded to the premise that possessi
universal. In his 1742 essay, "Of the Rise and Progr
Hume declared: "Avarice, or the desire of gain, i
operates at all times, in all places, and upon all
Hume also associated possessiveness with an impe
individual: "the love of dominion is so strong in t
not only submit to, but court all the dangers, and
ment."25 On the level of the individual as on tha
produces the desire for sovereign power.26

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The passion for empire turns

in a more indirect manner th
of civil society, the individual'
even conventional sense - exis
potential object of theft. Hobb
struggle over possessions: "Out
one against every one."27 And
tically, noted: "the enjoyment
unsafe, very unsecure."28 In th
private property and hence of p
to civility.29 The ultimate raison
desire for possession, which is
of the instability of possession t
But even as private property g
compromise its own boundless
In explaining the motive behin
found by experience that 'tis im
impossible to maintain society,
so urgent an interest quickly r
to observe those rules, which w
Hobbes a full century earlier: "
naturally love Liberty, and Dom
restraint upon themselves ... is
preservation of possessiveness
society that generates the tensi
Macaulay's "Minute." The laws
straining it. The boundlessness
dominion, chafes against these
civil society always contain the
the irreducible origin of civil
Hume, and Diderot each do - i
ship with dispossession. Civil so
empire. In colonial conquest, it
it is now unlikely to lose, and
In these early theories of civil
itself transforms the savage in
passion for possessions into ec
within legal constraints. Argui
dition for civil progress, Hum
open and liberal hand of nature;
them in great abundance. Hen
all civil society."34 "Art" in th
possibility of "enjoyment" as an

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property. Indeed, intellectual progress is itsel

security: From security curiosity: And from cur
Locke's seminal discussion of private property
that its intimate association with reason enables the transition from barbarism
to civilization.36 Like Hume, using the "law" to refer to the law of property, the
first of all laws, Locke commented: " Law , in its true Notion, is not so much the
Limitation as the direction of a free and intelligent Agent to his proper Interest."37
Locke argued that property law turns passions into interests. His argument
presupposes that the individual cannot even act rationally until property has
been established: "God, who hath given the World to Men in common, hath
also given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of Life, and
convenience."38 Reason and property are coeval because, before the founding
of civil society, one cannot rely on others to act in terms of their own interests
rather than their irrational passions. In Locke's view, reason's basic function
is to improve property. In the state of nature, therefore, reason cannot make
sense. Locke suggested, furthermore, that private property is essential to the
development of reason, because reason elaborates itself in the process of trying
to make property as productive as possible. The right to private property turns
the savage into the citizen, in short, because it compels him to act rationally
and, moreover, to cultivate his rationality relentlessly.
3. SECOND NATURE
When Locke referred to the individual discovering his interests and ult
his reason with the help of private property, he alluded to what Edmun
would famously call, after Hume, "second nature," the self the individua
in civil society.39 The Second Treatise argues that second nature is, in its own
natural as the individual's essential possessiveness, because it is also the
of providential design. Locke defined second nature in opposition to tho
are not fully civilized and hence not strictly human. In Locke's discussion
case, the uncivilized individual lacks the proper relationship to property. U
is capable of respecting the other's property and profiting from one's own
not qualified for self-government.40 One remains a child, in the stage of "
Nonage," or is akin to " Lunaticks and Ideots" who "are never set free from th
ernment of their Parents."41 If one attempts to govern oneself in such a cond
immaturity, one will become a "Brute."42 Like his labor theory of property
arguments here naturalize civil society and place it beyond critique.
But Locke's overriding concern in the Second Treatise to naturalize c
ciety was motivated, of course, by the continuing question of its legiti
Hence, his vehemence when he describes the infringement of property
In transgressing the Law of Nature, the Offender declares himself to live by

other Rule than that of reason and common Equity . . . and so he becomes dan

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ous to Mankind, the tye, which is

slighted and broken by him. [This
Peace and Safety of it.44
For Locke, in contrast to Hobb

