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The Rhetoric of the Market: Adam Smith on Recognition, Speech, and Exchange

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Andreas Kalyvas  and
Ira Katznelson
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Extract

We probe the connections linking the market, speech, and sympathy in the work of Adam Smith, stressing how individuals strive for social esteem and ethical credit while competing in markets. We demonstrate how Smith approached speech and rhetoric as constituting attributes of markets, the modern analogue of previous institutional foundations for social order. Thus, markets are not simply, or exclusively, arenas for the instrumental quest by competitive and strategic individuals to secure their material preferences. They are a central mechanism for social integration derived not from strategic self-interest but from the inexorable struggle by human agents for moral approbation. Part One retranslates the master concept of Moral Sentiments into a modern theory of recognition. Part Two considers how Smith, in his Rhetoric, established the mutual constitution of recognition and speech. Part Three carries this understanding to his Jurisprudence, the most integrative of his texts, which relocates these impulses inside the market itself.

The pivotal second chapter of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, “Of the Principle which gives occasion to the Division of Labour, ” opens with the oft-cited claim that the foundation of modern political economy is the human “propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.” This formulation plays both an analytical and normative role. It offers an anthropological microfoundation for Smith's understanding of how modern commercial societies function as social organizations, which, in turn, provide a venue for the expression and operation of these human proclivities.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 63 , Issue 3 , Summer 2001 , pp. 549 - 580
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2001

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References

We wish to thank David Johnston and Nadia Ubinati, as well as the members of the September 1999 American Political Science Association Annual Meeting panel on which we presented a first draft of this paper (Eileen Hunt, Louis Hunt, Damon Linker, Patricia Nordeen, and especially our commentator Steven Kautz) for their thoughtful reading and advice.

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17. Ibid., pp. 16, 27, 69.

18. Ibid., p. 39.

19. Ibid., pp. 49, 75–76, 109, 325–27. Here we disagree with Jeffrey Young who argues that sympathy is exclusively an other-regarding principle in contrast to egoism, which is a self-regarding norm. Smith explicitly argued that sympathy is the main category with which we can judge and evaluate both the actions and passions of others as well as those of ourselves. Young, Jeffrey T., Economics as a Moral Science: The Political Economy of Adam Smith (Lyme, NH: Edward Elgar, 1997), p. 31Google Scholar.

20. Ibid., pp. 27, 49.

21. Obviously, this approach is vulnerable to charges of subjectivism, emotivism, and individual arbitrariness. To avoid these criticisms, as the one expounded by Sir Gilbert Elliot, Smith introduced the idea of the “impartial spectator” gradually over the course of the six editions of Moral Sentiments, thus introducing a mechanism of objectivity and impartiality into his account. D. D. Raphael nicely has depicted and recounted this successive elaboration of the concept of the “impartial spectator. ” See Raphael, D. D., “The Impartial Spectator, ” Essays on Adam Smith, ed. Skinner, Andrew S. and Wilson, Thomas (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), p. 91Google Scholar; and Skinner, Andrew Steward, A System of Social Science: Papers Related to Adam Smith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), pp. 60–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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32. Ibid., p. 131.

33. Ibid., p. 112.

34. Ibid., pp. 112, 110.

35. Ibid., p. 114.

36. Ibid., pp. 58, 75. The relationship between sympathy, esteem, and praise is thoughtfully considered in Haankonssen, , Legislator, pp. 49–50, 52–53, 57–58Google Scholar.

37. Bagolini, Luigi, “The Topicality of Adam Smith's Notion of Sympathy and Judicial Evaluations, ” Essays on Adam Smith, p. 106Google Scholar. For a similar point, see Mizuta, Hiroshi, “Moral Philosophy and Civil Society, ” Essays on Adam Smith, p. 121Google Scholar.

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40. Ibid., p. 116.

41. Ibid., p. 114.

42. Ibid., pp. 20, 159.

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44. G. W. F. Hegel, “The Oldest Systematic Programme of German Idealism, ” in Harris, Henry S., Hegel's Development: Toward the Sunlight (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972)Google Scholar; Natural Law: The Scientific Ways of Treating Natural Law, its Place in Moral Philosophy, and its Relation to the Positive Sciences of Law, trans, and ed. Knox, T. M. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1975)Google Scholar; and ‘System of Ethical Life’ [1802–1803], and ‘First Philosophy of Spirit’ [Part III of the System of Speculative Philosophy 1803–1804], trans, and ed. Harris, H. S. and Knox, T. M. (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1979)Google Scholar.

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46. Tugendhat, Ernst, Vorlensungen über Ethik (Frankfurt-am-Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1993), pp. 295–96, 308, 309Google Scholar.

