Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet, and the Enlightenment 0-674-00489-2

Citation preview

ECONOMIC ENTIMENT Adam Smith, Condorcet, AND THE Enlightenment

In

a brilliant recreation of

the epoch between the 1770s and the 1

820s,

Emma

Rothschild reinterprets

the ideas of the great revolutionary political

economists to show us the

true landscape of economic cal

and

politi-

thought in their day, with impor-

tant consequences for our

work

the

alters

readings of

Adam

—and of

ideas of

Smith and Condorcet Enlightenment contemporary

—

own. Her

that underlie

much

political thought.

Economic Sentiments takes up

late-

eighteenth-century disputes over the

economy of an enlightened, commercial society to show us how the political

"political"

and the "economic" were

intricately related to each other

philosophical

reflection.

and

to

Rothschild

examines theories of economic and political sentiments,

and the

reflection

of these theories in the politics of enlightenment.

A landmark in the his-

tory of economics ideas, her

and of

political

book shows us the origins of

laissez-faire

economic thought and

its

relation to political conservatism in an

unquiet world. In doing

new

light

so,

on our own times.

it

casts a

Economic Sentiments

Digitized by the Internet Archive in

2014

https://archive.org/details/economicsentimenOOrots_0

ECONOMIC SENTIMENTS Adam

Smith, Condorcet,

and the Enlightenment

EMMA ROTHSCHILD

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England

—

Copyright

© 2001

by the President and Fellows of Harvard College

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

Second printing, 2001

Library of Congress Catalo£fin0-in -Publication Data Rothschild,

Emma, 1948-

Economic sentiments Adam Smith, Condorcet, and the :

Enlightenment p.

/ Emma

Rothschild,

cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-674-00489-2 1.

Economics

18th century.

paper) 2.

4.

3.

1723-1790.

5.

1743-1794.

I.

HB83

(alk.

— History— 18th century. Free enterprise— History Liberalism — History— 18th century. Smith, Adam, Condorcet, Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de, Title.

.R68 2001

330.15'3— dc21

00-053943

To

Amartya

5

CONTENTS

Introduction 1

1

Economic Dispositions

7 7

The History of Sentiments Civilized

and Commercial Society

The Unfri^htened

Mind

9

12

Two Kinds of Enlighten ment The Devil Himself 1 7 Heroic Dispositions 20

A Sort of Inner Shuddering

1

22

The Cold Light of Reason and the Warmth of Economic Life Seeing the State as in a Picture 29 Indulgence and Indifference

34

The Light of History 39 The Enlightenment and the Present

2

Adam

47

Smith and Conservative Economics

Famous Philosopher 52 55 Economic and Political Freedom 57 The Liberal Reward of Labor 61 This

Scotland in the 1 790s

One-Sided Rationalistic Liberalism Smithes Real Sentiments

3

Commerce and

72

the State

A Reciprocal Dependence

64

66

72

and Famines 73 and General Equilibrium 76 Turgot^s Policies against Famine 78 Interpretations of Smith and Turgot 81 Scarcities, Dearths,

Poverty

The Lapse of Time

83

52

25

Contents

viii I

4

87

Apprenticeship and Insecurity

A

Strange Adventure

87

But Equity, Besides 88 and Competition Education and Apprenticeship A State of Nonajje 100 It Is

90

Corporations

The Apprenticeship:

A Digression on the Slave Trade 107 113

Uncertain Jurisprudence History

5

and

95

Institutions

The Bloody and Invisible Hand The Invisible Hand ofJupiter 116

116

Kin^ I 118 and Interests 121

Tremble, Unfortunate Intentions

Political Influence

Clerical Systems

126 129 131

Smithes ''Stoicism'^

Order and Design

A

134 136 Persuasive Device

Explanation and Understanding!

138

143

Greatest Possible Values

146

Evolved Orders

Two Shortcomings of Liberal Thought

6

Economic and

Political

Choice

Raton Was Quite Astonished

153

157

157 General Economic Interdependence 160 Giving the Impression of Doin^ Nothin^f The Soul Discouraged

Poverty, Taxes,

...

1 65

and Unsalubrious Factories

Formal Methods

1

Pelion

and Economic Procedures and Constitutions 186

7

and Ossa

180

188

Condorcet and the Conflict of Values Cold, Descriptive Cartesian Treason Diversity

195

and Uniformity

The Indissoluble Chain Civilized Conflict

197 203

204

Inconsistent Universalism

Domestic Virtues

169

75

Social Choice

Discussions

1 62

206

209

The Imaginary Enlightenment

212

The Liberty of Thought and Discussion

214

195

105

A Fatherless World

218

A Different Enlightenment Smith and Condorcet

218

221

and Irresolution 228

223

Civilized Political Discussion

232

Uncertainty

A System of Sentiments

236 A World Unrestored 246 Suitable Equality 250 Economic Sentiments

Notes

255

Acknowledgments Index

345

343

Economic Sentiments

Introduction

This book

is

about

when it was new. The

laissez-faire

1770s to the 1820s was

of enthusiasm and

a time

half century from the

economic

fear in

life;

of

excitement over the projects of merchants and manufacturers, resentment over restrictions on buying and selling, confidence in the "liberal plan of

and

equality, liberty

justice" to

which

1776, anxiety about what Napoleon in Nations, described in for all,"

Economic

nal calculation

Helena, studying the Wealth of

St.

new system of "freedom of commerce

life

in these turbulent times,

and

with the

life

of

of the mind. Economic thought was intertwined with

and

The

religious reflection.

was intertwined with the

life

life

legal institutions,

were to be found, most of all,

and

in the history

of the

in the dispositions or

dividuals; in the disposition to discuss

of cold and

ratio-

of sentiment and imagination.

sources of economic opulence were to be found,

political

in

imaginations" in the "furious oscillations"

was intertwined,

life

and the

all

Smith looked forward

^

political, philosophical,

The

as the

which had "agitated

of modern times.

politics

1816

Adam

it

was thought,

in

human mind. They

ways of thinking of in-

and dispute and to think about the

future; in the unfrightened mind.

To look

at the

economic thought of the

eighteenth and early nine-

late

teenth centuries in the setting of the political, legal, and philosophical disputes of the times

is

to cast light,

tions of those times. It

is

1

hope, on the events and the disposi-

to see the past

more

unfamiliar landscape of economic and political

But the book

is

also

clearly; to

glimpse a

now

life.

about the present. For the disputes with which

1

will

be concerned are in an odd and disconcerting sense the disputes of

our

own

present times.

form or another

—over

They

which have continued in one and the state, over respect and disre-

are disputes

laissez-faire

spect for established institutions, over reason

and

faith

—throughout the 1

Economic Sentiments

2 I

entire period

which separates

new

even newly modern, in the

now

ous

as

it

was

Revolution. So

is

Smith's times and our own.

in the period

is

new

this

are

is

as

conspicu-

which preceded and followed the French

commerce and

the sense of living in a society of universal

universal uncertainty. It

They

circumstances of the beginning of the

rhetoric of freedom of commerce

The

twenty-first century.

Adam

world, too, with which the book

is

concerned.

The treatises and pamphlets of the late eighteenth century about the reform of commerce were considered, very soon, to be disquisitions of only limited and technical interest.

wrote

in

Jean-Baptiste Say

1803, was a "vast chaos of just ideas, pell-mell with pieces of posi-

knowledge," overfull of

tive

The Wealth of Nations,

historical digressions

and "particular

facts."

Caroline, the ingenuous interlocutor in Jane Marcet's Conversations on Political

Economy of 1817, complained

economic science

that

"is

about

custom-houses, and trade, and taxes, and bounties, and smuggling, and

Adam

paper-money, and the bullion-committee, &c," and that

work

is

My

what

objective, in

follows,

is

to look back,

beyond the preoccu-

pations of the early nineteenth century, at an earlier and

economy.

cal

writers

Smith's

no more than "a jargon of unintelligible terms. "^

1 will

more open

politi-

be concerned mosdy with two eighteenth-century

— Condorcet and Smith—who have become emblems of the cold, They

hard, and rational enlightenment. respects.

are opposite

Condorcet has come to epitomize the cold,

emblems

in several

universalistic enlight-

enment of the French Revolution; the "utopian" enlightenment. Smith has

come

sez-faire

to epitomize the one-sided, reductionist enlightenment of

lais-

economics; the "conservative" enlightenment. But both philoso-

phers were preoccupied, as will be seen, with similar details of the regulation of commerce. in

1790,

policy.^ itics

as

Both were concerned with what Condorcet described,

"the restoration of the most complete freedom" in commercial

Both were

also interested in

economic

dispositions,

of a universe of uncertainty. Both were interested

in

process of discussion, and as a process of emancipation. different political

economy,

1 will

suggest,

is

and

in the pol-

economic

To

life

as a

rediscover a

also to rediscover a different,

and more open, enlightenment. Political

economy,

in the period

with which the book

is

concerned, was

seen already as a science of sorts. Condorcet indeed complained, as early as

1771, about the deluded use of "the language of geometry" in "the eco-

nomic

sciences,"

and one of Turgot's theological opponents wrote of

"economic science," with

its

"useless, lewd,

and twisted" views, that

it

was

Introduction

3

|

already, in

1780, "beginning to go a

twining of economic, religious, that there

is

relationships, or

more

characteristic

was "since

litical

—the sense

and moral thought

political,

only a shifting, indistinct frontier between economic and po-

litical

It

out of fashion."^ But the inter-

little

between economic

and the

life

of

rest

—

far

is

of the beginning of the period than of the end.

Adam

Smith," in Jean-Baptiste Say's description, that po-

economy, defined "as the science concerned with wealth," had been

distinguished from the quite different discipline of politics.^

mist George Pryme, the

first

professor of political

economy

of Cambridge, looked back with some alarm, in 1823,

sity

life

The econo-

at the

at

Univer-

Smith's jum-

bling together of economic and political concerns. "Since his time the

Economy and pure Politics, has been generobserved," Pryme wrote. Political economy had become an inoffenand orderly subject; "though it may seem less interesting than Politi-

distinction ally

sive cal

between

Philosophy,

Political

its utility is

more

extensive, since

it is

applicable alike to a

despotism and to a democracy."^

The new circumscription of political economy corresponded sificatory disposition

1807

as the

museum of science per stuck

all

cer's stall. "^

It

over

was suited to what Hegel described

all

that

is

in

it,

or

like

in

heaven and earth" in the with scraps of pa-

as in a "synoptic table like a skeleton

the rows of closed and labelled boxes in a gro-

Condorcet himself contributed to the subsequent profes-

sional organization

science,

of the times.

"method of labelling

to the clas-

of

and through

political

his projects

economy through

his

theory of social

of the 1790s (including those for the

es-

tablishment of special chairs in the application of mathematics to the political

and moral

sciences,

and

in political

with characteristic coolness, a generation

economy).^ Smith commented earlier,

on the new taxonomic

an early draft of the Wealth of Nations, from the 1760s, he says of the subdivisions of modern philosophy "mechanical, chemical, astrospirit; in

—

nomical, physical, metaphysical, moral, political, commercial and cal"

—that

their effect

is

the quantity of science

such that "more work

is

is

done upon the whole and

considerably increased by

it."^

But the new circumscription and circumspection of also

criti-

political

economy

corresponded to the exigent circumstances of post- Revolutionary

politics.

The context of

political

economy

at the

very end of the eigh-

teenth century was the prospect, described by Malthus in 1798 in the

first

paragraph of his Essay on the Principle of Population, that the French Revolution earth.

would "scorch up and destroy the shrinlcing inhabitants of the The French economists were inculpated, as will be seen, in the

Economic Sentiments

4 I

and anti-philosophical writings of the 1790s. Like the sup-

anti- Jacobin

porters of political reform in Kant's Contest of Faculties, also of 1798, eco-

nomic reformers were subject to the charge of "innovationism, Jacobinism and conspiracy, constituting a menace to the state."^^ The disposition of enlightenment, or the uncertain and insubordinate way of thinking of commercial

society,

was inculpated

in the

moral revolutions of the times.

The economic writings with which I will be concerned belong to a difmore innocent world. Smith and Condorcet, Hume and Turgot

ferent,

wrote, sometimes at great length, about freedom of commerce; none of

them was iar in

a political

economist in the professional sense that became famil-

the early years of the nineteenth century. All of

them

also

wrote

about philosophy, the history of science, the history of ideas, and about politics. All

were, on occasion, pubUc

officials.

Hume

died in 1776, Tur-

got in 1781, Smith in 1790, and Condorcet in 1794, a few weeks before the end of the Jacobin Terror; they belonged to an earlier universe of

When Thomas

thought.

Jefferson

drew up "a course of reading"

he included Locke's Essay Concernhigf

Human

in

1799,

Understanding!, Smith's

Wealth of Nations, and Condorcet's Esquisse d^un tableau historique des pro£fres de Fesprit

humainP

Condorcet's

own

objective, in the Esquisse des

was to describe the history of ideas about the mind and morality

pro^res,

and the

law,

from the

earliest sages to

"the profound analyses of the

Lockes, the Smiths, the Turgots."^^ For Arthur Condorcet O'Connor, the Irish general

who

married Condorcet's daughter Eliza, "the Turgots, the

Condorcets, the Smiths" were the "fathers of the science" of

economy, whose

political

principles, including "the eternal principle of equality,"

had been overturned by the "new

sect

of so-called economists" of the post-

Revolutionary reconstruction. 1^ It is this earlier

late

world which

1 will

try to describe.

Chapter

1 is

about

eighteenth-century descriptions of sentiments and dispositions in eco-

nomic

life,

and the idea of an unfrightened mind; of

way of

a

think-

ing of individuals, emancipated, at least from time to time, from fears

of violence,

injustice,

and vexation. Chapter 2

is

about

Adam

Smith's

reputation following his death in 1790, including his reputation for an

unseemly relationship to the principles of the French Revolution, and

some of

the ways in which the

in France,

3 and

4

renown of

political

economy changed,

England and Scotland, over the decade of the 1790s. Chapters

are

about two of the great controversies

in

economic policy

which shaped subsequent views of eighteenth-century economic thought.

The

first,

discussed in Chapter 3,

is

the dispute over free

commerce

in

Introduction

commerce and govern-

subsistence food, over the relations between

ment in the grain trade, and over the The second, discussed in Chapter 4, and mastership

relations

commercial freedom.

the dispute over apprenticeship

guilds: over laissez-faire in the

and the

instruction,

transition to is

5

|

market for labor, public

between commerce and government

in in-

dustry.

The

idea of the "invisible hand,"

which was presumed,

twentieth century, to constitute a unifying

thought,

hand,

I

is

the subject of Chapter 5. Smith's

was different and more

will suggest,

stood in the setting of other, and

at

own view

skeptical. It

more

the time

for

much of the

theme of Smith's economic of the

invisible

should be under-

familiar invisible hands:

the "bloody and invisible hand" of Macbeth's providence, or the "invisible

hand" which rebuffs and then hovers over the unfortunate hero of Vol-

The

taire's Oedipe.

idea of the invisible

hand

raises

troublesome questions

both about the relationship between economic and religious thought and about the relationship between the viduals;

and economic choices of indi-

political

and the transformapower to transform rules. concerned with Condorcet's efforts, in his writings on eco-

about the pursuit of self-interest within

rules,

tion of wealth into political power, including the

Chapter 6

nomic

is

policy, to explore closely related questions

about the rules and the

dispositions of competition, about buying and selling political influence,

and about the depiction of discursive economic

subjects.

Chapter 7

is

about some of Condorcet's criticisms of the cold, universal, and all-imbuing philosophy which has been seen as characteristic of the eighteenth-

—the

century enlightenment, and about an idea truth, virtue

and happiness

—which was

"indissoluble chain" of

taken, again for

much of

the

twentieth century, as a unifying theme of Condorcet's political thought.

In Chapter 8

and

I will

look

at the reflection

at theories

of economic and

of these theories in the

politics

political sentiments,

of enlightenment,

in-

cluding the politics of an uncertain or fatherless world.

The

detailed disputes in

over duties on

salt

which Smith and Condorcet were engaged,

or apprenticeship regulations or restrictions on the ex-

port of rams, are largely unfamiliar to readers today. ships of the period servative right,

—the

of the

of enlightenment

—

identification

state

political relationleft

and the con-

and the market, of the disposition and the

are also unfamiliar.

tw^enty-first century, in a

The

of the reforming

world which

is

We

still live,

at the outset

sect

of the

defined, in important respects, by

the events of the French Revolution and of the post- Revolutionary restoration;

by the coalition of

laissez-faire

economic policy and

political

Economic Sentiments

6 I

conservatism which was established in opposition to the revolutionary violence of the 1790s, and which

came

to dominate nineteenth-century polit-

ical institutions.

But we

also live, in the

new

circumstances of the early tw^enty-first cen-

tury, in a post-restoration world. Political institutions are

fear

of revolution

turies.

The

The

now than at any time in the

rhetoric of the endlessness of commerce

political

and economic thought of the

old, lost idyll

of universal freedom

dorcet wrote of the

new

all

where the

late

United

rights

free

of the

more unquestioned.

is

—the

eighteenth century

now, newly

is itself,

society of the

spectacle of a great people

to

—

more

nineteenth or twentieth cen-

States, in

familiar.

Con-

1786, that "the

of man are respected

is

useful

others ... It teaches us that these rights are everywhere the same."

Of the French

Revolution, he wrote in 1791 that

immense scope

to the hopes of the

not in a government,

it is

The new prospects of the this vastness, this sense

human

in opinions

and

species

.

had "opened up an

it .

.

[T]his revolution

is

wills. "^^

early twenty- first century have

of an unbounded future.

We may

something of

also

have more

sympathy, in our societies of universal commerce, for the endless uncertainty, the

unquiet imagination, which were believed, in the

teenth century, to be the consequences of commercial freedom. to look at eighteenth-century

economic thought

also, in these circumstances, cast light politics.

on our

in its

own

late eigh-

The

effort

context might

context, and our economic

1

Economic Dispositions

THE HISTORY OF SENTIMENTS The "beauty of writing in January

ric,

Adam Smith said in his lectures on rheto-

history,"

1763, consisted for Tacitus in a

political

theory of senti-

ments. Events, in Smith's description, have both external and internal causes, or causes to

ments.

It is

do with circumstances and causes to do with

the writings of modern historians "for the

The

senti-

the neglect of these internal causes. Smith says, which makes

most part so

dull

and

lifeless."

ancient historians were preoccupied, by contrast, with "the feelings

and agitation of mind" of individuals, or with "the motions of the human mind." Tacitus' plan,

in Smith's conjecture,

is

to relate the history of pub-

events by leading the reader "into the sentiments and the

lic

actors."

Such

struct us in the

esting

mind of the

much

to in-

knowledge of the causes of events; yet it will be more

inter-

a history.

and lead us into

Smith

says,

a science

"perhaps will not tend so

no

less useful,

men act."i The motions of the human mind were

to wit, the knowledge of

the motives by which

1793, was of "human nature in political history

the ral

of mankind."

human mind,"

all its

He

preoccupation

as

in

branches,

more

human

of the

style, as in

constitution," the "natu-

the Theory of Moral Sentiments,

or "his copious and seducing composition," was at tions of characters

particularly

was concerned with the "principles of

the "principles of the

progress of the mind." His

own

Dugald Stewart, wrote

Smith's

well. Smith's lifelong study, his first biographer,

its

best in his "delinea-

and manners," or when "the subject of his work leads

him to address the imagination and the heart. "^ The Wealth of Nations \s in Smith's description a "very violent attack upon the whole commercial system of Great Britain."^ But it is also a his.

tory of the "general disposition to truck, barter, and exchange," which

is

.

.

a

7

Economic Sentiments

8 I

"necessary consequence of the faculties of reason and speech."^ tribution to the history of the

human mind.

ments and agitation of mind of individuals

It is a

It is a

con-

description of the senti-

in the ordinary events

of life.

Smith's epic begins, as in William Robertson's History of Charles V, with "the

human mind

neglected, uncultivated, and depressed," in the "thick

and heavy" darkness of early feudal Europe.^

It

society of independent individuals, reasoning

exchanging, being dices,

their

and

fair

ends in a new, enlightened

and disputing, trucldng and

own

through their

deliberate, seeing

preju-

having conversations about vexation and oppression, reflecting on

own

sentiments.

Economic

life,

in the disputes

with which

this

book will be concerned,

described to a striking extent in terms of thought and speech. sort of discussion. In Turgot's description, free

tween every buyer and every listen to

seller," in

commerce

is

is

It is itself a

a "debate be-

which individuals make contracts,

rumors, discuss the values of one another's promises, and

reflect

on "the opinion and the reality of risk."^ Condorcet, in an essay of 1775 on monopoly and monopolists, evoked the scene at the outset of Laurence Sterne's Sentimental Journey in

M.

which Yorick, the sentimental

about the purchase of a "sorry post-chaise." "He in his heart, against

on

and

traveler,

Dessein, the innkeeper, go forth into the street in Calais to converse

M.

felt

a secret hatred rising

Dessein," Condorcet wrote; the traveler reflected

the hostility of the world; he chaffered about the price; he concluded

with a twelve guinea bargain and an advantage, even, in the "balance of sentimental commerce."^

The source of opulence. Smith Nations,

most

is

says at the

to be found in the trucking disposition which

and

dissimilar characters (a philosopher

example), and which speech.

beginning of the Wealth of

The

"fair

is

itself a

a

is

common

consequence of the

common to the

street porter, for

of reason and

faculties

and deliberate exchange" of civilized society is to be con-

trasted to the "servile

and fawning attention" of

relations

between un-

equals (including between dogs and their masters).^ In his lectures jurisprudence. Smith describes exchange as a sort of oratory. "It

is

the natural inclination everyone has to persuade," he says, which principle in the

human mind on which

founded"; "the offering of a

and simple

do

a

meaning,

so and so as

life

is

"the

of trucking

is

which to us appears to have so plain

in reality offering

an argument to persuade one to

And

in this manner every one is on others through the whole of his life."^ is at the same time a matter of sentiment. "It is chiefly

it is

practising oratory

Economic

is

shilling,

this disposition

on

clearly

for his interest

.

.

.

Economic Dispositions

9 |

from

regard to the sentiments of mankind, that

this

we pursue

and

riches

avoid poverty," Smith wrote in the Theory of Moral Sentiments, of the desire to

be attended to, and taken notice

great object of worldly toil

economic

striving,

and they

and

of,

which

are also the adjunct

The judgments of individuals,

in the relationships

judgments, often, about one's

own and

dividuals, in their

terested in

as

in his description the

of economic exchange. of commercial

are

life,

other people's sentiments. All in-

economic relationships

what Smith describes

is

Sentiments are the objective of

bustle.

of their

as in the rest

lives, are in-

"the characters, designs, and actions of

one another." They feel shame, and seek respect, and think about esteem. They have "anxious and desponding moments. "^^ Tax reform, Condorcet wrote in his Reflexions sur le commerce des hies of 1776, would relieve "the sentiment of oppression," and freedom of commerce would reduce, for the poor, the horror of being ignored; "the idea of being counted for

nothing, of being delivered up, without defense, to outrages.

Sentiments influence reasons in economic sentiments. 1^ that

it

Giacomo Leopardi

word "sentiment," It

said

vexations and

which

too,

is

life,

all

and reasons influence

of the word "sentimental,"

common European

was one of the

peismi, of a "philosophy

term.

all

"12

in

1821,

words, the gdllicismi or euro-

part of ordinary conversation."

was something other than what Leopardi

was not "naked" and "isolated";

it

The

called a

was one of the words which

evoke "clusters of ideas" and "multitudes of concepts," vague, indefinite,

and indeterminate. 1^ But the

indefinite idea

of Smith's and Condorcet's

political

feelings

of which one

also events that

which he or she or

is

of a sentiment was

at the heart

and moral theory. Sentiments were

conscious, and

on which one

reflects.

They were

connected the individual to the larger relationships in lived (the society, or the family, or the state ).i^

The

traffic

commerce of modern life was at the same time a traffic in opinions and The "man of society," in Smith's translation of Rousseau's

sentiments.

Discours sur Vine^alite,

"always out of himself; he "cannot

is

the opinion of others, and rives the

sentiment of his

CIVILIZED

The

it is

own

.

.

.

from

their

judgment alone

live

but in

that he de-

existence. "^^

AND COMMERCIAL SOCIETY

discursive, reflective, self-conscious disposition, in the

putes with which this book wiU be concerned,

is

economic

both a cause and

dis-

a conse-

quence of economic progress. The two most important conditions of

Economic Sentiments

10 I

commercial prosperity, for Smith and for Condorcet, are the improvement of political and positions.

and

and the independence of individual

legal institutions

"Order and good government, and along with them the

security of individuals," the circumstance

which

is

for

dis-

liberty

Smith

at the

heart of the progress of opulence, has the effect of making possible the en-

franchisement of opinions and sentiments. Individuals are free of "servile

dependency"; they exert their industry "to better their condition"; they are

no longer "continually

have a sense of their Free government

own

taken to be a necessary but not a sufficient condi-

is

tion for universal prosperity. It tions

and opinions,

of the violence of their superiors"; they

afraid

security.

must be accompanied by

Hume's

in

description: "Liberty

certain disposi-

must be attended

with particular accidents, and a certain turn of thinking, in order to pro-

duce that

effect. "^^

The only

difficult

of all regulation of the commerce

question in relation to the abolition

in subsistence food,

Condorcet wrote

in

1776, consists in "the prejudices of the people," including prejudices against "capitalists"; the only truly important transformation

is

in "public

opinion," with respect to "freedom of commerce" and "respect for property."^^

The

history of the rise of

emancipation of the mind.

and public debt

in the

causes. "20 Individuals ions.

Smith

They says,

commerce,

It is a story, as in

for Smith,

is

an epic of the

the account of private credit

Wealth of Nations, of "the operation of moral

become independent

in their lives

and

their opin-

from superstitions and prejudices.

are freed, in particular,

of the progress of opulence which he describes in Books 3 and

4 of the Wealth of Nations, that it is "interests, prejudices, laws and customs" which he will "endeavour to explain as fiilly and distincdy" as he can. 21

Independence of mind

is

in turn a

consequence,

as well as a condition,

of commercial prosperity. Commerce and manufactures gradually intro-

duced order and good government,

in Smith's description

European towns, and

it

the

"this,

most important of

though

all their effects. "^^ Individuals

dent on their landlords and superiors, and are

sudden benefits

These

destitution.

of late medieval

has been the least observed,

effects are

less

become

less

is

by

far

depen-

subject to the fear of

even more pronounced

when

the

of opulence are extended to the greater part of the people, to

"servants, labourers,

and workmen of different lands. "^^ The great advan-

tage of eighteenth-century England, for stance that "riches are dispersed price of labour"

is

among

Hume,

consists in the circum-

multitudes," and that the "high

the source of "the happiness of so

many

millions. "^^

Economic Dispositions

11 |

The high price of labor, for Smith, increases the industriousness and the "good spirits" of the laborer; it inspires "the comfortable hope of bettering his condition, and of ending his days perhaps in ease and plenty, "^s

The

history of the

human

spirit,

for Condorcet,

was to be

a history

of

the interior and private sentiments of millions of individuals; of the influ-

ence of the progress of the mind on "the opinions, the well-being of the general mass" of people in different countries. Until the late eighteenth century, Condorcet wrote, political history, like the history of philosophy

and of the

sciences,

had been no more than the history of a few men. The

history of the ideas and opinions of the mass of families scure, the

most neglected, and

—was more

terial"

for

which monuments

difficult to write. Its

— "the most ob-

offer us so

little

ma-

neglect could not be ascribed only

to the shortcomings of historians (the "bassesse des historiens"). It re-

quired quantitative information or observations. But

it

was the true object

of philosophy. This history of sentiments and thoughts was to be a history of "the law as

it is

written and the law as

it is

enforced; the principles of those

govern and the way in which they are modified by the are governed; institutions as they

and

emanate from the

institutions as they are realised; the religion

of those

spirit

men who

who who

shape them,

of books and the religion

of the people; the apparent universality of a particular prejudice, and the real

adherence

it

receives." It

would end,

Esquisse des pro£ires, in a society in

reinforced one another. There

which would lead

as in the ultimate

which the "different causes of equality"

would be

greater equality of instruction,

in turn to greater equality

There would be enough

epoch of the

of industry and of wealth.

equality, at least, to exclude "all

dependence,"

and to ensure that no one was obliged to depend blindly on others,

in the

ordinary business of life or in the exercise of individual rights.

The ficial,

ger,

rise

of civilized and commercial society was by no means only bene-

in Smith's

and Condorcet's depictions.

It

can indeed be

full

of dan-

under certain conditions, for the dispositions of ordinary people. The

division of labor, in Smith's description, can

and lead the mind into life is

a

"drowsy

stupidity."

"benumb the understanding" The individual "whose whole

spent in performing a few simple operations"

formed"

in the "character

enjoy "rational conversation" and to public

life.

obstacle to

is

"mutilated and de-

of human nature," including

in his capacity to

make judgments about private and

The progress of commerce and

the mechanical arts can be an

human improvement, Condorcet

wrote, citing Smith, and

even a source of "eternal stupidity." But universal public instruction was

Economic Sentiments

12 I

for

both Smith and Condorcet an

for this evil.

The

enlightenment." brings with

eventual objective of a commercial society

is

not "equal

the prevention, at least, of "that inequality which

It is

a real

it

remedy, and the only remedy,

efficient

dependence, and which compels

a blind confidence. "^^

THE UNFRIGHTENED MIND The most

heroic outcome, in this history of the

be the slow vanquishing of

fear.

Smith's description as in Hume's,

Fear

superstition.

is

The

rise

spirit,

was to

society, in

of the "lowest and most pusillanimous

Hume, and superstimen tame and submis-

the source of superstition for

is

tion "steals in gradually and insensibly; renders sive."

human

The condition of uncivilized

of commercial and

civilized society

is

associated with the re-

placement of superstition by philosophy; in Smith's description, "when law has established order and security, and subsistence ceases to be pre-

of mankind

carious, the curiosity ished. "^^

viduals

The

from

highest calling

terrors

is

increased, and their fears are dimin-

of philosophy

is

to liberate the

minds of indi-

and apparitions and portents.

Fear was for Smith and for Condorcet a natural condition of human It is

life.

"a passion derived altogether from the imagination, which represents,

with an uncertainty and fluctuation that increases our anxiety, not what really feel,

but what

we may

Theory of Moral Sentiments. For probability, or with a "wavering

way what we hope or what we

world. lieve is

It

influences the

indifferent. "^2

ested in

hope and

Hume,

fear

and

Phedre of Racine because guilt"; "her fear, her

a passion associated

is

with

and unconstant method" of surveying the

fear,

more

distress.

of,

it

individuals think, for Condorcet:

cYtn enticing, or

j^-

we

hereafter possibly suffer," Smith wrote in the

at least interesting.

Smith

and not

says.

We

in spite of,

"We

be-

something which

forcefully than

We

are inter-

charmed by the "extravagance and

are

its

shame, her remorse, her horror, her despair, become

thereby more natural and interesting."^^

But

fear

is

also a vast

and insidious

evil,

even in modern

societies.

The

and

sacrifices

and

superstitious fears of uncivilized societies, the frenzies invisible beings,

have been succeeded, in more recent times, by what

Smith described, both

in the Wealth of Nations

Sentiments, as the "terrors of religion. "^^

rope were founded on lived

"under

all

fear.

The

and

in the Theory of Moral

feudal governments of Eu-

In the unfortunate countries where individuals

the violence of the feudal institutions," tenants and trades-

Economic Dispositions

13 |

men

subsisted in continuing insecurity. Their leases were precarious.

were obliged to provide arbitrary and irregular services to

They found it prudent to conceal their stock, or to bury it ground. They were unwilling to take risks. The "irregular and par-

and to the in the

They

their landlords

state.

administration of justice" in Spain and Portugal, which tended to pro-

tial

tect the rich

and powerful, makes "the industrious part of the nation

afraid

to prepare goods for the consumption of these haughty and great men."^^

The progress of despotism, the sovereign of anxiety. Its

all

in Smith's description, or the absorption

by

other powers, was an innovation in government by

consequence, for Condorcet, was to degrade the mind "under

the weight of fear and unhappiness." Taxation, even in less despotic socie-

was

ties,

arbitrary,

who

tax collector,

tributor, or extort,

and individuals found themselves

by the terror of such aggravation, some present or per-

quisite to himself. "^^

One's home, or one's inn, might be

time by officers of the customs and excise. to evaluate the

power of the

in the

can "either aggravate the tax upon any obnoxious con-

One was

visited at

any

obliged, continually,

most degrading and unsettling of probabilities: the proshard and unjust man, or that he

pect that the tax collector

is

emy; that the customer to

whom one sells some damask is haughty, or that

he

a friend

is

a

is

one's en-

of the king's prosecutor. The regulation of commerce,

like

the regulation of confession in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century religious conflicts in ety.

England and France, was an authority of fear and

As Smith wrote

in the Wealth of Nations

eigns to terrify the dissenting clergy, "fear

is

anxi-

of the attempts of sover-

in almost

cases a

all

wretched

instrument of government. "^^

The corn

trade in France, in Condorcet's description, was a scene of

endless dread.

The food

riots,

which were

were the work of people "agitated by by individuals

The

effect

of

who free

a

vague

sought "to excite their

corn traders,

also riots against fear

fears,

of scarcity," and guided

and to

commerce was presented by

profit

from them."

these false guides, in a

"frightening hypothesis," as being like the removal of a single loaf of bread

from an enclosed population; individuals were "seized by

one in

towns (the people

one who is who had windows to

frightened of the

riots.

The

fears

magistrates eddied together and

gin of almost

all

human

Condorcet wrote

be broken) were meanwhile

of the poor and the

fears

of the subaltern

augmented one another. "Fear is the oriand above all of political stupidities," on monopoly and monopolists. It is a

stupidities,

in his article

terror; every-

destined not to eat." The rich

believes that he will be the

a

Economic Sentiments

14 I

means of political and moral oppression: "One

is

more

sure of subjugating

people's minds by frightening them, than by speaking to for fear

The

is

them of reason;

an imperious passion. "^^

—of the

great promise of commercial and liberal society

of equality, liberty and

justice

which had been rejected

tury France, in Smith's description

—

that the

is

liberal

plan

in seventeenth-cen-

minds of individuals

be less frightened, and their lives less frightening.

Commerce

will

will flourish

only in a state with a regular administration of justice, or in which there

The

a "certain degree of confidence in the justice of government.

ishing of commerce and opulence

people are

They

less afraid

are confident

is

in turn a source

of faUing into destitution

is

flour-

of confidence, in that

at the sUghtest accident.

of ending their days in comfort.

Contracts and obligations, the acts which are at the heart of commercial society, are

counterposed, by law, to fear and duress. "All fear in the parties

renders the obligation they have entered into void from the beginning,"

on jurisprudence, and "with respect to what is done through fear ... a bond given from this principle is not binding." Like a contract entered into on behalf of an unknown posterity the individual is "not conscious of it, and therefore cannot be bound by it" contract entered into out of fear is unjust, the outcome of a metus injustus. The essential condition of civilized and commercial life, for tenants and for Smith said

in his lectures

—

who

the cooks and upholsterers

seU to the rich,

is

—

to be able to form "rea-

sonable hopes, imagination or expectation."^^

Understanding and enlightenment,

like

the curiosity of individuals in

uncivilized societies, are in these circumstances a source of security.

The

uncertainty and difficulty of providing for one's subsistence, Condorcet

wrote

in the Esquisse des prq^res, leave

one with no

free

think about one's ideas. But to be in a position to reflect

be instructed and to have time to think,

hopes and

fears. It is

is

on new

ideas, to

to be independent of chimerical

someone who can

to be

time in which to

"separate himself from his

needs, from his interests, from his dangers, from his deprivations, from his anxieties,

from

be someone

his sorrows, and, so to speak,

who

ture of others. It

can form expectations about his is

fear

of not

really is

own

fixture,

to be free of the "painfiil anxiety which

with being aware of one's

which one

from himself ""^^

own

It is also

and the

is

derstanding, and one's

It is

own

fix-

associated

ignorance, and which produces the vague

being in a position to defend oneself against the

threatened. "^^

to

to be free even to question one's

education.

One would

ills

by

own un-

be free to doubt, and

Economic Dispositions

15 |

to enter into obligations, and to take risks. There tainty, that

TWO

a

good uncer-

and without

fear.

KINDS OF ENLIGHTENMENT

Enlightenment, in the position, ing. It It

would be

to say, an uncertainty without subjugation,

is

was

and

was

a

eighteenth century, was considered to be a dis-

late

also a sect. In the first sense,

condition of the

was

a

way of thinking and

see-

Denkart, a "disposition des esprits," in the phrase that

a mentalite, a

Condorcet used

it

human mind, undepressed and unneglected.

in his Vie de Voltaire^"^ It

was

a

"reform in ways of think-

ing" or a gradual change in "the mentality of the people," as in Kant's

What

is

Enlightenment?

The word Aufklarun^ w^ls indeed

translated

the Austrian reformer Windisch-Gratz, in a text that he sent in

both to Condorcet and to Smith,

as '^populorum cultura.^'"^^

As

by

1788

in Hegel's

"struggle of the enlightenment with superstition," in his Phenomenolo^ry of Spirit

of 1807, enlightenment was the dominion of "pure insight and

diffusion,"

and

it

"infection. "^^ It

seeped into men's thoughts

is

this

like a

"perfume," or

kind of enlightenment with which

I will

like

its

an

mostly be

concerned; with the disposition of enlightenment, in economic and in political life.

In the second,

ment was

later,

a society

individuals

and by

now

far

more

of philosophers and

familiar sense, the enlighten-

literary

men.

It

was composed of

who were theorists, or historians, of the change in ways of who were also its apostles. Almost everyone who described

thinking, and

the political (or economic)

some

life

of the

late

eighteenth century identified

version of what Johann Gottfried Herder, in 1769, called the "neue

Denkart" of Europe, or of what the poet Robert Southey described

"tremendous change"

which began

in "the character

as the

of the lower orders" in England

of which the Wealth of Nations W2is the "code," and which constituted a "great moral revolution, for such it may truly be

called. "^^

tuted by tion.

in the 1770s,

The

sect

men who

enjoyed, glorified, and conspired in this

The enUghtenment

teenth-century in or

of enUghtenment, or of the philosophers, was consti-

men

in this sense

fairly

disposi-

small group of eigh-

movement or a campaign, most of them and almost all of them interested in the minds

of letters,

connected to France,

was a

new

a

and dispositions of other men. In his book Sokandet efter Upplysnin^eny on the thought of the Swedish

enlightenment. Tore Frangsmyr distinguishes three senses of enlighten-

Economic Sentiments

16 I

ment,

as a philosophical attitude, as a

period in time (an "age"), and as an

movement, centered in France; he, like Franco Venturi, adopts the third and least imprecise sense. This is also Robert Darn ton's "deflationist" sense of the enlightenment as "a campaign to change minds and reform institutions." J. G. A. Pocock has by contrast emphasized the plu-

intellectual

rality

of "enlightenments,"

lationships

between

as a series

religious

and

of programs for the reform of the

My

political institutions.^^

concern

re-

will

rather be with enlightenment in a fourth sense, of a universal, or potentially universal, disposition.

This

is

connected to but

distinct

sense of a (Baconian or Newtonian) philosophical attitude. It ticular a disposition

struction

from the is

in par-

of everyone, or of everyone with some minimal

and time to

think. It

is

not

(although one of the habitual assertions of the sect or

in-

of philosophers

a characteristic only

movement of en-

lightenment, as of Smith and Condorcet, was that everyone, without exception, has the natural capability to be a philosopher). It

is

a condition

of the minds which are to be changed, an outcome of the programs of reform. ^0

Economic thought was conspicuous in all these lands of enlightenment. Political economy was engaged, to an extent that is unfamiliar today, in the great philosophical disputes over public enlightenment. Johann Georg Hamann, in Konigsberg, translated Galiani's Dialogues on the Corn Trade, and the aspiration of the young Herder, in Riga, was to be for Russia what

—with

the abbe Morellet

become

for France.

He

his criticism

of the East India

—had

Company

was determined to think of everything "from

the point of view of politics, the state, and finance," and to put forward

"some proposals

for the

new economic

society,

more

suited to the spirit of

the Russian economy."^^ Diderot denounced the regulation of lending at interest,

and defended the regulation of the corn

trade.

Kant, in the

Third Antinomy in the Critique of Pure Reason, of free will versus determinism, named the determinist position (for Quesnay) as "Transcendental Physio cracyy^^

of ends"

He

(in the

said

of the attributes of individuals in the "kingdom

Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals)

that they have

ei-

—that

is,

ther a "market-price," a "luxury-price," or "an intrinsic value dignity.

The

''''^'^

disposition of universal discussion

cess of public altercation

—the unending,

discursive pro-

which was so admired, and so execrated,

for

—

much of the eighteenth century was concerned, often, with economic policy. "From the scholastic disputes of theologians to matters of trade," d'Alembert wrote, "everything has been discussed and analyzed, or

at

Economic Dispositions

17 |

mentioned. "^"^ For

least

Edmund

as these gentlemen think

it,

Burke,

has been the misfortune (not

"it

the glory) of this age, that everything

is

to be

discussed"; the age was one of "oeconomists, and calculators."^^ Taxes

and regulations, guilds and

excise inspections,

were

a principal

preoccupa-

of enlightened opinion. Adam Smith's most Edinburgh contemporary the Reverend Alexander

tion, together with religion,

serious offense, for his

Carlyle, consisted in "introducing that unrestrained

commodities."^^ The comcommerce in opinions about The "focal point of enlighten-

merce, which propagates opinions as well

merce

in opinions

was

What

in

like"

—

policy.

—the subject to be disputed,

Enlightenment?

is

in the imperative to ^'ar0ue as

ject

as

in large part, a

itself,

commerce, or about commercial ment," Kant says

and universal com-

much

consists in matters of religion.

of enlightened discussion

you like and about whatever you But economic matters are also a subas

in Kant's description; the tax official says,

"'Don't argue, pay!'" and the cosmopolitan citizen "publicly voices thoughts on the impropriety or even injustice of such

The enlightened

disposition,

fiscal

measures."-^

and the philosophical history of the com-

mercial mind, were the preoccupation, even, of commercial selves.

