Preface

Summary

This study began as an inquiry into the historical roots, causes and effects of individualism and economic liberalism. The motivating idea was simplistic, but instrumental in getting the project ahead. I believed that institutions thrive to the extent that they are useful and decay when a viable and better alternative emerges. This familiar idea has often been abused or trivialised, or both, so I decided to confront it by analysing an important case of institutional change: the demise of the system of grain market regulation that developed in medieval and early modern Europe. The uniformity of the European experience is striking, as is the subsequent integration and deregulation of grain markets during a century or so of reform, which began with the Enlightenment in continental Europe (though earlier in England). The logic was this: the integration of markets can do what regulated markets are supposed to accomplish and sometimes do accomplish – make markets perform better. Improved performance refers to the waning of market power and, more importantly, the suppression of price volatility. Prohibitively high transport costs ruled out market integration but when technological progress in the transport of goods and information lowered costs the integration of markets was stimulated. As a consequence, we should expect both market power and volatility to decline and centuries of price-stabilising regulation to come to an end.