right: it is prior to - and indeed
the object of Locke's rhetorical
forms of life that deny the nec
is "dangerous to Mankind," he
to property owners. When civil
it insists that its own origins ar
fore, ,mdi trespass against the
have no access to property own
When the thief violates prop
clares himself to quit the Prin
Creature."46 Like Diderot's colo
civil progress. Both figures ar
within civil principles, their n
gressive form. Particularly rem
"quit the Principles of Human
what Locke himself has called
claim, Locke raises the second
nature as such.
Locke provided two arguments to justify private property and hence natu-
ralize civil society.47 One, already mentioned, is that God intends man to im-
prove the earth: "it cannot be supposed he meant it should always remain
common and uncultivated. He gave it to the use of the Industrious and Ra-
tional, (and Labour was to be his Title to it), not the Fancy or Covetousness of
the Quarrelsom and Contentious."48 God gives certain men private property
as part of his basic design that humanity must perfect itself. The labor theory
of property, on the other hand, justifies property in secular terms: "the labour
that was mine, removing [commons] out of that common state they were in,
hath fixed my Property in them."49 Locke here invoked the Levellers' axiomatic
belief that every individual has a natural right to his own body and labor. When
the individual labors on common land, he mixes what is immediately his - his
labor - with something external to him and in doing so makes that thing an
extension of his immediate person.
The providential apology for private property begs the question of why the
individual must own the land on which he labors. The answer must be that, be-
cause he is essentially selfish, he is likely to expend his labor power only when
he believes it will redound to his own benefit. The providential apology would
appear to render the secular one superfluous. And the second apology only
begs another question: according to what logical principle does the product of

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one's labor remain one's sole possession when i

that was manifestly not one's own? The relatio
ual's right to possess his own labor and his put
of the commons on which he has labored is n
the labor theory enabled Locke to shift the g
property takes place. Where the providential
human selfishness, the labor theory invokes se
extension of the self - and hence natural rights
The labor theory of property effaced peasan
mons, already under attack by the processes
lonial settlement in Ireland. This violently co
property rights reflected, in other words, the
tion of English and Irish land - the preconditio
subsequently of British imperial hegemony. H
erty would inhere only in those who could impr
ability, and convert it into exchange value. This
inherited privilege - became the sine qua non o
Second Treatise made the inchoate identificatio
the capacity to produce profit philosophically
the revolutionary implications of Locke's arg
ral rights (i.e., property rights) empowered
not those whom they had expropriated. This
used throughout the eighteenth century - by
islature - to legitimize the widening gyre of
appropriation.
4. ARTIFICE
Hume's intervention in Locke's attempt to naturalize property and civil societ

occurs here. Hume's essay "Of the Origin of Justice and Property" argues -
pace both Locke and the moral sense tradition - that property originates not
in nature, but rather in an artificial analogy of the imagination. Here is Hume
most elaborate account of civil society's origins:
When men . . . have observ'd that the principal disturbance in society arises from
those goods, which we call external, and from their looseness and easy transition
from one person to another, they must seek for a remedy, by putting these goods,
as far as possible, on the same footing with the fix'd and constant advantages
of the mind and body. ... By this means every one knows what he may safely
possess; and the passions are restrain'd in their partial and contradictory mo-
tions. Nor is such a restraint contrary to these passions; for, if so, it cou'd never be
enter 'd into nor maintain'd; but it is only contrary to their heedless and impetuous
movement.51

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Hume claimed, following both

sessiveness into rational intere
account begins to differ from
metaphysical basis.52 The conce
one possesses are part of one's
and constant advantages of the
the individual's understanding
natural, but rather moral, the o
comes to believe in property, H
of
erty, where no body else has any preceding claim and

reasonings of lawyers are of this analogical nature, a
connexions of the imagination."54 Though the first p
the right of ownership over it have a resemblance or
to each other, they are far from identical. Hume asked
reason [beside the convenience and necessities of
writers ever give, why this must be mine and that you
ture, surely, never made any such distinction? The ob
appellations, are, of themselves, foreign to us; they
separated from us; and nothing but the general interes
connexion."55 While belief in the right of ownership
siveness into rational interest, it entails that civil soc
delusional, based on a misperception at their root: "it
all regards to right and property, seem entirely with
the grossest and most vulgar superstition."56
Here also Hume was reiterating Hobbes. Where Hu
erty, which is the object of justice, is [not] distingui
instinct,"57 Hobbes had argued:
Justice [the constant Will of giving to every man his own],

the Faculties neither of the Body, nor Mind. If they were,
that were alone in the world, as well as his Senses, and P
ties, that relate to men in Society, not in Solitude. It is con
condition, that there be no Propriety, no Dominion, no Min
onely that to be every mans, that he can get; and for so lon
Both philosophers held that before socialization, the

possession, not a right of ownership. Hobbes's co
therefore, in what he referred to as the "fantasy," not
ception, neither an "original instinct" nor an inheren
to the man "alone in the world" (Hume's "solitary a
"men in society" invent the conditions in which th
ceive civil society existing only under absolute gover

