- Josias Tucker
The rev. Josias Tucker (1713 — 1799), Dean of Gloucester, was an English
pamphlet eer on economic and political, as well as some religious subjects. In thehistory of economics he is remembered as a thinker who, in has been determined well after the fact, prefigured some ideas given great currency byAdam Smith , though for a century after his death he was dismnissed as a pamphleteer writing controversial ephemera on questions of passing contemporary interest. [A revision in his assessment was in Walter Enerest Clark, "Josiah Tucker, Economist: A Study in the History of Economics (New YOrk: Columbia University Press) 1903.] In political theory he was an opponent of thesocial contract theory which held all the mainstream writers of his day.Tucker was an advocate for increase in British population, to the extect that he advocated a tax of bachelors; he welcomed immigrants and regretted the emigration to America. He embraced the
free market , writing againstmonopoly in all its forms including the exclusive rights of overseas trading companies like the East India Company, decrying resatrictive guild rules of apprenticeship, theNavigation Acts and other impediments to the rule of the unfettered marketplace.He opposed warfare on economic grounds.
His assertion as early as 1749 that the American Colonies would seek independence as soon as they no longer needed Britain has brought him to the attention of American historians. He consistently wrote in favour of American independence through the American Revolutionary War.
A biography is in the introduction to Robert Livingston Schuyler, "Josiah Tucker: A Selection from his Economic and Political Writings" (New York:Columbia University Press) 1931, which reprints seven of Tucker's scarce pamphlets, including two important ones, "The Elements of Commerce and Theory of Taxes" (privately printed, 1755 [Only three copies are known to survive.] ), which the French economist and
Physiocrat , Turgot translated as "Questions sur le commerce", and "A Treatise Concerning Civil Government"Notes
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