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49. Our discussion takes sustenance, even as our emphasis differs, from Endres, A. M., “Adam Smith's Rhetoric of Economics: An Illustration Using ‘Smithian’ Compositional Rules, ” Scottish Journal of Political Economy 38 (1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Endres demonstrates the relevance of Rhetoric for Wealth by arguing that the form of Wealth is better illuminated through the categories Smith developed in Rhetoric. For him, Wealth is a polemical book utilizing the rhetorical form of discourse in tandem with a scientific one in order to persuade its audience. This suggestive interpretation, we believe, understates the full significance of Rhetoric for reading Wealth. By contrast to Endres, we stress how Rhetoric not only is a form of argumentation but an integral part of Smith's economic theory. Thus, what Carman severed, we seek to recombine.

50. Here we are in agreement with John C. Bryce who correctly argued that one should approach “the Rhetoric and Theory of Moral Sentiments as two halves of one system, and not merely at occasional points of contact. ” See Bryce, John C., “Introduction, ” Rhetoric, p. 19Google Scholar.

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52. Ibid., p. 62.

53. Ibid., p. 36.

54. Moral Sentiments, p. 336Google Scholar.

55. Rhetoric, p. 139Google Scholar.

56. Moral Sentiments, p. 232Google Scholar. War, for the ancients, was an exceptional and extraordinary expression of public virtue. In normal times, speech and oration, were its equivalents.

57. Ibid., p. 123.

58. This element of appreciation of ancient rhetoric is totally missing from Wilbur Samuel Howell's otherwise instructive presentation of Smith's theory of rhetoric. In his account, the neglect of this element of historical continuity is accompanied by an underestimation of the underlying desire for recognition. See Howell, Wilbur Samuel, “Adam Smith's Lectures on Rhetoric: An Historical Assessment, ” Essays on Adam Smith, p. 21Google Scholar.

59. Jurisprudence, p. 413Google Scholar.

60. Ibid., pp. 229, 235, 414–15 and Wealth, p. 496Google Scholar.

61. Jurisprudence, p. 412Google Scholar.

62. Moral Sentiments, pp. 228–29Google Scholar.

63. Ibid., p. 216.

64. Wealth, pp. 410–13Google Scholar.

65. Jurisprudence, pp. 405, 486–87Google Scholar.

66. Rhetoric, pp. 150–52Google Scholar and Jurisprudence, pp. 407, 413–14Google Scholar.

67. Jurisprudence, p. 459Google Scholar.

68. Ibid., p. 538.

69. Ibid., pp. 538–39.

70. Ibid., p. 528.

71. Rhetoric, p. 25Google Scholar.

72. Ibid., p. 128.

73. Ibid., p. 132

74. Moral Sentiments, p. 56Google Scholar.

75. Andrew Skinner correctly has observed that one of the bonds linking Smith's moral theory to his writings on rhetoric is the relation between speech and sympathy. Although Skinner refers to the two distinct types, he fails to distinguish them clearly. See Skinner, , “Language, Rhetoric, and the Communication of Ideas, ” System, p. 19Google Scholar.

76. Rhetoric, pp. 56–58Google Scholar.

77. jurisprudence, pp. 352 and 493–93Google Scholar.

78. Moral Sentiments, p. 336Google Scholar.

79. Rhetoric, p. 137Google Scholar.

80. Ibid., p. 136.

81. Moral Sentiments, p. 62Google Scholar.

82. In this way, the market transforms potentially disruptive forms of conflict for recognition into regularized, ordered competition.

83. Rhetoric, p. 133Google Scholar.

84. Moral Sentiments, p. 50Google Scholar.

85. John Dwyer correctly has argued that Smith should be read as an integral part of the civic humanist tradition and the neo-Harringtonian perspective because, “Wealth of Nations, continued to reflect a recognisably civic programme…[and] the moral vocabulary of the civic tradition. ” See Dwyer, John, “Virtue and improvement: the civic world of Adam Smith, ” in Adam Smith Reviewed, ed. Jones, Peter and Skinner, Andrew S. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 191, 195Google Scholar.

86. Jurisprudence, p. 401Google Scholar.

87. Moral Sentiments, pp. 50–51Google Scholar.

88. Ibid., p. 51.

89. Wealth, p. 342Google Scholar.

90. Moral Sentiments, p. 120Google Scholar.

91. Ibid., p. 123.

92. Ibid., p. 61.

93. The central role that disrespect plays in Smith's works also can be gleaned from his steady concern to penalize insult and intentional forms of humiliation and degradation. A person's injured reputation is as grave as physical injury and the violation of property. Smith even would go as far as to allude to a natural right to reputation. See Jurisprudence, pp. 399, 480–81Google Scholar.