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cisely because he believed that human possessive

of property in the absence of "the sword": "whe
erected, that is, where there is no Common-weal
men having Right to all things."59
Hume's argument that property is founded on a
civil society as the "artifice" of man.60 Referring t
nature (stability of possession, transference by co
Hume claimed: "whatever restraint they may impos
are the real offspring of those passions, and are only
way of satisfying them. Nothing is more vigilan
sions."61 In order to lay the groundwork for the stud
opened Leviathan (1651) by likewise describing the
Nature (the Art whereby God hath made and governes

man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated, t
Animal
or State, (in latine Civitas) which is but an Artificiali Man
The commonwealth is the artifice of man as man and na

God.63 Ideally, the commonwealth is an imitation of
when he is in fact as well as in principle "that rationa
of nature." But Hobbes's four-part analogy entails th
manifestation less of human reason than of human ag
is the political form in which humanity consciously c
it lives. If it is to succeed in the "protection and defe
must subject appetite to reason. But because of this t
monwealth is likely to become merely the expression
exact replica of natural man. Regardless, though, hum
sponsible for the artifice of civil society.
Hobbes defended absolute sovereignty against radic
lers by assimilating - as would Locke - their concepts
democratic consent.64 If property is a natural right, th
ral rights depends on the presence of absolute power
the state of war and preserve the individual. Indeed,
ing over and above the popular multitude, can unify
diversity and transform it into a community and/or
insisted on the multitude's intrinsic heterogeneity in
its political agency, which the English civil wars had
the Two Treatises, such an effort no longer seemed ne
between large proprietors and smallholders had been
former. At least in Locke's corner of England, the tripa
capitalist agriculture (improving landlord, tenant fa
already deeply entrenched.

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But where the philosophical

law of nature, Hume, like Hob
duced by possessiveness. This
analogy between possession an
history in which those who ho
this way, possessiveness create
justice, and rights are natural,
reflect the natural desire to po
ral principles in a manner obliq
origin."65 These discourses are
to the public good, they nonet
had been endow'd with such a
have restrain'd themselves by th
lic good emerges, paradoxically
In Hume's view, it is not mere
culture of civil society as such
merely an artifice, an express
divine providence, the moral p
low from it must be no less ar
and acknowledg'd, the sense of
lows naturally , and of itself; th
artifice , and that the public i
tion of parents, contribute to
strict regulation of our actions
emphasized that whereas the
artifice") - justice and moralit
appear to be rooted in nature,
The culture of civil society pre
tends toward conquest and disp
sessiveness from its antisocial
originally in humanity, but m
of society.
The complexity of this process suggests its fragility. If it fails, possessiveness
will return in its original form. In Enlightenment political philosophy, in any
case, the possessiveness that originates civil society never ceases to be active
in it, though it must mask itself there: "whether the passion of self-interest be
esteemed vicious or virtuous, 'tis all a case; since itself alone restrains it: So
that if it be virtuous, men become social by their virtue; if vicious, their vice
has the same effect."70 In late eighteenth-century literature, the civil self tends,
accordingly, to reveal its viciousness whenever the restraints of civil society are
removed. From the perspective of Enlightenment political philosophy, colonial
degeneration reappears as a representation of the civil self's concealed origin.

