Montesquieu’s Two Models of Commerce: Greece–England vs. Carthage–Spain

An influential reading of Montesquieu’s political economy holds that his understanding of commerce is based on a sharp distinction between the ancient and the modern. This article argues that Montesquieu’s reflections on commerce cannot be reduced to a simple celebration of “commercial modernity,” and that in fact he developed a transhistorical typology that cut across the ancient/modern divide. The article reconstructs the evolution of Montesquieu’s theory of commerce across his major works, from the Persian Letters through the “middle writings” to The Spirit of the Laws. I show that the debate between Usbek and Rhedi in the Persian Letters already reveals two contrasting patterns of commerce, respectively represented by the Greeks and Spaniards. In the middle writings, Montesquieu begins to pay greater attention to the commerce of England and Carthage while emphasizing the distinction between ancient and modern commerce. This ancient/modern divide, however, is largely supplanted in The Spirit of the Laws with the introduction of two enduring models of commerce: the Greece–England model, characterized by reciprocity, industry, and the diffusion of liberty, and the Carthage–Spain model, defined by monopoly, conquest, and the promotion of despotism. By pairing ancient and modern examples in these two models, Montesquieu suggests that it is the spirit animating commerce, and not its chronological context, which determines its social and political effects.