The Political Economy of Opinion
Mark Schmeller
University of Chicago
Even the most avid rational-choice economist will admit that estimates
of "value" often take a variety of intangible perceptions and concerns
-- credit, confidence, faith, local esteem, reputation, and opinion --
into account. And historians have given us good reasons to suspect
that such "social currencies" had a particularly strong purchasing power
in the antebellum market. This paper builds upon these insights,
but sends them in a different direction: if credit, confidence, faith,
esteem, reputation, and opinion were so essential to the estimation of
worth, what can the estimation of worth tell us about the ways in which
"public opinion" was estimated? Can antebellum political-economic
theory be read as a species of public opinion theory? Did different
visions of economic development coincide with divergent conceptions of
public opinion? Long before the advent of randomly sampled opinion polls
and focus groups, what might the fluctuating value of a banknote or a government
debt certificate have told Americans about the state of public opinion?
This paper offers a brief introduction to this "political economy of opinion."
I will show how the expanding use of paper money and credit, the development
of banking, and the financing of public debts generated a growing awareness
of the force of public opinion. Specifically, I will read the arguments
surrounding Alexander Hamilton's system of public finance as arguments
about the desired role, function, and power of public opinion in American
politics and society.