[captain_price7]

> The author pesters us with an imputation on Hume as an analytically bankrupt political thinker but fails to deliver any concrete proof.

"analytically bankrupt political thinker" - I didn't think the author implied something so strong.

"but fails to deliver any concrete proof" - Not sure what constitutes "proof" in conversation like this. But I think the author did show that Hume came close to understanding the many problems of his society- racism, divorce, wealth inequality- but his over-skepticism led him to dismiss any social change. The central point is that while Hume was skeptical of change, he wasn't equally skeptical of established order.

I'm not that big fan of this article either. But I think you're being unnecessarily harsh.

[ethn]

That’s a strange interpretation of Hume. Hume was a radical, he doubted causality itself. He only defends modern political institutions to the extent that they provide some utility in pursuance of “liberty, order and peace”. If they don’t he welcomed revolution.

For instance he disavowed the contemporary practice of British Mercantilism. In general, his radical political thought inspired America through Smith and thereby Payne.

Hume is against wealth inequality he’s just merely against perfect symmetry of possessions preventing barter and thereby preventing cooperation—-as stated in Political Discourses.

His views on marriage are cherry-picked, he’s pro-divorce. Again, his point is simply that in a marriage with children, one can expect the original passion to have been loss, so that passion alone cannot sustain a marriage. However if that marriage bears children, for the sake of the children, he recommends to abstain from the divorce for the development of the children.