%0 Journal Article
%T "THE EXTRAVAGANT HUMOUR OF STOCK-JOBBING¡± AND THE MEMBERS OF THE ENGLISH BODY POLITIC, 1690-1720
%A Matthew David Mitchell
%J Essays in Economic & Business History
%D 2012
%I The Economic & Business History Society
%X The title of a 1697 pamphlet about London¡¯s stock-jobbers referred to the ¡°extravagant humour of stock-jobbing,¡± using the imagery of contemporary medical knowledge to suggest that stock-jobbers represented a potentially unbalancing element within the English body-politic. Members of different social orders, however, perceived differently the threat stock-jobbers allegedly posed. Landowners, merchants, craftworkers, bureaucrats, and the officers of joint-stock companies all saw the stock-jobbers perils specific to their own social statuses and ambitions. The few defenders of the stock-jobbers therefore also sought to demonstrate the benefits that dealings joint-stock companies could offer to the body-politic as a whole as well as to all its members in particular.
%U http://www.ebhsoc.org/journal/index.php/journal/article/view/49