Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T07:47:16.218Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Adam Smith: Scottish moral philosopher as political economist*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2010

Donald Winch
Donald Winch
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

By contrast with those for whom the Wealth of nations marks the origin of economics as an autonomous science, this article argues that Smith's significance lies in his attempt to repossess political economy by restoring its links with the sciences of morals and natural jurisprudence — those concerns which are characteristic of his writings as a moral philosopher. The case proceeds by re-examining two topics derived from these sciences. The first begins with Smith's ungenerous treatment of his mercantile predecessors as a clue to what he believed was distinctive about his own system. Smith was antagonistic to precisely those rationalist, utilitarian and reductive models of behaviour based on self-interest that he is held to have in common with mercantile writers; he was answering rather than joining those who felt it necessary to isolate and legitimate rational economic self-seeking. The second topic turns on Smith's natural jurisprudence: his application of the criteria of natural justice when criticizing mercantile policies and institutions, where the emphasis falls on the negative injunctions of commutative justice rather than the positive ones of distributive justice. The separation of the ethics of the Theory of moral sentiments from the Wealth of nations, therefore, tells us more about Smith's successors than Smith himself.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , March 1992 , pp. 91 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 ‘Biographical anecdotes of the late Dr. Smith’, The Times, 16 Aug. 1790.Google Scholar

2 This question was tentatively raised at the Glasgow celebrations in 1976 in my comment on Black's, R. D. C. ‘Adam Smith in historical perspective’, in Wilson, T. and Skinner, A. S. (eds.), The market and the state (Oxford, 1976), pp. 67–72;Google Scholar and at greater length in Adam Smith's politics; an essay in historiography revision (Cambridge, 1978)Google Scholar

3 Schumpeter's, Joseph belief that ‘the garb of philosophy is removable’ from economics, and that ‘economic analysis has not been shaped at any time by the philosophical opinions that economists happened to have’, provides the rationale for his History of economic analysis (New York, 1954). P. 31. See alsoGoogle ScholarLetwin, W. L., The origins of scientific economics; English economic thought, 1660–1776 (London, 1963):Google Scholar ‘A subject is not opened to scientific enquiry until its technical aspect has been sundered from its moral aspect… there can be no doubt that economic theory owes its present development to the fact that some men, in thinking of economic phenomena, forcefully suspended all judgements of theology, morality, and justice, were willing to consider the economy as nothing more than an intricate mechanism, refraining for the while from asking whether the mechanism worked for good or evil’ (pp. 147–8) Although Joyce Oldham Appleby is more interested in ideology than science, she adoputs a similar position in her Economic thought and in ideology seventeenth-century England (Princeton, 1978).Google Scholar Whether seen as science or ideology, this perspective has, of course, a much longer pedigree, featuring as it does in explanations for the rise of capitalism or the emancipation of a liberal economic ideology from its moral and political integument in the work of Karl Marx and his followers, as well as that by Max Weber, Richard Tawney, Karl Polanyi, C. B. Macpherson, Louis Dumont and many others. E. P. Thompson's version turns on the replacement of ‘moral economy’ by political economy, where the latter is ‘disinfested of intrusive moral categories’; see ‘The moral economy of the English crowd in the eighteenth century’, Past and Present, L (1971), 89–90.Google Scholar All such schema depend on a view of precisely when and how ‘modern’ or ‘capitalist’ society actually emerged; for an account which shows that in England at least economic individualism can be traced back to at least 1250, well before any period assumed in the above literature, see Macfarlane, Alan, The origins of English individualism; thefamily, property and social Transition (Oxford, 1978)Google Scholar.

4 The arguments that underpin this position are considered in my Adam Smith's politics, chapters 1 and VIII. For recent restatements of the view that Smith cannot be considered as a political theorist see Stimson, Shannon C., ‘Republicanism and the recovery of the political in Adam Smith’, Critical issues in social thought (London, 1989), pp. 91–112,Google Scholar where the conclusion turns on her belief that Smith's theory of history overwhelms his theory of politics by refusing ‘to lend a genuine efficacy to political action’. See also Xenos, Nicholas, ‘Classical political economy: the apolitical discourse of civil society’, Humanities in Society, III (1980), 229–42,Google Scholar for whom ‘the end of government has become encapsulated within the system of political economy itself’, leaving Politics ‘totally subordinate to political economy’ (pp. 236–7).

