Burke, Paine, and the language of assignats

I argue that the implicit relationship, in Wealth of Nations, between the new economics and a 'violent' rhetorical practice and theory - together with the ambivalent attitude towards new practices which at once augment and threaten 'real' wealth or 'real' meaning - forms one of the major sites of struggle between Burke and Paine at a critical juncture in the transition from agrarian to bourgeois capitalism.