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PROGRESS AND PROSPERITY IN ADAM SMITH’S NATURAL LIBERTY: FANCIES OF MANKIND
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 December 2017
Abstract:
In this essay I aim to understand how Adam Smith predicted the progress and prosperity of a commercial society and analyze the main attributes of his natural liberty system. I examine the meaning and implications of prosperity in Smith’s thought. Finally, I analyze the role of the division of labor and parsimony in the overall process of societal advancement.
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References
1 I refer to Smith’s Wealth of Nations as “WN” and his Theory of Moral Sentiments as “TMS” throughout the essay. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations [1776], eds. R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner, Vol. II of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith, (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1981); Smith, Adam, The Theory of Moral Sentiments [1759], eds. Raphael, D. D. and Macfie, A. L., Vol. I of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith, (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1982)Google Scholar.
2 In doing so I make no claim that these books were entirely consistent. Yet I am recognizing that the so-called Das Adam Smith Problem has been broadly rebutted and attenuated. Also, we cannot properly grasp Smith’s vision without considering both contributions. Even when the two works were deemed irreconcilable in academic circles, his ideas on progress and prosperity largely escaped suspicion. See Leonidas Montes, “Das Adam Smith Problem: its origins, the stages of the current debate, and one implication for our understanding of sympathy,” Journal of the History of Economic Thought 25, no. 1 (2003). See also Witztum, Amos, “A Study into Smith’s Conception of the Human Character: Das Adam Smith Problem revisited,” History of Political Economy 30, no. 3 (1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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4 See: TMS.III.5.8 and TMS.III.3.4.
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8 See McLean, Iain, Public Choice: An Introduction (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987)Google Scholar, chapter 7. For an argument that Smith was aware of Nash’s game equilibrium already in TMS, see: Brown, Vivienne, “Intersubjectivity, The Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Prisoners’ Dilemma,” The Adam Smith Review 6, ed. Fonna Forman-Barzilai (London: Routledge, 2011)Google Scholar.
9 It is also possible to argue that for Smith the play of individual “self-interests” works, in principle, better in the realm of economic transactions than in real politics. See Coats, A. W., “Adam Smith’s Conception of Self-Interest in Economic and Political Affairs,” History of Political Economy 7, no. 1 (1975): 132–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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28 For an argument that says the price of corn influences decisively the price of food in general, see Pollan, Michael, “The (Agri)Cultural Contradictions of Obesity,” in Schmidtz, David and Willot, Elizabeth, eds., Environmental Ethics: What Really Works, What Really Matters (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 33–37Google Scholar, especially, 36.
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33 Examples include: WN.I.xi.c.7; WN.I.xi.d.1; WN.I.xi.k.1.
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43 Smith might be assuming the “total social production is subject to increasing returns.” See Kurz, Heinz D., “Technical Progress, Capital Accumulation and Income Distribution in Classical Economics: Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Karl Marx,” The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 17, no. 5 (Hampshire: Routledge, 2004): 1183-1222, especially, 1188CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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50 See Mankin, Robert, “Pins and Needles: Adam Smith and the Sources of the Encyclopedie,” The Adam Smith Review 4, ed. Vivienne Brown (London: Routledge, 2008), 199Google Scholar.
51 See Blaug, Mark, Economic Theory in Retrospect (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1978): 37Google Scholar.
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