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The “Protective State” Approach to the “Productive State” in The Wealth of Nations: The Odd Case of Lay Patronage

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2009

Charles G. Leathers  and
J. Patrick Raines
Charles G. Leathers
Affiliation:
University of Alabama, Box 870224, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487–0224
J. Patrick Raines
Affiliation:
School of BusinessUniversity of Richmond, Richmond, VA 23173
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Extract

From Jacob Viner (1927) to David A. Reisman (1998), Adam Smith's departures from an advocacy of laissez-faire in The Wealth of Nations have been interpreted by a number of scholars. In this paper, we examine one of the oddest, and perhaps least noticed, of those departures. That was Smith's defense of the civil law of lay patronage in the established Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which appears in his discussion of the social benefits and potential social costs of institutions for religious instruction. A lay patron was a non-cleric individual who held the right under civil law to select the minister of a local parish church. In Smith's time, roughly two-thirds of the lay patrons in Scotland were wealthy landowners and one-third were crown officials. In addition, municipal corporations (cities) and universities held some patronage rights.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , December 2002 , pp. 427 - 441
Copyright
Copyright © The History of Economics Society 2002

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