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• Associate Editors
• Editorial
• Bibliographical Essay: Economics and Ideology: Aspects of the Post-ricardian Literature
• I: Political Economy
• The Classical Model of Political Economy
• Modernization, Ideology, and Economic Freedom
• Individualism Vs. Collectivism?
• The Industrial Revolution and Literacy
• Parliamentary Enclosure and Uprooted Labor
• Smith's Critique of Monopoly
• Ricardo and the “dual Development”
• Ricardo On Money
• Inflation and Political Crisis: Germany
• Inflation and Unemployment
• Government and Inflation: the Mccracken Report
• II: Concepts of Liberty
• Liberty and Its Components
• Is the Right to Freedom Vacuuous?
• Liberty, Slavery, and Utilitarianism
• Individualism, Freedom, and Society
• Liberty and Habeas Corpus
• Should Britain Have a Bill of Rights?
• Locke, Women, and Freedom
• Locke, Women, Freedom, and Individualism
• Locke, Property, and Individualism
• Children, Freedom, and Individualism
• Liberty and Mental Illness
• Sismondi and Liberty
• Mill: On Liberty
• Mill, Freedom, and Happiness
• Freedom of Speech and Moral Development
• Freedom In Kant, Hegel, and Marx
• Marx, Freedom, and Property
• Neoconservatives, Liberty, and Equality
• Freedom: the Politics of Justice and Existence
• Liberty and the American Revolution
• American Libertarians
• III: Economics and Public Policy
• How Economics Influences Political Theory
• Why Democracies Choose Deficits
• Inflation and the Welfare State
• Monetarism and the Depression
• Asian Monetary History: Gold & Silver
• Specie Money Vs. Antibullionists
• Inflation Effects On Capital
• Consumption of Public Health Services
• Factory Regulation and Vested Interests
• Poverty Programs and Government
• The Costs of Regulating Market Information
• Rent Regulation
• Engels On Economics
• IV: Social Analysis
• The Depoliticization of Society
• Is Philosophy Politically Subversive?
• Plato's Republic As a Political Dystopia
• Cicero and Modern Political Philosophy
• The Roman Jurist Gaius and Social Thought
• The Myth of Social Hierarchy
• Contract and Political Thought
• Private Vs. Public: the Domain of Freedom
• Montaigne and the Value of Tolerance
• Commerce, Utility, Character, and Republicanism
• Quintin Skinner and Western Political Thought
• Public Choice
• Editorial Board
• Contents of Vol. 33 No. 2
• Contents of Vol. 33 No. 3

Modernization, Ideology, and Economic Freedom

Joyce Appleby

• San Diego State University

“Modernization Theory and the Formation of Modern Social Theories in England and America.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 20 (April 1978): 259–285.

Modernization theory has increasingly come to be seen as a failure. Its basic assumption is that societies develop from traditional to modern through evolutionary stages. Traditional societies, in this approach, tend to stress community while modern socieities place more stress upon individualism, self-development, and economic growth. The basic flaw of the theory is that it does not explain how ideology changes as economic development proceeds.

In point of fact, economic development does not uniquely determine a country's ideology. This may be seen by contrasting social thought in England and America during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The development of England during the seventeenth century was characterized by the rise of a stronger central government and at the same time the prevalence of a greater degree of economic freedom. Economists of the time tended to lavish praise on the benefits of trade. The tendency is especially noteworthy in the writings of Nicholas Barbon and, of course, in the far more widely known John Locke.

After 1689, however, the direction of British social thought changed. The Whig oligarchy in power emphasized national unity and economic growth through state direction. As measures such as the establishment of the Bank of England (1694) became law, the earlier emphasis on the benefits of trade and individualism ended. Writers now reverted to the older balance of trade theory, which stressed the need for a country to accumulate as much gold and silver as possible.

In the American colonies, the situation was different. Here centralized direction of the economy did not become the basis of an ideological movement. Government interferences with trade were bitterly resented, and American writers strongly favored individualism. For example Thomas Paine opposed social hierarchy and favored limited government. He viewed order as arising from individualism, not as something to be centrally imposed.

The contrast between Britain and America shows that economic development is consistent with different ideologies. The simple cause-and-effect relation between them assumed by modernization theory must be rejected.