Vanderlint, Jacob (Died 1740)

Abstract

A timber merchant at Blackfriars, London, about whose life little is known except that in 1734 he published Money Answers All Things, or an Essay to make Money Plentiful among all Ranks of People and increase our Foreign and Domestick Trade. This work appears to have received little attention during the 18th century until Dugald Stewart referred to it as anticipating the Physiocrats on the single tax of land rent and on free trade. Stewart compared him also with David Hume ‘in point of good sense and liberality’ (Stewart 1794, pp. 342, 343, 346). McCulloch used Stewart’s opinions on several occasions (e.g. 1845, p. 162) and may have provided the basis for Marx’s charge (1878, p. 327, cf. 1867, p. 124, n.1) that ‘Hume follows step by step, and often even in his personal idiosyncrasies’ Vanderlint’s work.