When

short-lived

his

men them-

the editor and economist James Anderson introduced his

Edinburgh journal. The

1791,

Bee, in

his

"General Queries to

Foreign Correspondents" were concerned to a strildng extent with opin-

Of religious establishments, he asks what are on the conduct and disposition of mind of certain classes of people.^" "What sorts of business usually fall to the share of women among the lower ranks .>" he asks. "What is the state of the country in regard to ions and ways of thinldng. "their effects

the liberty of the press?'' In relation to the conditions imposed in leasehold tenancies, he asks, cise duties,

he

"May

asks,

they be loosely and generally expressed.^"

Of exOf

"Are they levied in a loose and arbitrary manner?"

tax collectors, "Are they tied

down by rules

so clear and definite, that they

cannot transgress them without being evidently culpMc^' "What kinds of theft are here

accounted

as

of least importance; and what kinds of it are

reckoned heinous crimes by the eral instruction to his

posing enough;

it is

common

people.^" he inquires. His gen-

correspondents, or his commercial travelers,

"to illustrate the history of the

human

is

im-

mind."^^

THE DEVIL HIMSELF EnUghtenment

in the sense

of a sect

the enUghtenment's enemies

—was

—^which was the sense,

in general,

of

widely associated, especially in the

Economic Sentiments

18 I

and anti-philosophical writings of the 1790s, with the

anti- Revolutionary activities

of economists. Burke, in the Reflections on the Revolution in

France, finds the origins of "this enlightened age," "this

empire of light and reason," "cabal, intrigue,

epoch of

and proselytism" of a society of "philosophic

in connection, his editors

of the finance. "^^

people

this

new conquering

" ^enli^htened^ usurers," in the

added

The abbe

financiers,"

1803, "with Turgot and almost

in

Barruel, in his Histoire

all

the

du Jacobinisme,

published in 1797, said of Turgot, in his economic reforms of 1774-1776, that "as

much

as

was within

power, he made a Jacobin out of the young

his

King." Condorcet, for Barruel, was "the Devil himself," "the monster

Condorcet," "the most determined of the conspirators," "a Devil named Condorcet. "'^^ William

out in

Playfair,

his "eleventh edition"

who

also

wrote

a History ofJacobinism, set

of the Wealth of Nations, published in 1805, Mr Smith and D'Alembert, &c.,"

to explain "the acquaintance between

and Smith's "coincidence of reasoning with the French Oeconomists."

The "infamy" of the economists had now been

discovered, together with

various secret meetings of Quesnay, Turgot, Condorcet, and Diderot,

which

conduct of the

Playfair described as "the

bin direction"; "I must, and

do

attribute to

sect,

when acting in

them, and those with

they associated, most of the terrible transactions of the years.

last

a Jaco-

whom sixteen

"^2

This

is

the prosopography of the examining magistrate, and economists,

or the theorists of economic reform, are prominent within

nomic thought of the mid-eighteenth century was eration after Barruel

and

it.

But the eco-

also inculpated, a gen-

one of the most profound evocations

Playfair, in

of the philosophical and administrative origins of the French Revolution. "It

is

above

all

in their writings that

one can best study the true nature" of

the French Revolution, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in la Revolution,

tury,

Vancien regime

et

of the Economistes ov Physiocrats of the mid-eighteenth cen-

of Quesnay and Letrosne and Morelly and Mercier de

"Economists have had

less brilliance in history

la

Riviere.

The

than the philosophers," he

wrote; they nonetheless express, even more than the philosophers, the "single notion" in

which "the

tury consists." This

and elementary

is

political

the idea that

rules, derived

philosophy of the eighteenth cen-

it is

appropriate "to substitute simple

from reason and from natural

complicated and traditional customs" of particular societies

The past, They argued for times.

for the Economistes,

was "the object of a

law, for the at particular

limitless scorn."

the abstract and the general; for administrative simplicity,

for "public utility"

without "private rights," for

"laisser faire"

or "the free

Economic Dispositions

19 |

exchange of commodities" without

freedoms." They conceived

"political

the duty of the state, in Tocqueville's description, as being to enlighten the

mind of the people by an education founded on

natural order; "to

fill it

with specific ideas and to

sentiments which

specific

The economic

it

its

own

principles

fiirnish their hearts

of

with

judges to be necessary. "^^

disputes with

which

this

book

is

concerned were the ex-

pression of a different political philosophy, and a different conception of

enlightenment. They show both the diversity of the sects or movements of the enlightenment, and the extent to which the philosophy of enlight-

enment changed

—and

became

less

despotic

—

regime. Turgot was to be distinguished from

economic reform

in France in the

tury, Tocqueville wrote, his genius;

in his

were

life. ^4

political

spirit

and the

freedoms" came to him

qualities

of

at last, late

But the disputes over economic policy of the 1770s and 1780s

also the occasion for a

ideas.

end of the ancien

the other supporters of

middle decades of the eighteenth cen-

by the greatness of his

even the "taste for

at the

all

The change was

much more

general transformation in political

apparent, as will be seen, in the criticisms by Turgot

and Smith and Hume, by Diderot and Condorcet, of the

political princi-

of the Economistes or Physiocrats; in the repudiation, well before

ples

1789, of the administrative despotism of the

which Tocqueville described.

It

was

"first"

French revolution

also apparent in the

odd conception

of the unfrightened and enlightened disposition, in ordinary or economic life.

The

figures with

whom

this

book

is

mosdy concerned were

all

partici-

pants, to different extents, in the tractations of the sect of enlightenment.

Condorcet and Turgot were intimate

friends, as

were Smith and Hume;

the relationships between Smith and Condorcet, or Smith and Turgot,

were ones of correspondence, or reciprocal study, or distant regard. They were

all

deeply interested in the disposition of enlightenment, or in the

history of the

and

human mind. But

in different ways,

they were

skeptical, at various times

about the campaign of changing or reforming other

people's minds. Smith does not use the uses the

all

word "enlightened"

in only the

word "enlightenment," and he

most capacious of senses;

unbellicose view of Carthage, for example,

is

Scipio's

the "liberal expression of

more enlarged and enlightened mind."^^ Condorcet uses the phrase "les lumieres" mosdy in his projects of public instruction, and to denote

a

knowledge; he was by the end of his

life, as

will

be seen, profoundly op-

posed to the "enthusiasm" of public enlightenment, and of public education.

Independence of mind, the condition to which the Economistes and

Economic Sentiments

20 I

men of letters of the 1750s were

the

scription,

was for Condorcet

a

least attracted, in Tocqueville's de-

paramount good. To impose enlighten-

ment was sometimes a form of despotism, "dazzling men instead of enThe eventual prospect, for individuals, was to be free of

lightening them."

"submission even to the authority of enlightenment.

HEROIC DISPOSITIONS

The

disposition of enlightenment, like

tlie

sect

of philosophical enlighten-

ment, was intimately intertwined with economic thought. In the disputes over economic reform of the 1770s and 1780s,

of individual

it

was seen

as a

condition

men and women, in their usual and local lives. They were unform their own judgments. "Every individual, can, in his local situation, judge much better than any states-

frightened, and disposed to it is

evident,

man

or lawgiver can

do

for him,"

Smith

says in the Wealth of Natioj^s.^^

The

entire system

lier,

or of "leaving each person free to do what he wants,"

of freedom of commerce, Turgot wrote some years

the presumption that "each individual

is

nous let

faire,"

ear-

founded on

the only judge of the most advan-

He

alone has the local knowledge

man

reasons only blindly." "Laissez-

tageous use of his land and his labor.

without which the most enlightened

is

Turgot describes the merchant Le Gendre saying to Colbert;

us be the judges of what to do. "Laissez-les faire," Turgot himself says,

of educational foundations;

let families

choose the education of their

chil-

dren.69

"The

cart drivers, the millers, the bakers are for

them

a class

of heroes,"

the Chevalier says of the exponents of commercial freedom, in Galiani's

eommeree des

Dialogues sur

le

in this picture

of the world which they have

vices, the unjust passions

bles;

Diderot added in

his is

forces

is

all

painted in smiling colors

in their imagination

have disappeared from

nore "the deceits, the passions,

economic

"everything

it."^^

the ruses of avidity,

.

.

.

[T]he

The economists

all

ig-

the ruses of fear,"

"Apologie de I'abbe Galiani"; the "tranquil flow" of

rather "a tumultuous conflict of fear, of avidity, of

greed. "71 William Playfair, in his eleventh edition of the Wealth of Nations, says that

Smith "makes

many instances, This

idyll

is

a love

of traffic the

basis

for confiding in the sagacity

of individual understanding was

of all wealth," and, "in so

of individuals. "^^

at the heart

of the new phi-

losophy of enlightenment in Turgot's and Diderot's France. The enthusi-

asm

for enlightenment in the

lumieres

—^was by the

sense of scientific knowledge

—

for

les

1750s, in France, the subject of extensive derision.

Economic Dispositions

21 |

Jean- Jacques Rousseau's Discourssur sarcastic evocation

ment of his its

who

of the sect of enlightenment.

and Diderot, with an

ideal

Rousseau's simple and rustic

was opposed

had enveloped him,"

of

unequally diffused; because

early, influential

(virtually) universal

and booksellers and

it is

it is

To

enlightenment.

man of virtue, uncorrupted by

corrupt, for d'Alembert,

its

was countered, by d'Alembert

It

a busy, industrious scene; a prospect

laundresses, schoolchildren still

its

"speak only of commerce and money,"

peroration against the "republic of letters," was an

criticism

are

arts of 1750, with

of the spectacle of man "dissipating, by the enlighten-

reason, the darkness in which nature

depiction of political figures

and

les sciences et les

luxury, there

of flower

and

sellers

cart drivers. If the times

because "enlightenment, there,

crowded and concentrated

in

is

too

too small a

number of minds." "Our existence is poor, contentious, unquiet," for Diderot; "we have passions and needs." But to reason is nonetheless the condition and the nature of all individuals.^^ The promise of commerce and industry, knowledge and refinement, Rousseau, tion."

is

"They

edge"; they sexes

meet

The

that the

Hume

are roused

flock into cities; love to receive

resist

in

"minds of men"

wrote in response to

and "put into

a fermenta-

and communicate knowl-

despotism and have conversations with

women; "both

an easy and sociable manner. "^^

discovery of individual and local judgments

position of enlightenment

—was

itself a

—of the universal The

discovery of "nature."

disdivi-

sion of painting into the depiction of history and the depiction oi^enre, or

generic subjects, of flowers, fruit, animals, the "scenes of common and do-

mestic

life,"

in 1765.

was unnatural, Diderot wrote

The domestic

one of his

in

and Greuze,

subjects of Chardin

heroes of historical scenes, are "beings

philosopher of enlightenment,

who

Greuze

like

essays

live, feel,

as

on

painting,

much

as the

and think."^^ The

in Diderot's description,

is

"endlessly an observer, in the streets, in the churches, in the markets, in

the theaters, in the promenades, in the public assemblies." His subjects are

sometimes busy and calculating,

where one cannot quite and

who

is

honest,

Paris market.

They

tell

who are

is

who

as in is

a peasant

sometimes

and

and

who

who is

is

a village

a servant,

a flower seller

dowry,

who

is

sly

from the

reflective, quiet, in repose, as in the

scenes of Chardin, the painter Diderot

woman

Greuze 's scene of

a sister

most admired. The laundress, the

peeling turnips, the nurse with a pink apron, the boy memorizing

his lessons, the musical instruments, the jars

and baskets of plums; the loaves of bread: this

is

woman who

the imitation

of olives and porcelain dishes

come in from the market with of a "low, common, and domestic nahas

Economic Sentiments

22 I

ture." It

a nature in

is

which everyone, without exception,

is

deep

in

thought 7^ Turgot's reform edicts of 1776, which were presented by the young

XVT

Louis

at Versailles, in a Lit de Justice

pieces of late eighteenth-century

to the independence of

spirit,

some was

years later, of his

European

mind of

politics,

were

a eulogy, in this

Adam

the people.

set

Smith wrote

copy of the Proces-Verbal of the transactions, that

"most valuable monument of

a

much

which was one of the great

whom

a person

I

remember with

it

so

veneration," the "ever- to-be-regretted Mr. Turgot"; Goethe de-

scribed reading in the Frankfurt newspapers of the

sovereign,"

"new and benevolent

whose noble ends consisted "of introducing

system of political economy, of dispensing with

ficient

and of ruling alone by law and

a regular

all

and

Turgot and Louis XVI

justice."^''

ef-

arbitrary power, invite

their listeners to think themselves into, or sympathize with, the sentiments

of the cultivator oppressed by subaltern roads, the seamstress excluded

dent flower

seller,

the carrier

the street, the trader

The

officials

from joining

who is forbidden to untie

whose house

is

object of the reforms, Louis

his subjects,

XVI

especially

the assaults"

on

of grain

in

declares (in the edict for the sup-

of those

who

own labor and industry. He wishes to

their "all

and

his sacks

searched by magistrates.

pression of the jurandeSy or mastership guilds), all

of the administration of

a corporation, the indepen-

is

to protect the "rights" of

have no property other than

"enfranchise" his subjects from

the "inalienable right of humanity" to choose where

to work, and to abolish the "arbitrary institution" of the guilds, together

with their "obscure codes, drawn up by greed, adopted without scrutiny in ages

of ignorance." The corvee which obliges laborers to work on the

construction of roads

is

a

"form of crushing servitude." The king

is

con-

cerned (in the edict on the regulation of the grain trade) with restrictions

which

are "inconvenient

and disheartening

to being disquieted, and perhaps unjustly punished." edict

on the

regulations concerning suet and taflow)

butchers to buy and

about their

own

sell freely,

on the

rights

of

and of candle makers to make judgments

The effect of the jurandes, he members to submit to the law of the

needs.

"force the poorest

who is exposed He insists (in the

for the trader,

says,

had been to

rich."^^

A SORT OF INNER SHUDDERING The

idyll

of individual independence was for the opponents of economic

reform the most fearsome of prospects. For Turgot's principal adversary

in

Economic Dispositions

23 |

the Lit de Justice, the advocate -general Antoine- Louis Seguier, to abolish

would be to "abandon the certainty of the present for an unwould be to threaten both commerce and the way peo-

regulations

certain future." It

about themselves: "Every manufacturer, every

ple think

worker alone,

will

and

regard himself as an isolated being, dependent on himself

free to v/ander in

imagination;

all

the discrepancies of an often disordered

all

subordination will be destroyed." "This sort of freedom

nothing other than a true independence," Seguier

dence

a vice in the political constitution"; "this

is

transform principle

artisan, every

itself into license

.

.

this principle

.

said,

is

and "indepen-

freedom would soon

of wealth would become a

of destruction, a source of disorder. "^^ As J.-E.-M.

Portalis,

Na-

poleon's minister of religion, wrote in a eulogy to Seguier, the period of

Turgot's reforms was an epoch in which traders had "a great idea of their

independence and their strength," and in which "industry was great, but disquiet

was greater

credible effects,"

"The

spirit

of discussion and criticism" had "in-

in everything. "^^ In the Lit de Justice, the last

change

the king's: I

still."

and "there was nothing constant except the perpetual poignant words were

"My intention is in no way to confound the

conditions of men;

wish to reign only by justice and laws."^^

The people have no more than "a single sentiment," Jacques Necker wrote a few months before the Lit de Justice, in opposition to Turgot's economic policies and to the prospect of universal enlightenment. "The bread which nourishes them, the religion which consoles them; these are their only ideas,"

pains,

see

and

in

all

he wrote; "they are connected to society only by their

this

immense space which

is

called the future, they never

more than tomorrow." Necker was unconvinced,

stances,

in these circum-

of the advantages of "an increase in enlightenment"; while land-

owners were interested

in the right to property,

to liberty, the interest of the people was in

and merchants

in the right

no more than humanity.

por

Condorcet, by contrast, liberty and the security of property were of tense interest to the ple,"

poor

as well.

"You exaggerate the

in-

stupidity of the peo-

he wrote to Necker in 1775, in the assumed personality of a laborer

from Picardy; the people,

like

and personal

not "alms" that they want, but good laws. Until

security. It

is

everyone

else,

want property

rights, justice,

Turgot's economic reforms, Condorcet wrote, "no one had yet deigned to treat the people as a society of reasonable beings. "^^

The

"social

economy" of mid-eighteenth-century France,

in

Tocque-

was characterized by "a sort of inner shuddering," in which "each individual is disquieted and agitated in his condition, and ville's

description,

Economic Sentiments

24 I

to change

tries

it."

tion, is into the

Tocqueville's journey, in

tomb of the "France which

Vancien regime is

no more." He

et la is

Revolu-

concerned

with the "details" of the "administrative and financial history of the ancien regime." His object

to understand the origins of the Revolution of

is

1789, in the "sentiments, the habits, the ideas" of the old society which

He

the Revolution destroyed.

was that

a revolution

wishes to understand, in particular,

which was

"across almost the entire continent of

and not elsewhere.

He is

was conducted, the true practice of

who

those

still

it

Europe" came to pass

in France,

interested, like Condorcet, in the political history

of the sentiments of millions of people: classes in relation to

why

1770s and 1780s,

in preparation, in the

in "the

manner

which business

in

institutions, the exact position

of

one another, the condition and the sentiments of

could not make themselves understood or seen."^^

There are two great spectacles

in Tocqueville's history

of eighteenth-

century sentiments, and both are displayed in the details of administrative

and economic

new

life.

The

"new

revolution in individual dispositions, or the

of the French economy, was associated, for Tocqueville, with the

spirit"

"public prosperity" of the second half of the eighteenth century.

There was a transformation

who

those

prising, bitter,

more

inventive."

of those

who

are

governed and

At the same time, public discontent was more

people seemed more uncomfortable and more disquieted, and the

"hatred against spirit

in "the spirit

govern." Individuals became "more industrious, more enter-

was

all

old institutions" continued to grow.^^ But this

characteristic, eventually,

of much of the

of Europe

rest

new

as well.

In Germany, Tocqueville wrote in his notes for Vancien regime et la Revolution,

and

especially in "the

most commercial

cities

of Germany,

in

Ham-

burg, in Liibeck, in Dantzig," the period of great prosperity which pre-

ceded the French Revolution was

There was

a

also

"vague agitation of the

change which occurred to

all

one of a "strange

human mind";

social upheaval."

a "universal idea

minds without being sought out, and

of al-

though nobody yet imagined how one might change. "^^

The other

great spectacle

the 1760s and 1770s tion in the rules

—was

—or Tocqueville's

and the habits of administrative

formation in economic relationships. ville

"first"

French revolution of

idiosyncratically French. It

It

was

life. It,

a transforma-

too, was a trans-

was influenced by what Tocque-

described as the "language of politics": the "dangerous language" of

the reform edicts of Louis XVI, inspired by Turgot, with their references to the rights of man, the "perilous"

ofjurandes.

It

was

words of the

also influenced, as has

edict

on

the suppression

been seen, by the theories of the

philosophers and economists of the times; of the sect of enlightenment.

Economic Dispositions

25

The slow revolution in individual dispositions, with its "burning desire to become rich" and its "burning desire to change one's position," had prepared the

human mind,

in Tocqueville's description, for these danger-

ous and despotic doctrines.^^ The great drama of the

late

eighteenth cen-

tury was indeed, for Tocqueville, a conflict over the meaning, and the con-

sequences, of the new, universal disposition. condition," which

Adam

also the desire

is

But

human mind, and it

"desire of bettering our

of changing one's condition, was

in

Smith's description "uniform, constant, and uninterrupted," or

"universal, continual,

the

The

was

and uninterrupted."

It

was

of

a principle

The Revolution was not caused by

upheaval.

of

the principle which inspires saving and enterprise.

under certain circumstances,

also,

a universal principle

eighteenth-century France, Tocqueville wrote, in a note on

Nemours's edition of Turgot's

writings.

But the

political

the prosperity of mid-

"spirit

Dupont de

which was to pro-

duce the Revolution" was also the inspiration of commercial prosperity: "This active, unquiet, intelligent, innovative, ambitious cratic spirit

of

new

societies,

demo-

spirit, this

began to animate everything, and before

overturning the society for a moment, was already sufficient to shake

and to develop

it,

it."^^

THE COLD LIGHT OF REASON AND THE The landscape of

late

WARMTH OF ECONOMIC

eighteenth-century economic thought

LIFE

at times

is

uncomfortably unfamiliar. Smith and Condorcet, Burke and Necker, are so like us, and also so unlike.

They think and

write about self-interest and

competition, about institutions and corporations, about the "market" and the "state." But the words

notation

is

mean

them, and their con-

different things to

of a different, and sometimes of an opposite,

politics.

most imposing dichotomies of the post- Revolutionary world rational,

and

—of "cold,"

opposed to "warm" and

reflective calculation as

Even the

instinctive

sentiment, and of the all-controlling, all-reforming state as opposed to the

—

unintended and unimposed diversity of civil society ognizable in the political the

two

sides in

are virtually unrec-

economy of the 1770s and 1780s.

subsequent

political

philosophy

lie

It is as

though

strewn, like Burke's

disbanded moleculae, across the entire landscape of the old Europe.

The opposition between cold and warm thought was

a

commonplace

of the popular philosophical opinion of the mid-eighteenth century. For Herder, on his journey of 1769 from Riga to Nantes, the

was to be found "cold blood,"

in

its

its

"cold language and mentality,"

"politeness,"

and

its

"spirit

of

its

spirit

of France

"cold reason,"

prosperity. "^^

its

The new

Economic Sentiments

26 I

mentality of Europe was divided, in turn, into two principal varieties of

cold philosophy. There was the coldness of calculation of interest: the "corpselike souls" of Helvetius's

or the "secret egotism" of the

De ^Esprit, as Rousseau wrote in Emile, man who "is already dead," and whose

"frozen heart no longer palpitates with joy." But there was also the coldness of duty. Rousseau opposed the "great and powerful passion" of naticism, also in Emile, to the "reasoning its

and philosophical

spirit,"

fa-

with

"philosophical indifference" which constitutes the "tranquillity of

Hamann

death. "^2

speaks of the "indifferentism" of the Critique of Pure

Reason, and says of Kant's

man of enlightenment

that he

is

"man of

the

The public use of What is Hamann, than an aurora borealis or "northern light," "a cold and sterile moonlight" which provides no enlightenment for the "weak and indolent understanding," and no "warmth for the weak will."^^

death."

more,

Enlightenment? was nothing

reason in

for

This conflict of political thermometers was transposed, in the period

lowing the French Revolution, into death.

a

The perfume of enlightenment,

cold. It divides itself into crete, absolute

momentous in

Hegel's description,

two unpleasant forms of consciousness,

On

the one hand, that

is

leads to the cold "utility" of bourgeois society, in

individuals

is

is

doubly a "dis-

hard rigidity and self-willed atomism" and a "simple,

flexible cold universality."

the exchange of

"money

for butter

fol-

struggle of faith and

in-

to say, enlightenment

which the objective of and eggs," and "these

persons as such have in their consciousness and as their aim not the absolute unity,

own

but their

other hand,

it

petty selves and particular interests."

leads to the Terror of the

words, "the coldest and meanest of than cutting off a head of cabbage.

Adam first

all

Ambroise de Bonald

said

the

deaths, with

no more

significance

"^"^

Smith, for the enemies of enlightenment, was the

sort of consciousness,

On

French Revolution: in Hegel's

emblem of the

and Condorcet of the second. Louis- Gabriel-

of Condorcet's Esquisse d^un tableau historique

humain that it helped him to understand the "inconphenomenon" of the revolutionary state, in which men "coldly

des pro^res de Vesprit

ceivable

commanded

their destructive

their fellow citizens;

it

was the

hordes to the desolation and the death" of "final production""^

of the destructive philos-

ophy of the eighteenth century, or "the Apocalypse of this new Gospel.'^^^ But Adam Smith was almost as frightful. The Wealth of Nations, Bonald wrote, was destructive of the entire "moral wealth" of society.

It

too was a

source of desolation. War, plague, and famine cannot destroy the force of public society, Bonald said in his observations

on Smith, but "a book

is

Economic Dispositions

27 |

enough to overturn it." The effect of political economy is to distract the state from the "morality of society," which cannot be maintained without the "continual action of governments. The administration of things has thus led them to lose sight of the direction of men."^^ Condorcet and Smith have been seen, ever since, as the precursors in two great diachronic processions, trudging across the nineteenth century toward the universal is

state,

or toward the desolation of market relations.

these processions, as will be seen,

which

the economic thought of the 1770s and 1780s. For economic in

It

are so difficult to recognize in life is itself,

Condorcet's and Smith's descriptions, a place of warm and discursive

emotions. Smith sees self-interest, or self-love, as a characteristically

warm

(and confusing) sentiment; he speaks in the Theory of Moral Sentiments o^ the "fury of our

own

passions," or the "heat

and keenness"

in

which "ev-

erything appears magnified and misrepresented by self-love." Like moral

judgments, commercial judgments are a combination of reasons and Mercantile policy, in the Wealth of Nations,

ments.

tion spirit," a matter of "jealousy" to time, "widi

all

is,

like

senti-

the "corpora-

and "animosity," inflamed, from time

the passionate confidence of interested falsehood."

projectors, or entrepreneurs of

and "passion" more

tiian

new

ventures, are

men

The

of "imagination"

of "sober reason and experience," entranced by

the "golden dreams" of mining, empire, and capital investment.^^

buy and to

Interference with the freedom to

Smith

a

form of political oppression.

It is also,

and emotional. Freedom of commerce, emancipation from personal,

The poor

are oppressed

pressed by the

and to work

is

for

in the

Wealth of Nations,

is

an

and sometimes physical oppression.

by the laws of setdement; the French are op-

the

Germans

are oppressed

wine

sellers are

oppressed by licensing regulations; the

taille;

eigns' horses; small

political,

sell

from time to time, intense

by having to feed sover-

tenants of great proprietors are oppressed by "factors and agents"; people

who

try to export sheep are oppressed

by laws "written

in blood"; ap-

prentices are oppressed by corporations; clothiers are oppressed by the

Hamburg Company;

the Javans are oppressed by the

Dutch East India

their own inferior servants, are Company in Bengal. Oppression is a relationship, in many of these instances, between one in-

Company; and almost everyone, including oppressed by the East India

dividual

and another;

it is

an abuse of political power.

It is

connected to

the petty and personal despotism which was a continuing obsession for

Condorcet and Turgot,

as well as for

form of "vexation." Smith thus

Smith, and which they described as a

refers repeatedly, in the

Wealth of Nations,

Economic Sentiments

28 I

to the "mortifying and vexatious visits of the tax-gatherers," to the "trou-

from the "custom-house

ble or vexation" to be expected

tion

the sort of oppression

is

which

uncertain jurisprudence, in which

pursue their personal grievances.

Vexa-

officer."

flourishes in the circumstances

men

It is

use the

power of

of an

their offices to

the oppression in which one's op-

knows one's name, and one's weaknesses, and where one lives. Customs officers are obliged "to be frequently very troublesome to some

pressor

of their neighbours," Smith

says.

Their

much

expose people "to

visits

necessary trouble, vexation, and oppression; and though vexation stricdy speaking, expence,

every

man would

The personal and

and the emotional (or

The consequence of laws

got wrote in 1770, tions.

certainly equivalent to the expence at

unnot,

which

it."^^^

the commercial, the economic and the political, the

rational (or calculable) interrelated.

it is

be willing to redeem himself from

is

is

intuitive) are here intimately

regulating interest and usury, Tur-

to expose individuals to odious

"The destiny of citizens

is

abandoned to an

and dangerous vexa-

arbitrary

and

fluctuat-

ing jurisprudence, which changes with public opinion," he said in his

"Memoire

sur les prets d'argent"; he describes the "vertigo"

and "terror,"

the "denunciations" and "vengeance," which were the consequence, in the small provincial

town of Angouleme, of prosecutions

for usury. People

have become "heated," from one end of the town to the other, and officers

of justice have themselves adopted "cette chaleur."

told the authorities in Paris, to put an

so odious, and which itself in

is

end to "a

even more dangerous to the extent that

he

which it

is

covers

the appearance of zeal for the observation of the law."^^^

The regime of regulation, Condorcet wrote

in his Reflexions sur le

com-

a society

of "ruses and oppression," in which

become dependent on "the

inspections, the prohibitions, the con-

merce des farmers

It is essential,

sort of vexation

of 1776,

bles

is

demnations, the vexations" which are characteristic of city to study the ruses of "subaltern" officials,

and to learn

them. They lose even the independence which agricultural

life:

suffers less if

he

"Man prefers is

to

is

to seduce

depend on nature than on other men; he

ruined by a hailstorm than by an injustice;

is itself,

for

Condorcet,

a question

from the vexations, the

fiscal

it is

that

regime of in-

of sentiments: "It would

under which they are would refieve them of the sentiment of thousand times more painful than that of misery. "^^^

deliver the people

groaning in the present regime; oppression, a

They have

the greatest advantage of

which attaches him to agriculture." The reform of the direct taxation

life.

how

it

terrors

Economic Dispositions

29 |

SEEING THE STATE AS Even

tJie

"state"

IN

A PICTURE

and the "market,"

in these

warm and discursive

are intricately interconnected. Late eighteenth-century is

now

so unfamiliar, in part, because of the subsequent transformation in

of economic reform and also in the depic-

political positions: in the politics

was the

tion of the state. It is

"left," in the

— —^who were the most severe

gious

state.

Thomas

critics

of the economic,

Government thrusting

"the greedy hand of

and

itself into

called for "lessening the

government spending to idyll

reli-

every corner and

burden of taxes,"

through a plan for reducing taxation which would

Condorcet's

and

political,

Paine, praising Smith and criticizing Burke, described

crevice of industry," ticular

period with which this book

the friends of enlightenment, the sympathizers of revolu-

concerned

tion

societies,

economic thought

less

than

1

in par-

limit civilian

percent of national income.

of ftiture progress,

in the

work described by Bonald

as

the apocalypse of the revolutionary gospel, was of an "indefinite freedom"

of commerce and industry, in which people would be liberated,

at last,

from the "destructive scourge and the humiliating yoke" of "tyrannical fiscality."^^^

The

object of fiscal reform, for Condorcet in 1793, should be

to establish direct and minimal taxation; to avoid the marginal disincentives

of "progressive taxation," such that

"it

should not become useless,

for an individual, to acquire a

new piece of land,

sum." The object of

should be the "virtual nonexistence" (the

politics

"presque nuUite") of the

state;

or to invest a

new

capital

people need "laws and institutions which

reduce to the smallest possible quantity the action of government. "^^^

The state.

make

"right," or the "It

is

opponents of revolution, were the defenders of the

these obstructions, these fetters, these prohibitions which

the glory, the security, the immensity of the

commerce of France,"

the advocate -general Seguier argued, against Turgot, in 1776.^^^ For

Burke, "the provision and distribution of the public wealth" were essential for the "prosperity

and improvement of nations."

the fabric of its state

der of individuality."

A society which destroys

would soon be "disconnected It is

the state "nourishes the public hope.

portance and dignity in

it."

The

into the dust and

all,

"truly public" state should be looked

"with pious awe and trembling solicitude." But the object of reverence.

pow-

who would suffer most, for The poorest man finds his own im-

the poor, above

"The revenue of the

hence not only magnanimity, and

state

liberality,

is

fiscal state is itself

the state

.

.

.

on an

[F]rom

and beneficence, and

forti-

Economic Sentiments

30 I

tude, and providence, and the tutelary protection of their food,

all

good

arts, derive

and the growth of their organs. "^^^

Revolutionary and imperial politics were associated, throughout Europe, with the reform and deregulation of economic policies. Coleridge

described Napoleon as a follower of the Economistes, committed to the

view that government should "preserve the freedom of all

government does more of this, comes of evil: and

its

.

best

.

Whatever

.

employment

a is

the repeal of laws and regulations, not the establishment of them.''^^^ In

one of the comic

set pieces

of

War and Peace,

in the

new French-supported

Napoleon's troops, the

Moscow

occupied by

municipal authorities pro-

claim that "markets have been organized in the city where peasants can

bring their surplus produce," to be sold "with prices agreed

upon between

seller

and

buyer. "^^^

no hindrance," and

"Adam

"at

Smith's cosmo-

politan views and his concept of freedom could only bring happiness at the

moment of greatest

decline for

Adam

"romantic" economist

who

conceived,

said,

was of of the

sion:

The

a nation

Miiller wrote in 1810.

state as a wilde Ehe, a

politics.

The

ideal

of those

as a "useful enterprise," Miiller

"wild

politics.

illu-

marriage. "^^^

of economic reform

coalition of laissez-faire

Napoleonic

Europe," the German

of individuals, without reverence and without

political rhetoric

in particular, as will

nationalities in

Smith, of the state

like

of the rhetoric of subsequent

The

all

is

So too

virtually the opposite, here,

are the political friendships.

economic policy and

political

conservatism

is

be seen, the outcome of post- Revolutionary and post-

Napoleon himself studied the Wealth of Nations m

Helena, and the protected monopolies of the "old systems" (such

St.

as the

East India companies); his conclusion, as reported by Las Cases, was that free

commerce

"agitated

all

imaginations, shook an entire people;

it

was

entirely identical with equality, led naturally to independence, and, in this

respect,

had much more to do with our modern system ...

in favor

of free commerce, and rejected the companies."^^^

1

pronounced

The politics of late eighteenth- century economic thought is unfamiliar in a more profound sense as well. For the "state" and the "market" were not yet understood as the two imposing and competing dominions of society,

and they were indeed interdependent. Markets were established by

states,

or imposed by

rambling

societies,

them upon

recalcitrant traders. States

which include the governments of

were great

parishes, guilds,

Even the words in which the two dominions were described are now unfamiliar, changing from abstract to concrete, and from concrete to abstract. A market is thus an order

incorporations, and established churches.

Economic Dispositions

31 |

of which the "principles" can be "subverted,"

as

Burke wrote;

collection of physical structures, at a particular time

Burke describes the

rules.

science; a partnership in

state, in

all art;

fection"; he also says, of the

sembly, that they were

particular

the Reflections, as "a partnership in

and

a partnership in every virtue,

"mere country curates"

"men who

also a

it is

in

all

all

per-

in the National As-

much

never had seen the state so

as in a

"113

picture.

Condorcet described the ting in

and with

which "the

avarice

of economic

ideal

1775,

relations, in

as a set-

of buyers and the avidity of sellers counterbal-

ance each other, without anyone interfering. "^^^ But markets were

same time an obstruction imposed by oppressive and prohibitive tion. Colbert's

code for transactions

Condorcet's description: the

sale

in salt in Brittany

is

at the

legisla-

an example, in

of salt was to be permitted only, subject

on the days and

to five years' hard labor, "in the market hall,

of the market, and to people domiciled in the

province. "^^^

hours

at the

Turgot

distin-

guished between markets, which developed out of reciprocal interest, and the "fairs," which were organizations of privilege and regulation;

governments, however, went so

far as to

some

"use the intervention of the po-

One of Turgot's edicts of 1776 abolished the obligation on merchants who brought grain into Paris to sell it "before the

lice

to establish markets. "^^^

third market" (with the "interval

There

days").

is

sometimes

as

market to the next," Condorcet gation that merchants should that the law

between three markets being only 11

much

as "five to six leagues

Necker's defense of the obli-

said, against

sell

would not be used

from one

only in markets.

When Necker promised

against small, local transactions, he was

promising no more than an "arbitrary tolerance," in which

officials

could

choose to "close their eyes, or to ensure the execution of the law, according to their interest or their whim."ii^

In the Prussia of the Re£iie established by Frederick the Great with the help of Helvetius, and in which

Hamann was

an inspector of excise duties,

the towns where market transactions took place were "islands of protective tariffs, in a

and

sell

sea of rural free trade. "^^^

in markets,

but

and oppression." Even

which Smith so dustry,

also,

in

disliked,

and above

all

Towns were where people met to buy Condorcet said, to become dupes of "ruses

England, or

at least in the

incorporated towns

towns were the locus of buying and

selling,

of in-

of regulation. They were places of rhetoric and of the

exchange of information; for Turgot, the formation of prices was the consequence of a debate between buyers and

sellers.

But the conversation

turned inevitably, in market towns, to rules and to taxes.

Officials lived

Economic Sentiments

32 I

side

by

side with merchants;

and they were sometimes the same people

as

the merchants: "the government of towns corporate was ahogether in the

hands of traders and

artificers,"

Smith wrote (and compared Norwich and

both corporate towns, most unfavorably with Manchester,

Sheffield,

Bir-

mingham, and Wolverhampton). The idea of a purely political government is as elusive, here, as the idea of a purely economic market. The "constitution of the state," for Smith, is composed of the government of the church, of local and municipal counThe cils, of the kingdom, of parishes, and of guilds and corporations. British state, in the Wealth of Nations,

is

also

Namier's

state: it

incorporates

"the contracts, the jobs, the subscriptions, the loans, the remittances &c.,

&c." described by the amanuensis of Lord Bath Smith

directed,

Of Smith's

great diatribes in the Wealth of Nations, only one

with what would

later

have been understood

of national government. This

tivity

in 1761.^^^ Its policies are

"by the clamorous importunity of partial

said,

is

as a principally

is

interests."

concerned

economic

ac-

of the restrictions on

his criticism

imports and bounties on exports imposed by partial legislatures, intimidated

as

they often are by an "overgrown standing army" of interested

monopolists.

His other principal objections are to the policies of parish

councils and churchwardens (the laws of settlement restricting the free-

dom

of movement of the poor); of corporations and guilds (apprentice-

ship regulations); of incorporated trading companies (the East India

Com-

pany); and of religious incorporations.

"Church and

state are ideas inseparable in their

minds," Burke said of

the people of England in the Reflections, and they consider the church as

"the foundation of their whole constitution."!^^ For Smith, too, "ecclesiastical

government"

is

part of the constitution of the state, and

the subject of some of his most devastating criticism.

it is

indeed

He uses the language

"The clergy of every established church constitute a great incorporation. They can act in concert, and pursue their interest upon one plan and with one spirit." His own proposal is for the competition of "two or three hundred, or perhaps ... as many thousand small sects," as had been favored in England toward the end of the Civil War; a "plan of ecclesiastical government, or more properly of no ecclesiastical government. "^^^ The interdependence of commerce and government, in this setting of of economic obstruction

in describing official religions:

regulated markets and interested

of economic reform,

as

it

was

officials, is at

for

the heart of Smith's theory

Turgot and for Condorcet. Manufac-

turers are

churchwardens and aldermen and the counsellors of legislators,

as well as

people

who buy wool and

sell

coats;

"whenever the

legislature

Economic Dispositions

33 |

attempts to regulate the differences between masters and their workmen, its

counsellors are always the masters," Smith says.^^e Condorcet

effort,

both in the Reflexions sur

le

commerce des

Turgot, to distinguish

between true and

"true merchants" and

"accredited" traders,

ests

by conniving

bles

and

in his

political entrepreneurs:

who

pursue their

made an Vie de M. between

own

inter-

government regulations, thereby avoiding "the comwho are not rich enough to have patrons. "^^^ But the

in

petition of traders

choice for the merchant, in general, was between different,

more or

regulated markets, and between different,

more or

less

less "political" strate-

Even his interests were political as well as economic, and political influence was itself a form of consumption. As Condorcet wrote, arguing against the taxes on luxury consumption which gies for pursuing his interests.

Smith supported, "Instead of buying horses, people

and positions;

for expenditures

on

taste

.

.

.

on intrigue. "12^ The idea of vexation, which was of such

will

buy hangers-on

they will substitute expendi-

tures

central importance to Smith's,

Turgot's, and Condorcet's descriptions of the sentiments of economic is

similarly

sion.

important to their theories of the

Vexation

characteristic

is

of the enforcement of commercial and

when Smith

they use the fear of eternal misery, or

own

interest,

when Condorcet inequality, in his

explains,

and of political oppres-

indeed a particular, personal form of the abuse of power,

other (and worse) abuses:

their

state

life,

then he

is

says all

fiscal rules.

There are

of religious incorporations that

the terrors of religion, to protect

talking about the abuse of spiritual power;

speaks of the "inequality of rights" within families

words, "between the two sexes"

about the "abuse

of force. "^^^

But the

—then he

is

—an

talking, as

he

particular circumstances of

vexation arise because of the interrelatedness of political and economic life,

not

of the domiinions of government and of commerce. Economic a distinct universe, a "side"

of life. People have the same personalities,

or the same sentiments, in their economic or customs officers) as in the rest of their

and

their enmities with

life is

lives (their lives as

merchants

They bring

their fears

lives.

them, from one side of their

social relationships to

the next.

The most

oppressive of

all

institutions, for

incorporations and communities of

Smith and Turgot,

are the

The mastership and aphells of vexation. They pro-

civil society.

prenticeship guilds were considered to be

little

vided a propitious setting for the abuse of personal power; they were vate associations, protected by the inexact law. Turgot's edict for the suppression

and

pri-

arbitrary force of public

of the mastership guilds,

in

1776,

described the regulations of the guilds "as bizarre, tyrannical, and contrary

Economic Sentiments

34 I

to humanity and morality." For the advocate -general Seguier, as for Burke

1790, the effect of reform would be to undermine (rather than to

in

"repair") the "ancient foundations of the state," or the "very edifice of

the political constitution."

The communities were

like "little republics"

within the state, Seguier said, in which each worked for the

and without which no

But

just this

it is

Smith so

artisan

would be more than "an

good of all,

isolated being. "^^^

power, of a republic within the republic, that was for

insidious.

The

apprenticeship guilds, in Smith's description, were

enclosed worlds of oppression, whose bylaws were supported by the "public

law of the kingdom. "^^^ They were places of fluctuating jurisprudence

and unpredictably enforced

common

dominions of

laws.

states

The

institutions

and markets, that

and no more enlightened, than the

free,

which flourished

is

to say, were

institutions

of the

in the

no more

political "edi-

fice" itself.

INDULGENCE AND INDIFFERENCE The is

between the enemies and the enthusiasts of enlightenment

distinction

itself unfamiliar, in

than

it

came

to

enlightenment

these disorderly times. It

seem

is

different

in the post- Revolutionary world.

as a society

the polemics of the 1790s.

and

less

The

sense of the

constant

or sect was conspicuous, as has been seen, in It is also at

the heart of one of the most pro-

found charges against enlightenment thought. The philosophers and the economists were telling a great said that they lions

of

in the

lie,

view of their

critics,

were concerned with the dispositions, or the

when

spirit,

they

of mil-

men and women. They were in truth concerned with no more own dispositions, and their own schemes. They wanted a people

than their

who would obey

their

own,

tutelary authority.

They were

a sect,

and they

pretended to be the theorists of a new world of public understanding. This

is

eternity:

the charge, at

its

most coruscating, of duplicity

in the sight

of

Lamennais's charge, against Voltaire, of a double indifference, in

which religion the people.

is

an amusement for

It is

men of letters, and

necessary only for

Tocqueville's charge, against the Economistes, against

Quesnay and Letrosne and Mercier, of wishing to reconstruct the spirit of individuals to fit their own "model" of "essential order," or their own "imaginary society." The role of the state, for the Economistes, was in TocqueviUe's description "not only to it

in a certain

way"; to "form the

command

spirit

the nation, but to shape

of the citizens," to imbue them

with the "ideas" and "sentiments" which the state "It does

not simply reform men,

it

itself

transforms them."^^^

deems

necessary:

Economic Dispositions

35 |

One

crime of the enlightenment, in the view of its early

have led other people

into sin, in a frivolous,

cern with the consequences of one's

my

binder,

among

own

critics,

was to

sometimes demonic uncon-

policies. "I sent

some books

to

Madame La Baronne

others the Systeme de la Nature,

writes at the outset of the abbe Barruel's anti-philosophical novel Les

HelvienneSy published shortly before the Revolution. tice

The

binder's appren-

"spent the night leafing through these books, and took some liberties

with

his master's

daughter," to

whom

he said confidently "that there was

no hell, and he had just read it in one of Madame La Baronne's books. "^^^ The advocate -general Seguier, in his oration in defense of the jurandes, imagined that Paris would be overwhelmed by a crowd of apprentices "escaped from the workshops," in

whom

lost."

