This book is, without doubt, a brilliantly written, impressively detailed, and gap-filling new contribution to the relation of economic theories and French anti-slavery and pro-slavery narratives from 1771 to 1848. Having recently received the prestigious Joseph J. Spengler Best Book Prize (2021) of the History of Economics Society, Calculation and Morality has already earned some well-deserved praise and it would be reasonable to think that it is going to earn more in the near future. The book has a highly circumscribed focus and within this focus the narrative goes easily and explores several layers of the relevant public and private discourse that eventually led to the abolition of slavery in the French Antilles in 1848.

The narrative is woven around some basic ideas about the relation of justice and utility and shows how various interpretations of this rather theoretical relation were tied to different prioritizations of economic and moral aspects mirrored by the writings of abolitionists and colonizers. As Caroline Oudin-Bastide and Philippe Steiner point out, calculations entered into the domain previously ruled by political and moral arguments and came to be seen as a rhetorical tool whose power cannot be ignored. From this moment, it was not about whether or not to use calculations in social discourse but about which calculation to use to scaffold one’s argument. The authors do an excellent job in presenting the arguments of abolitionists such as Pierre Samuel Du Pont, Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Marquis de Condorcet, and James Anderson, and anti-abolitionists such as Émilien Petit, Dubuc de Marentille, François-Pascal Delattre de Montfleury, and Pierre-Victor Malouet. The book shines in many places. One of these is the seventh chapter, which portrays how both abolitionists and anti-abolitionists relied upon narratives concerned with self-interest to persuade their readers. For the first group, the poor productivity of slave work was evidence that slaves know their self-interest very well. To work more or better for their masters would be contrary to their self-interest. For the anti-abolitionists, the poor productivity of slave work was evidence that slaves do not know their self-interest very well and thus they do not work more or better for their masters. That would improve the situation of their masters and consequently that of the slaves. But if they do not see this simple connection, how would they thrive on their own in the much more complex market of free laborers?

The account would benefit and be further enriched by drawing on relevant examples from outside the book’s strictly limited scope. Let me illustrate this with two examples. The first is the story behind the well-known French Romantic painting The Raft of the Medusa (the original title was Scène de Naufrage) by Théodore Géricault. The painting was inspired by a tragic incident that was widely discussed all around Europe. When bound for Saint-Lois, the capital of the French colony of Senegal, the naval frigate Méduse wrecked off the coast. There were not enough boats to rescue everyone from the sinking ship so it was transformed into a raft. The plan was to tow the raft to the shore that was sixty-two miles away, but after only a few miles the rope was cut by the towers, and approximately 150 people were left to their fate in the ocean on a partially submerged raft. The other three ships and the frigate’s six boats continued their voyage towards Senegal. Without proper food, water, and sheer space, all hell broke loose on the raft. People attacked, killed, and even ate each other in their desperate attempt to stay alive as long as possible. Others chose to kill themselves to end the unbearable suffering. Thirteen days later the raft was found with only fifteen people alive. The incident came to be seen as a blood-soaked stain on the newly rediscovered pride of the French monarchy. Some claimed that Louis XVIII supported the appointment of the captain, Viscount Hugues Duroy de Chaumereys, who did not have enough experience to lead such a grand-scale mission to reclaim Senegal in accordance with the Treaty of Paris. While this is without proper evidence, it seems plausible that the rich and powerful (including the captain) entered the boats first and the poor were left behind. This wealth-based arbitrary selection of who lives and who dies reached its symbolic peak in the cutting of the rope, which might be seen as breaking the promise of the rich to support the poor. The tragic naval incident was, for the contemporary public mind, a metaphor for a great divide in French society. The relevance of Géricault’s visualization of the incident for the topic of Calculation and Morality seems evident. Despite having no information on Black passangers, Géricault put a Black man at the focal point of his painting. The man rises above the other survivors and waves a red fabric to raise the attention of a ship that passes by. Why would the painter do that? The painting was made in 1818–19. The artistic decision was made to emphasize that not only white French paupers but Blacks as well are in a terrible social situation, being exploited, betrayed, and left behind. Géricault put the Black figure very close to his white brethren also waving a fabric. What is the message of this detail? It emphasizes the togetherness of all people, the fact that they are on the same mission of bettering their social conditions. The Black figure rises above the others and waves most energetically, which conveys the message that Black people were betrayed the most and they needed to be saved the most. It is very hard to imagine a more direct visual claim for abolitionism. It relied on a well-known incident and the interpretation of the incident as a social metaphor; this threw the question of emancipation in the middle of this highlighted discursive field.

The other example is related to Demerara. The authors briefly mentioned the colonial territory of Demerara, but they did not mention that Demerara (1832) was the title of the second volume of Harriet Martineau’s Illustrations of Political Economy, a series of short tales intended to indirectly promote Smithian liberal political economy. In this volume, Martineau told the story of Alfred, a rich white young man who recently came back to his father’s plantation in Demerara, after studying in England. Alfred notices that the slaves show no enthusiasm and apparently have no pride in working for their masters, but when working for their own interests they are different. They are more enthusiastic, attentive, and proactive. Alfred decided to conduct an experimentum crucis that would decide whether free labor or slave labor is the more efficient. When the mill broke down, Alfred offered a new kind of employment and benefit scheme (wage, cloth, food rations) to those who otherwise worked as slaves. The repair went very well. Even Alfred’s plantation-owner father was impressed by the great work done by the workers. Martineau argued that labor should not be against the self-interest of the laborer but always in accordance with her self-interest to reach maximum efficiency. But Martineau did not refer only to numbers but also to morals. She tinted her anti-slavery message with moral colors by speaking about the “incalculable amount of human suffering” (Martineau Reference Martineau1832, p. 143) of slave laborers and by explicitly stating that “Man has no right to hold Man in property” (p. 141). Demerara (1832) was published nine years after the crushed Demerara rebellion of 1823 and one year before the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 that ended slavery in territories ruled by the United Kingdom. The name “Demerara” was symbolic. It was inseparably tied to wider discussions about whether the British should or should not abolish slavery. And Martineau’s pro-Smithian and anti-protectionist piece was intentionally put into the context of these discussions, which suggests that it might be relevant for understanding the deep social layers of the question of emancipation in the first half of the nineteenth century. Oudin-Bastide and Steiner mainly focused on excavating the ideas of economic and political thinkers, administrators, social reformers, and colonizers, but in this period the public attitude towards slavery has also been shaped by the ideas of artists, educators, and many more people who found different ways to reach out to the masses.

Calculation and Morality deserves to become a classic. Its systematic structure, accessible language, great summaries, and well-focused narrative all make it suitable for university courses. Students of the history and sociology of economic thought, social reform, and civil rights movements will find an easy-to-follow introduction into a complex social question. History of economics needs more books like this. The volume treats a sensitive social issue without becoming anachronistic by reconstructing the past through the socially constructed lens of contemporary moral standards or without shying away from the topic as something possibly politically incorrect or taboo. The book really does explore how French thinkers argued for and against slavery from 1771 to 1848 in their published writings as well as in their private correspondence. The general takeaway is how arguments on both sides—despite their versatile and changeful nature—embraced calculation as a rhetorical tool. Both sides manipulated numbers and moral ideas while working towards completely antagonistic aims. This takeaway is, without doubt, useful for every student of social sciences.