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5. CONQUEST
In the Second Treatise , Locke opposes civil society to empire, identifying the for-
mer with consent and the latter with conquest:
Governments can originally have no other Rise than that before mentioned [men
in the state of nature seeking the preservation of their property (§127)], nor Polities
be founded on any thing but the Consent of the People ; . . . many have mistaken the
force of Arms, for the consent of the People; and reckon Conquest as one of the
Originals of Government. But Conquest is as far from setting up any government,
as demolishing an House is from building a new one in the place. Indeed, it often
makes way for a new Frame of a Common-wealth, by destroying the former; but,
without the Consent of the people, can never erect a new one.71
The opposition Locke sets up between a polity and conquest implies that civil
society's first citizens actively consented to the property relationships that ob-
tained then and that its current citizens still do. As Hume explained, Locke's
disciples "assert, not only that government in its earliest infancy arose from
consent or rather the voluntary acquiescence of the people; but also that, even
at present, when it has attained full maturity, it rests on no other foundation."72
He responded, "would these reasoners look abroad into the world, they would
meet nothing that, in the least, corresponds to their ideas": "The face of the earth
is continually changing, by the encrease of small kingdoms into great empires,
by the dissolution of great empires into smaller kingdoms, by the planting of
colonies, by the migration of tribes. Is there any thing discoverable in all these
events, but force and violence? Where is the mutual agreement or voluntary
association so much talked of?"73 If late Enlightenment philosophers like Hume
were barely more concerned with the landless than Locke had been, the sudden
concentration of corporate wealth and sovereign power in the late eighteenth-
century global economy nonetheless revealed to them the inadequacy of his
apology for private property and civil society.
When Hume claimed that the contract by which the people signal their as-
sent to the law of property and the state's executive authority never existed,
he implied that the origins of civil society are steeped in myth. In Hume's very
different narrative of civil society's origins, the artifice or myth of civil society
has two levels: (1) the idea of property, which is a purely imaginative construct;
and (2) the premise that property relationships are founded on consent, which
is a fraud. With characteristic concision, Diderot wrote in the Histoire : "all the
foundations of current society are lost in the ruins of some catastrophe or physi-
cal revolution. . . . Everywhere civilisation begins with pillage, and order with
anarchy."74 When one dismantles the myth of contract, as Hume and Diderot
both did, the distinction between civil society and imperialism largely col-
lapses. Hence, when eighteenth-century philosophy and literature describe the

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degeneration of the civil self in

of this self in possessiveness bu
sion. This representation conta
tory's progressive claims.
Such a critique shapes Ferguson
Early in the Essay, Ferguson r
claimed that individuals pursuin
by the laws of civil society, on
exhibit our species, by turns, u
vile and contemptible, than tha
subsequently explained that if
nonetheless risks being based o
of falling apart. Ferguson reduc
which commonly implies little
put for utility in general, and t
analyze the decline of imperia
while indirectly commenting o
temporary colonialism in term
human possessiveness reassum
cross the Atlantic, and to doub
half the world were let loose on
ing in blood, and at the expenc
the earth in search of gold."78
such as Hume and Ferguson ho
of historical progress to Scotlan
forced them to differentiate ag
tion. In other words, commerc
In sum, then, the premise tha
the work of philosophers such
ognition of civil progress's self-c
is meant to preserve possessiv
even recognize the concept of r
seeds of its own destruction. I
ment humanity establishes the
progress, it also turns itself in
the individual both finally com
litical power, and reason - and
and decomposition. We should
philosophers considered the bo
sal reason, they nonetheless m
extreme suspicion. Colonial co
intimate relationship of civil
and degeneration.

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6. THE COLONIAL SYSTEM
In Hume's view, the rational pursuit of possessiveness remained, how

the only remedy for the individual's instinctive and irrational desire f
pire: "our primary instincts lead us, either to indulge ourselves in un
freedom, or to seek dominion over others: And it is reflection only, wh
gages us to sacrifice such strong passions to the interests of peace and
order."79 This remedy plays itself out on an international scale in Hume
cal philosophy:
Suppose, that several distinct societies maintain a kind of intercourse for mu

convenience and advantage, the boundaries of justice still grow larger, in pro
tion to the largeness of men's views, and the force of their mutual connexions.
tory, experience, reason sufficiently instruct us in this natural progress of hum
sentiments, and in the gradual enlargement of our regards to justice, in proport
as we become acquainted with the extensive utility of that virtue.80
In Hume's Utopian vision of the global order, commerce would become t