Of Turgot's

zarre

and contrary to morality, he

the "spirit of subordination will be

(and Louis XVI's) description of guild regulations said that

he could not repeat

it

as bi-

without

"a sort of trembling. "13^

The crime of wishing to reconstruct the minds of other men was in a more sinister. For it was to make a religion out of irreli-

different version

gion.

A subset of the

"sect of philosophers" were in Lamennais's descrip-

was

tion "apostles of impiety." Voltaire

them "the

for

priest

of reason";

they were willing, in their "blind fanaticism," to sacrifice entire societies to

This was the quasi-religious

their principles.

Physiocrats, for Tocqueville, spirit

and the

spirit

spirit

of the EconomisUs or

of Jacobin

principles. It

was the

of Robespierre's religion of the Supreme Being, and of the revolu-

tionary project (Talleyrand's project, in his revolutionary period) of a public

education which would "imprint, for ever,

new

habits. "1^^

several

new sentiments, new morals,

But the crime of moral despotism was

of the philosophers of the 1770s and 1780s

younger than Quesnay and Mercier

also

one with which

—of the generation

—were themselves preoccupied. Con-

dorcet said of Voltaire, in words that were

more appropriate

to his

own

changing view of knowledge, that he became truly enlightened only when

he

visited

England: he saw that "truth

is

not made to remain a secret in the

hands of a few philosophers, and of a small number of men of the world instructed, or rather indoctrinated

by the philosophers; laughing with

them at the errors of which the people are the victim. "^^^ The system of unsecret truth is opposed, here, to the "laws of order" of the Economistes or Physiocrats. Turgot described the reproach, against the

EconomisUs, of adopting the "tone of a sect" as "just, and too just": "Oh! spirit

of sect!"

He

efforts to turn

would

objected vigorously, in 1770, to

Dupont de Nemours's

him, by editorial emendation, into an Economist.

never, he wrote, refer to "the laws of order"; his

own

principle

He was

Economic Sentiments

36 I

of "the rights of humanity," and he considered that the Economists' concept of "tutelary authority" was a "dishonor" to their doctrine, in that

"men do not need

tutors.

When

understand one another. "^^^ "the set of

men

know how

in his projected Dictionnaire

der them, and crush them, and his "sect" that their "exact

tice" disregards the diversity

to

described the Economistes, in 1769, as

the most chimerical and most arrogant that

and urged Morellet, and

they are reasonable, they

Hume

pound

exist,"

to "thun-

them."^^^ Smith said of Quesnay

regimen of perfect

of individual

land, he said that he prefers to review

now

du Commerce^

it

lives.

liberty

Of their

and perfect

jus-

view of taxes on

"without entering into the

dis-

agreeable discussion of the metaphysical arguments by which they sup-

port their very ingenious theory. "^^^ Condorcet said that the "generality

of their maxims, the

inflexibility

of their principles," was such that they

seemed "to forget the interests of political freedom for those of freedom of commerce." To impose the ideas and the sentiments of the legislator in a

system of public education, Condorcet wrote,

is

"a true tyranny."^*^

The mid-eighteenth-century prospect of moral or

ernization —of compulsory enlightenment— enterprise. "It

nation,"

is

Mentor

psychological

^was a version

of a

much

modolder

necessary to change the taste and the customs of an entire (or Minerva) says in Fenelon's Aventures de Telema.que of

1699, of which more than two hundred editions were published in the course of the eighteenth century; the people of Ithaca might then be like the people of Tyre, "industrious, patient, hardworking, clean, sober, and cautious; they have an exact system of regulations; they are in perfect

agreement with one another; no people has ever been more constant,

more

more secure. "''^^ The psychological reform of Phoenician cities was indeed a model of commercial policy for much of the eighteenth century. The emperor Peter sought to suppress willfulness in the Russian people, and to transform "harm into benefit, laziness into diligence."^^* The empress Catherine, advised by Voltaire, wished to "extersincere,

more

faithful,

minate laziness in the inhabitants," and to be

rid

of "supineness and negli-

gence" and "disregard for everything. "^^^ The "business of a statesman," for Sir

James Steuart, was "to model the minds of

model "the erly

spirit,

his subjects," or to

manners, habits, and customs of the people." "By prop-

conducting and managing the

ble," Steuart said, although he

spirit

of

a people,

conceded that

"it

nothing

is

impossi-

requires a particular

tal-

ent in a statesman to dispose the minds of a people. "^"^^

is

The minds of the people, in the political economy with which this book mosdy concerned, were far more resilient. "Man is generally considered

by statesmen and projectors

as the materials

of a sort of political mechan-

Economic Dispositions

37 |

manuscript of 1755, quoted by Dugald Stewart; his

ics,"

Smith wrote

own

preference, rather, was for

must

take

in a

mankind

as

no more than

"fair play."^^^

they find them, and cannot pretend to introduce

any violent change in their principles and ways of thinking,"

"Of Commerce." There

in his essay

to say, which

is

Commercial

Hume's

Hume wrote

a psychological laissez-faire, that

is

soul,

life

is

uncertain business, in

itself a disorderly, discursive,

description;

and when someone "forms schemes

economy, or any business fine,

is

complement to laissez-faire in commerce. There is a which is the complement to economic freedom.

the

freedom of the

"Sovereigns

in

life,

he never ought to draw

in politics, trade,

his

arguments too

or connect too long a chain of consequences together. Something

is

sure to happen, that will disconcert his reasoning, and produce an event different

(and

from what he expected. "^^^ This was Smith's view of commerce

politics) as well,

The enlightened commercial

and

it

was

also Condorcet's,

disposition, for Smith, a universal condition

life, is

which

of

all

by the end of his

is

life.

also the disposition

of

individuals. It can be ob-

structed (by prejudice, or fear, or the mutilation of ignorance). It can be set free.

But

it is

not something in which people can be instructed, or

conducted, or with which they can be imbued. Smith's view of economic sentiments

is

very different, in this respect, from Steuart's, or from

Montesquieu's, including in the theories of the "political" justification for

commerce which and the Interests

are the subject

.^"^"^

of Albert Hirschman's study The Passions

For the view of individuals' passions

be "tamed," or "harnessed," view, like Condorcet's,

is

is

as

something to

the view of the sovereign. Smith's point of

in general the

view of the individuals themselves,

or of the unheroic heroes of commerce. ^""^ They were concerned, lier

writers

on commercial

legislatures).

dom

But they

policy, to provide advice to sovereigns

like ear-

(and to

are unrelentingly skeptical with respect to the wis-

of these sovereigns and statesmen. Their advice, again and again,

that sovereigns should try to see the world

is

from the point of view of their

subjects; that they should be willing, unlike Colbert, in Smith's description, to allow "every

man

to pursue his

own

interest his

the liberal plan of equality, liberty and justice. "^^^

statesman, for Condorcet,

is

The

own

way,

upon

greatest folly of the

to think of societies as an "undivided whole";

to seek, like Colbert in Necker's "Eloge de Colbert," to "envelope

diem

in one's thought. "^^^

There

is

no

certainty in such a view of the world; there

sonance, or the conflict, of individual

lives.

is

only the con-

Lamennais indeed

identified

Condorcet's view of society with yet another, and in some respects even

more

frightening version of the crime of enlightenment. This was the

Economic Sentiments

38 I

crime of a "dogmatic indifference" to religion. Condorcet ui^derstood,

Lamennais wrote, that religion could not

persist if it

were reserved

for the

people alone. Society would then be abandoned to a morality without foundation, and to a universe without certainty. the later

Roman

The human

spirit, as in

Empire, under the influence of Epicurus, would be "de-

prived of its beliefs and even of its opinions,

it

would swim,

chance, in an immense ocean of uncertainties and of doubts."

would be one

verse

in

mercy of

at the

The

uni-

which the individual was endowed with "absolute

sovereignty over himself; a "horrible anarchy of contrary wills and op-

posed

of unequal forces and unequal desires," an "orgy of doc-

interests,

trines, [a]

confused shock of all the interests and

was indeed the condition of France the influence of a

modern

all

in the 1760s,

the passions. "^^^ This

Lamennais wrote, under

philosophy, a "monstrous chaos of incoherent

ideas,"

which "imagines that one can do everything with money";

tion in

which

all

relations

between persons were inverted,

in

a condi-

which

women

men

embroi-

pronounced solemn dissertations about science and military dered, in which the old were silent and children insolent.

The economic tion,

above

all,

writings with which this

book

is

of opposed interests and unequal

concerned are desires.

They

a descrip-

express an

extraordinary tolerance for uncertainty, and for doubt. Condorcet's view

of enlightenment,

like

Smith's, was close to the Epicurean prospect, as de-

scribed by Lucretius, in

which

men and women no

children in the dark, and the "terror of the

mind"

standing; or as described by Lucian, in which

men

is

longer tremble

dispelled by under-

are freed

"from

terrors

and apparitions and portents, from vain hopes and extravagant ings. "^^^

But they

also believed that the process

like

of understanding

is

crav-

slow,

uncertain, and subject to error, chance, and the likelihood of being dis-

concerted.

stand their

One source of uncertainty is that individuals will not underown interests very well; or that they will understand their own

"local situation" so well that they will

choose to pursue their interests by

the "ruses of fear," or by political intrigues. tainty

is

A

different source of uncer-

the one which Lamennais found so fearsome;

it is

that the new,

enlightened society will be without foundation, and without providence.

There

is

an even more disturbing prospect;

will itself, eventually, laissez-faire

—that

is

life

of uncertainty

be a source of strength, or of virtue. The challenge of

sez-faire in the relations

do not

that a

to say, of psychological laissez-faire, as well as of lais-

of commerce

ing certainty about the truth of one's "I

it is

—

is

to live without certainty, includ-

own

dogm.as.

believe that morality in itself can ever be local,"

Turgot wrote

Economic Dispositions

39 |

to Condorcet in 1773, against the philosophical system of Helvetius, in

which morality

is

founded on

the actions of individuals I

am,

in matters

is

a

interest.

But "the judgment to be made on

much more

complicated problem":

of morality, a great enemy of indifference and a great

proponent of indulgence

... It

is, I

think, because of not distinguish-

ing adequately between these two points of view about ways of judging the morality of actions, which are so different, that given

way

on the

some have

to an excessive rigorousness, in judging individual actions

basis

of general ideas of morality, without regard to the

cir-

cumstances which excuse the individual; and that others regard actions as indifferent,

cause there

is

very

and

little

all

them no more than physical facts, becannot be excused in some given circum-

see in

that

stance.

This morality of indulgence, or of respect for principles and of respect, too, for the circumstances of individuals,

is

also the morality

of a certain

kind of enlightenment. Condorcet was opposed, throughout his the enemies of universal enlightenment; to Necker, his

Sur

who wrote

life,

commerce des grains, that the people were

la legislation et le

to

1775, in

in

like

who act "without reflecting, but enlightened by their instinct, commanded by their needs"; that they were a "blind and wild multitude," who "will be the same for all time."^^^ But he was even more powerfully children,

opposed, to the

of enlightenment and of reason;

late in his life, to the enthusiasts

"supposed philosophers" who were

truths" as "the fanatics of

commitment

as a

sects,"

all

and

"blind sentiment," by

the ruses of proselytism."

which conforms to the

To

as certain

who "all

of their

own

"political

sought to impose

political

the follies of enthusiasm,

teach even a free constitution as "a doctrine

principles of universal reason, or to excite in

its fa-

vor a blind enthusiasm which makes citizens incapable of judging

would be "to of teaching

violate

how to

freedom

cherish

all

in

its

most sacred

rights,

it,"

under the pretext

it."^^^

THE LIGHT OF HISTORY book about history; about how people once thought. Its objective is to cast light on eighteenth-century economic thought (by looldng at it in the setting of disputes over enlightenment), and on the enlighten-

This

is

a

ment (by looldng

at

economic

disputes).

To

see the controversies over the

jurandes and over the commerce in suet, over bounties and excise duties,

Economic Sentiments

40 I

—to

being of intense and

as

people

at the

time

—

some

political interest

different world.

pation of the mind, and of political and at the heart

I

they seemed to

as

hope, into the circum-

Economic

history has been at a

time, from the history of economic thought, and from

In the disputes with which

political history.

them

see

to have a richer insight,

and

stances of an earlier distance, for

is

I

am

concerned, the emanci-

was by contrast

legal institutions,

of economic improvement. Economic reform and

political re-

form, die economic thought of philosophers and the economic thoughts

of flower stances I

sellers,

which

am

less

I

were thought to be

hope to

closely intertwined;

it is

these circum-

describe.

concerned, in general, with what Tocqueville, writing of the

Revolution of 1848 in France, described

as "this false light [cette

trompeuse] that the history of past facts casts events with which

am concerned

I

on

tiie present. "^^^

lueur

But the

have been the subject, to a disconcert-

ing extent, of a sort of diachronic son et lumiere, in which the past illuminates the present, and the present illuminates the past.

wrote of

Adam

Woodrow Wilson

Smith, in 1893, that his "philosophy has entered ev-

erywhere into the

life

of politics and become a world force

in thought. "^^^

Tocqueville himself said, of Quesnay and Morelly, that "of all the their times,

it is

the Economists

The Ec onomistes 2ind

who seem

me

.

.

that

.

1

[W]hen

1

of

the socialists of the nineteenth century were close re-

lations, in Tocqueville's description: raries

men

the least out of place in ours."

"They have

a false air

of contempo-

look through the books of the Economists,

have lived with these people, and that

1

it

seems to

have just been debating

with them."^^i

The

history of

economic thought has been characterized,

for

most of

the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, by a continuing preoccupation

with present times. Like the history of education, in Bernard Bailyn's description, the history als

of economic thought has been written by profession-

within the discipline

itself,

"impelled to search the past for the seeds,

the antecedents, of the present. "^^^

It is a

fluential doctrines; a Dq0men0eschichte. It

and errors and

distractions

of the

story of influential is

past. Like the history

which should become shorter

in-

of chemistry, to

which Jean-Baptiste Say compared the history of economic a history

men and

uninterested in the intentions

science,

it is

as science itself progresses.

For

"what could we gain by collecting absurd opinions," Say asked, or "doctrines

which have been discredited and which deserve to be

so.>"^^^"

The history of the enlightenment, too, has often been a search, of a far more imposing sort, for the seeds of present discontents. The French Rev-

Economic Dispositions

41 |

olution, Jacques

Necker wrote

1796, could be seen

in

as

something

like

the Flood, a consequence of the "monstrous union of philosophical ideas

with the most violent passions, a union which seems to pact of which the Bible

of men."

It

was "the

political

"ideal abstractions"

its

had

and

recall the criminal

the marriage of angels with the daughters

tells us,

system of the philosophers of France," with "diverse metaphysical principles,"

its

which

our times, of shaking the world. "^"^^ The principles of

"the effect, in

the sect of enlightenment have been seen, ever since, as the antecedents,

The philosophers

or precursors, of modern times.

are conspirators in tur-

They

bulent change (as in the anti- Jacobin prosopography of the 1790s). are the inspiration are, at the

wrote the

very

of continuing turmoil

least,

in his study

(as

"world forces in thought." Rabelais, Lucien Febvre

of sixteenth-century religious

"first in a linear series, at

the end of which

of the twentieth century": "'That Rabelais! Qj^r"i65 jj^g diachronic procession linear series

same way, lineage

is

they were for Necker). They

of cold,

A

been seen

as

place the 'free thinkers'

free thinker,

and so

early

which begins with Condorcet, or the

universalistic reason,

comes to an end,

much

in

the

of the twentieth century. Smith's

in the socialist calculation

supposed to end

disbelief, has

we

in the cold

and unforgiving competition, the

one-sided calculation of self-interest, of the twenty- first- century world

economy. 1

hope, in what follows, to avoid

Like Keith Baker,

1 will

at least

some of this

Condorcet

try to see

lightenment he knew," or of "the philosophes like

Donald Winch,

I

will try to

imagine "what

in the context

or of an earlier history).

1

own

said earlier,

— cold and warm dispositions — that century economic thought

familiar, in part,

nomic

life

its

they lived and thought";

it

would be conceivable 1 will try,

for

in particular, to

sense of the past (of their

own

past,

of the landscape of late eighteenth-

states it is

of "the En-

as

Smith" to have conceived, or to have thought. convey Condorcet's and Smith's

processionalism.

and markets and corporations, uncomfortably unfamiliar.

It is

its

un-

because of the persistence in eighteenth-century eco-

of regulations and customs which were even then archaic. Smith

describes the Elizabethan laws,

still

unrepealed, under which the export of

"sheep, lambs or rams" was punishable by mutilation and death ("Like the laws of Draco, these laws

Hanoverian

legislation

may be

said to be

all

written in blood"); the

which prescribed imprisonment and

loss

of

all

property for "artificers" practicing their trade in foreign countries; the Elizabethan statute of apprenticeship.

Condorcet describes the penalties

of death and deportation to the galleys imposed under the French regula-

— Economic Sentiments

42 I

who consider the blood of the

tion of salt (of which Smith says that "those

people

as

nothing in comparison with the revenue of the prince, may per-

haps approve of this method of levying taxes" Turgot's Lit de Justice of March 1776, so renowned across Europe, was a dazzling illustration

was

ceremony of the reform of ceremonies. Louis XVI was

a

the occasion, lys,"

of the intermingling of the present and the

on

a "carpet

surrounded by

past. It

seated, for

of violet velvet, sprinkled with gold fleur-de-

ecclesiastical

and secular peers, counsellors robe with

satin," a legal adviser "in his red

in "black

his stole," three aides

"each

having before him a desk covered in violet taffeta." The reform edicts one, on the corvees,

is

concerned with the "vexations" of a tax

in

whose

ad-

ministration "distributive justice loses itself in a multitude of details," and

another, guilds

on the jumndes,

seeks to abolish the obscure codes by

and corporations impose "frequent

which the

of visitation" and "ex-

rights

penses for ceremonies, holidays, assemblies, procedures," whose effect to force the poorest

"with the great

seal

members

to submit to the law of the rich

of green wax, on

a

mood

Miromesnil, as grim: "Today, a gloomy sadness presents to

Your Majesty's august

The

philosophical

thought, too,

is

described, by

itself

everywhere

eighteenth-century

economic

regard. "^^^

universe

of

late

turned toward the past.

is

silk."

"dressed in a robe of

is

with crimson satin." But the

is

are sealed

background of red and green

Turgot's opponent, the president Miromesnil, violet velvet, lined

—

older Christian philosophy, in a

way

was profoundly influenced by

It

that

now

is

quite unfamiliar. Smith,

Turgot, and Condorcet were immersed, from their

earliest schooling, in

Latin and Hellenistic writings. Their references, like those of Rabelais,

were to Tertullian and Lactantius, to Lucian and Cicero. Church power

was ubiquitous,

still,

ety, in his lifetime,

in the events

was over

christian death, and

it

of life and death; Smith's only notori-

his description

was Condorcet's

of Hume's tranquil and un-

role in the circumstances

d'Alembert's un-Christian death which convinced Barruel that he was

deed

a

demon

in

Ecclesiastical

human

of in-

form.^^^

power was ubiquitous

in

economic

life

as well,

from the

administration of the English poor laws to the jurisdiction of the parlia-

ment of Paris. The merchant contemplating lending money surrounded by the distinctions described conscience of the theologians

in France

was

in the Dictionnaire des cas de

Lamet and Fromageau: usury

is

"real

and

mental," "express" and "palliated," "active and passive," ^Hucratoriae, punitoriae, and compensatoriae.^'^'^^

One of Smith's

great diatribes, in the

Economic Dispositions

43 |

Wealth of Nations,

is

directed against the English laws of settlement,

whereby the "independent workman"

is

subject to removal "at the caprice

of any churchwarden or overseer"; the duties of churchwardens, according to Richard Burn's Justice of the Peace,

which was Smith's

principal source,

wrong measure," "eating flesh on fish days," "exercising their worldly calling on the lord's day," and "not coming to church. "^^^ Turgot's interlocutors, in his memoir on free competition in lending at interest, were the legal experts "who have taken so much effort to obscure simple notions of good sense," led down this included levying penalties for "selling corn by a

road" by "scholastic theologians," and the "rigorist theologians"

"false

who

have read

five

words of Saint Luke ("mutuum date

inde

nihil

sperantes") "with the prejudices they derive from a false metaphysics. "^^^

The conceptual and thought

is

world of eighteenth- century

scientific

itself often unfamiliar; particularly unfamiliar, in fact, in relation

and sentiments. Smith himself uses

to the "science" of dispositions

zying sequence of nouns to denote psychological conditions; he the

first

political

few

lines

a diz-

refers in

of the Theory of Moral Sentiments to emotions, sentifaculties, and to both the principles and the

ments, senses, sensations, and passions of

human

Hobbes and that

it

but in

nature.

unfolded "at a time its

He

the theologian Ralph

infancy,

when

and before the

ent faculties of the

says later,

the abstract science of human nature was distinct offices

human mind had been

guished from one another."^^^ But

more famiUar now than earlier Theorie des

of the controversy between

Cudworth over reason and sentiment, and powers of the

differ-

examined and

distin-

carefully

this science

of the mind

is

scarcely

Cicero's, or than that of the author of a slighdy

Sentimens Agreables, Levesque de Pouilly,

who set out to

describe "the laws of sentiment" with the help of a "microscope of the spirit."i76

The

idea of a history of sentiments

—

a Tacitean or inner history, in

Smith's description, or Condorcet's history, of opinions and prejudices, well-being and institutions, economic theories and the enforcement of laws

—

is

For Francois Guizot,

also unfamiliar.

of civilization were "always

which have changed the

crises

interior

of individual or

man,

must choose, Guizot

said,

1828, the great

crises

development,

facts

his beliefs, his morality, or his exte-

rior condition, his situation in his relations

historian

in

social

with those around him." The

between "describing the

vicissitudes

of the ideas, of the sentiments of the individual being," and describing "exterior facts, events, changes in the social condition. "^^^ Like Guizot himself, subsequent historians have chosen,

mosdy, to describe the exte-

Economic Sentiments

44

rior events

of life. The history of economic relationships has come to be

seen, in particular, as a matter of quantities

and commodities, of canals

and paper money and the bullion committee. Economic thoughts (the thoughts of economic theorists, and of public officials, and of individuals in their

economic

lives)

have come to be seen

something

as

less

than

events.

Our sense of the above

all,

formation

familiarity

because of our is

own unequal knowledge.

one of the most troublesome

intellectual historian: that

come of the

of eighteenth- century thought

he or she knows

is

an

illusion,

This asymmetry of in-

difficulties

how the

of the

political

and

story ends, or the out-

events in which her subjects are engaged, and to which they

The

look forward in fear or hope or indifference.

difficulty

is

particularly

and

intense in relation to a period, such as the half century before

1800, which was, and which seemed

at the

after

time to be, one of intense and

XVTs words of 1776 and to knows nothing of his subsequent destiny Is she to Goethe's memory of the unsuccessftil economic reforms of

violent change. Is the historian to read Louis say to herself that she

presume that

.>

the 1770s, as he looks back a generation later,

knowledge of subsequent de Nemours writes to

events.^ Is

Adam

Smith

she to feel

in

is

no

uninfluenced by his frisson

when Dupont

June 1788, of the disputes over the

Anglo-French Commercial Treaty and over Turgot's suppression of the corvees, that "these

moving

much

storms are not

rapidly towards a

constitution,"

they seem," that "we are

and that "you have done

to hasten this useful re volution ".>^^°

The course of

legal

greatest uncertainty.

nomic

good

as harmftil as

and economic reform was

Smith and Condorcet died during

as well as political revolution; like the

Angouleme

1769,

in

itself a

who were

a period

of eco-

bankers Turgot described in

suddenly prosecuted under old, somno-

lent statutes against lending at interest, they did not

happen to the

matter of the

incipient industrial

know what would

and commercial revolution of the eigh-

They did not know whether the apprenticeship guilds would be reformed, or abolished, or revived. They did not know whether teenth century.

the doctors of the Sorbonne, or the parliaments of Paris and Toulouse

would take hold once more of economic regulation. They did not know what would happen to the new dispositions of the human mind: whether the "next epoch" would not, against Condorcet's own expectation, bring "one of these oscillations which must return it to barbarism, to ignorance, to slavery. "181

Smith and Hume, Turgot and Condorcet did not know, disconcert-

Economic Dispositions

45 |

what would happen to

ingly,

their

own principles. They were

used enough

to editorial obstruction in their lifetime, and to the oddness of the public.

"You have caused me real pain," Turgot wrote to Dupont de Nemours in 1770, of Dupont's editorial changes to the text of his Reflexions sur les richesses, "above all by adding things which are neither in my tone, nor in

my way of thinking ... I absolutely demand that in future you conform to my manuscript. "1^^ Smith's works, like Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Reli£[ion, in

and

"artfully."

not

as

Hume's own

description,

were written most "cautiously"

But Smith, too, found that the destiny of his writings was

he had expected. "I

am

afraid I

am

not only your best, but almost

your only customer" for the revised edition of the Wealth of Nations, he wrote to his publisher in 1780. The Wealth of Nations, he wrote in the

same

year,

Hume's .

less

public criticism than his short description of

"A single, and

brought upon

.

.

had attracted

death:

me

as, 1

thought

a very harmless Sheet

more abuse than

ten times

the very violent attack

had been transformed

and

his writings,

more profoundly. William

far

1

Britain. "^^^

had made upon the whole commercial system of Great Within a few years of Smith's death,

of paper

their reception,

Playfair's eleventh

edition of the Wealth of Nations, published by Smith's

own

publishers in

1805, and of which the Edinburgh Review wrote that "in the whole course

of our

we have not met with an

literary inquisition,

able to the English press,"

by

six

is

instance so discredit-

only an extreme example;

it

was augmented

"supplementary chapters" (printed "in the same types," the Edin-

burgh Review pointed out) and several hundred carping footnotes,

of them along the tainly entirely

lines of:

"In

this particular assertion,

Mr. Smith

many is

cer-

wrong. "^^^

money What is a book.>" Kant asked in one of his last and oddest works on the metaphysics of morals, and his answer, invoking Smith, was that both books and money were the universal instruments of "What

is

.

.

.

exchange: the exchange of thoughts, in the case of books. says,

is

a "discourse addressed in a particular

A writing, Kant

form to the public";

it is

"not an immediate direct presentation of a conception," unlike a bust or a cast

by a sculptor, and

right" of the author.

its

misappropriation

Smith's

own

Kant's, have been appropriated,

is

an affront to the "personal

conceptions,

like

and misappropriated,

Condorcet's, or

like

in the universal ex-

change of subsequent thought.

Our unequal Icnowledge is disconcerting, above all, with respect to the human spirit. The period with which 1 am concerned was

history of the

one of intense, self-conscious

interest in the vicissitudes

of sentiments and

Economic Sentiments

46 I

opinions. This

is

period, when they when they tried to reconstruct the and grandfathers; when they tried to make sense out

what

individuals

remembered of the

looked back, or what they imagined lives

of their fathers

of or explain the events of their own, tumultuous times. "The Revolution

was

minds of the people, and

in the

in the course

ton," John

of fifteen years before a

Adams wrote

to

from 1760 to 1775, drop of blood was drawn at Lexing-

this

Thomas

was

effected,

later, in

it

was

he wrote

notes for Uancien regime et la Revolution, de-

scribed the "ten to fifteen years a time in

which preceded the French Revolution"

which "an inner movement, without any motor, seemed

once to disturb the entire public

all

as

at

of societies, and to displace the ideas

life

and the habits of all men." His own

historical enterprise, in the

"how

correspondent Harriet Grote, was to explain

ments, prejudices and passions work their way into

The

a change,

the "principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the peo-

ple. "^^^ Tocqueville, in his

his

comment on

Jefferson in 1815, in a

the recent histories of the American Revolution;

words of

feelings, senti-

common

action. "^^^

sense of a continuing change in opinions was omnipresent to ob-

servers at the time as well. It

anticipated, as a

is

what the opponents of economic reform

consequence of the abolition of established regulations;

Seguier's prospect in the 1770s, and Necker's, of an enfranchisement of

dangerous

mind was

principles.

a slow,

Even Smith,

for

whom

the progress of the

uneven emancipation of universal

dispositions,

human

was me-

ticulous in identifying events in time; the ^'present state of things,'^ he wrote

of the Wealth of Nations, refers to "the year 1783 and the beginning of the present year 1784."^^^ But this

in his advertisement to the third edition

sense of incipient and continuing uncertainty elusive condition.

is itself,

for the historian, an

For the preoccupation of individuals

teenth century with changes in sentiments was also, to

in the late eigh-

some

extent, a con-

own sense that they lived in times which were not in "We are for sentiment in the same way that the avaricious

sequence of their fact disorderly.

Condorcet wrote to Amelie Suard, in 1771, from the town" in which he was spending a quiet summer with his mother. Smith imagines Tacitus determining on his "plan" of a history of sentiments and motives, because it would be suited to the preferences of the Romans in the tranquil and secure times of the emperor Trajan; "sentiment must be what will chiefly interest such a people. "^^^ The philosophers of economic reform of the 1770s and 1780s with

are for wealth,"

"small provincial

whom I am concerned were interested, for several different reasons, in the prospect of uncertainty.

They were

obliged, by their political opponents,

to think about the insecurity of a world with very

much

less

government

Economic Dispositions

47 |

restriction. tainty,

They were

from the

subject, in their

They lived, above

and moral and metaphysical uncertainty;

ligious

to continuing uncer-

in France) to the fluctuating jurisprudence

on imported commodities.

duties

lives,

of sudden imprisonment (the arbitrary

possibility

of the ancien regime

own

all,

in a

justice

of excise

world of re-

But

a fatherless world.

we know now, that they were also living in a world which was about to come to an end, in an epoch of insecurity, and of revolutionary transformation in sentiments and opinions, beyond their own they did not know, as

most

fearful expectations. It

certain future,

which

is

is

now so

this insouciance, this difficult to

confidence in an un-

imagine.

THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND THE PRESENT "It

is

impossible to understand the past without orienting oneself to the

present,"

Marc Bloch wrote

in

Uetran^e

defaite,

and

it is

also difficult to

understand the present without the orientation, the "criticism" and the

The

"observation," of the historian. gle's-eye view," as

But

it is

Herder

said

historian's regard

of eighteenth-century

is

an "ea-

distant,

political science.

not a view from nowhere. Like Smith, in the Theory of Moral Sen-

who sees in his little window "an immense landscape of lawns, and who seeks to transport himself, "at least in fancy," to a position in which he can see his own position, the historian has to observe, and to criticize, her own Adlersblick}^'^ timents,

woods, and distant mountains," and

I will

be concerned with the present, in

this

book, in two different

re-

some of the present uses of eighteenth- century

spects. I will try to observe

thought, and in particular of eighteenth-century political economy; some

of the purposes that Smith's and Condorcet's ideas have served in subse-

quent

The book

political disputes.

is

not a history of the reception of en-

lightenment ideas in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But

it is

in-

fluenced, at several points, by a view of these receptions (and receptions of receptions).

economy

I

do not

believe that to look at eighteenth-century political

in the setting

of the eighteenth century

is

to renounce the

unfashionable possibility of using the past to illuminate the present. past writings in their

—the economic disputes of the

own context

now

To

see

late eigh-

teenth century in the context of disputes about church and guild property, for example, or

of legislation about customs and

the progress of the disputes,

mind

—

is

and thereby to be

excise, or

of theories of

rather to have a better understanding of these

in a better position to

understand their impor-

tance for the present. I will

make

a stronger claim as well. It

is

that

some of the

disputes of the

Economic Sentiments

48 I

late

eighteenth century are important, in the twenty- first century, because

they are also our

own

disputes.

They

are not disputes

which

are repeated

over time, or which can illuminate our times. They are our disputes. They are part

of our

much as of the

historical context, as

context of the past.

possible for individuals to live in multiple contexts

which one

pect, in

is

influenced by where one

—

lives,

this

and

is

Hume's

who

pros-

one's friends

and the constitution of one's country, and the music one

are,

It is

listens to,

—

tastes and societies, too, have many sorts of lives. Our own disputes, at the beginning of the present century, can thus be set in many different contexts, some of which extend very much further over

and one's philosophical

time than others. These disputes unfold sist

very different pace, and per-

at a

over very different periods. As Smith wrote in the Theory of Moral Sen-

timents, well-fancied coats last for a year, fashionable furniture lasts for five

or

well-contrived buildings

six years,

poem may

written

Our

omy

long

last as

as the

last for

many

centuries,

and

a well-

world.

context and the context of late eighteenth-century political econ-

are the

same

in the literal sense that

we

share at least

some of our

The documents of the American Revolu776 and of the French Revolution of 1 789 are still the texts of much of pubfic life in innumerable countries. The Declaration of the Rights of Man of 1789 in Thomas Paine's translation, of "Liberty, Prop-

public and constitutional texts. tion of

1

—

erty, Security,

property

.

.

.

and Resistance of Oppression," culminating

inviolable

and sacred"

the post-Second World

War

—

is

settlement.

Some of the

constitutions of the late eighteenth century are tions

draw

explicitly

on the

texts

in "the right to

the basis for the universal rights of

and the

still

institutions

and

in use; other institu-

principles of the

1770s and

1780s.

The grand

political coalition

of the period which followed the French

Revolution, to take a different example, has remained the same, in very general terms, for almost

of individual

rights,

two

centuries.

The

politics

of economic reform,

of rights to property, were linked,

in the

1780s, to the objective of constitutional change, in Paine's

1770s and

politics,

or in

Condorcet's. But the events of the Revolution destroyed the possibility of political coalition

between the supporters of market freedom and the sup-

porters of Revolutionary freedom.

and

political "liberals"

The obvious

by the end of the 1790s,

coalition for at least in

economic

England and

France, was with the "conservative" opponents of the Revolution. In a conflict

between gradual change and Revolutionary violence, the

were on the side of the slow and the consensual;

in a conflict

liberals

between

free-

Economic Dispositions

49 |

dom

of individual property and violent expropriation, they were on the

of property. This

side

talcing

of sides has lasted ever since;

until the eventual end, with the

it

lasted, at least,

overthrow of communist power in Eastern

Europe and Russia, of the epoch of European revolutions. There are disputes in political and economic theory, too, which very long time, and

it is

with these that

are disputes, above

all,

about the

selves

am

I

political

last for a

principally concerned.

They

who them-

theory of people

have theories. The idea of a universal disposition of enlightenment,

or of a discursive, disputatious, theorizing

way of life, which

is

also a

way

of life for everyone without exception, has been the subject of virtually un-

250 years. It is this conbook is a contribution, and in respect of economy (or the early reaches of the present)

interrupted discussion over the course of the past tinuing discussion to which the

which the past of political seems to

The

me

to illuminate the disputes of our

difficulty, in

and self-conscious

very general terms,

lives.

own

times.

of the depiction of complicated

is

Everyone knows, by introspection or imagination,

that individuals have different, conflicting desires; that they have needs,

and they

also have opinions

nomic, and

about needs; that they have

spiritual sentiments; that

and they want to avoid being vexed. hint at)

all

this in

one's

own life,

ography of Voltaire. The great enlightened disposition, was

It is

easy

enough

was to make

a

to describe (or to

or in the tragedy of Oedipus, or in the difficulty, for

how

bi-

the political theorists of the

to describe a universe, or a society, in

which everybody has opinions and theories and desires. It

political, eco-

they want commodities, and power,

conflicting,

changing

"system" out of the innumerable, swerving

moleculae of individual reflections and sentiments.

There the

is

a beautiful

final, sixth

moment

in

one of the

last

passages Smith added to

edition of the Theory of Moral Sentiments, published shordy

before his death, where he says, of the

"man of system,"

that "he seems to

imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as

much ease

He

as the

hand arranges the

different pieces

upon

every single piece has a principle of motion of its own." This istic

a chess-board.

does not consider that ... in the great chess-board of human society,

of imperial and royal reformers;

of the theorists of human principle of motion, then

societies. it is

it is

also,

For

difficult to

if

is

a character-

or can also be, characteristic

everyone has his or her

own

think of their union as a system,

or a society. If everyone has the same principle of motion, then the system is

too simple;

it

does

less

than justice to the subdety of individual

lives. If

everyone has a theory of society, or an opinion about the principles of mo-

Economic Sentiments

50 I

tion of other individuals, then the system

must be

a theory

of people with

theories.

The

now

disputes of the late eighteenth century are particularly evocative

when

because they took place at a time

ety of self-conscious individuals

tween the economic and the sentiments, was

still

the prospect of an entire soci-

was quite new, and when the

political,

They

quite shifting.

frontier be-

or between economic and political are antecedent, that

is

to say, to

the systematization of economic thought in the early decades of the nine-

teenth century, and to the vast self-abnegation whereby political

economy

of man who desires wealth to possess ... It makes consideied "solely as a being entire abstraction of every other human passion or motive. "^^^ These earlier disputes are concerned, rather, with economic subjects who pursue defined

itself (in

their objectives

John Stuart

Mill's

words of 1836)

as the science

sometimes by producing goods, sometimes by trying to

influence regulations, and sometimes by seeldng the friendship of officials;

whose

become rich, sometimes more just society.

objectives are sometimes to

venged, and sometimes to

live in a

to be re-

The eighteenth-century disputes are evocative, too, because they took when sentiments and objectives were changing very rapidly, or were at least thought to be changing rapidly. "All centuries, more or

place at a time

less,

have been and

will

be centuries of transition," Tristan says in one of

Leopardi's dialogues of 1834.^^^ But the later part of the eighteenth century, like the

end of the twentieth century, was

a period

of peculiarly

self-

conscious preoccupation with change in the rules, norms, and institutions

of economic

life. It

was not a time of which one might

say, as

Victorian England, that "serious controversy" had ceased after another, that industry

that people did only that

them

Mill said of

on one

subject

flowed into "an apparently stagnant sea," and

which was

suitable; that "it

to have any inclination except for

what

is

does not occur to

customary. "^^^

The

dency which so concerned Turgot, Smith, and Condorcet, of the

ten-

shifting

jurisprudence of unenforced laws, was one illustration; so was the rapid

change

who

in

economic regulation.

It is

not only

theorists, in

have to think about cases of conscience in economic

such a period,

life,

and to form

expectations about continuing changes in economic policy.

My suggestion, for all these reasons, is that the economic thought of the late

eighteenth century, including thought about the disposition of en-

lightenment, can indeed cast light on present disputes, in political theory,

economy, and in politics. For the old disputes were concerned, most general, with two very large and very lasting difficulties. One

in political at their

Economic Dispositions has to

do with the pursuit of self-interest subject to

rules,

with the pursuit of economic interest subject to changing

and

51

in particular

political regula-

and norms; with the transformation of money into power, including power to influence rules. The other has to do with public opinion and

tions

the

public instruction; with the disposition of individuals to subject themselves to

and to

try to influence rules,

uals to influence this disposition.

importance,

as will

difficulties

were of continuing

be seen, both to Smith and to Condorcet. They are the

difficulties, in particular,

the present as well.

and with the power of other individ-

The two

of living with uncertainty. They are

difficulties

of

2

Adam

Smith and Conservative Economics

THIS

FAMOUS PHILOSOPHER

Adam Smith died in Edinburgh in July 1790, at the beginning of the revolutionary period in Europe. He was remembered, until the mid- 1790s, as ^

a subversive and as a friend of French philosophy; by the

tury,

he had been rediscovered

odd

story of Smith's

as a theorist

of established

posthumous decline and

rise is

end of the cen-

The

institutions.

the subject of this

chapter. It will be concerned with three successive episodes: with the pe-

riod of Smith's tion,

and

renown

as

his reputation for

the effort of his

first

one of the inspirations of the French Revolu-

promoting unseemly popular discussion; with

biographer, the philosopher Dugald Stewart, to de-

fend Smith's

memory by redefining his view of freedom; and with the

icy disputes,

over scarcity and wages, in which Smith was

first

pol-

invoked

as a

conservative philosopher.

Smith's death was the subject of rather

little

interest, in

England and

even in Scotland. The published obituaries were exiguous, and also obliging. cle

The Annual Register devoted

of deaths, and

sixty-five lines in the

twelve lines to Smith in

same section to

a

its

dis-

chroni-

Major Ray,

a

dep-

The notice in the Scots Magazine ran for only nine lines. ^ The first comment in the Times referred snidely to Smith's friendship for the skeptical Hume.^ The

uty quartermaster general with an interest in barometers.

second, biographical notice was also concerned with irreUgion and with

French influence: "The church seemed an improper profession, because he had early become

was

said to have

a disciple

of Voltaire's

in matters

drawn attention to "subjects

of religion." Smith

that unfortunately have be-

—

come too popular in most countries of Europe. Dr Smith's system of political oeconomy is not essentially different from that of Count Verri, Dean Tucker, and Mr Hume."'* The Gentleman^s Magiazine, which reprinted the 52

Adam

Smith and Conservative Economics

53 |

Times notice^ added that the Wealth of Nations hzd been quoted in Parliament and the French National Assembly, and "contributed to that spirit of liberty

which

In France

at

present so

itself,

much prevails."^

Smith's loss was far

more keenly felt. The Revolutionary

Moniteur Universel wrote that "Europe has

mous tions

—with a

just

been deprived of this

fa-

welcomed a new translation of the Wealth of Napromised volume of notes by Condorcet as especially op-

philosopher."

It

—

portune in France, "since every citizen can have a part in government."

"One can

scarcely believe,"

it

added, that pre -Revolutionary editors were

too timid to publish Smith's work; "today

it is

no longer an

act

of daring."

—on what the Moniteur described "a which he could have composed himself —were never published.^ But Condorcet Condorcet's notes

did publish a 220-page theque de

text

as

Vhomme

summary of the Wealth

of Nations in his Biblio-

public of 1790-91, identified as one of the works

"which does most honor to Great Britain."^

The "war of ideas" over England and Scotland later

wrote in

months

self- exculpation

opinions (so far as

I

that

after Smith's death. ^

Dugald Stewart

"no reference has been made to

my

have been able to learn) by any of the inflammatory

writers of the times. "^

Thomas

the French Revolution blazed into intensity in

in the

But the same could not be

said

of Smith himself

Paine compares Burke unfavorably with Smith in 1791 in The

Man, his answer to Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in Trance}^ Mary Wollstonecraft quotes Smith at length in her Vindication of Rights of

the Rights of Woman

Sentiments

of 1792, and uses the language of the Theory ofMoral first answer to Burke, in 1790.^^ James Mackintosh

m her own

refers admiringly to

Smith

win uses phrases which

in Vindiciae Gallicae in 1791.^^ William

God-

are close to Smith's in Political Justice in 1793; a

study of Godwin's text led Elie Halevy to ask, ideas, expressed in almost the

"How

same terms, end with

then can the same

different authors in

such different consequences.^"^^ The minor pamphleteers, too, were

flammatory enough; one defended Smith in France, or

as the

in-

enemy of feudalism

of "pale Despotism, with her haggard train of pampered

lusts."i4

Burke himself makes no reference to Smith in the

Reflections.

But much

of the book consists of an attack on Smith's friends, and on the language

of at

of the Wealth of Nations. Burke's changing relationship to Smith's ideas is of considerable importance, as will be seen, to the subseleast part

quent changes in Smith's repute. In the state

Reflections, Burke's

extends to government expenditure

("it is

eulogy of the

the publick ornament"),

Economic Sentiments

54 I

government revenue ("the revenue of the

state

is

the state ... in

ministration the sphere of every active virtue"), and

("they stand in the person of God himself ').^^

and "philosophers" inspiration. 1^

whom

government

its

ad-

officials

The French "Oeconomists"

Burke denounces were Smith's acknowledged

His perfidious noblemen were Smith's patrons.