94. Ibid., p. 527.

95. Of course, Smith was fully aware of the limits of his model of social integration based exclusively on the market. For this reason, he introduced the state as an important external coercive mechanism, understanding it to be, in the last instance, responsible for implementing order when the market fails peacefully to achieve integration. See Wealth, pp. 265–67, 493–95, 708–710, 781–86Google Scholar.

96. We do not mean by this claim to overlook Smith's well-known evolutionary and progressive model of history, according to which human societies have followed the four stages of “hunting, pasturage, farming, and commerce. ” We do think, however, that next to this typical Enlightenment image of history, Smith alluded to a more nuanced and rich philosophy of history. For the first claim, see Jurisprudence, p. 459Google Scholar.

97. In fact, this theoretical proposition powerfully competes with Max Weber's famous thesis about the Protestant origins of capitalism. Weber, Max, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Talcott Parsons and intro. Giddens, Anthony (London: Routledge, 1995)Google Scholar; “The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism, ” From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, trans., ed. and intro. Gerth, Hans H. and Mills, C. Wright with a New Preface by Turner, Bryan S. (London: Routledge, 1991)Google Scholar; “Confucianism and Puritanism, ” The Religion of China. Confucianism and Taoism, trans, and ed. Gerth, Hans H. (New York: The Free Press, 1951)Google Scholar.

98. Moral Sentiments, pp. 172–73Google Scholar. Similarly, Smith's allusions to the republican origins of modern markets challenge Albert Hirschman's claim that self-interest was perceived as a solution to the problem of violent passions. Whereas traditional political thought struggled to channel, repress, or displace the dangerous drive for honor and greatness, liberalism discovered a more peaceful and controllable human attribute, self-interest, that, according to Hirschman, easily could be controlled by new institutional devices, such as the market. In this view, the perilous passion of glory, on the one hand, and calm self-interest deployed for accumulation and wealth, on the other, represent two different principles that define the core of two distinct, even opposite, historical epochs. The transition to modernity thus signifies a shift from glory to interests. It is difficult to agree with Hirschman's interpretation, particularly his reading of Smith as an exemplar of this cultural shift, in light of Smith's grounding of self-interest in the deeper, more essential, human drive for mutual recognition and social admiration. See Hirschman, Albert O., The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before its Triumph (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977)Google Scholar.

99. Moral Sentiments, p. 166Google Scholar.

100. For example, although he applauded the pacification of Western societies, for example, he never hid his attraction to the moral dimension of war. See Moral Sentiments, p. 239Google Scholar; Wealth, pp. 706–707Google Scholar; Moral Sentiments, p. 232Google Scholar.

101. Jurisprudence, p. 540Google Scholar.

102. Ibid.

103. Ibid.

104. Ibid., p. 541.

105. Ibid.

106. Rhetoric, p. 151Google Scholar.

107. Ibid., p. 152.

108. For an early discussion of the “Adam Smith Problem” see Morrow, , Adam Smith, pp. 1–12Google Scholar. For a more recent critical presentation of this literature see Teichgraeber, Richard F. III, “Rethinking Das Adam Smith Problem,” Journal of British Studies 20 (1981): 106–110CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

109. Silver, Allan, “‘Two Different Sorts of Commerce’ — Friendship and Strangership in Civil Society, ” in Public and Private in Thought and Practice, ed. Weintraub, J. and Kumar, K. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997)Google Scholar.

110. Another attempt is made by Henry C. Clark. Writing in a historicist vein, he claims that Smith transcended this alleged tension by considering how commercial societies enhance possibilities for communication and conversation, thus making each individual increasingly connected to, and interested in, others, thus both softening and humanizing egoistic self-interest. This “solution” pays insufficient regard to the link between the market and the struggle for recognition, thus eliding the impact of rhetoric within the market. In setting the market aside the zone of social intersubjectivity, he implicitly reproduces the conventional understanding of the divide in Smith's writings. Clark, Henry C., “Conversation and Moderate Virtue in Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, ” The Review of Poliics 54 (1992):194–95, 209Google Scholar.

111. Teichgraeber, , ‘Free Trade’ and Moral Philosophy, pp. 168–69, 176–78Google Scholar and Young, Economics as a Moral Science, pp. 20–28, 203–207Google Scholar.

112. This interpretation is close to Robert D. Cumming's claim that Moral Sentiments is a book concerned with the moral dimension of modern economic activities. He correctly defined this activity as “rhetorical” in the sense that the drive to accumulation is based on an anterior human need to persuade the other of our merit and worth. However, Cumming bifurcates Smith's work, arguing that in Wealth Smith abandoned this line of interpretation, looking instead at a totally different issue: unintended social consequences and not human motives. We have tried to show that the principles informing Moral Sentiments inform Wealth as well. See Cumming, Robert D., Human Nature and History, vol. 2 (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1969)Google Scholar.