essary means for the expansion and the dissemination of the civil self,
Hume, in stark contrast to Macaulay, made clear cannot occur in a co
context. Doux commerce leads to the "mutual connexions" of national economies
and hence to the merchant's capacity to sympathize with strangers. The content
of this enlarged sympathy is respect for the property relationships that consti-
tute foreign cultures, an "enlargement of our regards to justice." Hence, "the
rise of politeness and learning" (or cosmopolitanism), which Hume claimed
such an international economy favors, entails an anthropological openness to
other property arrangements.81
Smith's The Wealth of Nations (1776) advances Hume's vision of a rational
possessiveness that would serve as an antidote to empire.82 With the develop-
ment of commerce, the state's raison d'etre ceases to be the establishment of
mere landed property and becomes instead the protection of free trade. When
the state achieves this, Smith noted, "all systems either of preference or of re-
straint [being] completely taken away, the obvious and simple system of natu-
ral liberty establishes itself of its own accord."83 The free market enables the
individual to pursue his natural passion for gain within civil society and hence
turns society into an expression of human nature, offering people "natural lib-
erty" in this sense. This liberty resembles freedom in the state of nature, but
when it is realized in a market economy, it leads not to a state of war but rather
to a utopia of ever-increasing production and appetitive fulfillment.
In The Wealth of Nations , the basic form of rational possessiveness is the
merchant's logic, the ancient "pedlar principle of turning a penny wherever
a penny was to be got."84 According to Smith, this rationality produces civil
society: "commerce and manufactures gradually introduced order and good

140.119.127.3 on Fri, 24 Dec 2021 19:58:30 UTC
government, and with them, th

inhabitants of the country, wh
war with their neighbors, and
human possessiveness had led
also to a global free market, th
society, however illegitimate in
common good.
One cannot stress strongly en
did not see colonial modernity
reflection not of a civil regard
ancient conquest economy. One
Wealth of Nations is to ensure t
ion over any given market or ap
chartering of merchant compan
the seventeenth centuries, Euro
the license to establish monopo
and the non-European world bu
this way, European states and
of an international free market
immediately after the publicati
and administrative relationship
which contemporaries widely
In other words, in the colonial
priated both the state and the
and myth of civil society.
Economic monopolies were ma
ness escaping the limits that c
Even as he praised the merchan
that the merchant's drive for
the European imperial system,
nopolizing spirit of merchants
to be, the rulers of mankind."8
tions of the merchant reflect
origins of European civil society
The Wealth of Nations plays ou
possession and the struggle for
conquest to be the single larges
Condorcet's Sketch for a Histor
(1795) likewise argued that col
closed the possibility of civil p
and commercial undertakings
trade monopolies, our treacher
color or creed, the insolence of

140.119.127.3 on Fri, 24 Dec 2021 19:58:30 UTC
and goodwill ... of the inhabitants."88 Like Dider

dorcet understood the behavior of colonial settle
as an expression of the degenerative tendencies
ferred to the settlers as "brigands," "governme
the cloak of place or privilege, to amass treasure
to be able to return to Europe and purchase titl
view, only a continent-wide revolution could b
sovereigns and corporations: "The nations of Eur
nopolistic companies are nothing more than a ta
to provide their governments with a new instrum
Condorcet imagined, after that revolution, an int
the rights and independence of non-European pe
Smith delineated the metropolitan consequenc
which Condorcet alluded. In order to do so, Sm
describing civil society in terms of an "artificial m
The monopoly of the colony trade . . . seems to have b

balance which would otherwise have taken place amo
of British industry. ... In her present condition, Gr
those unwholesome bodies in which some of the vit
which, upon that account, are liable to many danger
to those in which all the parts are more properly prop
great blood-vessel [i.e., colonial trade], which has bee
its natural dimensions ... is very likely to bring on t
upon the whole body politick.91
Ensuring that capital circulates naturally, accord

tion and production that emerges in the absence
free market compels each economic sector to gr
ers and hence self-interest to remain in a delica
good. In its relentless drive toward monopoly c
ness always threatens to throw this order into d
into a state of war that is veiled behind the myth
artificial man of civil society into an "unwhole
the disease of excessive and unrestrained posses
the state licenses corporate monopolies, it enabl
society into such a state of war, Smith declared:
are to the boasted liberty of the subject, of which
but which, in this case, is so plainly sacrificed to t
chants and manufacturers."92 Ideally, global com
for possession. It would be less an extension of th
antithesis. This ideal vision of a global doux com
Enlightenment - was a critical response to the e

