Political economy and the mirror of ‘otherness’: moral and foreign political models in the works of the Spanish economist T. Anzano (1768-1795)

Abstract

This article focuses on two aspects of the works of the leading Spanish economist of the second half of eighteenth century Tomás de Anzano which are concerned with the idea of ‘facing otherness’: the opposite interests of merchants and consumers and big landowners and agrarian workers on the one hand; and the impact of some foreign influences in Spanish economic thought on the other. The analysis is contextualized within the realm defined by Anzano’s moralistic approach to subsistence goods markets related to the question of their liberalization which embodied scholastic concepts and was essentially influenced by Jacques Necker’s doctrine. Consequently, it goes beyond economic issues and addresses social, cultural and political questions that are usually neglected by the analysis of the historians of political economy. Among other outcomes the article demonstrates how the British representative political system could be a desirable utopia to Spanish Enlightenment.