ABSTRACT
In David Hume’s philosophy, most of politics and economic behavior is a matter of custom and habit, not reason and rationality. To understand politics and economics is to place them in a history of the customs and habits of which they consist. These customs and habits are not static: they change over time for both endogenous and exogenous reasons. They provide an answer to the question often raised about skeptics like Hume: how will you live in the absence of truth and knowledge? The answer is: on the basis of custom and habit.