140.119.127.3 on Fri, 24 Dec 2021 19:58:30 UTC
of European merchant corpora

globe from the monopolies im
time liberate the British and Fr
Colonial merchants and settle
cisely because they are figures
ruthlessness inscribes the viole
a variety of genres - from pol
and poetry - forces us to recon
the regime of capitalist proper
of eighteenth-century rhetoric
civilizing mission would replac
synecdoche for Britain's globa
Hence, Macaulay's text does n
a coda for Enlightenment und
period that precedes the "Minu
colonial modernity. Macaulay d
civilizing mission. On the contr
eral preservation of the barbari
did he demand a new policy w
civilize natives on a British m
rism displaces eighteenth-cent
property, contract, and civil s
diametric opposition to subseq
could not easily remedy colon
itself the mask of conquest.
NOTES
1. See Karen Kupperman, "Introduction: The Changing Definition of America,

American in European Consciousness, 1493-1750, ed. Kupperman (Chapel Hill, 1995), 1
22-23. On Henry Home, Lord Karnes, see Sarah Jordan, The Anxieties of Idleness: Idlene
Eighteenth-Century British Literature and Culture (Lewisburg, 2003), 143-45. On Guilla
Thomas François Raynal, see Antonello Gerbi, The Dispute of the New World: The His
of a Polemic, 1750-1900, trans. Jeremy Moyle (Pittsburgh, 2010), 45-49; and Ralph B
and José Antonio Mazzotti, "Introduction: Creole Subjects in the Colonial Americas
Creole Subjects in the Americas: Empires, Texts, Identities, ed. Bauer and Mazzotti (C
Hill, 2009): 1-57, 38. On Johan Gottfried Herder, see Anthony Pagden, "The Effacement
Difference: Colonialism and the Origins of Nationalism in Diderot and Herder," in A
Colonialism: Imperial Histories and Postcolonial Displacements, ed. Gyan Prakash (Prince
1995), 129-46; and Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin
Spread of Nationalism (New York, 1991), 60, who cites Aira Kemilainen, Nationalism: Pr
lems Concerning the Word, the Concept and Classification (Jyväskylä, 1964), 72-73.
2. 1 take the term from Pagden, "The Effacement of Difference," 134. On the topos
colonial degeneration in the Americas, see Bauer and Mazzotti, "Introduction"; and
Egan, "Creole Bradstreet: Philip Sidney, Alexander the Great, and English Identities
Creole Subjects in the Americas, 219-41. On Africa, see Rowan Strong, Anglicanism and
British Empire, c. 1700-1850 (Oxford, 2007). On India, see Strong; and Jordan and D

140.119.127.3 on Fri, 24 Dec 2021 19:58:30 UTC
Ghosh, Sex and the Family in Colonial India: The Makin

105. See also Pamela Cheek, Sexual Antipodes: Enlighte
of Sex (Stanford, 2003); and Sean Quinlan, "Coloni
Politics in Eighteenth-Century France," in Bodies in Co
in World History, ed. Tony Ballantyne and Antoinette
3. Aristotle, The Politics and The Constitution of
bridge, 1996), 14 (1253a). See Pagden, European Encoun
naissance to Romanticism (New Haven, 1993), 157, and
4. See Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in
186; and Roxann Wheeler, The Complexion of Race: Ca
Century British Culture (Philadelphia, 2000), 70. See
Novak, "Introduction," in The Wild Man Within: An
Renaissance to Romanticism, ed. Dudley and Novak (Pi
5. See White, 166; and Bauer, The Cultural Geograph
Empire, Travel, Modernity (Cambridge, 2003), 148-49.
6. See Wheeler, 37; and Bauer and Mazzotti, "Intro
7. See Anderson, 60.
8. Eighteenth-century philosophers did not define c
cal society, as twentieth-century political theorists
on the contrary identified it with political society.
the historical stage in which the state protects the
his right to property, and gains its legitimacy only f
divine right theory of monarchy. As a modern conce
period, between the seventeenth and the nineteen
State and Civil Society: Explorations in Political Theor
9. On this vision, see Sheldon Wolin, Politics and V
Western Political Thought (Princeton, 2004), 257-314;
dition, 2nd ed. (Chicago, 1998), 31.
10. Thomas Babington Macaulay, "Minute on Ind
and Poetry, ed. G. M. Young (Cambridge, Mass., 195
11. Macaulay, 723-24.
12. On colonial English studies, see Gauri Viswana
Literary Study in British India," Oxford Literary Revi
of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India (
13. Macaulay, 722.
14. On the civil self in the eighteenth century, see
the South Seas," The Eighteenth Century: Theory and
and Preserving the Self in the South Seas, 1680-1840 (
15. Denis Diderot, Histoire des Deux Indes [1770], i
Mason and Robert Wokler (Cambridge, 1992), 165-2
from Histoire philosophique et politique des établissemen
les deux Indes, 9 vols. (Neuchatel and Geneva, 1783)
in the Histoire, see Jonathan Israel, Democratic Enlig
Human Rights 1 750-1 790 (Oxford, 2011), 413-42; and
Empire (Princeton, 2003), 72-121.
16. For a discussion of the Enlightenment concep
Starobinski, Blessings in Disguise, or, The Morality of
17. See Adam Seligman, The Idea of Civil Society (N
and Andrew Arato, Civil Society and Political Theory
18. Diderot, Political Writings, 177.
19. See Albert Hirschman, The Passions and the Inter
ism before its Triumph (Princeton, 19 77).
20. Macaulay, 723.

