 As Albert O. Hirschman (1977) argued, philosophers in early modern Europe went to great lengths to position commerce, banking, and the accumulation of wealth in a positive light, and thus overturn the harsh judgments of Aristotle and Aquinas. The widespread doctrine of doux commerce cast the pursuit of pecuniary interests in an innocent light and tamed the other more untoward passions for political power or lust. The core idea was that the love of gain—relishing the ever-increasing pile of coins—eclipsed inclinations for other pleasures or more indolent pursuits. This in turn prompted industriousness, a virtue that had already been firmly established by Hobbes and Locke, among others. Furthermore, as Locke had argued, money served to reduce the affront to God in the event that plums or meat were left to rot rather than brought to market. That said, the modern era was a far cry from Locke’s vision of the American frontier. Many merchants made vast sums from importing luxuries—coffee, tea or tobacco—and some European nations imposed sumptuary laws or hefty taxes to reduce this trade. Several philosophers argued that the consumption of luxuries was unethical, Joseph Butler and Claude-Adrien Helvétius for example (see Berry 1994). Mandeville and Hume were two of the first to argue that the economic benefits of luxuries outweighed the potential deleterious effects (see Susato 2006). Hume also noted that goods that had once been luxuries, such as paper, had become not just conveniences but even necessities. Adam Smith condemned sumptuary laws as hypocritical, since the extravagant consumption by the aristocrats who set the laws tended to be far more ruinous to the well-being of the state (Smith 1776 [1976: 346]).