Scandinavian Householding Economy and the Science of General Householding

Discussion

Akseli Virtanen:

"The science of General Householding is about all the ground rules that in some way affect the happiness of people – except those that concern those rights, connections and obligations by which states are dependent of one another, as these belong to the state wisdom [statsklokheten]” (Berch, 1747: 11). Berch was the first professor of the science of oeconomie (Jurisprudence, Oeconomie & Commerciel) in Sweden appointed at Uppsala University in 1741. The first chair in ‘Oeconomie, Politia und Cameralwisseschaften’ was established in 1727 in Halle, Germany.

The attempt to set up an economy at the level of the state found its form in the eighteenth century Sweden-Finland organized around the question of the Oeconomie or Allmänna hushållningen, that is, ‘general householding’ or ‘general economy.’6General economy was the general framework for organizing everything that directly and indirectly pursued the internal material and spiritual welfare of the state: it was about “all the ground rules that in some way affect the happiness of people.”7The ‘internal welfare’ of the state refers here to the distinction between the positive general householding or Politie (Polizei in German, police in French and English), the means for increasing the forces of the state from within, and Statsklokheten or Politik (politique in French, politics in English), which ensures and develops the forces of the state through a system of alliances and organizing an armed apparatus.

General householding had three parts which included all the measures, departments and facilities aiming to improve general well-being and making sure that everything in the state took place according to the appropriate order:

1. Politia (Ordningswärket) looked after the order that the happiness and prosperity of the state required among its members, in their endeavours and in their way of life. Its tasks were to see to the order of society, take measures to increase the population and guide their activities towards worthwhile sources of livelihood, take care of health, vaccinations etc. The happiness of people consisted of the bounties of spirit, body and fortune:

(a) Politia concerning anima bona facilitated and organized the religious service, upbringing and education; it looked after the way of life and supervision of those deeds that had to do with will, as well as public entertainment, luxury and games;

(b) Politia concerning corporis bona concentrated on the issues of health: diseases, epidemics, and taking care of tidiness, housing, living and controlling the use and trade of medicines;

(c) Politia concerning fortunae bona took care of general security and comfort, made sure that vagabonds and beggars are not on the streets, and included the issues of censorship, means of transport, roads and postal office.

2. Oeconomie focused on those rules on which the means of living had to be based on in order not to harm one another and to produce prosperity to society as a whole: farming, mining operations, handicrafts, trade.

3. Cammar Hushållningen again attained, collected and managed state income. It dealt with those means by which the necessary revenues may be collected and the circulation of money may be directed in order to enhance the beneficial ways of living, commerce and trade. The aim was not only to make the taxing department rich but to make sure that the inhabitants are in such a condition that the state may collect revenues from them. In short, general economy included everything.9It included the positive, active, productive aspects of life like education and useful occupations. But it also included the negative aspects of life: the poor and the unemployed, diseases, epidemics, accidents.

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The aim was to develop those elements constitutive of individuals’ lives in such a way that their development also fosters that of the strength (resources) of the state. There was a new historical outlook where the nation state had emerged as a reality which needed to hold out in a competitive grid and a disputed geographical area for an indefinite length of historical time. By organizing in detail the relations of living, working, trading and desiring beings to others and to themselves, people were supplied with ‘little extra life’ while simultaneously the state was supplied with ‘little extra strength’. The happiness of the people (understood as survival, life and improving living – the state’s internal strength) was, in other words, not only dependent on fertile land and fair climate or other nature’s conditions, but on the exercise of healthy householding. It was the origin of the prosperity and well-being in a state.

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For the Renaissance ‘economists’ the ability of money to measure commodities and to be exchanged (its exchangeability) rested upon its intrinsic value: fine metal was in itself a mark of wealth. It had a price because its intrinsic character was an indication of the wealth of the world: it was precious above all other things because it was itself wealth. For this reason it could be used as a measure of all prices and for this reason it could be exchanged (used as a substitution) for anything that had a price. The ‘theory of wealth’ contained in eighteenth century general householding broke down this circle of preciousness. The objective of general householding was to increase the power of the state.

One of the most important aspects of this power was wealth and its main sources were thought of as the colonies, the conquest and the surplus on the balance of trade. But wealth was not, as often claimed, simply equated with specie. Wealth – the one pole constituting the happiness of the state – was rather split into elements (objects of needs and desire marked by necessity, utility, pleasure or rarity) that can be substituted for one another by the interplay of the coinage that signifies them. In other words, the analysis is turned upside down: money can be used as a measure of wealth, and it receives a price because it could be exchanged (used as a substitution): gold is precious because it is money and money has value because it has properties (physical, not economic) that render it adequate for the task of representing wealth. Its ability to measure wealth and its capacity to receive a price were qualities that derived from its exchanging function. Money became now the instrument of the representation of wealth and wealth a content represented by money: wealth became now whatever was the object of needs and desires (marked by necessity, utility, pleasure or rarity), and money gained the power of representing all possible wealth. All wealth was coinable – by the means of which it entered circulation. Money was, in other words, that which permitted wealth to be represented, and without it wealth would remain immobile, useless or, as it were, ‘silent’. The value of things will therefore no longer proceed from the metal itself, but establishes itself according to the criteria of utility, pleasure or rarity which combines the forms of wealth (objects of needs and desire) one with another while money permits their real exchange.

The mercantilist theory of value made it possible to explain how certain objects can be introduced into a system of exchanges, but value was based on a total system of equivalency and the ability of things to represent one and another. This allows Foucault to conclude that for the mercantilists value was a sign. Therefore the emphasis in general householding is on the positive balance of trade: money is needed to represent wealth, that is, to attract it, to bring it in from abroad or manufacture it at home, and it is needed to make wealth pass from hand to hand in the process of exchange. It is important to import money and trade alone is able of producing this effect. The money accumulated is not intended to sleep and grow fat, but it is attracted into a state only so that it may be consumed by the process of exchange. Money became wealth only in so far as it fulfilled its representative function (in replacing commodities). The relations between wealth and money were now based on circulation and exchange and no longer on the preciousness of metal."

(http://www.ephemerajournal.org/sites/default/files/4-3virtanen.pdf)