Condorcet

was for Burke the leader of the "sect of Philosophic Robbers and Assassins,"

and

a "turbulent

Burke defends,

is

of Nations, and in the

Burke

also defends,

is

glican establishment

"We

are

in the

As

and seditious

which

Libeller."i^ "Prejudice,"

Smith's consistent term of abuse, throughout the Wealth passages he wrote.

last

the term which Smith (like

"Superstition," which

Hume)

uses of the

An-

which Burke wishes to "consecrate" or "oblate. "^o

not the disciples of Voltaire," Burke says of the

men

of England,

words that the Times (and the Gentleman^s) use of Smith.

late as

Smith

1793, the former prime minister. Lord Lansdowne, claimed

as the inspiration

of French

policy.

"With respect to the

principles

of France," he said in the House of Lords, "those principles had been exported from us to France

Adam

Smith

burgh friend

.

.

.

[and were] generally inculcated by Dr.

work on the Wealth of Nations. "^2 Smith's old EdinLord Loughborough did then defend him, asserting that the in his

Wealth of Nations was not "inimical to the principles of civil government, the morals or religion of manldnd."^^

But Smith was reported, meanwhile,

to have spoken of Rousseau "with a kind of religious respect"; to have re-

vered Voltaire,

"who

has done

much more

for the benefit

of mankind than

those grave philosophers whose books are read by a few only"; to have

been "not

a Christian";

and to have "approached to republicanism

in his

political principles. "24

Smith himself wrote nothing that was concerned Revolutionary events in France. tics until

the

end of

1788 about the

his

political

life.

He

explicitly

with the

was well informed about French

Dupont de Nemours wrote

to

him

in

"revolution" under way, and about Smith's

poli-

June

own

influence upon it: "We are moving rapidly towards a good constitution You have done much to speed this usefiil revolution, the French Economistes WiW not have harmed it.''^^ Smith even seems to have owned four pamphlets by Condorcet on constitutional reform in France, written .

as late as

September 1789;

in one,

of distinguished citizens of

Condorcet proposes

whom,

and Price would have been the

first

a

.

second chamber

"in England," Locke,

to be chosen.

.

Hume,

But these

Smith,

interests are

reflected only indirectly in Smith's last political writing.

The

sixth, extensively revised edition

of the Theory of Moral Sentiments

Adam

Smith and Conservative Economics

55 |

was published a few weeks before Smith's death, and the new sections are concerned to a substantial extent with theories of political justice. They of sometimes powerful indignation,

are written in a tone

as

when Smith

speaks, for example, of the "mean principle of national prejudice," or of

the "corruption of our moral sentiments" which follows from the disposi-

and the powerful. "^^ They

tion "almost to worship, the rich tinctively influenced

by French

ideas, in the sense that

also are dis-

Smith

refers fre-

quently to Voltaire and Racine. But no more than a few paragraphs are

concerned with current in

which "even

man may

a wise

Some

political events.

essary in [the] constitution or

be disposed to think some alteration nec-

form of government"

enced by French disputes, and by Dupont's the English constitutional

Others

—the

crisis

most impassioned

He

of these pages,

can also be seen

either case,

He

letter.^^

over George

—seem

Prussian despotism of Frederick basis

—about the circumstances

II.

—seem to be

They may

Ill's illness in

influ-

also reflect

1788-89.^^

to be about the "systematical"

Smith has been interpreted, on the

as criticizing the early

Revolutionary events in France.

as a friend of reform.

But his turbulent reputation,

was based on

far

belonged to neither side

more than

a

few comments on current

in

policy.

Anglo-French pamphlet wars of 1790-

in the

1792, and the side which claimed him was Wollstonecraft's and Paine's.

SCOTLAND

IN

THE 1790s

By 1792, Smith's new principles were seen ridical sense

as virtually seditious, in the ju-

of tending to inflame public opinion. Scotland

sidered to be

on the verge of revolution, and Smith's

ideas

itself was

con-

were thought

to have inspired popular discussion, opposition to war, and discontent

with English government. Smith,

like

Hume, had been

considered in

Scotland to have been influenced by French skepticism. Boswell urged

Johnson to "knock Hume's and Smith's heads together, and make vain

and ostentatious

infidelity

exceedingly ridiculous. "^^ Like

was thought to be hardly capable of writing English. tions W2is "tedious

and

ftill

Hume, Smith

The Wealth of Na-

of repetition," according to Alexander Carlyle,

a leading conservative divine;

"on

political subjects his

opinions were not

very sound," he had once said "Bravo!" about John Wilkes, and he was "prejudiced in favour of the French tragedies. "^^ Carlyle later described a

malevolent

little

vision in

which

Hume

and Smith "were shrunk into

a

nutshell" as retribution "for having contributed their share to the present state

of the world": "the one, by doing everything

in his

power to under-

Economic Sentiments

56 I

mine

Christianity,

and the other by introducing that unrestrained and uni-

commerce, which propagates opinions

versal

The

as well as

divisions in Scotiand increased dramatically after 1789.

Cockburn wrote of

raved!" Lord

erally everything,

"liberal

in

was soaked

in this

or that thing, but

this

lit-

one event." Smith was the hero of the

young of Edinburgh. "^^ But he was

many

"How they

his conservative family's conversations

about the French Revolution. "Everything, not

for

commodities."^^

the object of deep suspicion

Dugald Stewart looked back

others, including former admirers.

1810: "The doctrine of a Free Trade was

itself represented as

of a revo-

some who had formerly prided themselves on their intimacy with Mr. Smith, and on their zeal for the propagation of his lutionary tendency; and

began to

liberal system,

call

into question the expediency of subjecting to

the disputations of philosophers, the arcana of State Policy, and the un-

fathomable wisdom of the feudal ages."^^ translated by

was

Condorcet was fearsome,

at nearly the

To be

praised by Paine and

in the Scotland of 1793. "Scotland

lowest point of political degradation," Lord Cockburn

wrote; he described a scene of "absolute power

and poor country," which could be compared to

.

.

exercised in a small

.

a "province

of Austria or

Russia."39

The famous

Scottish sedition

trials

began

early in

1793, and they were

concerned with words which were ominously close to Smith's. The most publicized

trial

—of Thomas Muir,

who was

a lawyer

teen years' transportation in August 1793

—

^was

sentenced to four-

over the crime of "excit-

"He

ing disaffection to government." In the words of the prosecution: said, that their taxes

would be

and that from the flourishing

goods to market so cheap

as

less if

state

they were

more

equally represented;

of France, they could not bring their

Frenchmen. What could possibly be more

cal-

culated to produce discontent and sedition?" The judge's summing up was forthright: "1 never was an admirer of the French; but 1 can now only

consider

them

In another

as

monsters of human nature. "^^

trial,

Thomas

for such crimes as saying,

merce

Palmer, a Unitarian clergyman, was indicted

of the war with France, that "by

it

your com-

cramped and almost ruined." Palmer's counsel referred to the views of Smith, and of Hume, on the liberty of the press. The great isis

sore

sue, for the defense,

cuss reform:

was the freedom of even the poorest subjects to

"The beggar

in rags has a right to give his opinion

the most important of our affairs." But little

use,

Hume,

and Palmer, too, was transported,

Skirving, a farmer, invoked Smith's views

on

dis-

upon

Smith, and Milton were of for seven years.

William

the burden of public credit.

Adam Smith and

Conservative Economics

57 |

and was transported about as

Maurice Margarot spoke

for fourteen years.

commercial treaty between France and England, and

thie

in court

criticized,

Smith had, the "idea, that they were natural enemies, and should go to

war on every trivial occasion"; he too was transported

for fourteen years.

Dugald Stewart himself was forced into an extraordinary act of recantamodest little reference to Condorcet in his Philosophy of the Hu-

tion over a

man Mind. Two of the

Scottish

Law Lords concocted

a classic text

of per-

They expected "that you would embrace the earliest opportunity of retracting in an open and manly manner, every sentiment you had ever entertained, and every word you had ever uttered, in favour of doctrines which had led to so giant a secution in a letter sent to Stewart early in 1794.

He

mischief." Stewart's answer was fairly dignified.

encourage

political

discussions

among

denied any "wish to

the multitude," supported the

"Economists" but not the "French philosophers," and said that he had

spoken with

political

these expressions ter

I

"warmth" only

dropped from

against the slave trade ("and even

my

course, as soon as

of popular discussion"); he did add that "I

honoured some of

my

it

became mat-

shall ever regret that I dis-

pages by mentioning with respect the

name of

Condorcet. "43

ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL FREEDOM Stewart's "Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith"

within this frenzied scene.

work about Smith, and an renown. But

it

It is

by

must be set most important biographical

the

far

of Smith's subsequent conservative

early source

was read to the Royal Society of Edinburgh

weeks that the sedition

trials

began

in

1793,

described in a private letter as "infatuation "all

.

.

.

beyond

freedom" had been "suspended." Stewart indeed

in his

answer to the

Law

Lords;

it

in the

same

moment of what Stewart

at a

should be seen

belief," in

refers to the

as a

which

memoir

defense of Smith,

and of himself, against the terror of the times.

Only

a

tions, for

few pages of the memoir are concerned with the Wealth of Nait is unnecessary to mention here"; Stewart ex-

"reasons which

plained in 1810 that he was hinting, in this

comment,

at the

contemporary

Economy, with those discussions concerning the first principles of Government which happened unfortunately at that time to agitate the public mind.""^^ But

tendency to confound "speculative doctrines of

Political

Stewart does try to describe Smith's intentions. Smith, he says, was con-

cerned only with those "speculations

.

.

.

which have no tendency to

Economic Sentiments

58 I

unhinge established

institutions, or to inflame the passions

of the muhi-

tude." His objective was that of "enlightening the policy of actual legislators." He was abundantly aware of the dangers of "rash application of political

He

theories."

was concerned only with "the ultimate objects" of

policy.'^^

Stewart's conclusion, in the memoir,

is

that Smith's reputation for

"extreme" judgments was undeserved. "In the thoughtlessness and confidence of his social hours," he

would sometimes "hazard" opinions on

"questions of speculation," in contrast to "those qualified conclusions that

we admire

in his writings."

But

his thoughtless

remarks

(as "retailed"

by

occasional visitors) suggested "false and contradictory ideas of his real sen-

The

timents."^^

prejudice, Voltaire,

Smith sel.

a sort

is

man who

spoke to friends about religious

and the madness of modern wars.

of defendant, in these passages, and Stewart

Stewart's language

texts

his

is

jurists

attempted to explain the relationship be-

tween "speculative remarks" and the "criminal in a sedition

libel

of the constitution."

was required to show that

trial,

was not "calculated" to "inflame," and that

his intention

his writing

was only the

modest one of "pointing out to those who have political power, how best be exerted for the benefit of the State."

these texts,

is

thoroughly

skeptical:

"Who

is

to judge of aU

may

this.>"

But Ed-

memoir is more than of

fear." Stewart's

evidence of the effort to present Smith as a conservative,

own

it

Lord Cockburn, who quotes

inburgh was "sincerely under the influence of

Smith's

coun-

indeed very close to that of the standard legal

is

of the time, in which

The defendant,

was the sober public

"real" Smith, according to Stewart,

philosopher, and not the private

conservatism.'^^

Stewart's defense of Smith was part of a far

more

extensive discussion, in

the mid- 1790s, about the distinction between politics and political econ-

omy, and about the definition of freedom. His object, seems to have been to show that technical sort of subject.

political

Smith was

in the

memoir,

economy was an innocuous,

a retiring,

innocuous sort of person,

quite unconcerned to influence public opinion,

says in his

and interested only in ofon policy to "actual legislators." "Political freedom," Stewart comments on the Wealth of Nations, was of value chiefly "from

the

which

fering hints

facility

it is

supposed to afford" for

legislative

improvements. If

the laws themselves are satisfactory, then people "have

little

reason to

complain, that they were not immediately instrumental in their enact-

ment." Under certain circumstances,

means of accomplishing

their

own

political liberty

ruin."^^

can indeed be "the

— Adam

Smith and Conservative Economics

59 |

Stewart's description of the instrumental value of freedom corresponds to very

which Smith himself wrote.

little

own

to Stewart's

(and indeed

earlier

It is also in

later) views.

quite striking contrast

But

it

does

an

reflect

London, about the "^^ Thomas Muir, in his courtroom in words "freedom" and "liberty. 1793, predicted that "the word 'freedom' is soon to be proscribed from intense public discussion, in Edinburgh, Paris, and

our language;

alarm and sedition in the sound. "^^

carries

it

What

hap-

pened, instead, was that the seditious word was redefined, and divided into seemly

new

sub-senses.

Stewart's account suggested that there were

commercial and the

political. Political

mercial or economic

life.

Freedom,

could therefore be defined

as

for the purposes

freest

the

"free circu-

competition" between indi-

These freedoms, in turn, were valued

vidual citizens.

life,

of political economy,

"freedom of trade and industry,"

of labour and of stock," and "the

lation

two spheres of

economy was concerned with com-

as the

instruments

of "national wealth." "Political freedom," by contrast, was an attribute of political life,

and was outside the scope of political economy. But

of intermediate value: an "instrument," "means," or

"facility"

it

too was

of justice.

Freedom, under these circumstances, could be spoken of with more confidence in Scotland. it

It

was to be found within the sphere of commerce;

was freedom of property. The word "equality," oddly enough, was

meanwhile being divided

"Convention" himself.

One

in the opposite way.

December 1792 show

in

The minutes of Muir's

a precision

worthy of Stewart

delegate complained that the "Friends of the People were

calumniated with entertaining notions of Liberty and Equality inimical

He

to property."

therefore

moved

that "an addition should be

was only

political

made

to

—

what was meant by the word 'Equality' that it equality that was wanted. "^^ Freedom belonged to one

the resolution explaining

sphere of life, equality to another, and both were

usefijl for

national pros-

perity.

The

redefinition of freedom proceeded in

much

the same terms in Lon-

the story of a shipowner in 1798:

"An acquaintance of

don. Coleridge

tells

mine

men a political zealot) had christened a vessel which he the liberty; and was seriously admonished by his aristo-

had

(least

of

all

just built

some other name. What.> replied the owner very innocently should I call it the freedom? That (it was replied) would be far better, as people might then think only of Freedom of Trade; whereas liberty has a jacobinical sound with it!"^^ The solution turned out to be very much the same as Dugald Stewart's. Freedom was a sort of cratic friends to

change

—

it

for

Economic Sentiments

60 I

intermediate good, or necessary perity.

The

friends

evil,

to be used in the production of pros-

of Coleridge's acquaintance thought that the ship was

—

name ^'^obnoxious^\' "Liberty = Freedom? No! No! No! Not at present. You may use the latter without heinous offence, if you take care to show that it is necessary to the prosperity of Trade and Commerce, a necessary Evil m the process of money getting."^^ beautiful, but the

—

In Paris, over the same period, the economic and the political were vided off in opposite and symmetrical respects.

freedom survived,

The old

inclusive

di-

view of

Smith's revolutionary renown, until the beginning

like

of the Jacobin ascendancy. To see economic freedom

as a

component of

revolutionary freedom was indeed one of the distinguishing principles of

Girondin

Condorcet argued,

policy.

pletely free domestic

subsistence grains.

commerce was

In June 1793 he

limited freedom for the grain

cumstances lished

the best still

that a

com-

scarcities

But

of

supported the principle of "uncir-

for the Jacobins, as for the estab-

London and Edinburgh,

in

March 1792, way to avoid

commerce," except under such extreme

blockade.

as military

powers

as late as

the definition of freedom was

beginning to change by 1793.

Economic and political freedom were divided, in France as in Scotland. But where economic freedom was seemly in Edinburgh, it was subversive in Paris. Political freedom was subversive in Edinburgh and useful in France. Smith's acquaintance and translator, the abbe Morellet, described the transformation in the memoirs he published during the restoration. The process began, he said, in the summer of 1789. He was staying at the time with

Mme.

Helvetius. Until then, "freedom, tolerance, the horror of

despotism and superstition, the desire to see abuses reformed, were our

common sentiments. But our opinions began to be ward the month of June 1789. "^^

a

little

divergent to-

Morellet remained in Paris during the Terror, and he was denounced in

September 1793. see his

much

He

then needed a

denouncer with

a large

certificate

bag containing

of "civism," so he went to

his

works. His account

the same words that Stewart and Coleridge use, and

turbulent destiny of political

This book,

I

said to

economy

him, putting into

his

not think,

I

said,

is

hands a quite large volume. also in favor

of freedom of

one should not mention that one.

said to him, that

freedom

is

Do

you

the only means of preventing

famines and high prices for subsistence

grains.''

Is it

in

suggests the

in the 1790s:

The Refutation of Galiani^s Dialogues,

commerce. Oh! he

it

is

not the case,

I

Adam

Smith and Conservative Economics

61 |

added

slyly,

that

freedom

my praise

saw that

dare to argue with

always good, and

is

good

for everything? I

of freedom embarrassed him, and that he did not it.

All in

anxieties are too great,

good

time, he said to me. But today, the

and one cannot speak of that

sort

of

free-

dom.59

THE LIBERAL REWARD OF LABOR The

disjunction of economic and political freedom was the necessary con-

own

dition, in the 1790s, for the transformation in Smith's

The

England

decisive issue of policy, in

between food and economic freedom. Smith's renown

enemy of the poor

two

has been justified, for almost

reputation.

was the connection

as in France,

cold-souled

as a

centuries,

by

refer-

ence to his presumed "general principles" of scarcity and famine. These

were discovered during the English food

principles

1790s, and they mark the beginning of the long

crisis

of the mid-

of Smith

rise

as a conser-

vative theorist.

In 1795-96, and again in 1799-1800, sudden increases in food prices set off

One

an intense discussion in England of wage

episode

of 1795

rates

and poor

—Samuel Whitbread's proposed minimum wage

relief.

legislation

—

provides a particularly clear illustration of the changing inter-

pretation of Smith's ideas. Whitbread was a reform M.P., and his

bill

would have given magistrates powers "to regulate the wages of Labourers in Husbandry" by fixing minimum wages. He was strongly influenced by Smith, and introduced the Commons debate on the bill by explaining that "he

felt as

much

as

any

commodity, should be countenance some

man

left

.

.

.

that the price of labour, like every other

to find

its

own

level. "^^

But he was prepared to

"legislative interference" to protect the "rights"

of the

poor.

Whitbread followed the Wealth of Nations closely in his parliamentary presentation. Smith himself was tolerant, after all, of some wage regulation: just

"When

the regulation ...

and equitable; but

it is

is

in favour

of the workmen,

sometimes otherwise when

masters. "^^ Smith says of existing regulations to

fix

it is

always

in favour of the

maximum wages

that

they were "in favour of the masters"; Whitbread adds that they gave magistrates

"the power to oppress the labourer. "^^ Smith argued for high

wages, more generally, on grounds of equity: flourishing

and happy, of which the

poor and miserable.

It is

"No

society can surely be

far greater part

of the members are

but equity, besides, that they

who

feed, clothe

Economic Sentiments

62 I

and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such produce of their

own labour as to

and lodged." Whitbread's object was

similar:

who

toil,

dedicated his days to incessant

his family

a share

of the

be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed

"To enable the husbandman,

to feed, to clothe, and to lodge

with some degree of comfort ... by giving him a right to a part

of the produce of his labour. Whitbread's Smith-inspired rhetoric was greeted, however, with a quite different interpretation

of

economy.

political

Pitt

answered Whitbread

with a resounding defense of the "unassisted operation of principles."

invoked "the most celebrated writers upon

mony that the House should and

upon

rely

remove

political

economy"

He

as testi-

"consider the operation of general principles,

the effects of their unconfined exercise." His solution was to

restrictions

on

the free circulation of labor, and to begin reform of

the laws of settlement (the poor laws). Whitbread and his friends pointed

out that such reforms "would take a considerable time"; a barley

loaf,

meanwhile, cost rather more than "the whole of the labourer's daily wages." But "the present case," for

Pitt,

was not "strong enough

for the

exception. "^^

There Like

is

Pitt,

something of Smith on both Smith thought that wages

(at least until the early 1780s).^^

in

The

sides

of the parliamentary debate.

England and Scodand were high

regulations he considered equitable

were more limited than those proposed by Whitbread. tion of them

was closer to Whitbread's than to

But

his descrip-

Pitt's, as Pitt's

pointed out.^^ His view of general principles was quite unlike

was opposed to the zealous application of "systematical"

opponents Pitt's.

policies;

He

Dugald

Stewart interpreted Smith's strictures as "cautions with respect to the practical application

of general principles," and notably to "the unlimited

freedom of trade. "^^ His principles of commerce are always circumscribed by other laws of justice and

and

for "equity, besides."

and

are also "regulated"

Smith was considered,

equity.

Wages

by

High wages

are

"common

like

are

good

for prosperity,

determined by supply and demand, humanity. "^^

Whitbread, to be

a friend

of the poor. In the

Wealth of Nations he describes the "liberal reward of labour" as the "necessary effect

and cause of the greatest public prosperity";

in the "Early

Draft" of the work, he had written that a "high price of labour" was the "essence of public opulence. "^^ Malthus, in his 1798 Essay on the 'Principle

of Population, reproves Smith for the "error" of mixing two distinct inquiries:

into "the wealth of nations" and into "the happiness and comfort of

the lower orders of society. "^^ In his Principles of Political

Economy Mai,

Adam

Smith and Conservative Economics

63 |

thus identifies

more of Smith's

infelicities,

including using "exception-

able" language about landlords, considering profits as "a deduction from

the produce of labour," underestimating "the production contributed by the capitalist," and talking about humanity; "if humanity could have successfiiliy interfered,"

fore

.

.

.

Malthus wrote,

But unfortunately,

of a country.

"it

common

ought to have interfered long be-

humanity cannot

alter the resources

"7*

Smith's language,

lowed Smith

more

generally,

in criticizing the

is

quite different from

Pitt's. Pitt fol-

law of settlements. But where Smith de-

scribed an "evident violation of natural liberty and justice," by which the

"poor man"

himself to be "most cruelly oppressed," Pitt saw

no

more than a "grievance": "instances where interference had shackled

in-

dustry. "^^

la-

feels

Whitbread and

bouring poor from a "receive his

due

as

his friends, like

state

Smith, wished "to rescue the

of slavish dependence." The laborer should not

an eleemosynary

especially evil because people

gift"; the

who had

dependence of the poor was

received relief were excluded from

the franchise, and thus from their constitutional rights. But for Pitt, the

poor were concerned with

prices

and not with

rights; the

workman was

prevented, at worst, "from going to that market where he could dispose of his industry to the greatest advantage. "^^

The 1796 debate can be "Smiths": Whitbread's and

Pitt's.

Whitbread's Smith

is

in

closer to the "real" Smith, or to the real Wealth of Nations.

ond food

crisis

of 1800,

two

different

many

respects

interpreted as a conflict between

Pitt's

Smith had

won

But by the

overwhelmingly.

sec-

Edmund

Burke's changing economic views provide a striking illustration. Smith

and Burke were on But

friendly terms, as least for a period in the early 1780s.^^

in the Reflections, as has

been seen, Burke's view of government was

good comon bridges, religion, and By 1795, Burke had become doubtfial about what he

very different from Smith's, with respect, for example, to the mercial consequences of national expenditure

public reverence.

now called government may indeed have "What

is

"interference."

A paper which he prepared for Pitt

influenced the parliamentary criticism of Whitbread.

doing supposes, or pretends," Burke

says, "that the

farmer op-

But the "principles of market," or the "principles of do not admit of deviation. Providence sometimes withholds "necessaries" from the poor; "it is not in breaking the laws of commerce, which are the laws of Nature, and consequendy the laws of God,"

presses the laborer."

general policy,"

that divine displeasure

Burke's paper was

is

to be softened.

first

published in 1800, together with another "me-

Economic Sentiments

64 I

posthumous pamphlet Thoupfhts and Details on being in open opposition to Smith. Burke does not mention Smith in the pamphlet. But he paraphrases the Wealth of Nations at some points, and contradicts it at many others. "Nothing can be so base and so wicked," he says, "as the political canting language, 'the laboring poor"^^; Smith uses the phrase six times in a few paragraphs of his chapter on wages. Smith says that wages are determined morial," as part of the Scarcity. It

is

in contracts

close, at several points, to

made between "two

whose

parties,

interests are

by no means

the same"; Burke says that "in the case of the farmer and the laborer, their interests are always the

same." Burke saw the

exterior establishment of

some "thousand

its

religion";

first

duty of the

"the

state as

Smith favored the competition of

small sects." Monopolies, for Smith, were a wretched de-

rangement of natural order;

monopoly of capital ...

for Burke, "the

is

a

great benefit, and a benefit particularly to the poor." Smith thought that

the children of the poor should be educated to take part in political discussions; for Burke, they ers,"

were no more than "present drains and bloodsuck-

although "growing from

less

utility. "^^

to greater

By 1800, however, Burke's pamphlet was received as little more than an exposition of Smith's "principles." The editors claimed in their introduction that Smith paid "the greatest deference" to Burke's views in the

Wealth of Nations}^

It

was

as

though

all

the different Smiths

—^Whit-

bread's Smith, with his right to the produce of labor, or the quasi-French, quasi -atheistical, quasi -revolutionary

the simple prescription of

"Oeconomist"

—had vanished into

economic freedom. The laconic review of

Burke's pamphlet in the Gentleman^s Ma^fazine was characteristic: "This celebrated author proceeds trade should be free;

on the

principles

of Dr.

Adam

and that government should not

Smith, that

interfere

pulsory acts and regulations, particularly in grain and agriculture. equally averse to public granaries."

The Monthly Review identified

arate pamphlets, including Burke's, ciple

of Dr.

Adam Smith, that all

was even described as

all

by com-

He

was

five sep-

which were concerned with "the

prin-

trade should be free"; one of the authors

as "Smithian."^^

Burke and Smith were no longer seen

opponents by the end of the century; they were equivalents, and eco-

nomic

conservatives.

ONE-SIDED RATIONALISTIC LIBERALISM Smith had been transformed, by 1800, into the modern hero of commerce. This is not to say that the conflict over interpretations of his ideas

— Adam Smith and

Conservative Economics

65 |

came

to a

sudden end. The old subversive Smith of the

vived well into the Victorian period in Britain.

Hodgskin defended Smith

in the

mentators and disciples"; Smith, he

1820s against the errors of said,

his

"com-

never confused the laws of nature

laws of property, and he never extended the doctrines of

with the

artificial

political

economy

as

1790s sur-

early

The economist Thomas

to "all the relations of social

life."^^

Lord Acton,

as late

1881, concluded that "government with the working class" was the

consequence of Smith's ideas of freedom of contract, and of la-

resistible

bor

as the

source of wealth: "That

the foreign effect of Adam Smith

is

French Revolution and Socialism. "^^ Beatrice

"The

ir-

Webb

Economy of Adam Smith was

Political

looked back in 1886:

the scientific expression of

the impassioned crusade of the 18th century against class tyranny and the

oppression of the

Many by the

Few. By what

silent revolution

what unselfconscious transformation of thought did

it

of events, by

change

itself

into

the 'Employers' Gospel' of the 19th century .^"^^

In Germany, the process of transformation was even slower. There was

no German Burke to claim freedom of commerce as the fulfillment of feudal wisdom; one great division, in nineteenth- century German economic doctrine, was indeed

between the "Burke-Savigny" school of historical

ju-

risprudence and a Kantian Smithianismus of cosmopolitan reform. Carl

Menger

in fact

commented

in

1883 on Smith's

ment. Smith had no understanding of organic

lack of conservative senti-

social structures,

and there-

nowhere concerned to conserve them": "What characterizes the theories of Adam Smith and his followers is the one-sided rationalistic liberalism, the not infrequentiy impetuous effort to do away with what exists fore "was

.

.

.

[which] inexorably leads to socialism. "^^ In a later

fended Smith

as a friend

quendy by Louis Blanc, Ferdinand placed himself in rich,

all

cases

article,

Menger

of the poor, and noted that he was quoted Lassalle,

and Karl Marx: "A. Smith

of conflict of interest between the poor and the

between the strong and the weak, without exception on the

latter.

use the expression 'without

1

since there

is

1796

and powerful

Menger's brother, the

of the —on the — the precursor of

Smith

basis

as

side

of the

exception' after careful reflection,

not a single instance in A. Smith's work in which he repre-

sents the interest of the rich

weak. "^7

defre-

jurist

as

opposed to the poor and

Anton Menger, meanwhile claimed

same passages which Whitbread used in "The Right to the

a socialist jurisprudence:

Whole Produce of Labour. "^^ Smith's old renown persisted even into the early decades of the twentieth century. The Smith scholar James Bonar addressed the National Lib-

Economic Sentiments

66 I

eral

Club, in 1924, on what he called "The Revolutionary Element in

Adam

Smith." This extended from

"first principles,"

including the rights

of labor, to "emotional appeals" on behalf of the suffering, and to "reforms of detail." "The charge

do not

love to dwell

on

is

no

novelty,"

Bonar

everyone

it"; "it strikes

said,

who reads him

time; and then, as a rule, the reader finds himself taking

explained away, and he generally leaves

it

"but economists

it

as

for the

first

covered up or

out of his thoughts. "^^

SMITH'S REAL SENTIMENTS

The

year

1800

a turning point,

is

"Smiths." There seems to be factual questions:

little

for

still,

Smith and the different

merit in trying to answer the counter-

What would Smith

himself have thought about his

changing reputation, or about the French Revolution.^ But fiil

to conclude with

stood

may be

some observations about what Dugald Stewart

Smith's "real sentiments," and in

it

why

it is

use-

called

that they can have been under-

such widely different ways.

There are great

difficulties in trying to interpret

Smith's politics, as

Donald Winch and others have emphasized. One reason is that Smith himself went to considerable lengths to obscure his opinions. He is extraordinarily cautious and elusive when he writes about current policies in the Wealth of Nations. In his letters and conversations, he seems to have several

more or

less distinct personalities. It

to the tension, described by lic

was

this multiplicity

Dugald Stewart, between the

Smith and the private Smith

who

which led

qualified pub-

revered Voltaire in his supposedly

thoughtless social hours.

Smith's real sentiments, according to Stewart's memoir, were those of the prudent public man. Yet the same tension was interpreted by Smith's

French friends

in exactly the opposite way.

Dupont de Nemours

thus sug-

gested after Smith's death that the real "spirit" of Smith was to be found in the private

was hiding

man, or the unqualified

his real sentiments

friend of freedom.

The

public Smith

from conservative pubHc opinion. In

his

comments on Turgot and Smith, Dupont is critical of Smith's permissive attitude, in the Wealth of Nations, to some government interference, and especially to indirect taxes.

But he explains Smith's "error" by the

fact that

he "appears to have been frightened by the severe judgment which tire

fore

his en-

book suggests" in relation to British policy. Smith's errors were thereno more than "a sacrifice which he thought he must make to the pop-

ular opinions of his country";

"Smith

in

freedom. Smith in

his

own room

Adam

Smith and Conservative Economics

67 |

or in that of a friend, as

saw him when we were

I

home of Mr Quesnay," would Smith's caution,

on

this

"French" view,

is

who sometimes compromises, and not code;

like

someone who must

that of

obscure his real and severe opinions in public.

systematic. Like

disciples together in the

never have said such things.

He

seen as a reformer

is

as a conservative

who

is

Turgot or Condorcet or Gibbon, he writes

sometimes

in a sort

of

Quesnay, whose Physio cratiewdiS published in "Peking" to avoid

French censorship, he

of absolute power.^^

lives in a society

Dupont's interpretation

is

supported by

much of

Smith's correspon-

dence, and by the revolutionary side or element of his published and un-

published work. But Smith's compromises with conservative opinion were

To respect public opinion was of central philosophy, as it was to Condorcet's. To

not simply a matter of expediency.

importance to Smith's act "slowly, gradually, vative.^^ It

political

and

after a

very long warning" was not to be conser-

was rather to put popular ideas

ment which

the people

political process. 9^ It

most profound

—

in Smith's

may form" of government

—

words, the "judg-

at the center

of the

was to change society by public consent. Smith's

criticism, in his last writings,

was of Frederick the Great: of

the imperial reformer who seeks "to erect his own judgment into the supreme standard of right and wrong," and to dispose of individual beings "as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board." The man of humanity, by contrast, was more like Smith himself: cautious, accom-

modating, and

respectfiil

of the prejudices of the people.

Smith's preoccupation with public opinion was indeed one of the charges

made

against

him

in the 1790s.

He

was subversive, according to

the Reverend Mr. Carlyle, because he wished to propagate opinions. His

humanitarian reformer was Burke's (and also Robespierre's) anathema: the

man

sceptical,

without prejudice, "hesitating in the puzzled and

were brought on,

as

unresolved. "^^

was seen

earlier,

moment of

Even Dugald Stewart's

decision,

tribulations

by the indiscretion of having quoted

Condorcet's views on public education.

He was obliged to retract gradual-

itself "If I have dwelt long on the expediency of a slow and gradual accommodation of laws to the varying circumstances of a people, it was not from a wish to encourage political discussions among the multitude, but from an anxious desire to prevent the danger of such an evil."^^ Smith's real political sentiments have been obscured, more generally, by the very disputes which have been described here. The Wealth of Nations was reduced, in the reviews of 1800, to little more than a single "principle," and Smith himself to a zealot of "Freedom of Trade. "^^ Yet the most

ism

Economic Sentiments

68 I

subversive parts of the Wealth of Nations and the Theory of Moral Senti-

—the passages which inspired Wollstonecraft and Sieyes, and which

ments

horrified the Scottish Tories

—were not even concerned with commercial

The occasions when Smith becomes most indignant moments which were "covered up or explained away" (to

policy.

are the very

use Bonar's

phrase) in the 1790s.

The Wealth of Nations critique

human

of

in

is ^

Nathan Rosenberg's words, "a systematic

institutions."^^ It

is

thereby

among

the objects of

Burke's obloquy: "Instead of quarrelling with establishments, as

who

tutions,

we

them ...

cleave closely to

these gentlemen think discussed. "^^^

it,

It

ill

effects

says, "are

who

their other effects as well.

precipitate discord

to be

is

of institutions on commerce.

At one point

memoir, Dugald Stewart makes an odd comment about Smith's of merchants

insti-

has been the misfortune (not as

the glory) of this age, that everything

Smith described the

But he was concerned with

he

some do,

have made a philosophy and a religion of their hostility to such

in his

criticism

between nations. Smith's remarks,

expressed in a tone of indignation, which he seldom assumes

in his political writings. "^^^ This

is

true

when political writings

be concerned with commerce, or with wealth. Smith

is

outraged about prices, or investments, or even about the

But indignation

is

are taken to

not particularly level

of

taxes.

nonetheless one of the most powerful tones in his writ-

of the injustice of political and religious

insti-

Smith's subversive renown was founded, to a great extent, on his

criti-

ing,

and

it is

used, above

all,

tutions.

cisms of established religion. his friendship

with

He

was most objected

Hume; some of his

to, in his lifetime, for

boldest proposals in the Wealth of

Nations are to limit the "great incorporation" of the established church,

and to promote science

as

an "antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and

superstition. "1^2 jj^^ Theory of Moral Sentiments W2is read in France, as a protracted attack

on

by many,

religious prejudice. This

attractions for Condorcet's wife, Sophie

Grouchy,

who

at least

was one of its

translated the last

edition during the Revolution: Smith was thought to have "laicized rality,

and removed

The other

it

from

all

dependence" on

mo-

religion.

great source of Smith's dangerous reputation was his op-

position to national prejudice and foreign military expenditure. His description of the sentiments of empire

newspapers the exploits of their

own

— "the amusement of reading fleets

and armies," the "thousand

sionary hopes of conquest and national glory"

Wealth of Nations.

He

admired martial

in the

—was already suspect

virtues,

vi-

in the

and was tolerant of stand-

Adam

Smith and Conservative Economics

69 |

ing armies. But he was fiercely

critical

He

pensive and unnecessary wars."

ment, great

fleets

and armies,"

of "wantonly undertaken" and "ex-

cited "a great ecclesiastical establish-

of "public prodigality and

as instances

comments in the Theory of Moral Sentiments were even more forceful. "The mean principle of national prejudice," he said, was often "malignant" and "savage"; it was weak and foolish to "call the misconduct. "^^'^ His

last

French our natural enemies"; "great warlike exploit" was contrary to tice

and humanity, and conducted by "very worthless

Smith's language was close, in

whom

Burke attacked in the

fact, to that

Reflections}'^^

jus-

characters. "^^^

of the friends of France

His arguments about military

expenditure were invoked, against Burke, by opponents of the French wars. Pitt indeed

became exasperated,

wartime prime minister, with

as the

having Smith quoted against him on the costs of foreign policy:

"Much

he respected the opinions of that great writer ... he could not help senting from several

He

maxims which he had advanced.

as

dis-

thought that

great author, although always ingenious, sometimes injudicious. "^^^ Yet

by the end of the century,

at least in

England, these unwarlike maxims

were widely ignored. Smith's cosmopolitan

principles, like his opposition

subsumed

in the single-minded theorist

to established religion, had been

of commerce. Smith's real sentiments about poverty, too, were disregarded by 1800.

He

is

and

far

indignant in the passages about wages which inspired Whitbread,

more

so in his unpublished works: as

on jurisprudence, ety," yet

is

sidered

in every case as a

He

when the

object

wage

is

is

a

buried in obscuclothe the whole

and government may be con-

to reduce poverty.

regulations; another

is

government

One example his

interference, especially is

his

remark about eq-

support for progressive taxes on

such that "the indolence and vanity of the rich

sages, too, 2iS

is

who

combination of the rich to oppress the

tolerant in his view of

tribute in a very easy

tions

said that the people

in rags themselves"; or that "laws

...

carriages,

poor laborer "supports the whole frame of soci-

may very justly be

poor."!^^

uitable

says, in the lectures

"himself possessed of a very small share and

rity"; that "it

world are

that the

when he

were

manner

virtually

book with

is

made

to con-

to the relief of the poor."^^^ Yet these pas-

ignored in the interpretation of the Wealth of Na-

a single principle, "that

all

trade should be free."

Smith's support for free trade in corn was of great importance to his

nineteenth-century renown as an

ment was

that free trade

enemy of the

poor. But his

would prevent famine and

was not concerned, here, with exceptions to

a

own

palliate scarcity.^

argu-

He

supposedly cruel "system of

Economic Sentiments

70 I

freedom"; he believed,

much

as

did Turgot and Condorcet, that freedom

the poor than the policies of oppressive and

less cruel for

formed governments. Like Turgot,

as will

be seen in Chapter

ill-in-

Smith

3,

considered free trade in corn to be a "preservative against scarcity";

Condorcet, he believed that

He

tence.

it

litde

was

a

about famines

like

subsis-

But there

in free countries.

is

to suppose that he disagreed with Turgot's policy, in times of

no reason scarcity,

wrote very

way of assuring "more equal"

is

of free commerce

in

food combined with government projects to

provide wages for the indigent.

Even Smith's sentiments about freedom were submerged by 1800. The is central to everything Smith wrote. But the distinction

idea of freedom

between "economic" freedom as an end, and "political" freedom as a means as in Dugald Stewart's memoir, or for the friends of Coleridge's shipowner is entirely missing. The burghers of medieval cities "became

—

—

really free in

villanage

duced

our present sense of the word Freedom," Smith wrote, when

and slavery were taken away. Commerce and manufactures

"liberty

and security of individuals." "This, though

observed,

least

dom,

is

for Smith,

is

by

far the

an end in

most important of

all

of a self-evident

itself,

intro-

has been the

it

their effects. "^^^ Freesort. It

is

a sort

of feel-

words of the Theory of Moral Sentiments, to "breathe the free of Uberty and independency. "^^^ This is very much Turgot's or Con-

ing: in the air

dorcet's sense.

"To

his Reflexions sur le

feel

Esquisse des Pro£fres, for

commerce, those of postcript to

the sweetness of liberty"

commerce des

bles;

he

"seeming to forget,

political freedom. "^^^

Smith that "liberty

is

the

is

Condorcet's phrase in

criticizes the EconomisteSy in his

in the interests

of freedom of

Sophie Grouchy writes in her

need of the human

first

Smith believed that freedom was good, and

also, as

heart. "^^^

he argued through-

out the Wealth of Nations, that it was good for prosperity. But he distinguished meticulously between the two sorts of argument: between what

was "impolitic"

in relation to

commercial policy and what was "unjust,"

or between prosperity and "equity, besides." This, too, was the conventional distinction of the later liberty confers are

French enlightenment. "The goods which

of two sorts," Condorcet wrote:

vantages of Uberty; then, there

is

free." Servitude, correspondingly,

"first,

there are the ad-

the pleasure which one feels in being is evil

both because of the

ills

which

it

engenders, and because of the "feeling of dependence, the spectacle of hu-

man fiise

degradation. "11^ the

two

sorts

The

effect

of the disputes of the 1790s was to con-

of goods, and eventually to diminish the importance,

at

Adam

Smith and Conservative Economics

71 |

least in political

economy, of

intrinsic

goods and

But

evils.

this

was not

Smith's view of freedom, and not his politics. Smith's real sentiments were obscured by Smith himself, and by his friends

and followers

after his death.

But they amounted, during

his life-

time, to a cluster of beliefs which were distinctively influenced by French ideas.

He was

critical

of the privileges of the

nothing in Smith's

rich.

He

was

of public discussion. There

in favor

politics to bely his early

Revolutionary reputation

consisted, for Smith, in not being interfered with by others: in

any of the sides of one's overseers, corporations,

life,

and by any outside forces (churches, parish

customs inspectors, national governments, mas-

ters, proprietors). Interference,

or oppression,

is

itself

extensive notion; Smith at times talks of inequality as a

and of low wages

which was

is

as a

and of France.

friend of freedom,

Freedom

of religious establishments, of war, of poverty, and

as a

form of inequity.^^^ But

lost after his death.

By

it

was

an extraordinarily

form of oppression,

just this multiplicity

the end of the 1790s, the freedom of

become something very much less, at least for politiwas little more now than the freedom not to be interfered

noninterference had cal

economy.

It

with in one side of one's tional

government).

yond the 1790s,

at

life

(the economic),

One of the

and by one outside force (na-

objectives of this

something closer to Smith's

book is

own

to look back, be-

conceptions.

3

Commerce and

the State

A RECIPROCAL DEPENDENCE The organization of commerce and

the organization of government were

intertwined, in late eighteenth-century Europe, in

nary

life.^

The "commercial system of Great

pal subject

of the Wealth of Nations,

is

the details of ordi-

all

Britain,"

which

bounties, inspections, prejudices, rights, and statutes.^

tem," or the "obvious and simple system of natural Smith's

own

ernment;

idyll, as it is

it is

Turgot's and Condorcet's,

a generalization

the princi-

is

The

"liberal sys-

liberty,"

which

a principle

of the "ordinary laws of justice."^

the responsibilities of the theorist of reform duties of governments, or the

is

a collection of regulations, bylaws,

goods which

is

is

of gov-

One of

therefore to identify the just

are jusdy public. It

is

to distin-

guish the dominion of commerce, and the dominion of government. But the theorists with

whom

this

book

is

concerned were

with the organization of ordinary political policies for the

life.

also

They were

immediate circumstances of commercial

preoccupied interested in

politics,

and of

unjust governments.