5 See, e.g. Meyers, Milton L., The soul of modem economic man; ideas of self-interest, Thomas Hobbes to Adam Smith (Chicago, 1983), p. 120.Google Scholar Meyer's conclusion, if not style of argument, has some smilarities with that of Albert Hirschman, for whom also Smith provides the end of a story of how the passions might be deployed to control interests; see The passions and the interests (Princeton, 1977), pp. 100–13Google Scholar.

6 For my own encounter with this viewpoint see ‘Adam Smith and the liberal tradition’, in Haakonssen, K. (ed.), Traditions of liberalism; essays on John Locke, Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill (Sydney, 1988), pp. 83–104.Google Scholar

7 This, and all subsequent citations, refers to the Glasgow edition of the works and correspondence Adam Smith, using the conventional abbreviations.

8 In part at least, reconstructing Smith's ‘science of a legislator’ was the object of my Adam Smith's politics, but the politics loomed larger than the natural jurisprudence. I have also argued this case with special reference to Smith's views on the corn trade in ‘Science and the legislator; Adam Smith and after’, Economic Journal, XCIII (1983), 501–20.Google Scholar For a fuller account that covers the whole field of the regulations of‘police’ in its relationship to Smith's jurisprudence see Haakonssen, K., The science of a legislator; the natural jurisprudence of David Hume and Adam Smith (Cambridge, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 It is dealt with in Hutchison, T. W., ‘Positive’ economics and polity objectives (London, 1964), especially chapter 1Google Scholar.

10 Ia In his Lectures on rhetoric and belles lettres Smith praised Machiavlli as ‘of all Modern Historians the only one who has contented himself with that which is the chief purpose of History, to relate Events and connect them with their causes without becoming a party on either side’; but see also his treatment of ‘internal’ causes in history, namely the influence of motives and the effect of events ‘on the minds of the chief actors’. With regard to the moral role of history Smith emphasised that ‘the facts must be real, otherwise they will not assist us in our future conduct’, a statement that ought to be noted by those who stress the conjectural status of Smith's use of history: see LRBL, pp. 91, 93, 114.

11 The distinction between the ‘science’ and ‘art’ of political economy belongs to the 1830s and 1840s, and was often associated with criticism of Smith for confusing the two; see ‘Higher Maxims: happiness versus wealth in Malthus and Ricardo’, in Collini, S., Winch, D., and Burrow, J., That noble science of politics; a study in nineteenth-century intellectual history (Cambridge, 1983), PP 65–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 As is most fully argued by Campbell, T. D., Adorn Smith's science of morals (London, 1971)Google Scholar; see also Raphael, D. D., ‘Adam Smith: philosophy, science, and social science’, in Brown, S. C. (ed.), Philosophers of the Enlightenment (Brighton, 1979), pp. 77–93.Google Scholar This is not to deny the hortatory content of TMS, though it seems significant that Smith's final advice to students was to regulate their conduct by any one of the available non-licentious moral codes; see TMS, VII. ii.4.5.

13 See, however, Robertson, J., ‘The legacy of Adam Smith; government and economic development in the Wealth of nations, in Bellamy, R. (ed.), Victorian liberalism; nineteenth-century political thought and practice (London, 1990), pp. 15–41Google Scholar for a more sophisticated argument in favour relying on WN alone.

14 As good examples published over a lengthy period see Morrow, Glenn R., The ethical and economic theories of Adam Smith (New York, 1923)Google Scholar; Macfie, A. L., The individual in society (London, 1967); andGoogle ScholarSkinner, A. S., A system ofsocial science (Oxford, 1979).Google Scholar As a result of the diligence of the editors of the Glasgow edition, of course, we have a large number of suggested parallels between WN and TMS.

15 When giving his lectures Smith did refer students to TMS; see LJB, p. 401. But in his published work the only cross-reference occurs in the ‘Advertisement’ to TMS, where WN is mentioned as the realized part of his original plan to publish ‘an account of the general principles of law and government’.

16 A useful compendium can be found in Coleman, D. C. (ed.), Revisions M mercantilism (London, 1969).Google Scholar Coleman has returned to the subject in recent yean in two articles which criticize Smith's interpretation of mercantilism: see ‘Mercantilism revisited’, Historical Journal, XXIII (1980), 773–91; andGoogle Scholar‘Adam Smith, businessmen, and the mercantile system in England’, History of European Ideas, IX (1988), 161–70Google Scholar.

17 The phrase ‘unplanned miscellany’ can be found in Coleman's 1988 article, p. 164.

18 The only explicit references to Hume's economic opinions in WN are a neutral reference to Hume on paper money (II.ii.96) and a positive endorsement of Hume on the rate of interest (II.iv.9). The lectures on jurisprudence contain a fuller reference to Hume's economic essays; see LJA, p. 507 and implicitly elsewhere, though also register a doubt as to whether Hume, when writing on paper money, has not fallen into mercantile error.