140fff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff on Thu, 01 Jan 1976 12:34:56 UTC
21. John Locke, Two Treatises of G

350 (my emphasis).
22. Locke, An Essay Concerning H
ford, 1979), 67.
23. Locke, Two Treatises , 294. Se
Locke, Second Treatise of Governme
24. David Hume, "Of the Rise and P
Political, and Literary, ed. Eugene F
25. Hume, "Of the Origin of Gove
26. In opposition to the philosop
claim, of course, that possessiveness
munist Manifesto [1848; New York,
27. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan [16
28. Locke, Two Treatises, 350.
29. See Ellen Meiksins Wood, Libert
Thought from the Renaissance to En
30. Hume, A Treatise of Human N
ford, 1978), 568.
31. Hobbes, 117.
32. See Keith Tester, Civil Society (
33. See Ronald Meek, Social Scienc
which traces this argument, befor
34. Hume, Enquiries Concerning Hu
Morals, ed. Selby-Bigge and Niddit
35. Hume, "Of the Rise and Progr
36. See Macpherson, Political Theor
39. Hume, Treatise, 147-48. See Ed
Burke, ed. T. O. McLoughlin and J
the Revolution in France, ed. J. C. D
Wordsworth's Second Nature: A Stud
40. Locke, Two Treatises, 306 -7, 38
41. Locke, Two Treatises, 306, 308.
43. See Tester, 35, 44; and John Eh
(New York, 1999), 84-88.
45. For a history of the establishm
holders with secure tenures, farmer
waymen, and of course wage worker
see Christopher Hill, Liberty against
York, 1996), 19-43.
47. See Matthew Kramer, John Loc
Explorations of Individualism, Comm
A Discourse on Property : John Lock
48. Locke, Two Treatises, 291. See J
Foundations in Locke's Political Thou
50. See Tully, An Approach to Polit
96-117.
51. Hume, Treatise, 489. On Hume's theory of civil society, see James Livesey, Civil So-

140.119.127.3 on Fri, 24 Dec 2021 19:58:30 UTC
ciety and Empire: Ireland and Scotland in the Eighteent

2009), 154-76.
52. See Waldron, "The Advantages and Difficultie
erty," Social Philosophy and Policy 11, no. 2 (1994): 85-
53. Hume, Treatise, 491.
54. Hume, Enquiries, 195-96.
55. Hume, Enquiries, 195.
58. Hobbes. 90.
59. Hobbes, 101. See Wolin, 214-56.