The

political

economy of food

has been an

emblem,

1760s, of the heardessness of the liberal system.

commerce

at least since the

The introduction of free

corn was a principal objective for Turgot and Condorcet,

in

as

commerce, they argued, was the best protection against government intervention in the supply of food would prevent the

for Smith. Free scarcity;

establishment of commerce, and could thereby lead to scarcity and even famine. Their arguments have been interpreted ever since as a simple pre-

commerce is good and government bad.^ The discussions with which this chapter is concerned suggest a different and more complex view. Turgot, Condorcet, and Smith proposed elabo-

scription that

rate policies

72

of government intervention,

as will

be seen. Their

justifica-

Commerce and

73

the State |

tion for such intervention

was linked

explicitly to their description

of the

operations and limitations of commercial processes. They put forward strikingly similar views

of the corn trade,

at virtually the

same time. But

Condorcet, unlike Smith, was obliged to defend himself against the charge

of relentless support for

which Smith was not subjected

free enterprise to

until after his death. Turgot, unlike Smith, studied the course

of a

real

famine in painful detail in 1770. They went considerably beyond Smith to

—in the "markets" for labor and land well for —^which lead to famine, and government relation to these

analyze the conditions

corn

as

as

policies in

different markets.

Commitment

to free

commerce

in

corn was consistent, for Turgot and

Condorcet, with support for government intervention in other markets.

Turgot argued that conditions

in different markets "are related to

one an-

other by a reciprocal dependence, and arrive at equilibrium themselves";

he even

(in

what was apparently the

first

use of a metaphor later used so

widely in the analysis of markets) described the relations between buyers

and

sellers as

"a sort of tatonnement.''^^ But he and Condorcet are also

concerned with the slow emergence of markets, with persistent disequilibrium, and with government intervention to ensure incipiently free economies.

commerce

policy

1763-1769.

in corn in France in

SCARCITIES, DEARTHS,

security in

major economic reform: the introduction of par-

in the period following a tially free

minimum

They described the dilemmas of public

AND FAMINES

In the Wealth of Nations, Smith described four different ways in which

famines

arise.

The

first is

when wage income

declines rapidly; Smith sur-

mises that this was the situation of Bengal in 1770, under the oppression

of the East India Company. The second

is

when

the interruption of

"all

commerce and communication" causes wide variations in corn prices, and prevents movements of food between districts; this was the situation of England before the fifteenth century. The third is when total national income declines in a country which depends on food imports; this would be the situation of Holland if its real opulence were to fall. The fourth is when scarcity arises in a country with free commerce usually because of war or bad weather

—and improper government

to "turn that dearth into a famine"; this in

is

—

policies

then contribute

the situation which might arise

modern Europe.^ Smith was most concerned with the fourth

case.

He

argued that free

Economic Sentiments

74

trade in corn

is

the best means to avoid famine:

freedom of the corn

strained

of the miseries of a famine, so

trade, as it is

"The unlimited, unre-

the only effectual preventative

it is

the best palliative of the inconveniencies

of a dearth." Freedom of the corn trade

the best policy for the poor, as

is

five times; it is

"the best thing that can be done for the people."

He is concerned with the

"extensive corn countr[ies]" of modern Europe,

he repeats

and

He

especially with Britain.

fect the inland

(and to a

Smith's views

Condorcet sur le

on

in their

considers only those regulations which

af-

lesser extent the international) trade in corn.^

scarcity are

remarkably close to those of Turgot and

important works on the corn trade. Turgot's "Lettres

commerce des

grains," pubfished

posthumously

in

1788, were writ-

ten while he was traveling as intendant through the remote Limousin

province of France, during the scarcity of 1770. (John Morley later explained, for a Victorian audience, that Turgot's position could be

com-

pared to that of a "Chief Commissioner" in India, obliged "to deal with a famine, just as the English civilian has to dorcet's Reflexions sur

le

commerce des

do

in Orissa or Behar.")^

Con-

was published anonymously

bles

in

1776. Turgot and Condorcet were close friends, and discussed the two texts extensively;

Condorcet continued to write about corn

M. Turcot of 1786^ and

in his political

Turgot and Condorcet, free trade in

countries.

Turgot wrote that this

corn

is

means of preventing

in his "Lettres sur le

was hardly

commerce des

a novel view: "It has this

edy is not immediate. "It has not been

is

established. "10

that complete

produce

corn

is

said a

He pointed out

hundred times, and

said,

He

and should not have been

in his Reflexions sur le

freedom of the corn trade

He repeated,

is

a sure

adds, however, that rem-

this effect starting in the first years

Condorcet wrote

sistence of the people. "11 in

been

grains."

freedom [of the corn trade] would be

against the frequency of scarcities."

that [freedom] should

European

scarcity in

the only possible preservative against scarcity,"

is

with good reason, that

remedy

Smith, set out from the proposition that

like

the best

"Freedom

in his Vie de

works of the Revolutionary period.*^

said,

when

commerce des

it

bles

the "means of assuring the sub-

as late as

1792, that

free

commerce

"the most sure means" of distributing grain equally over time.i^

Like Smith, Turgot and Condorcet described the ways in which scarce

commodities are divided under freedom of commerce. Smith

commerce tends

possible" over time; Turgot said that free idly

and

said that free

to "divide the inconveniencies of [scarcity] as equally as

commerce would

"divide, as rap-

as equally as possible," the grain that already existed. i^

They

dis-

missed fears of monopoly. Smith pointed to the "number of owners" and

Commerce and

75

the State |

their "dispersed situation";

Condorcet mentioned the "number of sellers"

and the "dispersed" location of harvested Smith compared the popular

fear

grain,

of corn merchants to "suspicions of

witchcraft" in earlier times; Condorcet said that in earlier times, "Jews and sorcerers" were accused of causing scarcities. Smith said of the corn trader that "it can never be his interest" to raise prices higher than

by

"real scarcity," even

inferior ranks

is

required

though he "discourages the consumption" of "the

of people." Condorcet said that corn traders "have no

est in raising grains

much above

inter-

their natural price," but rather help to

avert famine by bringing about a "diminution in the

poor."^^ Smith said in his unpublished lectures

consumption of the

on jurisprudence of 1766

that the "police" (or regulation) of grain "is the cause of all that dearth is

intended to prevent"; Condorcet wrote in his Vie de M. Tur0otxh2X

it

dis-

orders and "famine are the fruit of the very laws which are intended to

prevent them."^^ Turgot's, Condorcet's, and Smith's arguments are similar point.

But Turgot and Condorcet go

actual scarcity.

to

compare

showed

As Turgot

says,

far

beyond Smith

up to

this

in their accounts

of

he has been in a position "at every instant,

principles with facts."

The

the Limousin in

crisis in

1770

that conditions in the corn trade were not a sufficient explanation

Two

if the consumer is to commodity exists; second, that it is within his reach or that he has sufficient means to acquire it."^^ For most of the crisis of 1770, it was the means that were missing, as Turgot showed in his official documents and unofficial letters of the period. The small proprietors could

for famine.

things are necessary, Turgot says,

survive: "first, that the

hardly feed themselves, and turned out their domestics and servants,

then had no food and no means of earning

beyond the

faculties

it.

Prices

of the people"; wages were

lutely impossible" for the

who

were "prodigiously

fixed,

and

it

was "abso-

people to pay; in the countryside, people were

unemployed and had no wages; by late in the crisis, both commodities and the means to pay for them were missing. Turgot was concerned explicitly with failures in different "markets," including for labor and land rents as well as for corn.^*^ People in the poorest, most remote parts of the province lived for much of the year on chestnuts, roots, and other foods which were not transported. Wages were fixed on the basis of "habitual prices," while corn prices rose freely. But "by a cruel linkage," prices were

still

not high enough to cover the costs of transport:

"Despite the excess of need, grains could not

was absolutely impossible

rise

for the people to pay."^^

to that price, because

it

— Economic Sentiments

76 I

The

habitual level of wages,

more

generally,

was

itself so

low that even

a

modest diminution or discouragement of food consumption led to great suffering. The process by which commerce prevents scarcity requires "a of time." Time

lapse

and

commerce

for

is

needed

for the establishment

to "be born and to form." It

is

of communications,

needed

"general wealth," to the point where even the very poor

not on subsistence crops. General wealth are sufficiendy fluity

—

above the

level

is

for an increase in live

on

grain,

and

needed, in turn, so that wages

of subsistence

—or contain

sufficient super-

that people can tolerate temporary reductions in consumption.

The "superfluous" is indeed "very necessary"; if even the poorest laborers have some property which they can sefl when prices rise, then competitive forces can eventually bring about a corresponding increase in wages.^i "If

commerce

is

in a letter to

be

to be able to prevent scarcities entirely," Turgor concluded

Dupont de Nemours,

"the people would already have to

rich."22

POVERTY AND GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM Turgot,

He

far

more than Smith, was a true visionary of general equilibrium. le commerce des grains" that the values of

argued in the "Lettres sur

"commodities, revenue, wages, and population" tend toward equilibrium, in a

proportion which would maintain

itself

so long as

"commerce and

competition are entirely free." The price of consumer goods in proportion to wages should approach "a point of equilibrium" such as to "procure for

the entire society the greatest

sum of production, enjoyment,

wealth, and

strength. "2^ Smith imagines the division of scarcity as determined by a ju-

dicious and foresighted corn merchant, "pretty as the

prudent master of a vessel

is

much

in the

sometimes obliged to

For Turgot, by contrast, the division of scarcity

is

same manner

treat his crew."^^

by variations

in price

"of

"The debate between every buyer and every seUer is a sort of tatonnement which makes known to everyone, with certainty, tlie true price of everything." Under "entire freedom," this process of tatonnement would reveal something close to true prices. Even the most imperceptible degrees."

enlightened public servants

—whom Turgot

called "angel" monopolists

could not hope to emulate, by "calculation," the "successive changes"

which determine

prices.

But Turgot was primarily concerned

commerce des Both he and Condorcet moved

in the "Lettres sur le

grains" with conditions of disequilibrium.

beyond the explanation of scarcity toward an economic theory of disequi-

Commerce and librium.

They

the State

77

distinguished three troublesome conditions in late eigh-

commerce and competition were not yet Turgot wrote, would have to be "established without contradiction and without troubles," and for some conteenth-century France. free.

First,

The freedom of tiie corn

trade,

siderable time, if its full effects

were to be

felt.^*^

Second, people were not

—

They had few household assets their "furniture and even their clothes" ^which could be sold.^^ They were still so poor, in fact, that the process of convergence to competitive equilibrium would itself cause suffering of a sort which could not continue. "There must be some play in all machines," Turgot wrote, and some superfluous income for even the poorest people; "a clock all of whose wheels connected with one another with matiiematical exactitude, without the slightest interval, would soon stop going. "28 Third, people were not yet thoroughly rational. For Conyet rich.

—

dorcet, this was indeed "the only difficult question." People were not "led

by reason," or by "the voice of their true

interests."

They remained preju-

diced against "capitalists" and corn merchants, and believed that terests

tiieir in-

could best be served by "bad laws." This condition, too, would

change. But some lapse of time was again needed.^^ In the Reflexions sur

le

eommeree des

bles,

Condorcet put forward

a the-

ory of public policy for the period of transition to general wealth, general

commerce, and general enlightenment.

He

answered the

criticisms

of free

market policies which had been published since 1770, and defended himself against the ple. "^^

that

He

charge of insufficient "respect for the misery of the peo-

favored private charity; in his Vie de

M. Turcot he points out

Turgot personally borrowed money to pay for

central

ment

government funds.

itself

He

But he

also sets

relief before

requesting

out the proper role of govern-

accepts that "equilibrium between those

who

have every-

thing and those who have nothing" must be based on reciprocal need. But he argues that government must ensure security of subsistence for the poor, independent of trade: of the need "which the rich man has for the poor man's industry. "^^ In his later work on voting and constitutional reform, Condorcet was

concerned with the

difficulties

of aggregating individual preferences into

social decisions. In the Reflexions sur le

jectives

which

are the subject

"quantity of happiness" "welfare" (bien-etre)

is

is

commerce des

of extensive consensus.

not

a

bles,

he

identifies

proper object of government

a necessary (although

not

ob-

He considers that the policy.

But

sufficient) condition for

happiness. Condorcet defines welfare in the minimal sense "of not being

exposed to misery, to humiliation, to oppression."

It is in this

sense a

Economic Sentiments

78 I

proper government objective, or a "duty of justice";

owe to the people. "^^ members of society should have an

"it is this

welfare

whicli governments

"That

all

season, each year, and wherever they

wages, above

all,

all

jective

it

about subsistence foods." This

legislation

Reflexions sur

le

commeree des

other forms of intervention are

who

on

live

suffer,

and

this

is

more

is

the

first

sentence of the

commerce in corn. But Government "owes relief

free

acceptable.

duty of humanity."

a

this

should be the objective of

It

should provide

lief not

by passing bad laws and expropriating corn, but by "assuring

ary and

work

re-

a sal-

to the poor."^'^

Condorcet considered that is

their

Condorcet goes on to say that the ob-

bles.

cannot be ensured by interfering with

to those

who

that those

live;

should be able to buy the subsistence they need:

the general interest of every nation, and

is

assured subsistence each

all

government interference with commerce

unhelpful and indeed harmful. But there are circumstances, such as food

shortages during the transition to completely free commerce, in which

some intervention governments

is

needed "to avoid

is

a greater evil."

The problem

for

then to choose policies which are not "unjust," and which

have relatively minor harmful consequences. Like Turgot, Condorcet was

concerned with the problems which

arise

when people do not have

the

means to buy corn at current prices. Merchants places where they do not think they can sell it, and

this

In such a case, the government must

should not expropriate

act.

But

it

will

not carry corn to can lead to

scarcity.

or subsidize grain, thereby harming the establishment of commerce.

It

should instead "assure the poor work and wages in proportion to the cost

of com.modities; and

poor

it

in a position to

will always

be cheaper for the Treasury to put the

buy corn, than to bring the

price of corn

down

to

within the reach of the poor."^^

TURGOT'S POLICIES AGAINST FAMINE The

policies

effect in the

were written

Condorcet describes

are those

in

le commerce des grains" 1770 to the Controller- General of French finances. In the

same period Turgot wrote another in

which Turgot himself put into

Limousin. Turgot's "Lettres sur

series

of letters (only published in

1919), in which he described the course of the

scarcity, his

full

own actions,

and the resources which the provincial authorities needed from the French government. He travels into the mountainous regions of the province. He receives letters

from

priests

who

have buried people

who

died of hunger.

— Commerce and

the State

79 |

He

sends the Controller a piece of local adulterated bread.

he writes to Dupont de Nemours, "takes

Turgot trade.

committed, throughout the

is

He

assures

sistency, that

serter"),

all

and

Dupont, when

he has not retreated ("No! No! is

more convinced than

At the height of the

he

scarcity,

misery,"

to freedom of the corn

crisis,

enemies

his

"Our

my time."^^ in Paris accuse I

will

him of incon-

never be a cowardly de-

ever of the need for free commerce.

insists

on

royal ordinances to reaffirm the

freedom to transport and store corn.^^ But he meanwhile implements markable

a re-

of public policies against famine. They include a program

series

of public employment; support for food imports;

and some increases

—

and

in taxes;

selective reductions

special regulations

on land tenure

rela-

tions.

Turgot's most important policy, from the outset of the vide

work and

ity Offices

He

poor.

salaries for the

"wages [which

are] in default."

He

and Workshops," and he

supplement

local resources.

crisis, is

to pro-

explains that in the countryside

it is

therefore proposes to establish "Charasks for central

The poor who

government finance to

are able to

work, he

says,

"need

wages, and the best and most useful alms consist of providing them with

means of earning." Turgot

the

insists in his local instructions that "real

poverty" should be "not only relieved, but respected." that public charity will "degrade"

He

is

concerned

some of the poor, and he proposes

spe-

arrangements to meet the "justified delicacy" of people, especially in

cial

the big

cities,

who

poor together to

He

are only temporarily in need.

distribute

opposes bringing the

"soup or bread," which would be "a sort of

authorized mendicity. "^^

The

object of the charity workshops

people." This

is

to be

done through

is

"to spread

the

useful "public works," such as build-

ing roads and improving "public places"; Turgot small communities for works

money among

solicits

suggestions from

which could be useful to "the commerce of

promote "the employment of women. "^^ In his response to Turgot, the Controller- General had offered 20,000 livres

the Province," and which first

for public works,

and 80,000

livres for

not work; Turgot answered that

this

buying

rice for

those

seemed to have been an

who

could

error,

and

that he proposed to "invert" the proportions.^^

Turgot's second policy was to increase "provisioning." As the

crisis

worsened, he used government resources, principally loans to grain merchants, to support imports into the province. tle

The

local trade

had very

lit-

experience of long-distance commerce, and transport costs were pro-

hibitively

high even in prosperous years. Turgot therefore devoted about a

Economic Sentiments

80 I

tenth of the extra resources received from central government to bounties,

Once

indemnities, and interest payments for grain imports. in the province,

however,

went

it

the grain was

largely into the ordinary channels

of

As Condorcet wrote in his Vie de M. Turcot, any other policy would have "the more lasting, the more general effect ... of preventing the estrade.

tablishment of a regular

The

commerce

in grain.

was to reduce taxes on the poor, and to

third policy

set

emergency

impositions on the rich. Turgot asked that day laborers be exempted from national taxes, and also the poorest small proprietors,

who had

already

He

"sold their furniture, their animals, their clothes in order to survive."

on the Montague

region, where the scarcity was

revoked

all

terrible.

But the charity workshops were to be supported

taxes

compulsory contributions from untary charity would

community" were instructed roll

it

by new

Turgot hoped that

rich proprietors.

Where

suffice.

in part

most vol-

did not, "municipal officers of the

to tax prosperous citizens according to "a

of contributions." Payments would be

in

proportion to property

come, and would be required of all proprietors, "without

distinction.

in-

""^"^

Turgot's fourth policy consisted of special restrictions on the rights

of landowners. Early in the metayers, or

crisis,

some

proprietors

had dismissed

dependent tenant farmers. Turgot urged

all

their

proprietors to

support such dependents, "less even on grounds of charity than on

grounds of justice," and

new ordinance

in

also

which

all

out of their

own

interest.

He

later

imposed

a

proprietors, under strict penalties, were re-

quired to maintain their metayers until the next harvest, and to bring back

When

He

restrictions on rents to be more than 150 percent of their could only be required in money, and at a level no

those they had sent away.^^

paid in kind.

also

imposed

grain prices rose to

ten-year average, rents

higher than the 150 percent

limit:

"In times of

scarcity,

it is

human and

even just that the law should come to the aid of the tenant. "^^

The sin

effect

of Turgot's

policies,

by the end of 1770, was that the Limou-

had been saved from widespread famine.

The 1769 harvest had been 1770 harvest was again

the worst of the century in the region, and the

bad, at a time of European scarcity. But by early 1771, the scarcity was

only partial, despite continuing high prices. Mortality rates increased litde in

1770 and 1771 (although more

in 1772). In

Condorcet's laconic sum-

mary, "This successfiil experiment had confirmed

M. Turgot

in the truth

of his principles. "^^ In 1774 Turgot was

summoned

to Paris,

and himself became Control-

ler-General of Finances. His reform edicts of 1776, which were the subject

Commerce and

the State

81 |

of Louis XVI 's Lit de

Justice,

were an attempt to extend throughout

He

France the principles of policy developed in the Limousin.

proposed

complete freedom of the corn trade, but insisted that the new policies

would not "prevent the procurement of help for the indigent." If the price of grain rose so high that it was beyond the reach of ordinary wages, the government could "supply the needs of the poor ... by facilitating for the people the means of earning adequate wages through their work." This would be "much more just and efficient aid" than expenditure on government trading, or than the system of regulation under which inquisitive magistrates could make "a parade of their paternal solicitude. "^^ But the reforms proved too radical for Paris, and Turgot was removed from office only a few weeks after the registration of the reform edicts in March 1776; this was his final experience of economic policy.

AND TURGOT

INTERPRETATIONS OF SMITH For Turgot and Condorcet,

commerce wrote to

is

as for

Smith, government intervention in

know

always to be regretted. "You

Hume, "what

is

as well as I

do," Turgot

the great objective of all governments

on

earth:

submission and money. "^° But they also identify circumstances where only

government policy can prevent the greater In countries where

ment

intervention

commerce

is

is

not yet

evil

fiilly

of unacceptable suffering.

some govern-

established,

necessary to ensure minimal welfare for

Turgot's and Condorcet's concern

is

all

citizens.

to explain the conditions for such in-

tervention, and thus for the transition to a fully commercial (and fully

prosperous) society.

Turgot, Condorcet, and Smith were

ment

all

resolutely

opposed to govern-

Con-

intervention in the corn trade, as has been seen. Turgot and

dorcet then went on to consider policies in other "markets"

and

as well,

in

conditions of incomplete commerce. Their analysis of policies against famine

is

in this respect

jected the

more

much

richer than Smith's.

selective policies

But Smith

at

no point

which Turgot implemented.

He

re-

indeed

indicated that he had not studied the "pretty exact accounts" of European

main concern was with the effects of corn laws in England and Scotland, where acute scarcity seemed to be a problem of the past.

famines. 51 His

It is

unlikely that

Smith read either Turgot's "Lettres sur commerce des

des grains" or Condorcet's Reflexions sur

le

which was widely known

The

in his lifetime.

Turgot's influence on Smith

le

bles,

commerce neither of

extensive literature about

—beginning with Condorcet himself—

is

con-

Economic Sentiments

82 I

cerned to a great extent with theories of capital and investment, and only minimally with

But Smith was

scarcity.

reform policies of 1774-1776.

later

He

of the Lit de Justice}^

Turgot (published after the in

also

certainly familiar with Turgot's

He owned

owned

a

a

copy of the Proces-Verbal

copy of Condorcet's Vie de M.

edition of the Wealth of Nations)^

last revised

which Condorcet describes the Limousin

and

policies,

praises the

Wealth of Nations as "a work, unfortunately for the happiness of mankind, hitherto too

little

known

in Europe."^^

SmitJi frequendy favored policies quite similar to those

and Condorcet proposed.

He

oblige employers to pay their prices ple,

in

were

falling).

He

which Turgot

supported government intervention to

workmen

in

money, and not

on

favored progressive taxation:

in kind

(when

rents, for

exam-

such that "the rich should contribute to the public expence, not only

proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that pro-

portion."^^

The reformer William Wilberforce

relates that

Smith reacted

"with a certain characteristic coolness" to schemes for creating employ-

ment

in

many

other examples of what Siegmund Feilbogen, in his study of Smith

remote

districts (the

and Turgot, describes lists

nine grounds

as

Western

Isles

of Scotland ).^^ But there are

"the solidity of Smith's social policy"; Feilbogen

on which Smith

justifies

government intervention, and

goes on to identify twelve instances of his support for "social equality. "^^

Smith was even prepared to countenance exceptions to the freedom of the (foreign) corn trade "in cases of the

Winch points in legislation

out, he

on

is

most urgent

necessity"; as

concerned with "second-best

Donald

alternatives," at least

corn.^^

Smith's discussion of scarcity has been of central importance to his post-

humous orist

reputation as a relendess proselytizer of free enterprise

who promoted commerce,

was thought of during

—

as a the-

even in times of impending famine. Yet he

his lifetime as a friend

of the poor.

He was criticized

by Malthus for an ill-judged concern with "the happiness and comfort of the lower orders of society. "^^ His harsh reputation seems to have been

founded on in

1790,

sort

a novel interpretation

as has

of his views

in the

decade

after his

been seen: under conditions of war- induced

death

scarcity

of a

which he had not experienced, and which he considered quite unchar-

acteristic

freedom

of prosperous and in

one market,

civilized countries.

for corn; he

He

favored complete

was thought to have promoted "mar-

kets" in general, in the specific circumstances of widespread destitution.

He opposed

the regulation of the inland corn trade; he was thought to

have rejected

all

forms of government interference, even to relieve the suf-

Commerce and

the State

83 |

commerce

fering of the poor. Yet his support for free

in

corn was quite

consistent with support of intervention in markets for labor, land rental,

and public works:

this

the implication of Turgot's and

is

Condor cet's

work.

THE LAPSE OF TIME Turgot and Condorcet were concerned,

which commerce

They show

with circumstances in

not yet established, and in which the

is

ments of the poor

explicitly,

are so

low

as to

make

initial

endow-

destitution a continuing threat.

that scarcities arise because of conditions in several different

markets, and that governments must choose the best policy for each of these markets.

Their theory suggests a way of ordering policy choices

during the often long lapse of time while markets emerge. Markets do not

become

established within a few

and household endowments

months or a couple of years. Where wages

are low, scarcities can arise, quite suddenly,

because of disruptions in several different markets. Governments cannot avert these crises simply by policies in relation to food.

They must

instead

choose a combination of public interventions, appropriate to each market. Condorcet's definition of minimal welfare bility

—

in terms

of the responsi-

of government to prevent misery, oppression, and humiliation

open, evidently, to continuous revision.

He

—

is

himself included commodities

other than subsistence food in the requirements of a

life

which was

free

of

misery; he later included education and schoolbooks in the requirements

of a

life

without humiliation. The most general importance of Turgot's

and Condorcet's work on the corn trade analysis

of the

political limits to the

metaphor of an economic system

be seen

as

its

to be found, rather, in their

operation of commerce. They use the

in the process

ward equilibrium. Government actions of society and conditions for

is

are

of dynamic adjustment to-

both shocks to the machinery

continued adjustment. Their analysis can

suggesting criteria for choosing the least disruptive of these

actions.

The

first

criterion

rangement) which

is

the organization of the market (or non- market ar-

will

be affected. In Turgot's conception of general

interdependence, interferences with freedom in any market can have

temic

effects.

tent to

But he

also

sys-

emphasizes differences across markets in the ex-

which commerce and competition

are complete. In respect to

corn, for example, the long process of establishing freedom has begun, but is

far

from complete.

It is

therefore especially vulnerable to

what Con-

Economic Sentiments

84 I

dorcet called "the

more

lasting, the

more

general effect" of government

intervention. In respect to rural tenancies, by contrast, there are very few

markedike arrangements to be displaced. In respect to urban unskilled labor

—the market affected by public works—commerce may be very and

idly established,

will

sol-

not be disrupted for long by public employment

projects.

Turgot's and Condorcet's procedures imply that governments should interfere in those markets

where the expected

effects

on the organization

of commerce are smallest. The market for corn, where commerce

is

in the

process of being established and where the long-term dynamic effects of

government action

are large,

is

particularly unsuitable.

Turgot and Con-

dorcet were indeed especially concerned witii legal and psychological fects.

The

old, regulated corn trade attracted the sort

Smith described

of merchants

"wretched hucksters," and whose

as

Condorcet "only too

well founded. "^^

A

ill

repute was for

merchant could never know

the laws under which he has bought will be those under which he will

Condorcet pointed out that and favored "men was

essential,

government

if

sell;

merchants,

to profit [from] prohibitive laws."^^ It

under these conditions, to consider the long-term

effects

of

policies in different markets.

The second like

this uncertainty inhibited "real"

who know how

ef-

whom

criterion

is

the distributional effect of the policy. Turgot,

Smith, recognized that government regulations tended to favor the

rich over the poor,

and the "master" over the "workman. "^^ Laws were

enforced to protect the rich, Condorcet showed, or according to the "interest or caprice"

of the enforcers.

It

was therefore important to evaluate

on different groups. Employment policies, for Turgot, were more just and efficient than policies to reduce corn prices. Government expenditure would have to be financed by taxes, which fall on the poor as well as the rich. But the rich also buy corn; policies to subsidize the price of corn would be "alms for the rich at least as much as for the poor. "^7 It will always be cheaper for the Treasury to provide employment for the poor, as Condorcet wrote, than to reduce corn prices for everythe effects of policies

one.

The

third criterion

vention

is

least bad,

is

the nature of property rights.

be violated by the intervention are

posed

in his "Lettres sur le

leges of bakers'

Government

inter-

other things being equal, where the property rights to

and

stitious respect" for

least

commerce des

millers' guilds,

important.

When

Turgot pro-

grains" to suppress certain privi-

he distinguished between the "super-

property originally "founded on usurpations," and

Commerce and

the State

85 |

respect for the

"most sacred of all property

fruit of his labor. "^^

The

rights

.

.

the property of man in the

.

of proprietors to impose rents in kind were

similarly unrespectable; the rights

of corn farmers were sacred. Condorcet

distinguished property in the right to impose charges, for example, from

The

"true property" in land or goods.

was

a

classification

of competing rights

matter of considerable dispute; Diderot claimed, in opposition to

Turgot's views, that no individual property rights are "sacred" in relation to "public concern" or "general

utility. "^^

The

privileges

of the mastership

guilds, the advocate -general Seguier said in the Lit de Justice,

form of

selves a

"real property. "^^

Public perceptions of different rights

could also be expected to change over time,

government should

were them-

try, as far as possible,

Condorcet showed. But

as

to limit

its

interventions to those

markets where property rights were considered, by public consensus, to be relatively

unimportant.

The fourth

criterion

different interventions.

ernment

officials

is

the nature of the freedoms which are violated by

Turgot and Condorcet,

like

Smith, criticized gov-

not only for violating property rights, but also for the

"vexation," "oppression," and "visits" which accompanied such violations.^^

The

Paris magistrates

who paraded their paternal

solicitude for the

XVI of the reform edicts, homes of laborers and traders,"

poor, Turgot wrote in his presentation to Louis also prized their authority to "search the

and to ruin merchants who had displeased them.^^ Such oppression was reason to avoid intervention in the market for corn. prietors to send

away

their tenant farmers

a

The freedom of pro-

was by contrast based on

injus-

tice,

or the denial of habitual obligations, and could therefore be violated

with

less regret.

Government intervention in labor markets did violate personal freedom, especially when the poor were compelled to work in public projects which were thought of

as

degrading; Turgot's concern for the justified

delicacy of poor people in the effects.

ing.

Limousin was an attempt to mitigate these

But to be dependent on the

"Of

all

wrote, "justice

is

was also degradmen," Condorcet

solicitude of the rich

the words which console and reassure

the only one which the oppressor does not dare to pro-

nounce, while humanity

is

on the

lips

of all

tyrants."''^

Government

inter-

ventions were least bad, in general, in those markets where only relatively

unimportant freedoms are to be violated. Condorcet's and Turgot's for

criteria

choosing between different

selves

amount to

policies.

a quite complicated system

Governments could

choosing between interventions in many

find

different markets,

them-

on the

86

basis

Economic Sentiments of multiple

selves are

criteria,

and

in circumstances

where the

criteria

them-

changing over time. But in the case of scarcity and famine, the ordering, where intervention in the markets for corn

is

worst, and intervention in rural tenancies, training, and labor markets

is

criteria yield a clear

least bad.

They provide

a consistent

method, more

generally, for evaluat-

ing the consequences of government policies in different markets, in the course of the slow transition to complete commercial freedom.

4

Apprenticeship

and Insecurity

A STRANGE ADVENTURE

Adam

Smith was an unrelenting

critic

of apprenticeship, and

his views

were invoked by the opponents and supporters of apprenticeship schemes in the course

of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They were

in-

earliest controversy over the Wealth of Nasome weeks before it was first published in London in March 1776. "Here is a strange adventure," the abbe Morellet wrote to Turgot on Feb-

deed the subject of the very tions,

ruary 26; he relates that as he was waiting, earlier in the day, for the proofs

of his translation of "the piece by Mr. Smith" ter

—

a section

of the early chap-

of the Wealth of Nations dealing with corporations and apprenticehe received news that the manuscript had instead been seized by

ships

—

the police, and was tion,

deemed

to be worthy of burning. ^ Morellet's transla-

which had been commissioned by Turgot, was somewhat approxi-

mate; he speaks of various "transpositions," including bringing together Smith's remarks on the "difficulty of the art of agriculture" and on the "uselessness of apprenticeships. "^

But

this

"chapter of an English work on

corporations," as the diarist Metra described

it,

was seen

as a

contribution

to Turgot's criticism of established power; "one could never get permis-

sion" for

My ward

its

publication.^

object, in this chapter,

against apprenticeship,

for Smith, efficient

is

to look at the arguments Smith put for-

which took the

entirely characteristic form,

of asserting that the institution of apprenticeship was both

and unjust. Smith's

criticism

in-

of apprenticeship regulations, to-

gether with his criticism of regulations on the corn trade, was at the heart

of

his

view of economic reform. Like Turgot's reform edicts on the

mastership guilds and on the regulation of corn, they together suggested

an inclusive system of commercial freedom: for industry and for agricul87

— Economic Sentiments

88 I

and

ture,

for the

commerce

in labor as well as for the

modities. Smith's observations

London, the

cutlers

on corporations

commerce

—on the

silk

com-

in

weavers of

of Sheffield, the "universities" of master smiths, the

ancient corporations of bakers, and other partial associations of trades

much

have attracted

than his observations on food. This

tury,

the late nineteenth cen-

less attention, at least since

a consequence, in part,

is

of the

conclusive success of efforts to reform the old apprenticeship corporations,

both

England and

in

in France.

the seeds of the present, has

The

historian, searching the past for

interest in disputes over long-forgot-

little

ten institutions and long-concluded controversies.'* But the reception of

Smith's views of apprenticeship played a

critical role, as will

be seen, in the

remarkable transformation in his reputation in the decades following his death in 1790.

BUT EQUITY, BESIDES

IT IS

much more

Smith's arguments about apprenticeship were part of a eral criticism

of corporate, municipal, and parochial institutions, and in

which these

particular of the uncertain jurisprudence in

more general

ished. This

gen-

criticism

is

in turn

institutions flour-

of substantial importance to

understanding Smith's view of commerce and government, and of the

of economic —oppressive or vexatious, discursive —which belong neither to commerce nor to the

sides

or indepen-

life

dent

state.

Smith's arguments about apprenticeship can be grouped into four categories.

The

thought of

first,

as

which

is

what would

the closest to

an economic argument,

later

have been

that exclusive apprenticeships

is

tend to obstruct competition and to damage the public interest by keeping up wages and profits in particular industries, employments, or locations.

The second argument is

also, in part,

universal, obligatory education;

isfactory

industry.

about

efficiency.

Smith favored

he argues that apprenticeship

is

an unsat-

means of training workers either in particular skills or in habits of The third argument is about both efficiency and equity; it is that

apprenticeship, which

is

a restriction

ers within apprenticeship relations

from these regulated

trades.

would now be considered tral, as will

on personal

liberty,

and to other workers

The fourth argument

a purely political

is

is

unjust to work-

who

are excluded

the closest to what

argument, although

be seen, to Smith's account of economic change.

It is

it is

cen-

that ap-

prenticeships are unjust because they reflect an oppressive combination of

public laws and corporate bylaws

—

a "corporation spirit"

—

in

which laws

Apprenticeship and Insecurity

89 |

are enacted for the benefit

of the powerful, and enforced

magistrates, masters, overseers,

and churchwardens. They

at the caprice

of

are themselves a

source of insecurity.

Smith's four arguments were interpreted in strikingly different ways in the course of successive nineteenth-century debates over the reform and

of apprenticeship, and

revival

I will

look

at

each argument in turn.

I will

be

concerned, principally, with the period preceding the reform of statutory apprenticeship in England in 1814. esting illustration,

most

it

will

tions has

been (and

Beatrice

Webb wrote

is)

as al-

all

in her

unpublished "History of English Economics"

that subsequent critics "have forgotten that class

inter-

men; of the extent to which the Wealth of Naan enormous mirror of changing economic times.

things to almost

all

The four arguments provide an

be suggested, of Smith's capacity to appear

Adam Smith lived in

oppression and that the 'Wealth of Nations'

is

a history

an age of

book of social

abuses." There was a profound change in his reputation, she said, which

took place between 1776 and 1817, or between the publication of the Wealth of Nations and the publication of Ricardo's Principles of Political

Economy. "What, then," she asks, "were the changes in events and ideas that transformed this crusade of the 18th century [into] the 'Employer's

Gospel' of the 19th century .^"^

provide some insight,

it

will

The debates over

apprenticeship reform

be suggested, into these events and these

ideas.

There

a

is

"double nature" or "twofold character" of Smith's work,

Webb wrote, in which he is both

a theorist

who

seeks to discover (and put

to practical use) the laws of production, and at the same time a "reformer

of social abuses." Each of Smith's four arguments against apprenticeship, as will

be seen,

cial justice

unjust;

is

about economic theory (or

(or equity). Apprenticeship, for Smith,

it is

as inefficient as

giver lest they should

nent

as it

is

it is

unjust.

The

is

and

also

about so-

both inefficient

and

"affected anxiety of the law-

employ an improper person,

is

evidently as imperti-

oppressive," Smith said of the English statute of apprentice-

ships; the liberal

reward of the laboring poor, he said

of Nations, will be of advantage to society,

The

efficiency)

and

"it is

earlier in the

Wealth

but equity, besides."

laws which prevented manufacturers from selling their goods in

shops, and farmers from selling corn, "were evident violations of natural liberty,

and therefore unjust; and they were both too

as impolitic as

they

were unjust."^ It is this

sense of the contiguity of economic and political reasons

"equity, besides"

—which

makes the successive nineteenth-century

—of dis-

Economic Sentiments

90 I

putes over apprenticeship such an intriguing illustration of the changing uses of political economy, and of the Wealth of Nations in particular.

prenticeship it

D. M.

a "cultural institution," in K.

is

should be seen

embedded within

as

Ap-

Snell's description;

"a wide range of social, legal, set-

dement, welfare and administrative considerations." There

are evident

changes, from this perspective, between the three phases of British apprenticeship that Snell distinguishes,

from the "guild apprenticeship" before

the Elizabethan statute of 1563, to the "statutory apprenticeship" of

1563-1814, and the "Voluntary' apprenticeship" of the period

since

1814.7 Yet one of the interesting characteristics of the nineteenth-century debates with which

1 will

be concerned

—of the

thought about apprenticeship, in relation to

—

tory

its

history of

economic and

the extent to which obsolete apprenticeship systems are them-

is

of continuing dispute. History

selves a subject

bates, as a

way

to justify present policies. It

is

is

put forward, in the de-

something which

be cherished (for opponents of reform) or to be overthrown.

was for Smith,

a

way

to discover laws or principles

The pre -Elizabethan

guilds are

still

individual wills,

is

which

It

is

either to

is

also, as it

persist over time.

present, in Smith's description, in the

statutory apprenticeships; the corporation

later

economic

political his-

spirit,

or the subordination of

present in the new, voluntary apprenticeships of the

nineteenth century.

CORPORATIONS AND COMPETITION Smith's ship,

first set

he

of arguments

is

about competition. Statutes of apprentice-

"the exclusive privileges of corporations," "a sort of

says, are, like

enlarged monopolies." Their effect

is

to keep

up both the wages of the

workers and the profits of the masters. They obstruct "the free circulation

of labour from one employment to another," porations "obstruct regulations

is

it

much

would be

is

to keep prices high. If apprenticeships were ended,

a gainer, the

work of all

artificers

coming

cheaper to market." Smith's prescription was to "break

exclusive privileges of corporations, ship,

of cor-

to restrain the competition," and the effect of restraining

that free competition

"the public

just as the privileges

from one place to another." "The intention of both

both which are

real

and repeal the

statute

encroachments upon natural

in this

way

down

the

of apprentice-

liberty,

and add to

these the repeal of the law of settlements."^

of arguments, about the economic inefficiency of apprenwhich was most conspicuous in the political discussions over

It is this set

ticeship,

Apprenticeship and Insecurity

91 |

1814 of the Elizabethan

the suspension and eventual partial repeal in

ute of apprenticeship.^ at pains to refute

The defenders of

stat-

the old act, in particular, were

Smith's arguments. William Playfair, the editor of the

"eleventh edition" of the Wealth of Nations, was an ardent supporter of apprenticeship, and his edition

is

a

compendium of counterarguments

Smith's criticisms. Smith's account of apprenticeship ritable footnotes: tirely

no

"In

this particular assertion,

Mr

is

annotated with

Smith

is

to ir-

certainly en-

wrong"; "This seems to be founded on wrong information, having

sort of foundation in reality." Playfair also inserts a

Chapter,"

"On Education," between chapters

he comments that "Dr Smith

is

1

"Supplementary

and 2 of Book

5, in

which

an enemy to apprenticeships," asserts that

"the control which the law gives a master over an apprentice, seems to be

one of the most fortunate inventions

recommends

in the present

that "instead of suppressing,

it

order of things," and

would be

well to encourage

this species of bondage. "^^

Playfair,

who was known

for his theories

for his epigrammatic denunciations

of the decline of nations, and

of French philosophy ("Prussia, the

former headquarters of atheism," "Condorcet, a captain of assassins"), turned to the same theme in other works. Prejudice, he case of apprenticeship led

ined, in

and refuted,

if found

Smith

astray,

and

his views

said,

had

re-

in the

should be "exam-

wrong." Smith was even wrong,

Playfair wrote,

denying that apprenticeships were truly ancient institutions, with their

equivalent in Egypt and

Rome: "Are we

so often mentioned, were not people "It

is

quite certain that the freed

who had

men,

served apprenticeships.^"^^

very easy to trace the intimate connection between the theory of

leaving trade free, and those levelling principles that ruined France for a

long period," he wrote in a pamphlet of 1814; opposition to the statute of apprenticeship was "founded

upon

the same delusive theoretical principles

which fostered the French revolution. "^^ For the early nineteenth-century opponents of the Elizabethan contrast.

Smith was

Smith's illustrations

a source

is

by

both of true principles and of useful evidence.

—the wheelwright who

and the coach maker who

act,

is

permitted to make a coach,

not permitted to make a wheel; the success of

Manchester, Birmingham, and other manufacturing towns outside the scope of the act

—recur

in the reformers' arguments.

London Manufacturers formed

in

1814

said

the root of all our prosperity," by "the color

workmen

for the raising

it

is

committee of

of the act that

it

"strikes at

gives to the combination of

of wages. "^"^ The "least of the

hended" from such combination

A

"the progressive

rise

evils to

be appre-

of Wages," say the

Economic Sentiments

92 I

members of a parliamentary committee of 1806 which recommended repeal of the apprenticeship clauses of the act in respect of wool; this itself

"abundandy

sufficient to

Commerce

principles of it

in

accomplish the ruin ... of the whole com-

mercial greatness of our Country."

needed to be repeated. "At

the

is

It is as

this day," the

are so generally

though Smith's views

scarcely

committee observes, "the true

understood and acknowledged,

cannot be necessary for your Committee to do more than refer to

them."i5

Smith was the implicit hero, dierefore, of the reformers. But what striking in their

arguments

is

is

the extent to which they picked and chose

within his criticism of monopoly and restraint. Smith himself, to take one

example, linked statutory apprenticeships repeatedly to the privileges of corporations.