19 See the letters 150, 151, 152, 153 and 154 from Hume, Hugh Blair, Joseph Black, William Robertson, and Adam Ferguson in Corr., pp. 186–94.

20 See his statement to Sir William Pulteney that: ‘I have the same opinion of Sir James Stewart's Book that you have. Without once mentioning it, I flatter myself that every false principle in it, will meet with a clear and distinct confrontation in mine.’ Corr., p. 164.

21 As summed up by Steuart's statement that: ‘In treating every question of political oeconomy I constantly suppose a statesman at the head of government, systematically conducting every part of it.’ See Inquiry into the principles of political oeconomy, edited by Skinner, A. S. in 2 volumes (Edinburgh, 1966), I, 122.Google Scholar In denying the usefulness of ‘mercantilist’ as a description of Steuart's position I am taking issue with Anderson, Gary M. and Tollison, Robert D., ‘Sir James Steuart as the apotheosis of mercantilism and his relation to Adam Smith’, Southern Economic Journal, LX (1984), 456–68;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and following the interpretation of Skinner, A. S. in ‘Sir James Steuart: author of a system’, Scottish Journal Political Economy, XXVIII (1981), 20–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Those mentioned in WN are as follows: John Locke, Thomas Mun, and Bernard de Mandeville. From the earlier draft and LJ it is possible to add references to Joshua Gee and Jonathan Swift (see LJA, pp. 392–4) together with the judgement that ‘allmost all authors after Mun [1664]’ (up to Hume?) have defined wealth as specie (LJA, p. 300). In WN (IV. i. 35) there is a reference to ‘some of the best English writers on commerce’, but it prefaces a remark about how they allow their recognition that goods constitute wealth ‘to slip out of their memory.’ But Smith's library contained a fair sample of the works of the ‘best English writers’, and he makes use of their findings on specific matters: e.g. Josiah Child (WN, V.i.e.9. 11–12), Mathew Decker (‘an excellent authority’, WN, IV.v.a.20), Charles Smith (‘ingenious and well-informed’, WN, IV. ii. 20; IV. v. a. 4). Joseph Harris has been suggested by the editors of the Glasgow edition as a pervasive source on money and other matters.

23 In LJA Smith says that Locke gave the system ‘somewhat more of a philosophicall air and the appearance of probability by some amendments’; see LJA, p. 381 and repeated in LJB, p. 508.

24 See Black, R. D. C., ‘Le theorie delta popolazione prima di Malthus in Inghilterra e in Irlanda’, Le teorie della popolazione prima di Malthus, a cura di Gabriella Gioli (Milan, 1987), pp. 47–69.Google Scholar

25 The locus classicus of the opinion that Smith merely synthesized and rarely surpassed the best work of his predecessors can be found in , Schumpeter'sHistory of economic analysis, pp. 183–94, 557–8;Google Scholar see also p. 361 where Smith's treatment of mercantile writings is described as ‘unintelligent criticism’, and the judgement on p. 376: ‘If Smith and his followers had refined and developed the “mercantilist” propositions instead of throwing them away, a much truer and much richer theory of international economic relations could have been developed.’ For a recent and extensive attempt to document a similar view, though without Schumpeter's condescension, see Hutchison, T. W., Before Adam Smith; the emergence of political economy, 1662–1776 (Oxford, 1988)Google Scholar.

26 , Schumpeter, once more, is the main source of the charge: see History of economic analysis, 184–6.Google Scholar For evidence of the slowness with which WN actually made its way in the world see Willis, K., ‘The role in parliament of the economic ideas of Adam Smith, 1776–1800’, History of Political Economy, XIV (1979). 505–44;CrossRefGoogle ScholarRashid, S., ‘Adam Smith's rise to fame; a re-examination of the evidence’. The Eighteenth Century, XXIII (1982), 64–85; andGoogle ScholarTeichgraeber, R. F., ‘“Leas abused than I had reason to expect): the reception of the Wealth of nations in Britain, 1776–90’, Historical Journal, XXX (1987), 337–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 See Corr., pp. 187, 190, 192, 193.

28 See e.g. Heckscher, E., Mercantilism (London, 1935), I, 286–315; and R. H. Tawney's introduction to the reprint ofGoogle ScholarWilson, T., Discourse upon usury (London, 1925)Google Scholar.