60. Hume, Treatise, 489. See Frederick Whelan, Order and Artifice in Hume's Political
Philosophy (Princeton, 1985); and Robert Hoffert, Artifice as a Species of Nature: The Political
Philosophy of David Hume (Ithaca, 1974).
62. Hobbes, 9.
63. See A. P. Martinich, The Two Gods of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes on Religion and Politics
(Cambridge, 1992), 46; Leo Strauss, Spinoza's Critique of Religion (Chicago, 1997), 87; and
Svetlana Boym, Another Freedom: The Alternative History of an Idea (Chicago, 2012), 19.
64. See Wood, 218, 240, 242, 246-47, 251, 256, 262-63, and 276.
67. See David Fate Norton and Manfred Kuehn, The Foundations of Morality, m
The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Philosophy, Volume II, ed. Knud Haakonssen
(Cambridge, 2006), 939-86, 968-69.
68. Hume, Treatise, 533-34.
71. Locke, Two Treatises, 384-85; for §127, see Locke, Two Treatises, 352.
72. Hume, "Of the Original Contract," in Essays, 465-87, 469-70.
73. Hume, "Of the Original Contract," 471. See Patrick Riley, "Social Contract Theory
and Its Critics," in The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought, ed. Mark
Goldie and Robert Wokler (Cambridge, 2006), 347-75.
74. Diderot, Political Writings, 206. This passage is taken from the Histoire, 9:41.
75. See Israel, 233-47; and Fania Oz-Salzberger, "Civil Society in the Scottish Enlight-
enment," in Civil Society: History and Possibilities, ed. Sudipta Kaviraj and Sunil Khilnani
(Cambridge, 2001), 58-83.
76. Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society [1767], ed. Oz-Salzberger
(Cambridge, 1995), 17.
77. Ferguson, 20.
78. Ferguson, 201.
79. Hume, "Of the Original Contract," 480.
81. Hume, "Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences," 119. See Richard Boyd,
"Manners and Morals: David Hume on Civility, Commerce, and the Social Construction
of Difference," in David Hume's Political Economy, ed. Carl Wennerlind and Margaret Scha-
bas (New York, 2008), 65-85.
82. See Anthony Brewer, The Making of the Classical Theory of Economic Growth (New
York, 2010), 59-79.
83. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations [1776], 2
vols., ed. R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner (Oxford, 1976), 1:687.
84. Smith, 1:422.
85. Smith, 1:412.

140.119.127.3 on Fri, 24 Dec 2021 19:58:30 UTC
86. Smith, 1:348, 648. M. N. Pear

states and merchant corporations
trade off revenue for property ri
growth, such as monopolies for tr
trade summed up as mercantilism
Merchant Empires , ed. James Trac
87. Smith, 1:493. See Sankar Muth
Companies: Theorizing 'Globalizati
no. 2 (2008): 185-212.
88. Nicolas de Condorcet, Sketch f
Mind [1795], in Political Writing
2012), 1-147, 127. See Emma Roth
and Smith," The Economic Journal
Adam Smith, Condorcet, and the En
89. Condorcet, 128.
90. Condorcet, 128.
91. Smith, 1:604-5.
92. Smith, 1:660.
93. See Wood, 283, 286.

140.119.127.3 on Fri, 24 Dec 2021 19:58:30 UTC

Dispossession and Civil Society The Ambivalence of Enlightenment Political Philosophy

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Dispossession and Civil Society: The Ambivalence of Enlightenment Political Philosophy

Author(s): Siraj Ahmed

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44729980

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By the late eighteenth century, the topos of colonial degeneration - or criolian

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scholarship already adduced, th

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titude toward property and civil society, which th

1. FROM THE "MINUTE" TO THE HISTOIRE

The exemplary statement of the British Empire's civilizing mission,

But Macaulay's vision of colonial rule's relationship to the civil self

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of his native country which justif

While in Macaulay's early nine

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has a particular denotation, referring to the ind

If Man in the State of Nature be so free, as has been said

own Person and Possessions, equal to the greatest, and s

When the individual consents to the social contrac

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The passion for empire turns

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property. Indeed, intellectual progress is itsel

In transgressing the Law of Nature, the Offender declares himself to live by

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ous to Mankind, the tye, which is

For Locke, in contrast to Hobb

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one's labor remain one's sole possession when i

Hume's intervention in Locke's attempt to naturalize property and civil societ

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Hume claimed, following both

erty, where no body else has any preceding claim and

Justice [the constant Will of giving to every man his own],

Both philosophers held that before socialization, the

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cisely because he believed that human possessive

Nature (the Art whereby God hath made and governes

or State, (in latine Civitas) which is but an Artificiali Man

The commonwealth is the artifice of man as man and na

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But where the philosophical

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degeneration of the civil self in

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6. THE COLONIAL SYSTEM

In Hume's view, the rational pursuit of possessiveness remained, how

Suppose, that several distinct societies maintain a kind of intercourse for mu

In Hume's Utopian vision of the global order, commerce would become t

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government, and with them, th

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and goodwill ... of the inhabitants."88 Like Dider

The monopoly of the colony trade . . . seems to have b

Ensuring that capital circulates naturally, accord

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of European merchant corpora

1. See Karen Kupperman, "Introduction: The Changing Definition of America,

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Ghosh, Sex and the Family in Colonial India: The Makin

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