The

early nineteenth-century

were by contrast often

opponents of apprenticeship

at pains to distinguish

between corporate and ap-

prenticeship regulations. Sir Frederick Eden, for example, accepts Smith's criticism

of apprenticeship, but objects to "his mistaken ideas respecting

corporation laws," his attribution of removals of the poor "to corporation spirit,"

and

his

"much

of workmanship

to be regretted" asseverations about the

in incorporated towns.

decades following Smith's death,

as

It

low quality

was hardly expedient

Dugald Stewart commented

in

in the

1810,

to think of "subjecting to the disputations of philosophers, the arcana of State Policy, criticism later,

and the unfathomable wisdom of the feudal ages."^^ Smith's

of arcane English corporations

is

notably absent, only a few years

from the disputes over apprenticeship.

The parliamentary ments

critics

of apprenticeship are led into quite odd argu-

in their efforts to avoid calling into question the corporate, English

origins

of the apprenticeship regulations. The system to be reformed

is

thus described, in a curious substitution of simile for history, as something

which

is

more Indian than

English.

The

intention of the apprenticeship

Onslow, the leading parliamentary supporter of the 1814 amendment, was to introduce distinctions "as is created in India by the institution of castes." The Committee of London Manufacturers say that the apprentice is fixed in his trade "as if he belonged to one of the castes of India"; another parliamentary supporter of reform, George Phillips, said that "this principle went, in fact, to place the trading classes in this country on a level with the Indian castes. "^^ Onslow's closing words, in moving the reform amendment, are a reminder that it is only apprenticeship, and not corporate privileges, which is in question: the amendment does not "affect, or alter the bye-laws, or privileges of any corporation, or company act, said Serjeant

Apprenticeship and Insecurity

93 |

lawfully constituted: indeed, out of abundant caution,

may have been

alarm that

and to prevent any

industriously excited, I have inserted a clause to

that effect."i9

Smith's concern about the effects of apprenticeship on wages, profits,

and

prices, to take a different

example,

is

vants, labourers ety,

and "but

in

much

the same

that high

wages

for "ser-

decomposed

way. Smith's presumption, as has been seen,

is

and workmen of different kinds"

reward of labor, he

equity, besides"; the liberal

"cause of the greatest public prosperity."

are an advantage to soci-

He was much more

says,

is

the

disturbed by

high profits than by high wages, and included in the second and subse-

quent editions of the Wealth of Nations passage explaining that "in realhigh profits tend much more to raise the price of work than high 2l

ity

wages."

It

was

also easier to restrict

than in the interest of wages:

"We

competition in the interest of profits

have no acts of parliament against com-

bining to lower the price of work; but

and the "masters

many against combining to raise

and everywhere

are always

and uniform combination, not to

in a sort

wages of labour above

raise the

it,"

of tacit, but constant their ac-

tual rate. "20

In the debates of the 1810s, Smith's opinions are reduced, by the pro-

ponents of reform, to a concern only with the privileges

of apprenticeship

on wages. "Our merchants and master- manufacturers complain

much of the bad

effects

of high wages," Smith observes, while "they say

nothing concerning the bad

effects

of high

gard to the pernicious effects of their those of other people. "^^

Smith described,

George

effects

Phillips,

as

profits.

own

gains.

They are silent with reThey complain only of

The masters of 1814 behaved very much

Lujo Brentano pointed out

who had been

in his history

of guilds.

so concerned about Indian castes,

necessary to distance himself from Smith:

as

felt it

"Adam Smith thought

that

—

among workmen were not dangerous because they were among the master manufacturers, which he

combinations

counteracted by combinations

more

believed to be

frequent. That able writer was mistaken in the fact."

Masters did not frequently combine, Phillips went on; "on the other hand, the journeymen drove the reluctant into combination, through terror. "^^

There

is

yet another aspect of Smith's

and competition which 1810s.

The

is

argument about apprenticeship

almost entirely missing in the debates of the

apprentice and corporation laws were instituted and enforced,

in Smith's description, for the security

of relatively powerfijl people. The

corporation laws obstruct both the free circulation of labor and that of stock, but "it

is

everywhere

much

easier for a wealthy

merchant to obtain

Economic Sentiments

94 I

the privilege of trading in a tain that

of working in

it."

town corporate, than

There

is

for a

poor

ob-

an inside and an outside community, in

Within an incorporated town. Smith

a quite literal sense.

artificer to

says, the differ-

ent classes of traders and artificers thus buy from one another "somewhat dearer than they might otherwise have done"; "but in their dealings with the country they were quite for

literally,

town

to

suburbs,"

do

least

who

home

return

power

least well.

great gainers."

their corn, or the

sell

Even within the have

all

class

Smith

all

says.

barriers to entry are barriers,

consumers,

with smuggled work.^^ it is

those

who

—including apprentices who "cannot give money" —^who

Others are simply outside such protection are

poor people,

as

the regulations

women commonly, scattered

different parts of the country, without support or protection,"

"In most parts of Scodand she

is

good spinner who can earn

a

twenty-pence a week."^^ The most oppressed of all,

common laborers.

are the

who set out

Smith's customer "in the

like

of artificers, in Smith's description,

may provide. "Our spinners about in

The

or at least inspections; they obstruct the farmers

Their understanding

is

as so often for

generally

much

Smith,

superior

to that of mechanics in towns. But they are subject to the entire system of injustice constituted

tion,

and settiement

by the conjunction of the apprenticeship, corporaacts.

The

exotic Orient appears here, for once, as an

encouraging precedent: "In China and Indostan accordingly both the rank and the wages of country labourers are said to be superior to those of the greater part of artificers and manufacturers. so every where,

vent

it.

if

They would probably be

corporation laws and the corporation

Smith's description of insideness and outsideness tities

spirit

did not pre-

"26

of individuals,

as

—of the multiple iden-

people with privileges because they are members of

apprenticed trades, or citizens setded in certain towns, or workers with certain skills

—

omy during

the apprenticeship disputes of the I8I0s.

is

missing, once again, in the invocations of political econ-

mittee of Manufacturers, lies in

who

are

The London Com-

more bold than their parliamentary aldo point out that the Elizabethan

their references to "feudal times,"

statute restricted apprenticeships to the children

of prosperous

families;

the parents of woollen weavers were supposed (in a subsequently unen-

forced provision) to have sixty shillings a year in land, while laborers "were

excluded and not permitted to quit husbandry. "^^ The committee bers appeal, even, to equity for

forcing

it

illicit

women

workers: "Will you, by en-

at the peace, drive to the miserable

prostitution, the multitudes of women

mem-

and infamous resource of

now employed in the fabrication of

Apprenticeship and Insecurity

95 |

But the reformers' arguments about

arms for the defence of the State

commerce and competition

are close, in general, to the painfully con-

economy

tracted, lowly calculating political

to

which William Godwin ob-

and which Francis Place defended.

jected in 1820,

of Smith's views on apprenticeship,

in his lectures

the doctrine of free exchange of labour

.

.

.

Arnold Toynbee of 1881-82, that

"it is

that has brought political econ-

own

omists into collision with the feelings of the people." Yet Smith's tention, he said,

said

in-

was to represent "the opinions of the workmen"; "we see

that this doctrine

was

first

ers as the true solution

popularised by a

of all the

evils

warm champion of the

of their

labour-

state."^^

EDUCATION AND APPRENTICESHIP Smith's second set of concerns, about the inefficiency of apprenticeship as a

way of teaching

was unconvinced, in

skills, is

He

also ubiquitous in the debates over reform.

in general, that extensive instruction or skill

He

most manufacturing employments.

was needed

thought that country labor,

which people had to be able to work under widely varying conditions, quired

"much more

discretion."

skill

in re-

and experience," and "much more judgment and

Even watchmaking could be explained

weeks, or perhaps of a few days, to be followed by

of a few

in the lessons

"much

and

practice

perience"; "long apprenticeships are altogether unnecessary."

The

ex-

effect

of the statutory apprenticeship system was moreover to obstruct workers

from moving from decaying to prosperous manufactures; the linen

and plain

silk

and not very different from the

The

institution

arts

of plain

weaving, for example, were "almost entirely the same," art

of weaving plain wool.^^

of long, bound apprenticeship was an unsatisfactory way

of teaching even those

skills

and

which do turn out to be

tastes

usefial; it

"has no tendency to form young people to industry." Journeymen and pieceworkers. Smith said, have an incentive to be industrious, and to conceive "a relish" for work; he indeed believed that they have a tendency

rather to "over-work themselves, tion. "^^

g^^ an "apprentice

cause he has

no immediate

is

and to ruin

likely to

interest to

the "sweets" of work, and he

be

idle,

their health

be otherwise."

may even

and constitu-

and almost always

He

will

not be put on public

sale, a security

insufficient

which

better provided by a system of marking plate or stamping cloth.

of shoddy goods, he

so, be-

conceive "an aversion to labour."

Smith argues that apprenticeships can "give no security that

workmanship"

is

does not enjoy

says, "is generally the effect

is

much

The

sale

of fraud, and not of in-

Economic Sentiments

96 I

and the longest apprenticeship can give no

ability;

The

risk

of fraud

For the workman without

"which

security against fraud."

indeed greater in exclusive, privileged corporations.

is

privileges,

workers in the suburbs outside incorporated

restrains his frauds";

towns "have nothing but

the fear of losing customers

it is

depend upon."^^

their character to

Smith's arguments reappear throughout the debates over reform.

London Committee

The

points out that the Elizabethan Parliament was

obliged to legislate again, thirty-eight years after passing the apprentice-

making of cloth: "The saddle was

ship statute, over the true

the right horse; the fraud of the master. "^^

mittee

on

at last

put on

The 1806 Parliamentary Com-

the Woollen Manufacture, too, heard dire stories of shoddiness.

One merchant was thus cross-questioned about the time, "perhaps forty years ago," when the cloth merchants of the West Riding "lost the clothing of the Russian guards":

A.

I

believe

it

was

lost

by regulations of the Russian government,

never returned back to Leeds after

it

was

it

lost.

Q. Did you never hear it mentioned, as a leading cause of those reguupon a grand review of the Russian guards, who turned

lations, that

out clad in coats, on a very rainy day, that the same coats the next

morning were very much shrunk into

jackets.^

But the case of the Russian order was explained, ties

in the end,

by the iniqui-

of German trading houses and the protectionism of the Russians, and

the committee concluded, with Smith, that apprenticeship was in essential for teaching skills.

that apprentices,

who do

might instead learn

The

not enjoy the immediate

lasting "habits

—

his

But

it

is

no way Smith,

of their industry,

fairly

contracted and

interesting that the wider scope of Smith's argu-

view of the

politics

tually ignored, as in the case

of education and apprenticeship

especially William Playfair,

—was

vir-

of his arguments about competition, by the

parliamentary proponents of reform.

sive

fruits

like

of idleness and dissipation."^^

"true principles of Commerce," here too, are

calculating.

ments

The committee indeed surmised,

It

who pointed

was the opponents of reform, and to the profound and even subver-

scope of Smith's position. "To free youth from the shackles of appren-

ticeship,

and subject infancy to the authority of schoolmasters,

is

the pres-

ent bent of political economists," Playfair wrote in his supplementary

chapter

on education

in his eleventh edition

of the Wealth of Nations.

sees Smith's opposition to apprenticeship, quite generally, as the

He

outcome

of an imposing choice between two ways of life: between a society brought

Apprenticeship and Insecurity

97 |

together by education, and a society brought together by training.

"Whether or not

it

contributes to the comfort and happiness of the work-

ing man, to read and write,

probably not very easy," he

a question

is

says.

not necessary to decide, and

"Reading frequently leads to discontent,

an ill-founded ambition, and a neglect of business that habits of industry,

and

most

a trade, are the

.

.

[I]t

.

is

at least clear

essential parts

cation of the lower order of people. But Dr. Smith

is

of the edu-

an enemy to appren-

ticeships."^^ Playfair's

supplement follows the chapter

Smith puts forward

his plan for the universal, publicly

of the "children of the

local schools

cation, for Playfair,

in the Wealth of Nations where

in clear opposition to training

is

funded education

common people,"

in

and universal edu-

and apprenticeship.

"That portion of education, which appears to have got an exclusive

title

to

the name, reading and writing, are, with the working classes, a very infe-

he had written in

rior object,"

his earlier

work on the

decline of nations. In

1813, describing the attentions of Smith's admirer Samuel Whitbread to

we do not agree advantage of men doomed to

the education of poor children, he concludes, "Perhaps

many

with him and

others, in regard to the

industry and privation being excited to read and write. "^^ Playfair

is

explicit, unlike

Smith, in seeing education and training as two

opposing systems. But the tension between the two projects constitutes the context in which Smith's arguments about apprenticeship should be

understood. Smith tions,

on the

insistent,

is

from the beginning of the Wealth of NaThe difference between the philos-

equality of natural talents.

opher and the

from nature,

common street porter, he

as

from

habit,

the world, and for the

perhaps, very

much

"seems to

custom and education.

first six

alike. "^^

says,

arise

When

not so

much

they came into

or eight years of their existence, they were,

Their "very different genius,"

consequence of the division of labor more than

born "stupid and ignorant" but are made so by

its

as adults,

is

the

cause. People are not

their "ordinary

employ-

ments"; by the simple, uniform nature of the work they can get; and by the circumstance that their parents,

who

"can scarce afford to maintain

them even in infancy," send them out to work as soon as they can.^^ Smith's comments in his then unpublished lectures on jurisprudence would have confirmed Playfair's suspicions: "When a person's whole attention is bestowed on the 17th part of a pin," he says, it is hardly surprising that people are "exceedingly stupid," and England, where boys are set to work at "6 or 7 years of age," is to be contrasted most unfavorably with Scotland, where "even the meanest porter can read and write. "^°

Economic Sentiments

98 I

The public "can facilitate, can encourage, and can even impose" a system of education on "almost the whole body of the people," Smith says. The "most essential parts of education" are "to read, write, and account," and even the poorest people should "have time to acquire them" before they begin their worldng

life.

something that precedes, and

is

education, here,

It is interesting that

is

The circumstances government expenditure on

distinct from, training.

of commercial society impose the need for

education. Smith's description of the genesis of stupidity and ignorance in

commercial

societies

—of individuals

of the character of

"essential part all

interest

vancement, and not

Smith

is

he does

is

is

indeed the most

a

in

requirement of further advancement.

in fact resolute in identifying education as

in itself, talk

and not

means to

as the

of universal instruction

ends of the society, or to the

who

People

—

his criticisms

supported education

ical

nature"

of modern, civilized life.^^ But governmentno sense something which is itself needed in the of commercial prosperity. It is a consequence of economic ad-

severe of

good

"mutilated and deformed" in the

human

as a

a distinct,

means,

common

something which

it is

is

When

commercial end.

in relation to the polit-

interest in political security.

more reexamine, and more capable

are instructed "feel themselves, each individually,

spectable," and they "are

of seeing through,"

more disposed to xhe ideal,

political projects.^^

that

is

to say,

is

disposition of enlightenment, or of universal public discussion,

of the

among

thoughtful, reflecting, self-respecting individuals; the prospect of "political discussions

among

to repudiate in

Edinburgh

Education

is

more

the multitude," which

generally, for Smith,

useful but also amusing.

Dugald Stewart was obliged

in 1794.^*^

Even when he

something which

is

says, as a justification for

the principles of geometry and mechanics to the "children of the

people," that these principles are useful in

common

trades,

not only teaching

common

he adds that

they are also inspiring; the "introduction to the most sublime as well as to the

most

again

useful sciences." In the lectures

more outspoken. The

on jurisprudence, he

lack of education

is,

for

is

"low people's

once chil-

A boy who starts work when "when he is grown up he has no ideas with which he can amuse himself" Even the poor need things to think or theorize about: "They learn to read, and this gives them the benefit of religion, dren," "one of their greatest misfortunes."

he

is

very young thus finds that

which

is

affords

a great advantage,

them

not only considered in a pious sense, but

Apprenticeship, for Playfair,

and

a source

as

it

subject for thought and speculation."^ is

a

way for masters

to "control" the young,

of "good moral conduct." To discourage apprenticeships, he

Apprenticeship and Insecurity

99 |

wrote in 1814, would be "a great detriment to the moral order of society."

They provide people in the "lower and middling ranks of society" with "the means of keeping their sons in due subjection during the first dangerous years of manhood"; parents bind their children to be apprentices, "to keep them from becoming vagabonds and blackguards." Playfair compares "modern reformers," here too, to the "misled reformers" in France in 1793, "when the authority of husbands over wives and children, was represented as an infringement of natural rights, and a remain of the feudal system! "45 It is interesting that

some

even the opponents of tJie Elizabethan statute made

sort of reference, before the

1814

repeal, to the beneficent conse-

quences of apprenticeship for morality and subordination. The 1806 committee thus regretted the decline in "opinions and feelings of subordina-

do George Rose M.R, Serjeant Onslow's predecessor

tion," but concluded that apprenticeship in the woollen trade could little

to prevent

in investigating

it.^^

reform of the statute, explained in a debate of 1807 on

Samuel Whitbread's Parochial Schools grounds that

was

it

Bill

likely to prejudice the

teaching them subordination"

ought to be taught to read;

—that

—^which was

criticized

on

the

morals of the poor "instead of

"he had no doubt that the poor

as to writing

he had some doubt. "^^ Onslow

himself repudiated, aghast, any notion that he might put '^national wealth in competition

with national

when

that even

apprenticeship

might well wish to apprentice terior

life;

The London Committee suggested was no longer itself compulsory, a parent

morals.''^

his child in the interest

of the

child's

of "that compulsory subordination, by which he

habits of industry,

which cannot be attained under

is

own in-

inured to

a parent's roof, amidst

the familiarity of relations. "^^

For Smith, by contrast, the prospect of instruction seems to have been a matter of the greatest indifference.

promote

habits of industry,

ordinate apprenticeships.

It

which were discouraged,

had

Smith wrote

Theory ofMoral SentimentSy

and one's

friends.

He

is

is

their conduct; straint

The

was unlikely to by long, sub-

in

The

one of the

a matter

habitual sympathy which

last

is

passages he added to the

of one's affection for one's relations

strongly in favor of domestic education, or keep-

ing one's children at home. respect: "Respect for

It

rather,

almost nothing, in particular, to contrib-

ute to the flourishing of moral sentiments. essential to virtue.

in subordination

He

is

in favor, even,

you must always impose

and respect

for

of treating children with

a very usefijl restraint

them may frequently impose no

upon

useless re-

upon your own."^^ apprenticeship debates prior to the

1814

repeal were imbued, like

Economic Sentiments

100 I

all

other political discussion of the times, with the precedent of the French

members of the 1806 Committee on

Revolution; with what the

the Wool-

len Manufacture described as the effects "so fatally exemplified not long

Kingdom. "^^ Playfair spoke of Serjeant Onslow as the instrument of more resolute men, much as the opponents of slavery were duped in France in 1780. Onslow's bill would be "the first step to liberty since, in a Sister

and equality in in Paris, tion."^^

this country, as the Society

about twenty-five years ago," to be followed by "terrible revolu-

Smith had been widely described,

on ignorance and

France, and his views

among

of the Friends of the Blacks, was

his

most popular

as has

is

as a friend

is

remedy

the only

consequence of the division of labor.

a

ers who only know how who are particularly likely

of

were indeed

Condorcet observed

in Revolutionary France.

1788, citing Smith, that true public instruction general stupidity that

been seen,

universal education

It is

in

for the

"work-

to do one thing, or even one part of one thing,"

erty.

to

become unemployed, and

to

fall

into pov-

In the system of public instruction proposed by Condorcet, children

would not

learn

one

trade; they

would

instead learn

how

to learn

new

trades.

For Condorcet,

as for

means. If people were

and

"less

less

Smith, instruction ignorant, they

is

an end,

would be

They would be

would have correct

better at leading "a

ideas of "their rights

and

struction during the Revolution, in

tem of education

is

life," it will

to learn about

oneself. "^2

become

new

all

a

last

thousand life";

they

and an under-

plan of public in-

also cites Smith, the sys-

extended to grown-ups, with

mothers, fathers, and people of

throughout

which he

a

common

their duties,"

standing of "local jurisprudence." In Condorcet's

classes

on Sundays

for

ages. "In thus continuing instruction

possible for people to keep their spirits ac-

laws; to be instructed "in the art of instructing

Smith was one of the inspirations of the revolutionary projects

of public instruction of 1788 and 1791; he was in his

more than

exposed to being victims of a thousand petty frauds,

petty vexations."

tive;

far

better at buying things,

far closer to these projects,

view of education, than to Playfair 's system of moral subordination

through occupational

training.

A STATE OF NONAGE Smith's third set of arguments against apprenticeship, about oppression

and personal

liberty,

was the subject of virtually no

interest in the parlia-

mentary debates of the 1800s and 1810s. "The property which every man has in his

own

labour, as

it is

the original foundation of all other property.

Apprenticeship and Insecurity

101 |

so

it is

the most sacred and inviolable," Smith says; the apprenticeship sys-

tem, which prevents the poor proper,

"is a plain violation

The

"just liberty."

which

is

two

distinct forms. In the

arguments about

free circulation

first,

of labor

workers are obstructed from moving from one occupa-

earlier,

tion to another, or

weavers"

using his labor as he thinks

of this most sacred property," and thereby of

injustice, in turn, takes

closely related to the

considered

man from

from one parish to another. "A thousand spinners and

may be dependent, Smith

says,

on "half a dozen wool-combers";

the wool-combers, by refusing to take apprentices, can "reduce the whole

manufacture into a sort of slavery to themselves. "^^

The

apprenticeship system

is

closely connected, in Smith's description,

Poor Laws. It is both complecomponent of the system of removals and certificates for

to the law of settlements within the English

mentary to and

a

the poor, which Smith described as "an evident violation of natural liberty

and

justice,"

and

erty," are

"most

"security"

—the

in

which the

common

cruelly oppressed."

people, "so jealous of their

lib-

The poor worker must thus provide

security of owning property in the parish, for example, or

of having served an apprenticeship

— before he can himself He

curity" of being established or settled.

is

attain the "se-

scarcely free; he

is

subject to

the will of "the churchwardens and overseers of the poor," and of "two justices

ship

is

of the peace." The

skilled

worker

boasted liberty of the subject, of which is

who

has served an apprentice-

prevented, even, from going abroad to exercise his trade: "The

we

affect to

be so very jealous

so plainly sacrificed to the futile interests of our merchants and

.

.

.

manu-

facturers. "^^

The other sort of injustice is internal to the apprenticeship relation itself. "The whole labour of the apprentice belongs to his master," Smith writes; he is a "servant bound to work at a particular trade for the benefit of a master."

It is this relationship

prentices indolent. training in

skills,

the relationship

—

The expectation

this

unfreedom

—which makes

that apprenticeship

or education in morality,

is

doomed by

ap-

would provide

the inequality of

on which it depends. Smith thought it most improbable work better "when they are disheartened than when

that people should

good spirits, when they are frequently sick than when they are generally in good health"; this was one of his many arguments in favor of high wages. Masters prefer periods of low real wages, in which their employees are "more humble and dependent." Smith's own view is that the "separate independent state" is far more conducive both to industry and they are in

to "morals. "^5

Smith's view of apprenticeship and natural liberty

is

close,

once again.

Economic Sentiments

102 I

to the positions of reformers before and in the early years of the French

Revolution. Turgot's edict for the suppression of the jurandes or guild

wardenships, and their associated apprenticeships, was at the heart of the Lit de Justice of Louis

XVI

March 1776.

in

Turgot commissioned Morellet's Wealth of Nations,

as

service.

"the

first,

his

a

little

before

translation of the sections of the

first

no way

of apprenticeships" would expose the public to

He spoke, like Smith, of the property one has in one's labor as

the most sacred and the most imprescriptible of all"; he said of

the apprenticeship system that

by

was written

has been seen. Like Smith, Turgot was "in

afraid that the suppression

bad

It

work, that

it

rejects

it

prevents the indigent worker from living

women, and

"the law of the rich."^^ In his Vie de

that

M.

it

forces the

poor to submit to

Turgot, published in 1786,

Con-

dorcet described the suppression of the jurandes 3.$ a "great act of justice,"

by which "this odious and ridiculous slavery was abolished" (and which also led to reductions in prices).

ruins of ancient palaces";

Only

one of the

a

few provisions remained,

earliest

"like the

Revolutionary acts in 1789

was indeed the repeal of these residual apprenticeship provisions, of which Brentano writes

of guilds that "in France the sovereign peo-

in his history

ple finally swept the corporations

away

in the night

of the 4th August,

1789. "57

For Turgot's opponents, by contrast, the right to property labor was only one right of property

are "a real property faith

and

others. It

proposed reforms would

ticularly imprescriptible; the

property of the masters

among many

who make up

in one's

own

was not par-

also "violate the

corporations," for

whom privileges

which they have bought, and which they enjoy on the

of regulations." The reforms were also expected to exert a profound

sinister influence

on

social

and economic

relationships. If the jurandes

are destroyed, the advocate -general Seguier said in the Lit de Justice, "all

subordination will be destroyed; there wiU be no more weight or measure; the desire for gain will animate every workshop, and, since honesty

always the best route to gaining a fortune, the entire public" the mercy of secret enemies. it

was

One argument

for apprenticeship

later for Playfair, that the "interior discipline"

needed to

restrain "turbulent

is

not

would be is

at

thus, as

of the jurandes

is

and licentious youth," and to prevent them

from "believing themselves independent." Another, more subde argument,

is

that

community,

is

commitment

to a restricted group, or subordination to a

the necessary condition for prosperity. Seguier contrasts the

"indefinite liberty" of

under the "salutary

"independence" with the "real Uberty" of freedom

fetters"

of authority. The

will

of the individual, includ-

Apprenticeship and Insecurity

103 |

ing his desire for gain,

working

is

regulated by the community: "Each member, in

for his personal utility, necessarily works, even

for the true utility of the entire

without willing

it,

community.

In the English debates over apprenticeship reform a generation

was the arguments of Turgot's enemies, about property

later, it

and

rights

also

about subordination, which inspired both the proponents and the opponents of reform.

The language of imprescriptible or natural

have been seen both friend of Bentham asserted, as has

as subversively foreign

and James Mill

—

The

who

artisans

ready conferred

and respective

upon them

seems to

rights

for Francis Place, the

at all

Onslow

of interfering with

supported apprenticeship asserted

their "unquestionable right" to the "quiet

several

—

as slightly ridiculous. Serjeant

been seen, that he had no idea

"chartered rights."

ment of their

and

arts

and exclusive use and enjoy-

and

as a property. "^^

trades,

which the law has

al-

The London Committee of

Manufacturers even saw a violation, by artisans in apprenticed trades, of the rights of masters: "Are the masters to be the slaves of the journeymen.>"60

The debates of the 1800s and 1810s

reflect a painful conflict,

nonethe-

less,

between different

sorts

of workers. The great promise of apprenticeship, for the artisans

opposed

repeal,

sorts

of

rights, including the rights

of different

the apprenticed trades provided a sort of security; journeymen

common

served an apprenticeship in the

more than common steady and

who

was the promise of "quiet." Even Smith conceded that

laborers,

1800s.

The 1806

facture

is

manufactures earned somewhat

and "their employment, indeed,

uniform. "^^ It is this

clysmically, in the

who had is

more

expectation which was overthrown, cata-

expansion of manufacturing of the 1780s, 1790s, and investigation of the

Committee on the Woollen Manu-

a protracted exploration of the conflict

between the "Domestic

System" and the "Factory System," of the sentiments of masters and jour-

neymen

in the

two systems, and of the transformation of individual

one system gave way to the

other.^^ Apprenticeship, associated

lives as

by tradition

with the domestic system, seemed to offer the prospect of a return to security.

Richard Sheridan, defending the petition of the calico printers (an oc-

cupation exempt from the Elizabethan statute) for "relief and protection"

through enforced apprenticeship

restrictions, describes the

"monstrous"

scene of an industry in transition. Children were taken into apprenticeship, served seven or

their health,"

more

years in a "business confessedly injurious to

and were then replaced by new cohorts of children; one

house, he said, employed

fifty

apprentices and only

two journeymen. The

Economic Sentiments

104 I

expectation of steady and uniform

head, and

it

was only by

employment was thus turned on its employment of children as appren-

restricting the

Sheridan said, that the "matured" population could be protected;

tices,

"he never was

of

a proselyte to the doctrines

Adam

Smith upon

this

subject. "^^

Apprenticeship, in these turbulent times, promises a return to the lost

world

which,

in

and masters

as

one domestic master

said to the

1806 committee, "men

are in general so joined together in sentiment, and, if I

may be

admitted to use the term, love to each other, that they do not wish to be separated

if

they can help

it."^'^

It

was

also a return, for

fenders of the apprenticeship system, to their

own youth:

some of the

de-

own

ex-

to their

pectations of quiet, perhaps, or to the property rights they once earned

with their indentured work. William Playfair himself had been apprenticed to a "very ingenious millwright," following the death of his clergyman

One of the most

ther.^5

1806

inquiry, a

mittee

if

prentice;

journeyman

called William Child,

was asked by the com-

he had ever been bound: "I served sixteen years and I

fa-

eloquent supporters of the domestic system in the

was put out by the parish

and six months old."^^ The defense of apprenticeship

in the year

1758, when

a half as ap1

was seven

years

in the

1800s and 1810s

is

far

more

poi-

gnant, in these circumstances, than the conflict between rights and privileges

which Smith envisaged.

It is a

defense of the old industry against the

new, and of the old against the young; of the old, even, against their children.

But what

is

entirely missing, in the debate

defense of freedom within the apprenticeship relation children themselves

—which

is

at the heart

about reform,

—of the

rights

own

is

the

of the

of Smith's argument. The con-

sequence of the repeal of the Elizabethan statute was to make apprenticeship voluntary, to allow tries

freedom of movement between different indus-

and occupations. But for the apprentice himself or

herself, to

be an

apprentice was to be unfree. It was to be, for a limited period, subject to the will of someone

The

will

else.

of the person being bound was indeed of central importance to

the jurisprudence of apprenticeship. In the statute defining parish apprenticeships

—the system of

pitiful

bargains under which, in

shall's description, parish overseers

Dorothy Mar-

disposed of children to other parishes

premiums of £7 10s for a little girl to a gingerbread maker, or £18 for a lame boy churchwardens, overseers, and justices of the peace were thus for

—

given the right to bind pauper children "as

if

such Child were of

full

Age, and by Indenture of Covenant bound himself or herself "^^ But the

Apprenticeship and Insecurity

105 |

counter factual of consent

—the "as if they were

jurisprudence of other apprenticeships as well.

free

The

—

^was essential to the

child

bound by

her parents would thus be required to covenant himself "of his tary will"; to

commit himself freely not

if he

were

free, in the sense

tice.

Like

Mary Ann

mittee, he or she

The

to be free.^^

his

or

own volun-

He was not fully free;

of being of full age, he could not be an appren-

Davis, in one of the cases discussed by the

must be "in

a state

apprentice was not

fiilly

ther and promise to learn

how

of nonage.

1806 com-

"^^

unfree, either; he had to appear with his

fa-

to be a responsible person. It was this no-

man's-land of rights which Smith found so unpropitious to industry and to duty.

But to the proponents of the apprenticeship reform of 1814,

Playfair

and to Turgot's opponents, the bondage of youth was something

which was to be desired, and which would indeed of voluntary apprenticeship. Parents would

still

persist in the

want

as to

new world

their children to

in a severe and unfamiliar environment, as the London commitThe people whose freedom was in question were only children, after all. As one member of Parliament, Alderman Atkins, concluded in the Commons debate on repeal, "The answer of the parents and masters is, We are afraid to trust you; we will have our bond, and then we have a se-

grow up tee said.

curity for

your attendance to your duty.'"^^

THE APPRENTICESHIP: A DIGRESSION ON THE SLAVE TRADE Smith's arguments about apprenticeship and oppression were out of place, like his references to inviolable rights, in

But

it is

became

interesting that they a subject

of political importance in the course of the 1830s, in a

startlingly different setting.^^

concerned in the

the prudent debates of the 1810s.

were rediscovered when apprenticeship again

1 8 1 Os

were

The

discussions with

a matter

which we have been

of only modest parliamentary

inter-

The House of Commons was even counted out at a crucial stage in the repeal of the Elizabethan statute: "there being only 27 members present, the House adjourned of course. "^^ The debates of the 1830s over apprenticeship or over "The Apprenticeship" were by contrast one of the est.

—

—

greatest parliamentary

The Abolition of

and

political spectacles

of the century.

1833 was introduced by the colonial secretary (Stanley, later Lord Derby) as a "mighty experiment," on which would depend the happiness and existence of "millions of men." But what it prescribed was something less than freedom. The concern of officials in Slavery Act of

the Colonial Office had been to identify

what was described

as

"an

in-

Economic Sentiments

106 I

termediate state between slavery and freedom" course," or a "transition state"

— "a

safer

and

middle

a

—which would both protect the

rights

of

The government had thus in which slaves would be free

the planters and train the slaves to be free/^

considered several proposals, including plans for

two days

a

week, or in which they would be emancipated but required

The plan

eventually

freed, but

were to be

to pay taxes for the support of their former owners.

adopted was "The Apprenticeship." The

slaves

were

"entitled to be registered as apprenticed labourers"; they

were to be

in-

dentured to work without pay for their former owners for four and a half days a week, over a period of up to six years. In an inversion of the English system,

it

was only children under

be apprenticed It

was

this

—who were

"Apprenticeship," and

became the focus of reform former

six

—children who were too young to

actually set its

free.^'*

operation in the West Indies, which

in the later 1830s.

we have been concerned. But

with which

The

apprenticeship of the

was profoundly different from the apprenticeship systems

slaves

the debate over reform was a

sort of grotesque reflection, nonetheless, of the disputes about English ap-

prenticeship: about the conflict

between different

rights, or the oppressive

decisions of magistrates, or the incentives to be industrious.

Both the

opponents and the supporters of the Apprenticeship thus argued language of

Charles Rowley was reported to have "declared that, absolute labour, he

would

bourer in England,

sooner be

own

his

believed that

it

in the

debates over apprenticeship in England. Admiral Sir

earlier

it

rather be a black

if

born to a

state

of

man in Jamaica than a white la-

being his opinion, that in the former case he should

master." Sir James Stephen,

was "evidently imprudent" to

who

drafted the scheme,

interfere with the "natural"

operation of "incentives to Industry. "^^ Joseph Sturge, the great Quaker

reformer

who

traveled to the

system, challenged Lord

when Lord Chancellor thou ticed,

and

his

West Indies to document the horrors of the

Brougham on

EngUsh

law: "If

who was

appren-

the basis of the

hadst a ward in chancery

master was violating the terms of indenture, what wouldst

thou do? "76 Daniel O'Connell, one of the powerfiil opponents of the scheme in Parliament, said that "it introduced a tions of hunters,

and

slaves,

prentices.

new state of society. There had been

and of shepherds, and of

agriculturists,

na-

and of masters

but never before had they heard of a nation of masters and ap-

An

old

woman

was to be told that time, and might

if

of eighty was to become an apprentice, and she

she lived

commence

till

a life

ninety-two, she would be out of her

of gaiety and

jollity

on her own

ac-

Apprenticeship and Insecurity

107 |

economy were in"The experiment of apprenticed labourers has been tried under circumstances infinitely more favourable, and has failed," another opponent said; it is a "truth so universally recogThe

count.

universal or axiomatic truths of political

voked with reference to

earlier debates.

nized, as to hold the rank of an axiom, that try

by having the

fruits

men

can only be taught indus-

of their industry secured to them."^^

The Apprenticeship was eventually repealed, two years ahead of time, in 1838. The debate by now engaged the young W. E. Gladstone, in one of his earliest

major speeches (of which he wrote in

nest for the a

moment was wrung from me

blasphemous prayer,

in

his diary that "prayer ear-

my necessity: I hope it was not

for support in pleading the cause

of

injustice").

Gladstone's cause, in the speech, was to defend apprenticeship in the interest

of his own, planter,

tegral part

society.

The Apprenticeship was, he

said,

an

in-

of the compensation which was to be paid to the proprietors for

the loss of their former slaves' time (and for "the freedom of the chil-

dren"), along with the

vided for by the

act. It

less indirect

was

a

compensation of £20 million,

also pro-

scheme by which "security was substituted

for

doubt, and estates became saleable. "^^

Gladstone also had recourse,

He

and commerce.

as so

often

later,

to high principles of law

addressed himself, in his peroration, to the conscience

—and day— and

of the English manufacturers: "Compare the child of nine years old

some some

—entering your

say,

under

say,

more."

He compared

factories to

work

eight hours a

the contract implicit in the

remarkable simile, to the original or social contract: for example, subject.

is

is

that contract written, or in

written in the nature of things

right created in the act, he said

one's former slaves contract.

act, in a

hear constantly,

of the original contract or compact between the ruler and the

Where

preserved.^ It

"We

1833

—the right to

.

what .

.

store of archives

is it

And so in this case." The

six years

of bound labor by

— "was the nearest possible approach to the form of

a

"80

UNCERTAIN JURISPRUDENCE Smith's fourth and

final set

of arguments

jurisprudence of apprenticeship.

ment was the position.

closest to

The

about the unjust and insecure

started by saying that this fourth argu-

what would now be considered

But each of Smith's arguments,

be in some degree sides."

I

is

political; to

characteristic

as

a purely political

has been seen, turned out to

be about efficiency and about "equity, be-

of apprenticeship regulations, quite generally,

is

Economic Sentiments

108 I

that they are both political (in the sense of being upheld by public law)

and

partial (in the sense

of being enforced by private or parochial

by the bylaws of the corporation; these bylaws

by

a public

however, "confirmed

are,

law of the kingdom." The point of the Elizabethan statute of

had been the bye-law of

apprenticeship, in fact, was that "what before

many

institu-

incorporated trades, Smith says, are regulated

tions). Apprenticeships in

became

particular corporations,

in

England the general and public

law" of market towns. The jurisprudence of the Elizabethan Poor Law,

and the subsequent law of setdements within

The

similarly indirect.

of the kingdom (43

relief

was

it,

in Smith's description

of the poor was established by the public law

enforcement was then entrusted to

Eliz. c.2); its

the churchwardens, justices of the peace, and appointed overseers of each parish.

The Wealth of Nations

has been explained, since the early nineteenth

century, as an extended, relentless criticism of government; in Smith's

own

phrase, as a "very violent attack

tem of Great

Britain. "^^ vviiat has

.

.

upon

the whole commercial sys-

been of less concern, in general,

Smith himself understood the extent of government included within

government

it.

It

was natural

is

how

—what he took to be

in nineteenth- century

England to see

purposes of commercial policy, with

as coextensive, for the

the policies of the national state. But to limit the scope of Smith's attack in this

way

is

to misdescribe

it

in an essential respect.

For the objects of

Smith's obloquy are not only the institutions of national government; they are also,

and even

and corporations, companies.

especially, the oppressive

government of parishes, guilds

religious institutions, incorporated towns, privileged

One of the most

insidious roles of national

government

is

in-

deed to enact, or to confirm, the oppressive powers of these intermediate institutions.

The

criticism

of local institutions, with their hidden, not quite

public, not quite private powers,

is

at the heart

of Smith's

politics;

it is

at

the heart, too, of his criticism of the apprenticeship system.

Smith's description of bylaws and public laws was of very litde interest to his opponents

and followers

prenticeship. Sir Frederick

in the nineteenth-century debates over ap-

Eden was

critical, as

frequent references to the corporation ticeship.^^

spirit in

has been seen, of Smith's

connection with appren-

He was also one of the earliest to object that Smith was far more

concerned, in his account of apprenticeship and of the law of settiements, with the statutory basis of legislation than with the way in eighteenth-century

England: "In

it

this instance, as in

actually operated

many

others, the

insensible progress of society has reduced chartered rights to a state

of in-

Apprenticeship and Insecurity

109 |

activity. "^^

Eden's criticism of Smith's rather theoretical understanding of

apprenticeship

Smith

is

undoubtedly

relied to a great extent

Smith's

justified, as

on reading

statutes,

he may also have been concerned

modern

editors show.^^

and on Burn's Justice of

on other occasions) with corporate obstructions in France rather than in England, or with the same oppressive jurandes and droits that so preoccupied Turgot. As George Pryme, the first professor of political economy at Cambridge, wrote in his the Peace;

(as

copy of Playfair's Wealth of Nations, next to Playfair's footnote about consumers smuggling commodities in from the suburbs, "Dr S. is speaking of

Europe

in general,

not of Gr.Br. in particular. "^^

To confront Smith's prescriptions with the more complicated and in respects more kindly history of eighteenth-century England is, how-

some

ever, to lose sight

of the

the conditions which

politics

Eden

of

his jurisprudence.

For

it is

precisely

describes, of imperfectly enforced, insensibly

evolving laws, which Smith finds most insidious in English institutions.

The life

laws are not enforced, but they are

at

still

Serjeant

Onslow

said in Parliament in

1814

brought to

ries reluctant

to convict under

as legislators."^^

in fact,

The

its

crisis

officials.

that the statute of apprentice-

and unamended," leaving

ju-

provisions and causing "judges to act

al-

ship "has been frittered away," "unrepealed

most

there; they can be

any time, on the caprice of corporate or parish or church

over reform in the 1810s was precipitated,

by the transient success of certain "institutions" or "societies" of

journeymen

in bringing prosecutions against masters

under these long-

forgotten provisions. But the persistence of unenforced, untimely laws in general, as

Smith shows, of benefit to the powerful and the well

is

in-

formed: to the rich and not to the poor. Smith's criticism of the jurisprudence of unenforced laws starts with the

presumption that laws are

in general devised in the interests, or

with the

counsel, of the powerfial, and that they are enforced in the same

There are

spirit.

on wages in the Wealth more radical admirers, from

several passages in Smith's chapters

of Nations which are often quoted by his

Godwin (in his attack on Malthus's Essay on Population) to Webb, Lujo Brentano, and Arnold Toynbee.^^ Smith supported high wages, as has been seen, and he said that there are no acts of Parliament against combining to reduce wages; he also said that when the legis-

William

Beatrice

lature attempts to regulate the differences

workmen, therefore, is

"its is

between masters and

counsellors are always the masters.

in favour

of the workmen,

sometimes otherwise when

it is

in favour

When

their

the regulation,

always just and equitable; but

it

of the masters. "^^ The masters

Economic Sentiments

110 I

were evidently the counsellors of Parliament in the reform of the apprenticeship statute, as

Laws

Brentano points out.^^

are enforced, as well as written, in the interests

of the powerful;

the law does not deal impartially. Smith says, in treating the combinations

of masters and workmen, and legislation concerning wages "enforces by law that very regulation which masters sometimes attempt to establish by such combinations."^^ Bylaws thus turn into laws, regulations into

and parish ordinances into public

utes,

principles.

To

Sir Frederick

stat-

Eden,

the insensible customs of English towns and parishes are something to be relied

upon; to Smith they are to be treated with the utmost suspicion. For

the point of his repeated references to the corporation spirit

is

just this:

that corporations, like other restricted institutions, are societies held to-

gether not by rules but by a initiates, ters,

or their

common

insensible to outsiders. Their

spirit,

one and the same time magistrates, mas-

officials, are at

and members of "institutions." (There

is

much

the same contrast, in

the debate over the other, colonial "Apprenticeship,"

when Gladstone

rebukes the Quaker Sturge for his lack of confidence in the special magistrates,

sent from Britain to supervise both the punishment of the ap-

prentices and their "valuation" for release. Sturge

had

said

of the new

magistrates that they were often "completely subservient" to the local magistrates,

who were

themselves "almost invariably planters and friends

of the master," such that Mr.