29 By Appleby, Joyce Oldham in Capitalism and a new social order (New York, 1984), pp. 19–23.Google Scholar

30 The best example of this position can be found in Appleby's, Joyce OldhamEconomic thought and ideology in seventeenth-century England; see pp. 183–93, 258, 272–3Google Scholar where she speaks of the ‘inexorability of human beings acting out of self-interest’, of the use of ‘mechanical and impersonal’ models, of the concern with the ‘lawfullness of necessity’, Locke's ‘utilitarian conception of honour’, and the daring use of Hobbesian assumptions and ‘predictable laws of human behaviour’ as features of mercantile thinking that Smith adopted, though apparently in depleted form. Appleby relies to a large extent on the work of C. B. Macpherson on ‘possessive individualism.’ For some incidental comments on , Macpherson's view of Smith see my review article on ‘The Burke-Smith problem and late eighteenth-century political and economic thought’, Historical Journal, XXVIII (1985), 232–9;Google Scholar and for some criticisms of Appleby's misunderstanding of Smith from the same standpoint, ‘Economic liberalism as ideology: the Appleby version’, Economic History Review, XXXVIII (1985), 287–97Google Scholar.

31 As several recent commentators have noted: see especially Home, T. A., ‘Envy and commercial society; Mandeville and Smith on “private vices, public benefits“’, Political Theory, IX (1981), 551–69; andGoogle ScholarCastiglione, D., ‘Mandeville moralized’, Annali della Fondazione Luigi, XVII (1983), 239–90Google Scholar.

32 See Essays on philosophical subjects, pp. 250–1.

33 See Burrow, J. W., Whigs and liberals; continuity and change in English political thought (Oxford, 1988), chapter III.Google Scholar

34 I have benefited from Michael Ignatieff's highly perceptive comparison of , Rousseau and , Smith in The needs of strangers, (London, 1984),Google Scholar chapter IV, and the related article he has written on ‘Smith, Rousseau and the republic of needs’, in Smout, T. C. (ed.), Scotland and Europe, 1200–1850 (Edinburgh, 1986), pp. 187–206. See alsoGoogle ScholarDickey, L., ‘Historicizing the “Adam Smith problem”: conceptual, historiographical and textual issues’, Journal of Modern History, LVIII (1986), 579–609Google Scholar which stresses the 1790 changes, though evaluates them differently.

35 Sec e.g. Dumont, L., From Mandeville to Marx: the genesis and triumph of economic ideology (London, 1977), p. 61.Google Scholar

36 See Raphael, D. D., Adam Smith (Oxford, 1985), chapters III and V.Google Scholar

37 The term ‘sub-rational’ is that of Jacob Viner; see The role of providence in the social order (Princeton, 1972), p. 79.Google Scholar

38 See the compendium of such cases assembled by Rosenberg, N.. ‘Some institutional aspects of the Wealth of nations’. Journal of Political Economy, LXVIII (1960), 557–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 See , Coleman, ‘Adam Smith, businessmen, and the mercantile system’, p. 167.Google ScholarGeorge, J. Stigler makes similar criticisms of Smith's failure to follow through with the self-interest principle in his ‘Smith’s travels on the ship of state’, in Skinner, A. S. and Wilson, T. (eds.), Essays on Adam Smith (Oxford, 1975), pp. 237–46.Google Scholar For an attempt to show, however, that Smith was a full-blooded ‘public choice’ theorist see Anderson, Gary M., ‘The butcher, the baker, and the policy-maker: Adam Smith on public choice, with a reply by Stigler’, History of Political Economy, XXI (1989), 641–60. Neither Stigler nor Anderson find it necessary to refer to TMS when interpreting WNCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 See Haakonssen, K., Science of a legislator, pp. 85, 89, 97.Google Scholar

41 See Raphael, D. D., ‘Hume and Smith on justice and utility’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, LXXII (1972–1973). 101–3.Google Scholar On the ‘agreeable’ notion of desert and its inadmissability within any desirable or workable system ofjustice see Hume, D., Enquiries concerning the human understanding and concerning the principles of morals, ed. by Selby-Bigge, L. A. (Oxford, 2nd edn, 1902), pp. 193–5Google Scholar.

42 Support for this interpretation can also be derived from Smith's favourable comments on ‘the gradual descent of fortunes’ in England in LJA p. 196.

43 See Millar, John, Historical view of the English government (London, 1812), IV, 136Google Scholar

44 Compare this with Emmerich de Vattel's definition in Le droit des gens (Paris, 1863), III, 153:Google Scholar ‘Le règlement fondamental qui determine la manière dont I'autorite’ publique doit etre exercée est ce qui forme la constitution de l'Etat.’