La representación del comercio en España en la primera mitad del siglo XVIII: cambio cultural, agencia y efectos institucionales

This chapter departs from the observation that the rise of commerce had a particularly marked impact on European culture from the beginning of the eighteenth century, and studies the changes in the representation of commerce in Bourbon Spain based on the discursive link established between decadence, «denaturalisation» and passive trade. The attempt to break with this vicious circle prompted the development of the «science of commerce», in such a way thar affected the construction of the imaginary of the nation and shaped the referents with which the authorities developed the first Bourbon reforms.
The text outlines a series of lines of transformation in three relevant dimensions: the mutual infuence between the reorganisation of commerce and the re-foundation of political community as a nation; the coining of a new individualist anthropology, shared by the authorities and the active merchants; and the incorporation of merchants in the political decision-making bodies. The approach ends by showing how the actions of some publicists (Gerónimo de Uztáriz, Pedro Rodríguez de Campomanes), Bourbon administration officials (José Patiño, the Marquis of Esquilache) and some prominent merchants (Juan de Goyeneche, Francisco de Craywinckel) contributed to improving the status of commerce, but also ended up creating new publics with a growing capacity for critical opinion about the meaning and for collective intervention in the direction of the reforms.