Overview

A fascinating retelling of the first banking and financial collapse in eighteenth-century France. The Scottish economist John Law has been described as the architect of modern central banking. His ""System,"" established in Regency France between 1716 and 1720, saw the founding of a bank issuing paper money and the establishment of state commercial and colonial enterprises aimed at consolidating public debt. What at first seemed like financial wizardry, however, resulted in rampant speculation and, ultimately, economic collapse. In The Politics of Utopia, historian Arnaud Orain offers a provocative rereading of this well-known episode. Starting his story in the seventeenth century, Orain reconstructs the figures and ideas, long predating Law, that anticipated and laid the groundwork for the System, which, he argues, is best understood as a failed social utopia aimed at the total transformation of society. Overturning familiar narratives of this seismic event, this book rewrites a stunning chapter in economic history by dealing with the cultural, colonial, religious, and political dimensions of the (in)famous System up to the French Revolution, revealing new lessons for today's fraught financial landscape.

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9780226825359

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Reviews

“In this magisterial retelling of the rise and fall of France’s first bank, Arnaud Orain, one of the most distinguished French historians of economic thought, reveals how Law’s infamous System represented a grand modern project of transforming all of society under an omnipotent ruler. Blending economic, cultural, literary, political, and intellectual history, Orain’s narrative is gripping, fascinating, and shockingly original.” * Dan Edelstein, author of On the Spirit of Rights * “The literary and visual propaganda that fueled one of the great follies of premodern finance also reveals the deeply flawed political and social project that lies behind it. The Politics of Utopia is an original and timely study.” * Francesca Trivellato, author of The Promise and Peril of Credit *

Author Information

Arnaud Orain is an economist and historian who is directeur d’études at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. Andrew Brown is a prolific translator from French to English. He has translated works by Pierre Bourdieu, Tzvetan Todorov, and Jean-François Lyotard, among many others.

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