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karen m. rosenthall Rice University A Generative Populace Benjamin Franklin’s Economic Agendas Benjamin Franklin emerges as a point of origin for many dif - ferent aspects of United States culture; he is rarely missing from debates about the texts and authors that catalyzed the tradition of Amer - ican let ters, and he is also a Founding Father of republican ideology (Davidson 134; Wood 215–17). When it comes to economics, Franklin’s fiscal models have been invoked across a spectrum of work on political economy. Karl Marx critiqued T. R. Malthus’s An Essay on the Principle of Populati f on or its “schoolboyish, superficial plagiary” (qtd. in Huzel 20) of Franklin’s populationist economic models, among those of others. Max Weber- cred ited Franklin’s Autobiograph wi y th embodying “the spirit of capitalism,” thereby invoking his iconic life narrative as the progenitor of an entirely different set of political economy ideals (9–11). These divergent analyses demonstrate the flexibility of Franklin’s economic rhetoric. Although his works recognized the potential of agrarian republicanism, Franklin - ’s eco nomic theories and popular writings also used the limitations of a - n agri cultural economy to push for commercialism in the colonies and early Republic.
Early American Literature – University of North Carolina Press
Published: Nov 17, 2016
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