Tumblr crosspost (11 July 2019)

[anghraine]

Not at all related to the former vagueblogging, and not actually vague:

I gather that Courtney Milan writes good books, but she’s arguing on Twitter that “in trade” == “in the slave trade” and ???

??????

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It's all the weirder because the context was P&P, where 'in trade' includes figures like Mrs Bennet's father—a rural attorney. Darcy's grandfather would be much more likely to be involved in slavery, IMO.

Comments

[elperian]

As an economist...that's not what trade meant at all during the time Austen was writing, or in general. When writers referred to the slave trade, they called it such (Adam Smith does this in The Wealth of Nations, but even earlier, in the Salamanca School, which represents the earliest roots of modern economics, there's no such tradition of trade = slave trade). If actual economists aren't writing about 'trade' = 'slave trade' (especially given the breadth of topics within trade and more generally industry, I highly doubt it was used that way in layman's terms.

[anghraine]

Yeah, I don't know much about economics per se, but IMO the literary usage is perfectly clear on that point. Someone in trade could be involved in the slave trade, but most of the time it refers to lawyers/attorneys and moderately prosperous shopkeepers and such. And she was specifically talking about the Bingley fortune, when we know the Bingleys come from the North—you don't have to make much of a leap to guess at how a family in the North could come by a large fortune in trade.

[el_staplador]

Yes! My family was in trade. (Wool, to be precise.) It was absolutely not in the slave trade, because Quakers tend to have opinions about that.

(And then there's 'trade' as slang for a sex worker, which is something else again...)

[lizbee]

Please, can we start a meme that by "in trade" Austen intended the audience to understand the relevant characters were sex workers?

(Apologies to anghraine for using an icon from her least favourite adaptation, but well, how can I not?)