S. for

"Mr C.

sat as a magistrate to value for

much on

Mr. C." Gladstone, very

Mr S., and

his dignity, retorts that "these

body of English gentlemen. ")^2 ftirther, even more insidious element

magistrates are a

There

is

a

Smith describes. This

is

Smith's account of the origin of regulations stract. It is interesting that Beatrice

eral principle"

in the oppression

which

the element, or opportunity, of personal vexation.

Webb,

is

in

in

some

respects highly ab-

summarizing Smith's "gen-

of government, turns suddenly to a sort of algebra: "If in-

A be virtually the

A be antagonistic to interest B, then any state regulation of the joint affairs of A and B will be disadvan-

terest

State,

and

tageous to interest B."^^ Smith

wage

is

if interest

opposed, in the

regulations, to the policies of masters

pects, quite generally, that the interests

reflected in the policies

The

state

is,

for

institutions, public, private, ties

which he describes

of English also ex-

of powerfiil communities

will

be

of the institutions over which they exercise their

power. But the specific form which impersonal.

specific case

and merchants; he

are

power takes is neither abstract nor Smith, composed of evolving, interdependent and semi-public. The interests and communicomposed of individuals, with evolving, perthis

Apprenticeship and Insecurity

111 |

whim, or to

sonal objectives; they are subject to

jealousy, or to being dis-

heartened.

The

fluctuating jurisprudence of unenforced laws

pitious, in Smith's account, for the sort

which he describes vidual discretion ual despotism.

as vexation.

and

"The

The

regulation which leaves

am

I

the institutions of local revenue collection, are

Smith

"odious

character" contracted by excise officers.

they dislike

—

unenforced

in Serjeant

statutes,

little

Wealth of Nations,

visits,"

pends on the character of the

afraid

is

natural to

republics of discre-

a personal, as well as a political, condi-

is

refers often in the

"mortifying and vexatious

for individ-

manon jurisprudence, and corporations, like

kind," Smith says in the lectures

tion;

room for indi-

room, too,

local circumstance will leave

love of domination ...

tionary domination.^^ Vexation

thus especially pro-

is

of highly personal oppression

officers,

visits,"

It is

as

has been seen, to

the "certain hardness of

highly unpredictable.

It

de-

and on the characters of the people

Onslow's words, speaking of prosecutions under

on "personal

"Interests, prejudices, laws

malignity. "^^

and customs"

are Smith's principal concern

much of the Wealth of Nations, and their consequences are reasonably acceptable when the individuals who obey them, or enact them, are rea-

in

sonably impartial.^^

The domestic system of manufacturing worked well in 1806 committee, where men and masters

the enterprises, described to the

were "joined together prentice

work well

if

in sentiment."

one has

a

can be sure that one's friends nances. O. Jocelyn

Dunlop

good

will

says

One's years

an indentured ap-

be lenient

if

one infringes obscure

one

ordi-

rules.

But

upon those who were

in almost

all

cases the fines

remitted, so that bye-laws could really be broken with impunity [for apprenticeship infringements]

was raised to £10, but the

.

.

.

were

the fee

show

entries

usually remitted. "^^

£9 19s was The difficulty with

that

insecure.

whom

if

of the Hallamshire Cutlers, in the eigh-

teenth century, that "heavy fines were inflicted

proved to have broken the gild

as

master. One's trade works well

Smith

this system, in

tried to

Smith's description,

imagine what

it

would be

like to

is

that

it is

itself

be someone

for

work well: the child with the bad master, the whose work was no longer steady and uniform, the cuder whose fees were not in the end remitted. He saw, with his "melancholy and evil boding mind," that the system of bylaws and ordinances was the system does not

calico printer

never in fact sure, or secure.

were poor, or for the

who were

It

was

disliked. It

especially insecure for people

was an unsure foundation,

in

who

any case,

development of commerce. The opulence which depends on

inter-

Economic Sentiments

112 I

ests, prejudices, laws,

and customs, Smith

says,

"necessarily slow, uncer-

is

"^^^ tain, liable to be disturbed and interrupted by innumerable accidents.

The

and

liberty

security of individuals

growth of commerce, and Turgot and

Smith the condition for the

for

concerned, to

1769

in the

a per-

One of Turgot's most profound economic writings with the psychological and legal conditions for

illustrate,

the development of credit. Turgot describes a credit in

Like

as well.^^^

Condorcet, once more, he understands security in

like

sonal, individual sense. is

is

most important consequence

its

crisis

which unfolded

town of Angouleme, when an unscrupulous debtor

initi-

ated legal proceedings against his creditors under previously unenforced

usury laws. pealed,

if

He

was convinced by the episode that usury laws must be

commerce were

become

to

established.

re-

A "jurisprudence which

changing with public opinion," Turgot wrote, was both un-

was

arbitrary,

just

and an insecure foundation for commerce.

tary, in his life

of Turgot,

is

Condorcet's commen-

strikingly reminiscent

apprenticeship in eighteenth-century England;

it

of the jurisprudence of

was thought, he

said,

"that one could let the law sleep, while reserving the possibility of awaken-

ing

it

at the will

whim of every

of prejudice, of public rumour, and of the

judge. "1^^ This was not a setting in which

which individual merchants could

feel

commerce could

flourish, or in

themselves secure.

William Playfair observed, in one of his supplementary chapters to the Wealth of Nations, that Smith, unlike the French economists, had no ten-

dency "to hold human virtue For

it is

in great esteem. "^^^ This

is

only pardy true.

public virtue which was held by Smith in only limited esteem, or

which he considered to be

in only limited supply.

He had

very

fidence in the public spirit of merchants and manufacturers; litical

projects, as has

little

con-

one of his po-

been seen, was to think of institutions which were

in-

dependent of the discretion of judges, or the kindliness of parish overseers. This

is

the point, for example, of his celebrated "plan of ecclesiastical gov-

ernment, or more properly of no

ecclesiastical

of every established church constitute

government." "The clergy

a great incorporation,"

he

said,

and

when they are "under a regular disciHis own prescription was therefore for free

can be dangerous and troublesome pline

and subordination."

competition able

enough

among

religious sects, such that

"no one could be consider-

to disturb the public tranquillity. "^^^

Smith's plan of universal public education, too, was the project of a society in

are

which individuals

are

independent of institutions, and institutions

independent of individual virtue. Children do not learn subordination

and the corporation

spirit.

They

learn to see through projects,

and to

feel

Apprenticeship and Insecurity

113 |

themselves to be respectable. They become the sort of people

who

can

move from one employment to another, and from one parish to the next. They learn to have many different things to think about, hundreds of ideas which

will josde for their interest, just as there will

josde for their souls.

They

be hundreds of sects to

learn to be virtuous, too.

But

it is

domestic virtue, quite unsuited to great public exertions.

above

all,

in the family, "amidst the familiarity

of relations,"

a private or

It is

learned,

as the

London

Committee of Manufacturers said so censoriously in 1814. For the virtue which Smith did esteem, greatly, was the virtue of ordinary sympathy, for one's family and one's friends. It was the virtue in which children are respected by their parents; "the wise security of friendship. "^^^

HISTORY AND INSTITUTIONS Smith's arguments about the apprenticeship system, and the uses of these

arguments

in the early part

of answer to the question chapter began.

of the nineteenth century, provide some sort

—Beatrice Webb's question—with which

How was Adam

this

Smith's crusade against oppression trans-

formed, between 1776 and 1817, into the Employer's Gospel of the nineteenth century, she asked. ing,

week by week,

in the

It is as

though we have seen the answer unfold-

Committees and Minutes of the

agitation for

apprenticeship reform. Each of Adam Smith's four arguments, about petition, education, exclusion,

and the corporation

concerned with oppression and ficiency.

But each was presented,

century disputes,

some

injustice, as

as a

much

in the course

question of incentives.

insight, thereby, into the

spirit,

as

or

com-

turned out to be

more than with

ef-

of these early nineteenth-

The

disputes

may

subsequent history of English

provide political

economy, and into the destiny of the eighteenth-century preoccupation with sentiments in economic and

political

life.

The debates over apprenticeship provide some

insight, too, into the

odd

uses of history in economic policy. This chapter has been concerned with

the intellectual history of economic ideas, in the setting of economic history.

But

The

individuals with

about the

history, like

past.

memory,

is itself

whom we

They remember

the subject of much of this history.

have been concerned speak constandy

stories, as

of the rainy day when the great-

coats of the Russian guards shrank into jackets,

and they

ways of life. They describe the principles of commerce similes; they talk, as Playfair does,

cient Egyptians.

They turn the

also

remember

in great historical

of the apprenticeship system of the an-

insensible evolution of corporate ordi-

Economic Sentiments

114 I

nances into a subject of controversy, and of political theory. They define the apprenticeship of the future by

Adam

Smith has been

of the Poor, for being a litde a litde

out of date in

He died, in

out of place.

what

it is

not to be.

criticized, at least since Sir Frederick

1790,

at the start

Eden's State

of apprenticeship, and

his history

of a period of prodigious

turbulence in this history, and in the history of economic ideas about

dren and other laborers. But he did not himself present

chil-

his description

of

English apprenticeships as being of principally historical (or principally English) interest. Walter Bagehot makes the interesting remark about

Smith that he

less

is

concrete, or historical, than he seems: "His writings

are semi-concrete, seeming to be quite so."^^^ Smith believed that he was

uncovering eternal truths about

social institutions.

These truths took the

form, quite often, of abstract principles about personal character and personal oppression. Smith's opinion, as has been seen, lations are influenced

insiders

is

by powerftil groups; that small

that laws

and regu-

institutions

defend

and exclude outsiders under the protection of these laws; and that

the fluctuating jurisprudence of public laws and small institutions provides

opportunity for personal vexation, against insiders

These are eternal or enduring

historical truths, for

as well as outsiders.

which the evidence

is

to

be found, in part, in the history of economic sentiments. Smith admired Thucydides, above light into

method

all,

for his

demonstration that "nothing gives greater

any train of actions than the characters of the actors." His also that

is

of Thucydides: to have

a clear

have happened, and of "those which wiU some day, in ity,

happen again

Bagehot

said

in the

same or

of English

was true only of a

a similar

political

single kind

own

view of events which all

human

probabil-

way"^^^

economy

that

it

was

a

theory which

of society: "a society of grown-up compet-

commerce, such as we have in England. "^^^ The commerce was grown-up, in the sense of having been growing for some time, and also in

itive

the sense of being something which

is

carried

on by grown-ups. There

are

known, in depicting children as being entirely without wills (as "consumption goods"), and there are also difficulties in depicting them as tiny little economic men. The difficulty posed by apprenticeship, in Smith's account, is that it is an institution which is concerned with the traverse from one of these conditions (and descriptions) difficulties,

which

are well

to the other; with the no-man's-land into

which children

are inducted in a

condition of "nonage," or semi-wiU, and in which they must learn to be decisive, to

be rational, and to be good.

The debates over

apprenticeship were concerned with people

who were

Apprenticeship and Insecurity

115 |

thought of as not entirely or not yet

who

people

are very poor. It

dustrious.

that

it

is

within the apprenticeship relationship that

how to

they were supposed to learn

rational: children, or elderly slaves, or

be economic, or

at least

But the interesting aspect of apprenticeship,

instructs in so

many other

how to

be

in-

in these debates,

is

things as well. People learn about history

(the history of their corporation, for example); they learn to be loyal; they learn to be subordinate; they learn the rules within

pected to pursue their

own

own

self-interest;

which they

are ex-

they learn that the rules of their

corporation or institution are not the same as the rules of the public

society.

There

is

an odd moment, in the report of the 1806 Committee on

the Woollen Manufacture,

when

the

members turn

to consider the psy-

chological conditions of the domestic manufacturer. "Diligence, econ-

omy, and prudence

are the requisites

of his character, not invention,

and enterprise," they conclude; "he walks treads in the beaten

track. "^^^

in a sure

The requirements of being

neur in the domestic system are not the same, that

ments

road

is

a

as

long

good

taste as

he

entrepre-

to say, as the require-

may even, in certain circumThe good apprentice, too, may

in the factory system; the requirements

stances, be inconsistent with

one another.

find herself expected to learn a long, conflicting,

ways to be

rational.

and inconsistent

list

of

5

The Bloody and Invisible Hand

THE INVISIBLE HAND OF JUPITER

Adam Smith's ideas have had odd secular destinies, tury was the epoch of the invisible hand.^

of Smith," for Kenneth Arrow,

"that the system works behind the backs

is

of the participants; the directing 'hand'

Frank Hahn, the tion [of]

For Arrow and

most important contribuin-

it is

The

invisible

object of this chapter

is

to look at the intellectual history

hand, and to put forward a view of what

understood by

it.

invisible

What

I

will

suggest

is

that

Adam

raises interesting

The evidence

Smith him-

Smith did not

hand. The image of the invisible hand

preted as a mildly ironic joke.

be seen,

'invisible.'"

"one of the great ideas of history and one of the most

esteem the

ible

is

"surely the

is

for

fluential. "^

self

hand

economic thought" to the understanding of social processes;

James Tobin, of the

invisible

and the twentieth cen-

"The profoundest observation

is

especially

best inter-

for this interpretation, as will

questions both about Smith and about the invis-

hands of the twentieth century.

Smith used the words sions.^

The

first

"invisible

hand" on three quite

use, in his "History

dissimilar occa-

of Astronomy" (which

is

thought to

have been written in the 1750s, but was preserved by Smith for posthu-

mous

publication),

is

clearly sardonic.

of people in polytheistic ture," such as thunder

ings

societies,

Smith

who

and storms, to

—to gods, demons, witches,

is

talking about the credulity

ascribe "the irregular events of na-

though invisible beThey do not ascribe divine

"intelligent,

genii, fairies."

support to "the ordinary course of things": "Fire burns, and water freshes;

heavy bodies descend, and lighter substances

necessity of their

own nature; nor was

prehended to be employed

The second use 116

is

the invisible

fly

re-

upwards, by the

hand of Jupiter ever

ap-

in those matters.""^

in the Theory of Moral Sentiments, in a passage

pub-

The Bloody and

Invisible

Hand

117 |

and retained unchanged throughout Smith's subsequent

lished in 1759,

revisions of the work. It

scribing

some

is

here sardonic in a different way. Smith

particularly unpleasant rich proprietors,

cerned with humanity or

own

"They

by an

are led

out knowing

it,

invisible

They do, produce luxury commodi-

hand to

.

.

.

without intending

with-

it,

advance the interest of the society."^

Smith's third use of the invisible hand

on imports, and

in the Wealth of Nations, in a

is

chapter concerned with international trade. strictions

uncon-

are

vain and insatiable desires."

however, employ thousands of poor workers to ties:

He

argues strongly against re-

and manufacturers who

against the merchants

support such restrictions, forming "an overgrown standing army"

"upon many occasions intimidate the he

says, are

advantageous for

merchant would

"He

own is

still

no import

who

Domestic monopolies,

but not for the "general restrictions,

however, the

prefer to support domestic industry, in the interest of

He

security."

in this, as in

legislature."

specific industries,

industry of the society." If there were

"his

de-

but who, in "their natural selfishness and

justice,

rapacity," pursue only "their

who

is

will

many

thereby promote the interest "of the society":

other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote

an end which was no part of his intention."^

The

three uses of the invisible

of economic thought. The hand

tween the

first

and the subsequent

the divine invisible

uses; for A. L. Macfie, "the function

hand appears to be

a "capricious" to a providential

must be explained,

who

hand have posed problems for historians is assumed to have an "altered role" beexactly reversed," transformed

and "order-preserving"

in Macfie's view, as a

force.

matter of literary

of

from

The change

taste;

Smith,

"enjoyed pithy, forceful phrases," simply remembered the invisible

hand of Jupiter, but "reversed

My

its

relation to the natural order.

"^

suggestion, instead, will be that Smith's attitude to the invisible

hand was

similar,

amused by the

and

ironical,

polytheists

who

on each of the

He

is

hand of Jupiter

in

three occasions.

believe in the invisible

the "History of Astronomy"; in the Theory of Moral Sentiments and the

Wealth of Nations he ble

amused by the

individuals

who

are led

by the

invisi-

(the hand they cannot see, or the hand behind their backs). He is amused by philosophers who believe in systems of divine order. There

hand

also is

is

even an element, in the

latter case,

of self-irony, or of self-recognition in

the depiction of the philosopher, entranced by a beautiful and imaginary order.

The evidence for this seem to have attached

interpretation

is

indirect.

Smith himself does not

great importance to the invisible hand, and his

Economic Sentiments

118 I

three references to

are

it

cursory.^

all

Commentators on Smith,

too,

men-

tioned the invisible hand only infrequently prior to the twentieth cen-

was not singled out, for example,

tury. It

Smith's

life

and work, or

Wealth of Nations; nor was

Dugald Stewart's memoir of

in

in Playfair's or

McCulloch's editions of the

invoked in the major

it

the centenary of the Wealth of Nations in 1876.^

extent Smith's historicist

who

critics,

made much of the

first

sumption of

political celebrations

It

was indeed to

of

a great

toward the end of the nineteenth century,

invisible

hand. For T. E. Cliffe Leslie, the

a "beneficent constitution

as-

of nature," expressed in Smith's

comments on the invisible hand, is a doctrine by which "the mischief done economy has been incalculable"; for John Kells Ingram, fol-

in political

.

lowing

it is

Cliffe Leslie,

.

.

evidence of a "secret substratum" of doctrines in

Smith's work, "half theological half metaphysical. "^^ Carl Menger, by contrast,

in

does not mention the

1891; he in

fact berates

invisible

hand

in his extensive defense

Smith repeatedly for

his defective

of Smith

understand-

ing of the unreflective social structures which were for later commentators a

synonym for the invisible hand.^^ It is interesting that even the phrase hand" was hardly familiar at the beginning of the twentieth cen-

"invisible

tury; Alfred Marshall, defending

in

Smith against

his historicist critics, refers

1923 to Smith's observations on "the unseen hand."^^ It will

be necessary, in these circumstances, to consider whether the

visible

hand

is

the sort of idea that Smith

ously.

Smith

is

a

would have taken

in-

entirely seri-

famously troublesome subject of intellectual history (and

They

biography), and his ideas of social order are especially elusive.

are

influenced, as will be seen, by his opinions of revealed and natural religion,

and by

his desire to avoid the

opinions.

They

unreasonable curiosity of others about these

are ironic in a

for "quiet," or the absence

Humean

way.

They

reflect

of public controversy, and

his

both

his desire

wish to convince

the public of the value of his proposals. Like d'Alembert, excusing himself to Voltaire in

1757

for having published

"bad

articles

about theology and

metaphysics" in the Eneyclopedie, Smith sought no conflict with

official

censorship; like d'Alembert, he seems to have believed that "time will

make people terity, for

distinguish

what we thought from what we

Smith, has also been an enemy, or

at least

said."^^

But pos-

an untrustworthy

friend.

TREMBLE, UNFORTUNATE KING! The

earlier intellectual history

grim.

The most famous

of invisible hands turns out to be generally

invisible

hand

in

Anglo-Scottish literature

is

that

— The Bloody and

Invisible

Hand

119 |

of Macbeth's providence. "And with

tiiy

beth apostrophizes the night in Act

III, in

bloody and

hand," Mac-

invisible

the scene immediately before

the banquet and Banquo's murder; he asks the darkness to cover

crimes he

is

up the

about to commit:

Come,

seeling night.

Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day.

And with

thy bloody and invisible hand

Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond

Which keeps me

who

Smith,

pale.^^

on Shakespeare's use of metaphor,

lectured

known Macbeth well. He was

certainly familiar with the

of the 1750s, where West Digges in 1757 put on of Macbeth with "the characters entirely

new

is

likely to

have

Edinburgh theater

a celebrated

performance

dressed, after the

manner of

the ancient Scots. "^^

Smith was

a great

admirer of Voltaire's tragedies, and Voltaire, too,

vokes several invisible and disagreeable hands.

which

is,

in Voltaire's

own

in-

In his Oedipe of 1718

description, free of the "coarseness"

and mul-

imperfections of Sophocles, and which begins with the arrival in

tiple

Thebes of Jocasta's former lover

—Oedipus

hands. "Tremble, unfortunate King," the invisible

is

threatened twice by invisible

High

Priest says in

Act

111;

"an

hand suspends above your head" the menacing sword of ven-

geance. In Act rV, Oedipus recounts the memorable day in Corinth when,

he arrived

as

at a

temple with offerings to the gods, the

altar

began to

shake, a terrifying voice was carried to him by the winds, and "an invisible hand pushed away my presents. "^^ There is an earlier invisible hand which is even more unpleasant, and which Smith probably also Icnew; it appears in one of Ovid's Metamorphoses,

in

which the hero (the warrior Caeneus,

by centaurs, one of

woman,

whom

is

taunting

who

is

at the

time surrounded

him because he had been born

Caenis) "twisted and plied his invisible hand, inflicting

within wound. "^^

The hand

tim's back; in the edition of

is

invisible here

because

it is

a

wound

behind the

vic-

Ovid which Smith owned there is an illustrabook of the MetamorphoseSy of a

tion, as a frontispiece to this particular

gloved hand stabbing a soldier between the shoulder blades with a long spear. 2^

The into

history of invisible hands does not improve

its

when

it is

decomposed

constituent ideas, or into ideas of invisibility and of large disem-

bodied hands. The "exceeding mighty hand" of Zeus shoves Hector from behind in the Iliad; the Greek word chirokratia, or the rule of the hand.

Economic Sentiments

120 I

meant government by

later

nography

The hand of Jupiter,

force.

as in the Latin writings familiar to

Smith and

in

his

Roman

contemporar-

an auxiliary of secular force: "The normal relationship in the

ies, is

peror's

life is

which show

that illustrated by the coins,

ico-

Em-

a gigantic Jupiter

holding a protecting hand over the diminutive Emperor. "^^ In Christian writings, the hand of God was later a source of consolation for the devout.

(The unfortunate Banquo announces, shordy before he

murdered on Macbeth's But

in the secular writings

generally oppressive.

and

liked, ist"

orders, "In the great

whom

—of wishing to make man

as a

"he

feel that

Turgot

Kant

said,

men were

a blind

is

Macbeth's. "The at all

he greatly

under the hand of an

this all-powerful

said that in large societies

dis-

all-

hand," to

men

could be-

instrument in the hands of a leader"; in war,

"instruments in the hand of another (the state )."25

hand even bloodier than can be considered as a tree which is being

Joseph de Maistre, in 1797, imagined an

pruned

—whom

"whining and melancholy moral-

powerful being," and, "feeling the weight of find Christian religion.

is

stand."

I

of Smith's contemporaries, large hands were

Condorcet accused Pascal

Smith described

come "no more than

hand of God

human

species

invisible

times by an invisible hand," he wrote in Considerations sur la

France; the violent destruction in the aftermath of the French Revolution

was to be considered dulity

and excessive

human

salutary, in that the civilization,

soul, softened

by incre-

could recover only by being "plunged

again into blood. "^^

The word

"invisible," too,

had been used of God, Smith,

like

Hume,

uses

it

was often disagreeable.

at least since Lactantius

principally either

It is

an epithet which

and Saint Augustine.

of the objects of superstition or

up the empty space in scientific systems. The first use is characteristic of Hume's Natural History of Reli£fion, written at about the same time as Smith's essay on astronomy; Hume associates the invisible with "idolaters" and "absolute ignorance," and "invisible powers" with "fairies, goblins, elves, sprites. "^^ In his lectures on rhetoric. of the events which

Smith

fill

identifies "invisible" beings

Dryads and such

divinities. "^^

reference to the invisible

heathen religion"; he also

Nymphs, Fawns,

"fairies.

hand of Jupiter

he invokes a "powerful and

cret

with

Satyrs,

In the Theory of Moral Sentiments, as in his

invisible

in the

being"

criticizes Socrates for

and frequent intimations from some

"History of Astronomy,"

when he

is

discussing "ancient

"fancying that he had se-

invisible

and divine Being. "^^

The second, scientific use seems to be associated for Smith with the first. speaks on several occasions in the "History of Astronomy" of what he

He

The Bloody and

Hand

Invisible

121 |

describes as the "chain of intermediate,

though

invisible events,"

by which

philosophers and others connect the jarring or disjointed occurrences of

The

nature.

effort to organize events into

tinuous system

norance

—

is

—

is

or

no domains of ig-

this scientific use, to

visible effluvia"

Jq

describe these

evocative of ancient physical

But the intermediate events which

theories.

it,

indeed for Smith the "end of philosophy. "^2

consoling intermediate events as invisible

virtue."

an orderly, coherent, and con-

a system with no empty spaces in

be those of which Smith

are invisible tend, even in is

most

suspicious: the "in-

of Descartes, or Kepler's "invisible chain" of "immaterial

The two

uses in fact converge: in "civilized societies," Smith says,

people are "less disposed to employ, for this connecting chain, those ble beings

whom

invisi-

the fear and ignorance of their rude forefathers had en-

gendered."^^

INTENTIONS AND INTERESTS

Adam

Smith's exiguous published essays include a long discussion of the

word "but," and he was

Hume,

thinkers,"

who

"could laugh

taken seriously, that

extreme care,

he

is

is

will

—the words

The

They

are

chosen with

he chooses the words, or the

hand"

style, that

It is possible, therefore,

slightly comical, or slightly unpleas-

—to describe an idea which was of pro-

his theoretical system.

vincing the unconvinced.

and

published and extensively revised writings. But

were to him

"invisible

He

themselves. "^^ Smith's words are to be

persuade one audience or another.

found importance to

writer.

"careful, cool, patient, very wily

to say, as evidence of his ideas.

at least in his

that he used words which

ant

at

were

also a great rhetorical writer;

he thinks

most circumspect

in general a

in Macfie's description,

The words were

a

way of con-

^7

hand can thus be distinguished, as far as is posit was described. It consists, in the Wealth of Nations and the Theory of Moral Sentiments, in three main notions: that

sible,

idea of the invisible

from the words

in

which

the actions of individuals have unintended consequences, that there

is

or-

der or coherence in events, and that the unintended consequences of individual actions sometimes set It

promote the

of ideas) recurs, in different forms, corresponds,

more or

less,

thought; to the hand which

is

interests

of societies. This idea (or

at several points in

to the invisible

Smith's work.

hand of subsequent

social

"one of the great ideas of history. "^^

It is

which should be compared to the rest of Smith's thought, and about which one might reasonably ask whether it is this multiple idea, therefore,

Economic Sentiments

122 I

would have been pleased. The evidence is complex, as will be seen; there are some respects in which the ideas expressed in the image of the invisible hand were the sort of thing Smith liked, and others in which they were very much what he disliked. the sort of idea with which Smith

The

first

sort of evidence

is

strongly in favor of the invisible hand, or in

favor of the interpretation that Smith favored invisible

hand

is

It is

it.

"We

aesthetically delightful.

that the theory of the

take pleasure in beholding

the perfection of so beautiful and grand a system," Smith says of public policy in the paragraph immediately following his reference to the invisible

hand

in the Theory of Moral Sentiments; political

tronomy,

is

economy,

is

indeed a digression between two

descriptions of aesthetic sentiment, in a chapter of utility: vistas

of private opulence. Smith

nation as something grand and beautiful love of system, the

mend

.

.

.

which the subject

public policies as well.^^ It

is

says, "strike the imagi-

The same

interesting that

when he

principle, the

Dugald Stewart, too,

do

these passions and circum-

stances act in subserviency to [nature's] designs," that even

invisible

same

speaks of an invisible hand, without

reference to Smith: "So beautifiilly, indeed,

man

is

same regard to the beauty of order" serves to recom-

invokes sentiments of beauty

tive

as as-

an exercise in soothing and pleasing the imagination. The pas-

sage in which the invisible hand occurs

beauty and

much

as

when

"follows blindly his instinctive principles of action, he

hand, and contributes

his share to the

is

primi-

led by an

execution of a plan, of the

no conception. "^^ of invisible hand explanations, in Robert Nozick's their capacity to yield an understanding of "some

nature and advantages of which he has

The

"lovely quality"

description, consists in

overall pattern or design,"

of a sort which

does not include a reference to the pattern

is

especially

itself

The

imposing because contrast

is

it

between

march (that everyone is marching in step because they are trying to march in step), and the explanation of an at first sight jarring and discordant scene, which the theorist succeeds the explanation of, for example, a military

in depicting as an orderly etic," for

and coherent progress. Smith's theory

Arrow and Hahn, because

by independent actions

"is

it

shows that

a social

system

is

"po-

moved

consistent with a final coherent state of bal-

ance. "^^ These ideas of understanding are indeed distinctively Smithian.

They correspond

rather closely, in fact, to Smith's ordering of scientific

systems in the "History of Astronomy":

"how

far

each of them was

to soothe the imagination, and to render the theatre of nature a

herent, and therefore a

would have appeared

more magnificent

to be.""^^

fitted

more

co-

spectacle, than otherwise

it

The Bloody and

Invisible

Hand

123 |

The second philosophy,

is

do with moral psychology and moral

sort of evidence, to

unfavorable.

One

reason to suspect that Smith was not en-

about theories of the

tirely enthusiastic

invisible

hand

is

that these theories

are extremely condescending about the intentions of individual agents.

Smith's three uses of the phrase have in

cerned

—the people who

they are

fied;

The

chants.

silly

common that the

to see the invisible

fail

hand

—

individuals con-

are quite undigni-

polytheists, rapacious proprietors, disingenuous

classical

Latin

word which

is

translated by "invisible"

is

mer-

caecus,

If Xis invisible to me, then I am means "blind. blind in respect of X. The association persists in modern theory. "An invisible hand explanation," Nozick says, shows that facts arise "from some blind mechanism," although "what arises via a blind process need not itself be blind. "^^ It is interesting that Smith's contemporary Adam Ferguson comments, in a passage identified by Friedrich Hayek as the locus

which

in

movement of the multitude

future"; this ety

is

is

title is

thought

.

.

made with equal

are

a defender

of, rightly, as a great

judges of their

who

son) as a multitude .

.

.

Soci-

defender of individual freedom.

and to see through

own

"in

all

projects; he sees the people

interest (like Turgot), or as "a society

reasonable beings" (like Condorcet), and not

ture

blindness to the

of enUghtenment, in the sense of the disposition of indi-

viduals to be independent as the best

.

of Ferguson's Essay on the History of Civil "The History of Subordination. "^^

in a chapter

of which the

Smith

He is

sense

of the doctrine of unintended consequences, that "every step and

classicus

every

its literal

this

(like

Necker and

immense space which

is

like

of

Fergu-

called the fu-

never see more than tomorrow. "^^^ But the subjects of invisible

hand explanations

are blind, in that they

cannot see the hand by which

they are led. They are unenlightened. "General light, or general darkness; there this

is

is

no middle course"; "lumiere generale ou aveuglement

Jeremy Bentham's eulogy to the enlightened public,

of freedom of understanding and freedom of the disposition, for

But

it is

Smith

as for

press.

general":

in his defense

The enlightened

is a more uncertain condition. on one's own and other people's

Condorcet,

a disposition, at least, to reflect

choices; to theorize; to think about the future.

The

subjects of the invisible

tions are

puny and

Smith himself introduced atic

hand

ftitile.^^ It is

a

new,

visible,

reformer, he says (a reformer

Emperor Joseph

II),

are also foolish, in that their inten-

interesting that in his very last writing.

much

disembodied hand. The systemlike

Frederick the Great or the

imagines that he can "arrange the different members

of a great society with

as

much

ease as the

hand arranges the

different

Economic Sentiments

124 I

pieces

upon

a chess-board";

he does not

realize that in real societies every

single piece has a principle

of motion of its own.^^ This independence and

idiosyncrasy of individuals

is

count of the

The

hand;

invisible

idea of the invisible

what Smith seems to be deriding

it is

Smith's purported "Stoicism."

comments

an un-Smithian idea.

in this sense

hand has been

in his ac-

associated, as will be seen, with

It is evocative, in

some

of the

respects,

of the Stoic Epictetus about the unintended social conse-

quences of self-interested actions; Jupiter had so ordered Epictetus said, that "it can

own

no longer be regarded

do most sovereign contempt of human everything for his

ingly his eloquence

sake."^^

But Epictetus, Smith

He

life.

never so animated

is

and nothingness of all

its

pleasures and

as

human

as unsocial for a

reason,

man

to

"the

says, feels

never exults so much, accord-

when he

all its

thing but contemptuous of human pains and

represents the futility

pains." Smith

human

is

himself any-

The

intentions.

tension at the heart of the Theory of Moral Sentiments

is

great

indeed over the

morality of intentions and the morality of consequences (or "tendencies"):

over the "irregularity of sentiments" in which

we judge both

the conse-

quences of actions and the "sentiments, thoughts, intentions" which are their causes; over

our interest in the "distress of Oedipus and Jocasta."^^

To be contemptuous of blind,

is

The

individual intentions, to see

them

to take a distinctively un-Smithian view of human

invisible

hand

is

un-Smithian, thirdly, in that

it is

as fiitile

and

life.

founded on

a no-

tion of privileged universal knowledge. It presupposes the existence of a theorist (if not

can.

"Men

are

surpasses the

of a reformer)

who

sees

more than any ordinary

individual

fond of paradoxes, and of appearing to understand what

comprehension of ordinary people," Smith

Physiocrats or Economists; the arrogance of the

says

man of system,

of the

as

of the

Stoic philosopher in Lucian's "Philosophies for Sale," "is to fancy himself

the only wise and worthy

hand

is

man in the commonwealth."^^ The disembodied

invisible to its millions

theorists.

The sequence

is

of petty subjects, but

in fact

Emperor's new clothes, with the Emperor streets think that the

Emperor has no

is

visible to "us": to

as the hero: the subjects in the

clothes,

Emperor; but the Emperor himself, or he

it is

an inverted version of the story of the

his

and that there

economic

is

advisers,

indeed no

knows

that

actually there, invigilating their wills.

This knowingness of the theorist

is

characteristic

of eighteenth- and

nineteenth -century doctrines of unintended consequences. plicity, characteristic

said that Voltaire

It is

the

com-

of the sect of enlightenment, of which Condorcet

had been disabused when he

visited

England: he saw that

The Bloody and

Invisible

Hand

125 |

"trutii

is

not made to remain a secret in the hands of a few philosophers,

and of a small number of men of the world instructed, or rather indoctrinated by the philosophers; laughing with them people are the victim."^* lier

The

writings.

versal History,"

was the

It

of individual actions, for Kant in

characteristic

and childish

"folly

is

vanity," in

consciously promoting an end which, even

agents.

servation are blind. "lets the passions

an end

—he

is

knew what it was, would

is

hidden from individual

of his

of the cunning of reason

talks

and

for it,"

also talking

"Uni-

enlightened, here, and the objects of his ob-

is

When Hegel

work

his

which individuals "are un-

if they

to discover the "purpose in nature" which

The philosopher

his ear-

of the philosopher, by contrast,

scarcely arouse their interest"; the role is

of which the

at the errors

of Kant, too, especially in

spirit

for

own

which individuals

are the

—

which means to

cunning; die List der Vernunft is die

List He£fels}^

Smith's cunning

of secret

is

different.

self-interest, in

behind the "mysterious rected, above

all,

subjects.

and the

are

great; against in the ear

against the individuals in

one of his

to

uncovered,

do

who who

di-

emperors and the-

of the reforming emare their objects

early works,

self-interested multitude

good without intending

Most men

and the

who whispers

Kant distinguished,

scious souls

is

of self-delusion. "^^ But the anecdotes are

against the wise

more than

of anecdotes

full

which the pursuit of material gain veil

orists (including the theorist

peror) far

The Wealth of Nations is

between

finer,

pursue the

and con-

common

so:

among those who have

their best-loved selves fixed be-

fore their eyes as the only point of reference for their exertions,

and

who

seek to turn everything around self-interest as around the great

axis.

Nothing can be more advantageous than

most

diligent, orderly

this, for

these are the

and prudent; they give support and

solidity to

do so they serve the common good, provide the necessary requirements, and supply the foundation over which finer souls can spread beauty and harmony. the whole, while without intending to

Smith's rhetoric

is

virtually the opposite.

His principal examples of self-in-

terested behavior, in the Wealth of Nations, include manufacturers in in-

corporated towns, parish worthies, dukes of Cornwall, medieval kings,

proud

ministers, established clergy,

and university

teachers.

His principal

example of the unintended, undesirable consequences of public policy was the depression brought about in France by the regulations of Colbert ("instead of allowing every

man

to pursue his

own

interest his

own

way.

Economic Sentiments

126 I

upon

the liberal plan of equality, liberty and justice. ")^^ It

authority which Smith seeks to unveil, or the

The notion of

is

the

wisdom of finer

a true or universal interest,

wisdom of

souls.

unintended by individual

much by the eighteenth-century opponents supporters. One modern claim made for the in-

agents, was indeed invoked as

of liberal reform visible

hand

is

"which harness

by

as

that

its

suggests ways to devise institutions and policies

it

self-interest" for the social

good; that

its

"relatively simple

motivational precepts" are such as to "leave agents open to manipulation

by authority. "^1

Much

opponents. Smith,

wisdom

the same claims were

made by Smith's and Turgot's

Turgot, was criticized for his touching faith in the

like

(or the heroism) of individual millers

opponents, rather,

and bakers.

It

was Smith's

who had faith in the wisdom of authority, including the

ability to harness individual exertions.

In the Lit de Justice held in Versailles for the registration of Turgot's fated

economic reform

edicts, the

ill-

unintended consequences of individual

exertions were invoked in support of established and corporate institutions. ^2

Turgot's main opponent in the proceeding, the advocate -general

Seguier, defended the regulations of the apprenticeship guilds, and the policies

of Colbert ("so wise, so hardworking, so foresighted"), against

the dangerous freedom in which every worker and every artisan

be free to pursue "the

thirst for

disordered imagination." threaten

commerce

in support

itself,

To

would

gain" and "the discrepancies of an often

"abolish regulations," Seguier said,

since

all

is

to

subordination would be destroyed. But

of regulation he used the very language of unintended and un-

willed effects. It

is

only within restrictive corporations and guilds or com-

munities, he said, that the interests of individuals coincide with those of

the society: "Each ily

member,

in

works, even without willing

working it,

for his personal utility, necessar-

for the true utility

of the entire com-

munity."^^

POLITICAL INFLUENCE

A

fourth sort of evidence, which again suggests that Smith did not take

the invisible abstracts

hand

from

entirely seriously,

several

is

that the theory of useful self-interest

of the problems with which he was most preoccu-

pied in his political economy. These problems, of political influence on

commerce,

are indeed the principal subject

of the chapter in Book 4 of the

Wealth of Nations where the invisible hand makes they include the errors of merchants about their

its

fleeting appearance:

own

interests, the influ-

— The Bloody and

Hand

Invisible

127 |

ence of merchants over political regulations, and the particular

difficulties

of periods of transition from one regulatory regime to another. The ble

hand appears,

invisi-

middle of a powerful description of the

in fact, in the

propensity of merchants to pursue their objectives, successfully, by influ-

encing restrictions on imports.

The main is

rhetorical force

of the

invisible

hand, in the Wealth of Nations,

to persuade legislators that they will best achieve their

own

the objectives "of the society," or of the "public interest" individual merchants to employ

chants) think

—

objectives

if

they permit

their capital as they themselves (the

most advantageous. But Smith explains

in the

from

that merchants not only consider themselves to derive advantage

monopolies and other regulations, but tage.

Merchants and manufacturers, he

also

do

such advan-

in fact derive

says, "are always

demanding

nopoly against their countrymen," and they "are the people the greatest advantage" from

it.

mer-

same chapter

who

a

mo-

derive

"In the mercantile regulations," Smith

end of Book 4 of the Wealth of Nations, "the interest of our manufacturers has been most peculiarly attended to"; "the boasted liberty says at the very

of the subject," in restrictions on exports, ests

is

"sacrificed to the futile inter-

of our merchants and manufacturers." The peroration of Book

similar: the interest says, "is always in

1 is

of the order of merchants and manufacturers, SmitJi

some

respects different from,

and even opposite

to, that

of the public. "^4

The

success of the invisible

hand will depend,

whether individual merchants choose to pursue litical

influence,

in these circumstances,

their

own

interests

on

by po-

by the use of force, or in other ways. As Seguier pointed

out, in his criticism of Turgot, "honesty

means to fortune. "^^ William

Playfair

is

not always the most secure

comments

that

Smith

is

indeed

in-

consistent in describing the restrictive interests of merchants as futile: "Dr.

Smith, who, in so viduals,

many

ought not in

hand, that

whereby

is

instances,

this case to set

entirely for nothing. "^^

it

to say, requires both

of indi-

for confiding in the sagacity

is

good

institutions

The invisible and good norms,

individuals pursue their interests within the rules of well-defined

games, and not by seeking to influence institutions and view, these

good

rules.

On

one

outcome of policy: the invisible hand, the hand of the lawgiver, the hand which with-

institutions are the

for Lionel Robbins, "is

draws from the sphere of the pursuit of

which do not harmonize with the public

self-interest those possibilities

good."^''

On another view, as will

be seen, they are the outcome of custom: institutions are good

if

they are

themselves the unintended consequence of individual self-interest.

Economic Sentiments

128 I

There

is

indeed something oddly ingenuous in Smith's sudden invoca-

tion of the timid, virtuous merchant, led by the invisible

only harmonious interests.

hand passage

is

own

continually studying his

home

production.

He

character and situation of the persons

he

averse to the "uneasiness"

is

merchants to obtain spe-

simply prefers

because he has a comparative advantage in

in the invisible

advantage. But he does not,

for example, seek to collect together with other cial privileges for

hand to pursue

The merchant or manufacturer

"He

it:

home production know better the

can

whom he trusts"; he knows the laws;

which he would otherwise

separated so far from his capital." It

is

feel "at

being

interesting, too, that in a chapter

mainly concerned with British restrictions on imports. Smith's ingenuous

merchant

is

described as a resident of Amsterdam, trading in corn from

Konigsberg and

fruit

from Lisbon; he

is

a

cosmopolitan figure,

tempted than any English merchant to pursue

his

own

far less

advantage through

political influence.

Smith

is

ingenuous, too, in his counsel to statesmen

the public interest. tionSy

He

of

was preoccupied, throughout the Wealth of Naas "the clamour and sophistry of merchants

with what he described

and manufacturers," and with

The

as invigilators

"invisible

straints

hand" chapter

their influence

itself

on the commercial system.

begins with a chronicle of existing re-

on imports, and ends with Smith's famous description of the inThe prospect of a legislature

timidating standing army of monopolists.

"directed, not by the clamourous importunity of partial interests, but by

an extensive view of the general good" appears bility.

wages,

remote, unlikely possi-

as a

In disputes over commerce, as in disputes over the regulation of

when

the legislature seeks to determine policy, "its counseUors are

always the masters. "^^ Yet interest,

it is

this

prospect

—of government the public —to which the in

or of unimportune merchants, or both

invisible

hand is directed in the Wealth of Nations. The idea of a commercial system, with its complex, changing relations between merchants and statesmen, is central to Smith's political economy, as it was to policies of economic reform in the 1770s and 1780s. Statesmen pursue their own self-interest, and merchants make the error of pursuing their self-interest through political influence. "To narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers," as Smith himself said of merchants and manufacturers, and it "must always be against" the interest of the public.

