The 1688 British Revolution: Political Economy and Radical Changes
Most accounts of England’s Glorious Revolution assert that the event was conservative and had little to do with political economy. This article has a contrary opinion and contends that 1688 – 89 period was a radical revolution and that one of its most radical components was a revolution in political economy. Since the 1650’s many English radicals and Whigs maintained that labor created wealth and therefore wealth was potentially everlasting. They argued that the government should support economic development in the manufacturing sector in particular. James II, by contrast, committed himself to an alternative economic model. Deeply rooted in both the Royal African and East India Companies, James and his political allies believed that only land could produce wealth which was therefore necessarily finite. England’s economic future could only be guaranteed through acquisition of an overseas territorial empire. James and his great East India Company therefore promoted war in South Asia and imperial conflict with the Dutch. Whigs rejected this strategy and made a great deal to finance William III’s invasion of England. In the 1690’s they sought to reverse James’s economic policies by promoting redistributive taxation, attempting to destroy the East India and Royal African companies’ monopolies, and by creating the Bank of England which would promote the development of the manufacturing sector. The 1688-89 Revolution then shifted England’s political economic orientation from land to manufacturing.
Keywords
- England
- XVIIth century
- Bank of England
- East India Company
- revolution
- James II
- political economy
- Whigs
- Tories