Smith's criticisms of government and of established

tutions are essential to his

would simply

forget

them

economic thought; in a

it is

grand theory of the

most

social

insti-

unlikely that he

good.

The Bloody and

Invisible

Hand

129 |

CLERICAL SYSTEMS

The

fifth

kind of evidence

about Smith's

is

The

religion.

been understood by historians of economic thought, Leslie's

denunciation of "the

clerical

invisible

hand has

at least since Cliffe

system of deductive reasoning,"

the expression of Smith's religious, or deistic, or Stoic-inspired beliefs. for Jacob Viner

one of the

"teleological elements," or "religious ingredi-

ents," in Smith's system; for Macfie

it is

This view poses evident problems for

whom

hand,

the

hand "of the Christian Deity."

modern exponents of the

ogy of the

invisible

Viner chides for considering Smith's religious opinions to

"have only nuisance value. "^i The suggestion here

Smith

as

It is

will

hand would have posed very

invisible

be that the theol-

serious problems for

as well.

Smith's religious opinions were the subject of public controversy from the time of his famous letter of

1776 about Hume's death. "You would hume Esq," George Horne wrote

persuade us, by the example of david

anonymous response

in his

low

spirits,

to Smith, "that atheism

and the proper antidote against the

ments on Smith's

irreligious views,

and on

conspicuous in the English obituaries seen.

One of the

is

fear

the only cordial for

his friendship

after his

ComHume, were

of death. "^^ with

death in 1790,

as has

been

concerns of his supporters, in the 1790s, indeed seems to

have been to divert attention from discussion of his religious opinions.

Dugald Stewart in his "Account" of Smith's dendy edited version of a letter from Hume

life

thus presented a pru-

to Smith, in

Hume

which

on the number of bishops who had bought copies

congratulates Smith

of the Theory of Moral Sentiments; the deleted passages include Hume's description of the bishops as "these Retainers to Superstition," and of

Candide

as a sprightly "Satyre

The most came,

plausible understanding of Smith's Christianity

in the course

of his

ably less discreet). "7^ for publication, the fiall

upon Providence. "^^

life,

Of his

first

"considerably

more

is

that he be-

sceptical (or consider-

three major undertaldngs in preparing

edition of the Theory of Moral Sentiments

of references to a deity of a Christian

sort,

work

is fairly

although attended with

cir-

cumlocutions, indirect speech, and frequent use of the verb "to seem."^^

The Wealth of Nations thought, and

is

is

frequendy

almost entirely free of explicitly religious

critical

of established Christian

religion.

The

and revisions which Smith incorporated in the sixth edition of the Theory of Moral Sentiments form a work which is strikingly less Christian than the parts of the book remaining from earlier editions. extensive additions

Economic Sentiments

130 I

In several well-known passages, Smith

apparently marking his differ-

is

ences with Christian doctrines/^ In other passages, he seems to be propos-

ing a subtle and profound description of the psychological disbelief.

His account

Natural

Religrion,

He

sympathetic.

similar to

is

and

in

some

Hume's,

respects

more understanding, or more

describes the tragic choice of the person

who

is

without

knows

to believe in something (some providence) which one

faith:

of

difficulties

in the Dialogues concerning

to

be unbelievable, or to believe in the frightening eternity of "a fatherless world."79 unlikely, in these circumstances, that Smith thought of hand as a device of Christian theology in any straightforward sense. The Christian connotation of the word "invisible" is a reason, rather, to suppose that Smith did not take it entirely seriously. If it had inIt

seems quite

the invisible

would have been close to unique, as a theological element, in Smith's writings on commerce. It would also have been in striking conflict with the secularization of natural philosophy which was at the center of Hume's and Smith's understanding of natural law. For Smith's deed been

serious,

it

empirical and psychological version of natural jurisprudence, as

Hume's, was

in opposition to eighteenth-century

much

as

"Newtonianism"; to ex-

perimental science in which the principles of motion could be deduced

from nature, because they had been placed

The

friendship of Smith

and

Hume

in nature

by God.^^

was conspicuous

rary debate over Smith's religious opinions,

and

it is

in the

of

contempo-

interest, too, in

trying to understand Smith's use of theological expressions.

"Various

cir-

cumstances have brought suspicion on the reUgious principles of Dr Adam Smith," the devout son of Smith's acquaintance Sir John Sinclair wrote in

1837, and prominent timacy with

Hume

among them was

charity, or literary friendship required; ter

My own

Smith's and

Hume's

more important,

Hume: "His

in-

but was of that fraternal charac-

which seemed to intimate coincidence of opinion and

timent."^''

his

his relationship to

was not only greater than ordinary courtesy. Christian

for

view

is

was

right,

were indeed quite

close.

that Sinclair's intuition

religious opinions

our present purposes,

correspondence with

identity of sen-

is

and that

What

is

that Smith's expressions, in

Hume and in much of his published (and posthu-

mously published) writing on

religion, are extremely close to

Hume's

cel-

ebrated irony.

Smith was evidentiy interested Swift, with "his severe ironical

in irony as a literary form.

manner," and

says

He

praises

of Swift and Lucian that

they together form a "complete system of ridicule."

Of Lucian,

the great

— The Bloody and

Hand

Invisible

131 |

of providence, and Hume's "favourite author," Smith says

ironic critic

that "there

can be

is

no author from

found. "^^

"For

Ernest Mossner writes.

He was more

whom more

Hume,

irony

Smith's

"sensitive" than

is

may be

and

carried,

degenerate into a detestable

lie."^^

far

(to use Turgot's expression),

wrote, of the use of irony, that the role of sentiment

an agreeable irony

way of life," more diverse.

pervasive, virtually a

own literary system was

Hume

and good sense

real instruction

at

what

But he was

is

"how

to judge

precise point

far

begins to

it

certainly ironical

and he

from time

to time, and especially, following Lucian, in his descriptions of "grave" or

"solemn and respectable characters, tors. "^^ If

would be

me

to

Hume

as

Gods, Goddesses, Heroes, Sena-

had spoken of an

(or Lucian)

entirely confident that

one was

hand," one

"invisible

in the presence

of irony.

It

to be difficult, in the case of Smith, to be confident that one

seems

is

not.

SMITH'S "STOICISM" There

one remaining, and more important point to be made about

is

Smith's "natural religion." those

who

are skeptical

The

of Smith's Christianity,

Toward

Smith's faith in a Stoic providence. gested. Smith "was

coming nearer to

than to the personal ral

hand has been

invisible

as

seen, even by

the expression of

the end of his

natural religion

life, it is

sug-

—the Stoic Nature

God of revelation. "^^ "Adam Smith's ethics and natu-

theology are predominantly Stoic," Raphael and Macfie write in their

introduction to the Theory of Moral Sentiments, and Stoic doctrines corre-

spond to Smith's "own views" and "own opinions." Smith accepted the "broad outline" of the Stoic system, Macfie seen, thereby, as

one expression of

says; the invisible

hand can be

and theological

a great philosophical

system which was indeed Smith's "own."^^ Smith's moral and metaphysical writings,

colloquium with

Roman

like

Hume's,

what he could to obstruct the

curiosity. "^2 jj^^

of Smith's prudence

one of its requirements and

He

This

himself did

he seems to have thought,

like

that "those however who seek to learn my on the various questions show an unreasonable degree of historian of ideas must look for these views in the re-

(his belief that to live a quiet

ers);

pursuit;

difficult.

De natura deorum,

personal opinion

flections

extended

philosophy, and especially with Cicero.

makes the pursuit of Smith's own opinions often Cicero in

are an

also

is

his

decency

itself virtuous,

and that

(his desire for a quiet life);

or tranquil

to desist

life

was

from disturbing the

of

tranquillity

of oth-

of a collective or childhood understanding of classical texts

Economic Sentiments

132 I

a

common knowledge —^which

understood

are

now

in quite different

ways.^^

There are good reasons,

all

the same, to suppose that Smith was quite

about a great deal of the Stoic system.

skeptical

ferent Stoic doctrines; he

was not himself,

He was

some

in

influenced by dif-

sense, an eighteenth-

century Stoic. Within the overall Stoic system, moreover, or the conjunction of Stoic doctrines,

which the

invisible

hand

He

was most opposed.

modern

it is

is

—the idea of

the idea of a providential order

supposed to be the expression

was

eclectic in his use

—to which Smith

ideas; the leading

on Smith, Gloria Vivenza, speaks of

scholar of classical influences

his '"alchemist's' use"

of Stoic

of ancient ideas (the sympathy of the Peripatetics,

the propriety of the Stoics, the prudence of the Epicureans, Aristode's

He

moderate virtues ).^^ view of virtue,

and

as

was

in evident

he presented

it;

sympathy with much of the Stoic

with the view of Zeno (shared by Plato

Aristotle) that virtue, including the virtue

But he

thing to be valued in itself

of self-command,

is

some-

disliked the Stoic's indifference to

consequences and circumstances, and the Stoic's concern "not about the event, but about the propriety of his

own endeavours. "^^ He rejected Stoic

views of evil (as part of a universal order), of suicide, of astronomy, of para-

doxes of truth and honor, and of the happiness of the wise man. The Stoic wise

man

is

for

Smith

a prig

and

the "complete enjoyment of his

The

when

"coxcomb," who consoles himself with self- applause.

and indifference," above

"stoical apathy

especially so

a

own

"^^

all, is

odious to Smith, and

impinges on the "private and domestic affections."

it

Richardson, Marivaux, and Riccoboni, he says, are here structors than

der of providence"

is

better in-

the "fundamental doctrine" of Stoic morality, in

Smith's description.^^ But

it is

"altogether different" to the "plan and sys-

tem" of nature. The "indifference" of the actions, including the

to nature.

"much

Zeno, Chrysippus, or Epictetus."^^ "Submission to the or-

Stoic to the consequences of his

consequences for himself and

his friends,

His submission to the cosmic direction of

the direction of Jupiter, Smith says

—

is

his

is

contrary

—to

conduct

contrary to duty, and thus to

mo-

rality.ioi

Smith's ethics

emotions we

is

founded on

feel for

his description

of moral sentiments; on the

our friends and "our nearest connections," but which

are in turn the sentiments

by which entire

ous individual, he suggests,

will strive to

societies are united.

do what

kind, in the circumstances in which he finds himself

the great superintendent of the universe; he

tries

is

The

virtu-

proper and what

He

is

is

not directed by

to direct his

own

con-

The Bloody and

Invisible

Hand

133 |

duct, in his scription,

press

own department of life.

This

is

the opposite, in Smith's de-

of Stoic positions. The sentiments which the Stoics seek to

become

for

re-

Smith the foundation of ethics (and even of politics); the

Stoic concern with the "greatest possible quantity of happiness" of the

universe

is

seen as a delusion, altogether different to the plan or system of

nature.

Smith's descriptions of Stoic doctrine should be read,

much

with gion.

He

it

seems to me,

the same discrimination as his descriptions of Christian

reli-

same language of psychological explanation: the Stoic an object of "contemplation," and a source of "consola-

uses the

providence

is

tion." His periphrases

— "the director of

of human

life,"

"the

Superintendent of the universe," the "great Physician of nature," the

"all-

wise Architect and Conductor"

this spectacle

—have the same overheroic sound.

Stoicism has the same prudential utility as his theology;

with a set of

beliefs

it

His

identifies

sanctioned by the devout Samuel Clarke, and

it

him pre-

cludes suspicions of infidelity, or licentiousness, or Epicurean influence.

Smith's Stoicism, sixth edition

like his Christianity,

is

revised

and modified

in the

of the Theory of Moral Sentiments. The passages he adds critical; the passages he deletes, much like the

about Stoic doctrines are

description of the doctrine of atonement

which he

also

emn

expositions of Stoic convictions, in the Stoics'

may

in fact be a tone

still

words.

of irony, or of gentle mockery, even in the

tion of the Theory. This

was then

removes, are

own

was

unknown

at least the

first

impression of Edmund Burke,

to Smith; he congratulated Smith

sol-

There edi-

who

on the varied

style of the book, and particularly on the "fine Picture of the Stoic Philosophy towards the end of your first part which is dressed out in all the grandeur and Pomp that becomes that magnificent delusion. "^^^ The Stoic origins of the invisible hand, in these circumstances, provide little evidence for the view that Smith took the invisible hand seriously. The Stoic Jupiter, in particular the Jupiter of the first invisible hand, in

the "History of Astronomy"

—

—

is

indeed for Smith the sign of a joke. Smith

liked Lucian for his "gaiety" as well as for his irony, essential

and Jupiter

who

is

intelligent

to dispute with the followers of Epicurus; Jupiter worrying about

being turned into a bracelet. ure; "the thunder bolt falling

For Smith, too, Jupiter

from

"in a universal conflagration. "^^^ also, for

Lucian's

comic device: Jupiter trying to explain providence; Jupiter com-

plaining of his thunderbolts; Jupiter looking for a Stoic

enough

is

Smith, a tragic delusion.

his

is

a ridiculous fig-

hand," or wrapping everything up

But the Stoic doctrine of providence It

was suggested

earlier that the idea

is

of

Economic Sentiments

134 I

hand

the invisible

is

un-Smithian in that

tentions of individuals, and in that

knowing,

all-seeing superintendent.

it

it is

condescending about the

presumes the existence of an

These are

most

in fact Smith's

inall-

serious

charges against Stoic doctrines; against the Stoic wise man, both self-ab-

sorbed and impossibly, irresponsibly self-denying, and against Epictetus himself, exulting in the futility of human

life.^^^

ORDER AND DESIGN The

orderliness of the universe

was

a subject

of inexhaustible interest in

the disputes over natural religion of the eighteenth century. Like the character

of human nature

—

be derived from self-love

become

it

in speaking

words

in

of both

this controversy,"

of Philo

The condition of above

all,

is

as to

have

much of a dispute of among philoso-

and private friendship

are the expression

"There enters somewhat of a dispute of he wrote of the discussions about cosmic or-

in the Dialogues concerning 'Natural Religfion}^^

orderliness, in these discussions,

because of

sentiments are to

examined

he wrote of the discussions

spirit

this controversy,"

der, in the voice

all

uses the same, slighdy etiolated lan-

of quarrels. "There

self-interest or self-love.

words into

over whether

a condition so well

Hume

sets

phers about whether public

of

was

of mnemonic.

a sort

guage

all

as in disputes

—

its

consequences for religious

is

of importance,

belief.

It

provides

incontrovertible evidence, for the religious and Stoic philosophers with

whom Hume

took

issue,

of the existence of God. If we see

a beautiful

De natura deorum, we do not think that it could have been built by mice and weasels. "An orderly world, as well as a coherent, articulate speech," Clean thes says in Hume's Dialogues, will

house, the Stoic Balbus says in

"be received

as

an incontestable proof of design and intention. "^^^ These

disputes provide the overall setting for Smith's observations

der and invisible design. His

"History of Astronomy,"

is

first invisible

hand of the

on

natural or-

polytheists, in the

described in words which are close to those of

Balbus. In the Theory of Moral Sentiments, the invisible

hand

the course of a description of "the beauty of order," in the

is

evoked

in

accommoda-

tion of the rich and in public institutions.^^'* In the Wealth of Nations, the invisible

ences

hand of "society"

—the other

is

is

the occasion for one of Smith's

in his discussion

metaphysical paradoxes

two

refer-

of the French Economists, with their

—to the "greatest possible" outcomes which

are

so characteristic, in his description, of Stoic delusions of universal order.

The

refutation of the inference

from the orderliness of the universe to

The Bloody and

Invisible

Hand

135 |

Hume

the existence of God was for viction. Tliere

is

less

a

matter of deep and continuing con-

evidence, in what remains of his philosophical writ-

suppose that Smith took a great interest in

ings, to

question. It

most

is

this particular religious

unlikely that he believed, like Balbus

and Lucian's Timocles,

and Clean thes

of an all-ordering providence,

in the existence

whose invisible hand was visible only in the orderliness of the cosmos. It is more likely that he believed, like Hume, that the universe could be orderly without having been ordered. But the possibility of orderliness without order, or without the existence of superior intention, was also of political

importance, and

this

was

Smith

for

a matter

of much greater

interest.

There was a resemblance, in particular, between arguments about divine design and arguments about the designs of sovereigns. This resemblance

was recognized by Samuel Clarke

who contend

those

in his

correspondence with Leibniz;

that the world proceeds without divine direction,

Clarke said, will tend "to exclude

God out of the world," just as those who

may go on perfectly well withIdng himself ordering or disposing of any thing, may reasonably be

think that "in an earthly government things

out the

suspected they would very well interest in

like to set

the king aside. "^^^ Smith had

— was one of —that things go along encouragingly well without the

doing without kings. But he was convinced

deepest convictions disposition,

his

it

by the king, of the industry of individuals.

Smith's use of the metaphor of the invisible hand

cumstances, in dence.

no

its

It is serious,

is

ironic, in these cir-

intimation of the existence of an all-ordering provi-

and unironic,

in

its

intimation that there can be order

without design; that a society can be prosperous without being conducted

by an all-seeing sovereign, ing conducted by an

just as the universe

"all- wise

ent and deeper sense. Smith invisible

hand

derly, in the

seen,

is

It is

more,

in

The

Architect and Conductor." But in a differ-

once more

ironic.

not

a

For the intimation of the

that society will in fact turn out to be prosperous, or or-

absence of government direction.

which was

nown.

is

can be orderly without be-

at the heart

of the

invisible

It is this

promise that Smith expresses in any

an important sense, than a hope, or

promise,

as will

be

hand's twentieth -century reexplicit way. It

is little

a hint.

existence of order does not imply the existence of design, Smith can

be seen

as asserting.

This

is

the serious and unironic use of the invisible

hand: the efforts of individuals can be successful, and can successfully pro-

mote

the interests of the society, without being subject to the direction of

sovereigns and legislators. Smith suggests, even, that such direction likely to

is

be unsuccessful. The existence of design, in the sense of govern-

Economic Sentiments

136 I

ment

direction of industry,

is

likely to

impede economic

order.

But Smith

does not suggest, in the Wealth of Nations or elsewhere, that the nonexistence of design is in itself sufficient to ensure order, or prosperity. The nonexistence of design does not imply the nonexistence of order. But nor

does

imply the existence of order: that there

it

laissez-faire will

ensure prosperity. This

irony of a Stoic orderliness, as the

is

will in fact

be order; that

Smith's deeper irony.

the

It is

outcome of an unordered cosmos.

A PERSUASIVE DEVICE There

is

one reason, to summarize,

the invisible hand:

on grounds of its found

for supposing that he

grounds of the disregard reverence

with his

for supposing that

it

it

loveliness.

Adam

There are three reasons

implied for the

futility

of individual it

gious connotations of the invisible hand

—

its

the

lives,

suggested

description of the political pursuit of self-interest.

God, or of the

on

either uninteresting or uncongenial:

implied for all-wise theorists, and the conflict

it

own

Smith liked

The

reli-

evocation of the Christian

—pro-

Stoic providence, or of the existence of divine order

vided a further reason,

it

was suggested, for skepticism

as to

Smith's inten-

tions.

The

difficulty

which remains,

in these circumstances,

of how to un-

is

We

derstand Smith's own, to some extent conflicting, views.

have been

concerned with evidence for a negative proposition: that the hand,

like

the conception of providential order of which

expression,

is

hand, there invisible

seems to be the

not particularly important in Smith's thought.

is

hand

On the one

reason to suppose that Smith would not have spoken of the in

an entirely serious way.

On

the other hand, the concep-

tion of the invisible hand, if it were intended seriously, conflict

it

invisible

would have been

in

with several of Smith's most profound convictions about individ-

ual sentiments, individual responsibility,

and the intentions of individual

merchants.

The conclusion

is

that the invisible

ent of Smith's thought.

which eral

it is

described,

modern

is

The

hand was an unimportant

idea of the invisible hand, like the

constitu-

words

in

un-Smithian, and unimportant to his theory. Sev-

scholars of Smith's ideas,

from Jacob Viner onward, have

ex-

pressed disquiet of one sort or another about the invisible hand; about

what Macfie

calls

the "strange contrast,

if not conflict,"

between the

invisi-

hand and other parts of Smith's work.^^^ The invisible hand is of energizing power in Smith's system, Macfie says, but it is also in conflict with ble

this system.

The

objective of historians of

economic thought has been to

The Bloody and

Hand

Invisible

137 |

question die second premise, or to try to reconcile the invisible hand with Smith's other ideas (of individual responsibility, or of empirical investiga-

The

tion).

objective here

complementary;

is

it

to question the

is

first

premise, of the seriousness and importance of the invisible hand in Smith's overall

scheme.

Smith's view of the invisible hand

is

on

this interpretation

ironical (and self-ironical) condescension.

He

saw

it

one of mildly

expression of a

as the

system which soothes the imagination, and which might or might not cor-

respond to relations in

we

society. "It

is

very indifferent,"

locate the "original inherent principle of order,"

or in matter."

It is difficult.

omy," to speak of

scientific

where

in the "History

of Astron-

... as if they

were the

real chains

Nature. "^^^ This ontological nonchalance was indeed a familiar posi-

Kant locates order

tion in the later eighteenth century.

he speaks of the understanding

as "itself the

selves introduce.

We

we

toricist critics,

one of the interest.

of the public more

The

"The

we

or-

our-

we

critics

is

set

of Smith's nineteenth-century

his-

pointed out. The individual "generally" does not intend to

promote the public terest

entitie nature,

them there. "^^^ Smith's even more than usually cautious,

mind, originally

language, in the invisible hand passage, Schiiller,

thought when

could never find them in appearances, had not

ourselves, or the nature of our

Richard

in

lawgiver of nature":

der and regularity in the appearances, which

as

says,

systems as "mere inventions of the imagina-

and not to "make use of language

tion," [of]

Smith himself says

Hume

whether "in thought

invisible

inherent order.

Smith

efficientiy

he "frequentiy" promotes the

says;

by pursuing

hand is a sort of trinket, But its very beauty its

—

his

for Smith;

own it is

not a discovery of

loveliness to the imagination

thereby of political importance. Smith

is

work, with the idea of persuasion, and the

—

is

preoccupied, throughout his invisible

hand

suading people, of appealing to their love of system.

hand

in-

interest.

a way of perThe passage in

is

in the Theory of Moral Senti-

which Smith introduces the

invisible

ments

been seen, between two passages about the

is

a digression, as has

love of system

and the beauty of order,

to his interrupted argument: "the

tem." In the

first

passage, the imagination

consumption goods be more

their love

likely to

end of which Smith returns

principle, the is

same love of

charmed by the

sys-

orderliness of

and other contrivances), and

in the

orderliness of poHtical systems.

"You

(trinkets, houses,

second passage, by the beauty and will

at the

same

persuade" pubUc men. Smith

of beautiful and smoothly fiinctioning

says, if

political

you appeal to

schemes; to their

"love of art and contrivance."^^^

The system of general economic order

is

such a scheme.

It

may

or

may

Economic Sentiments

138 I

not yield the "greatest possible" value of the industry of the country, or the most equitable distribution of the country's wealth. But it will at least work better than the visible hand of universal regulation. Its political im-

portance consists, in

fact, in its

public loveliness, or in

its

potential to dis-

suade statesmen from the use of other, more oppressive hands. Smith's concern, at the point where he introduces the invisible hand in the Wealth of Nations,

is

to persuade legislators that they should desist from imposing

on imports.

restrictions

It is

not particularly

easy, as

Condorcet observed,

to convince officials of the attractions of doing nothing.

per-

It is easier,

haps, to convince them that to do nothing is to cooperate in a great system of public order. The invisible hand is thereby a contrivance, and also a sort

of obviating device;

Smith

is

it

crowds out weightier, mightier hands.

gently ironical,

it

seems to me,

by the love of beauty and order. But

his irony

is

also Selbstironie.

People

up the evidence of their senses to preserve the coherence of the

"give

of their imagination," he

It is in this sense, at least,

idea. It

says;

his

immense

as

"important and sublime truths. "^^^

hand

that the invisible

an ironic joke, and

is

on

ideas

"even we" are delighted by our systems,

"drawn in" to seeing them

are

case,

of the suscep-

of public men; of their propensity to be led by the imagination, or

tibility

and

in his description

it is

also a joke

is

a thoroughly Smithian

on himself

It is a joke, in

any

posterity as well.

EXPLANATION AND UNDERSTANDING There

is

ing. It

one remaining

is

to understand

why this one

difficulty, if the

why

proposed interpretation

the invisible

is

convinc-

hand has been so overestimated;

"great idea" has seemed, so often, to express

all

that

is

most

important in Smith's work. There have been imposing changes of intellectual taste in the study

of Smith's economic thought, and Smith

peculiarly susceptible to the history principles

which

silient. It is

visible

many

of some

hand,

thought to epitomize

are

hand has over the

for the invisible

economists, and so

Of the

consists

—which has

much economic

hand

tions, the orderhness

—

intended order

it

perhaps

But the

past century been both obdurate

—

taste

and

re-

modern inbeen of such moment, to so what it is

in the

policy.

three conditions which together constitute the

tion of the invisible

is

of idees-cle, or of single

his entire theory.

interest, therefore, to see

not in Smith's

if

which

modern concep-

—to do with the unintended consequences of

ac-

of the ensuing events, and the beneficence of the un-

is

the third which has been of the greatest public

— The Bloody and

Invisible

Hand

139 |

importance. The visible

hand"

long ximtP^

(It

condition, as Karen Vauglin says in her entry for "in-

first

New

in the

Palgrave, "must have been obvious" for a very

was obvious to Telemachus

liams's account.

It is

in the Odyssey, in

Bernard Wil-

present, certainly, in Smith's idea of the invisible

hand; one of his preoccupations in the Theory of Moral Sentiments is with what he describes as the "good or bad consequences of actions upon the sentiments both of the person teresting,

who performs them, and of others."

however, that Smith's most

consequences which are not good but

forcefial illustration

frightful; this

"piacular guilt" of Oedipus, Jocasta, and others,

or in "undesigned violation" justly

been seen

The second

as

is

who

It is in-

of unintended

is

the discussion of the

"without design"

—do things which would,

if

intended, have

deeply wrong.

condition, of orderliness

—of orders which could have been —

designed, in Vaughn's description, or which are "understandable"

more obscure. The question of whether

a

cosmic order could have been

designed was of intense religious interest in the eighteenth century,

been seen. But there similar

importance

if any, is

of

reason to expect that

is little

in twentieth- century

The

a different sort.

form of asserting that

if a set

is

issue.

would have been of

argument takes the modal

orderly, then

these events are not the product of design. It

Hume

it

as has

economics. The modern interest,

theological

of events

is

is

this

it is

not possible that

argument with which

and other eighteenth- century opponents of natural religion took

The modern,

secular assertion seems to be that if the set of events

possible that they are the product of design.

orderly, then

it is

proposition

in itself as crushingly uninteresting as the assertion

is

tended consequences.

It is

is

This

of unin-

possible that the events were designed, or that

they were not designed, or that they were chosen by mice, and so forth.

What was of greater

interest, apparently, in the twentieth

century

as in the

eighteenth century, was the implicit politics of the modal proposition. In

its

modern version,

suggesting that

if

the argument about design thus takes the form of

the world, or the economy,

is

so orderly that

it

could

have been designed by a sovereign (or a planning commission), then there is

no need

The outcome could have why therefore should we have a

for actual designs (or commissions).

been planned;

as

it

happens

it

was not;

planner? Like Samuel Clarke's suspect philosophers, the enthusiasts of tlie invisible

hand might very

gestion in this form

is

well like to set aside the sovereign.

reminiscent of Smith's

own

The

sug-

efforts to persuade

statesmen that the outcome of doing nothing would be a contrivance beautiful

and systematic

as the

outcome of regulation. But

it is

as

thereby a

Economic Sentiments

140 I

variation of the third condition, about beneficence; the

hand must show

invisible

also

an order which

"understandable,"

in the order

is

not the result of design

argument, that the unintended order

of more general

is

which

is

either beneficial or beautifial or both.

is

The other element

that the order

proponent of the

interest.

is

Vaughn, following Hayek,

hand in human actions, social science would be impossible," and Arrow and Hahn, too, see the invisible hand as the principal contribution of economic thought "to the genphenomena, for Hayek, eral understanding of social processes. "^29 says that

"without some notion of an

should be divided into three are the "product

comprising

classes: the natural,

human

the

artificial

(or those that

design"), and the "distinct middle category

we

those unintended patterns and regularities which

all

human

exist in

of

invisible

society." It

is

this third class

find to

of phenomena which consti-

tutes the subject matter of social science,

and "which

theory to explain. "^^^

in his Systeme des contradictions

Proudhon,

P. -J.

it is

the task of social

economiques of 1846, said that a quasi-theological orderliness

is

the condi-

tion for the scientific study of society; that the "preamble of any political

constitution"

must be

''There

is

a God; which means: society

is

governed

with counsel, premeditation, intelligence. This judgment, which excludes chance,

The in

is

thus the foundation of the possibility of a social science. "^^^

interest

of social science

in

independent, individual actions begins,

Vaughn's description, with the discovery that these actions give

"an understandable and orderly

social process."

—that they must exhibit "patterns or

must be orderly or coherent ties"

—

if they are

to be understandable

ence. In Smith's and

Hume's (and

is

to reject Smith's

afiier

it is

ent in

much

the same

herence of individual like the

to impose

another) which makes sense of the world, and not to dis-

"bestowed" upon phenomena.

is

is

to imagine a system (or

cover that the world in fact makes sense. Orderliness

which

regulari-

Kant's) conception of the understand-

coherent order on otherwise jarring events;

one system

to

own view of sci-

ing as the lawgiver of nature, the point of scientific enterprise a

rise

But to suggest that events

way as statements acts, like the

Our ideas

is

for

Smith a quality

are (or can be) coher-

are coherent or consistent; the co-

consistency of individual choices,

coherence or consistency of statements.

Their order

is

is

less

one that

"we ourselves introduce," in a Kantian fashion. The more profound question of social understanding, or understandability, has to do with tastes in explanation. There is an evident sense in which intended outcomes are not particularly interesting as the subject of social investigation. If I am watching a game of cards, to extend one of

The Bloody and

Hand

Invisible

141 |

Smith's stroke";

own examples, I can feel quite giddy if I look I am not greatly interested, however, when all is

at

"every single

explained to

me

in terms of "the nature and rules of the game."^^^ If individuals do only

what

is

ordained by God, or what they have been ordered to do by the na-

tional planning

commission, then the search for

limited and uninviting.

The consequences of their

stood, or explained, but the explanation

is

understanding

social

is

actions can be under-

of little or no interest to the so-

cial theorist.

One

claim

Nozick,

is

spirit; it is

on behalf of "invisible hand explanations," made by Robert

essentially aesthetic, as has

been seen, and very much

that they are "lovely" or "satisfying. "^^^

and stronger, claim made by Hayek, actions

is

The

ing.

which the

analysis

not only a contribution to but a condition for

is

in Smith's

a different,

of unintended

social

understand-

doctrine of constructivism associated with the Continental en-

lightenment, Hayek says, "has no

human

in

But there

room

for anything

which

action but not of human design' and therefore

no

is

'the result

of

place for social

theory. "1^^ Spontaneous ordered structures not only are "superior to con-

scious action," but also are coextensive with social social theory; "indeed,

any

social processes

in distinction to the action

cial,'

life,

or with the realm of

which deserve to be

called 'so-

of individuals are almost ex definitione not

conscious. "1^7

The

difficulty

herself in

much

here

is

that the Hayekian social theorist

the same position as was taken,

is

un-Smithian: a position of disregard for individual and

and of reverence eral,

explanations, simply discards ticipant in social processes

she

is

of finding

be distinctively

fiitile

intentions,

for the all-seeing theorist. Actions are attended, in gen-

by intentions, and by consciousness. The

thinks about her

at risk

earlier, to

own

most of these

is

theorist, in invisible

intentions.

depicted as someone

The

who

hand

individual par-

thinks.

But she

petty interests and not about the process of which

a part; she thinks locally

and not

universally; she

does not think the-

oretically.

This posture of the theorist, looking "feasts

tions

down like the Stoic emperor on the

and mournings and markets" of the world, on

and

thought,

particular as well as

objectivist position

of "somebody

ways of thinking, with Smith's.

which

tries

is

particular inten-

much of Hayek's

For Hayek was himself critical of the

to look at other

at the

men from

the perspective

we observe an ant-heap dizziest moment of his faith in

who was not himself a man,"

or a bee-hive. "^^^ Even Condorcet,

its

in conflict with

or "as

the limitlessness of enlightenment, in his "Discours de Reception" of

Economic Sentiments

142 I

1782

at the

Academic Fran^aise,

insisted

on

the difference between the

moral and the physical sciences: "Everything would be equal between

them

for a being

we

ety as

who,

a stranger to

our species, would study

human

study that of beavers or ants. But here, the observer

part of the society he observes, and truth can only have judges ther prejudiced or seduced. "^^^ It

is

just this distant

legislation et le flecting,

commerce des grains, are

but enlightened by their

observation quoted

earlier,

like children,

instinct. "^^^

view which

who

act

himself

who

of invisible hand theories. The people, Necker wrote in

teristic

is

is

soci-

are ei-

charac-

Sur

his

"without

For Dugald Stewart,

to be the subject of the invisible

la

re-

in the

hand

to

is

be unenlightened, to act out of instinct and not out of intention, to be

like

a bee:

When,

like

the lower animals, he follows blindly his instinctive princi-

of action, he

ples

is

led by an invisible hand,

to the execution of a plan, of the nature

has

no conception. The operations of the

first

time, to form

its ceil,

and contributes

his share

and advantages of which he

when

bee,

begins, for the

it

convey to us a striking image of the

efforts

of unenlightened Man, in conducting the operations of an infant government, i'*^ Invisible

hand explanations,

in Nozick's description,

tend to work

less

well to the extent that the realms or patterns to be explained are associated

with "reflective thinking." They are not notably successful, in particular, in providing an explanation of ethics; they encounter the "substantial stumbling block" of "consciousness, language, and self-consciousness."

They

work best when the activities in question (such as bartering one sort of commodity for another) are relatively unreflective, and relatively unencumbered with social theorizing (such as thinking about the emergence of money). They work least well when the activities are reflective, self-conscious, as

and concerned with universal

theories; activities, for example, such

deciding whether to pursue one's interests by buying and selling com-

modities, or by influencing the political rules under which commodities are

bought and

The

sold.^^^

difficulty, for invisible

economic

activities are

hand explanations of economic

life, is

often highly reflective. If buying and seUing

is

that a de-

bate (as in Turgot's description), or a form of rhetoric (as in Smith's), then it is

a cognitive, self-conscious sort

talking about terests.

of activity^

economic theories and

Deciding

how to

pursue one's

It

may

rules, as wefl as self-interest,

involve thinking or

about economic

in-

or discussing one's de-

The Bloody and

Invisible

Hand

143 |

cisions with other people,

is

that happens in political

that

to say,

is

when

conform to general

against our beliefs sions

when

and

how we

"futility

also similar to

of Nozick's

as

lives

our behav-

produce reasons for and

them."^^^ There are other occa-

critically discuss

and nothingness." The

it is

There are occasions,

of economic agents,

principles of behavior,

only minimal importance in the

and

life.

are behaving, decide to have

reasonable to disregard

it is

life,

or in moral

life,

a characteristic

it is

moral agents, to "notice ior

of economic

a part

much

this reflectiveness, as

all

being of

of economic agents, no more than

social (or

economic) theorist needs

differ-

ent kinds of explanations for these different occasions; the invisible hand a style

is

of explanation, and not a condition of social understanding.

GREATEST POSSIBLE VALUES It

is

whereby the unintended

the third condition of the invisible hand,

whom

der turns out to be beneficial for the people

sirable

it

which has

orders,

the invisible hand.

Vaughn

two ways of thinking about spontaneous orders and

their de-

contributed most to the distinguishes

modern renown of

or-

consequences. In one, the system

is

"self- organizing in

some way

within the context of a set of social rules"; the rules or constraints in the system, as in Lionel Robbins's description of the invisible

of the lawgiver, "could well be or

ill."

set

hand

as the

hand

by human design and can work for good

In the other, the spontaneous orders are seen as "evolved orders

where the

rules themselves are the

tions"; the

"economic

institutions

unintended products of

of a society,"

like

human

ac-

the beneficial conse-

quences of these institutions, are the "unintended by-products of self-interested

—the equilibrium —correspond to

economic behaviour. "^^^ The two conceptions

and the evolutionary versions of the

invisible

hand

differ-

ent economic theories, and to different views of economic policy; both

have been of very significant importance in modern economics.

The

hand

invisible

in the first

conception

is

Arrow's and Hahn's "poetic

device" of the general competitive equilibrium of twentieth-century eco-

nomic

There

theory.

deed Smithian. as

It

is

a general sense in

which

this

body of theory is

corresponds to the criterion of loveliness;

anything in modern economics to Smith's

idyll

it is

in-

as close

of "a more coherent,

more magnificent spectacle." It is reasonable to assert, counterfactually, that Smith would have been pleased (or soothed) by the modern theory of general economic equilibrium. But it was not a theory and therefore

a

that he knew, or of which he

was

in

any precise sense the precursor. Smith

Economic Sentiments

144 I

was

metaphors of celestial and

in fact quite reticent in using the

He

chanics.

avoids the Stoic -Epicurean

word

fluid

me-

"equilibrium," which was by

the 1770s a well-known figure of speech in political economy, and with

which he was almost

certainly familiar in

its

economic

(The word

uses.^"^^

appears only once in the Wealth of Nations, in an account of doctrines of the exact balance of trade, than which, Smith says, "nothing, however, can

be more absurd. ")^^^

Smith

similarly cautious in his references to maximization, at least

is

with respect to aggregate or social quantities. In the Theory of Moral Sentiments, the idea of an order, or an

"immense machine of the universe" such of happiness,"

as to sustain "the greatest possible quantity

ject

of contemplation, but one which should not serve

from humbler and more domestic

duties.

It is

a sublime ob-

is

as a distraction

only in the passage about

the invisible hand, in the Wealth of Nations, that he refers in any sustained

way

to "greatest possible" quantities; he speaks four times in a few lines of

"the greatest value" of production, and also mentions the "greatest possi-

of production, and the "greatest quantity" of money or goods.

ble value"

But the production to be maximized dividual's

own

of individuals;

industry or his it is

own

what "may" or

is

product of the

in each case the

The maximand

capital.

"is likely

is

in-

an objective

to" result from the individual's

efforts.150

The gested.

invisible

To

rely

hand was

on the

for

Smith an obviating device,

self-interest

been sug-

as has

of individuals was simply

bad for

less

national prosperity (and less unjust) than to regulate their activities. But this

was an extremely general prescription, consistent with Smith's

cism about "exact regimens." The difficulty begins the poetic, logical invisible lic

importance or influence

hand and the

invisible

in the twentieth

—the

skepti-

between

disparity

hand which was of pub-

—with the application

century

policy.

For the conditions of real commer-

cial societies are strikingly different, as

Smith and many others recognized,

of the prescription to economic

from conditions of perfect economic competition. The the conditions of his system in whatever

way he

theorist can set

likes,

much

as

up

Smith's

hand passage is identified as a cosmopolitan citizen of Amsterdam, with very litde power to influence policy in Portugal or

merchant

the Baltic. bility

in the invisible

The

statesman, advised by the theorist, has the additional possi-

of trying to improve the conditions of

them more

like

real societies,

and to make

conditions of free and perfect competition.

Smith's account of the invisible hand

is

oddly ingenuous,

as

has been

seen, with respect to the propensity of entrepreneurs to pursue their

own

The Bloody and

Hand

Invisible

145 |

interests

by influencing the

"Every individual,

it

of industry and commerce.

political regulation

much

evident, can, in his local situation, judge

is

better than any statesman or lawgiver can

do

for him,"

Smith

says in the

passage in the Wealth of Nations about the invisible hand. But the local situation

is

often a political situation.

acteristic, in

The

lations, local vexation,

of merchants

among

is

and

local lawgivers.

as futile, as Playfair observes.

Smith describes the

As

plains in unusually bitter terms

interests

Playfair also points out,

"who

own interests, com-

of that desire of monopoly which

which must be, the concomitant of

he

thinks that trade should be

because individuals understand best their

itself,

char-

other things a knowledge of local regu-

objects to the spirit of monopoly: Smith,

to

is

Smith's and Turgot's slightly condescending descriptions, of

individual entrepreneurs

left

knowledge which

local

is,

and

accumulate and become

a desire to

rich."i52

The

difficulty, for

the

modern

theorist

of the

invisible

hand, consists in

the deduction, from the theory of general economic equilibrium, of principles

of economic

Smith's ontological modesty (his unconcern

policy.

with whether orderliness

is

a condition

sponds to a modesty with respect to

of the mind or of the world) corre-

which he simply

policy, in

averts his

gaze from the great public objectives of improving entire societies. This a possibility for the

modern

theorist, as well: to insist that the system

general competitive efficiency

is

no more than

a set

of definitions, without

explanatory or normative consequence. But the invisible hand

circumstances of little public importance. icy,

then

it

ample, to

Once

it is

seen as a guide to pol-

less modest. Policy must be concerned, for exmonopoly (and perhaps also, eventually, to restrict or refor monopoly). The pursuit of the public interest must

consist not only in desisting

from regulation, but

also in establishing (and

Hayek spoke,

maintaining) an environment of free competition. Even

Road

in these

is

becomes much

restrict

strain the desire

The

is

of

to

in

Serfdom, of "planning for competition," such that the role of

the state was "to create conditions in which competition will be as effective as possible. "1^^

Equilibrium

in these circumstances an ideal.

is

There

is

even

(as

Necker

wrote) an "art of equilibrium. "^^^ The "system of economic freedom" only work, in Lionel Robbins's words, create the highly artificial

tion properly artifact. "156

.

.

.

"if a conscious effort

environment which

[N]ot only the good

is

society,

necessary

is

if it is

but the market

will

made

to

to fianc-

itself is

an

As in Frank Hahn's account, quoted earlier, the central claim

for the invisible

hand

is

that "the market system operates

on

relatively sim-

Economic Sentiments

146 I

pie motivational precepts which, in principle, leave agents

ulation by authority cies

.

.

.

ways

[I]t suggests

might be devised, which harness

in

which

self-interest

open to manipand

institutions

and render

poli-

socially

it

acceptable. "157

The hand which manipulates

individual agents, here,

in Kant's sense. It treats individuals as

hand of the sovereign; the

means and not

individuals are

nessed in the interest of their

own

something

is

heteronomous,

as ends. It

like horses,

is

the

to be har-

happiness. In Necker's description of

hand which encourages, which restrains, no longer noticed, and one forgets its services. "^^^ The utility of every individual is an end, but it is not an end which the individual has himself devised or explained. For the effort of "the hand of the the art of administration, "the

which

restores,

is

lawgiver" in restricting "the sphere of the pursuit of self-interest" political project.

The government

is

not concerned,

is

itself a

as in the mercantilist

or regulatory regimes opposed by Smith, to enact laws directing citizens as to

what they should

sponsibility, rather,

is

sell,

or import, or

who

they should employ.

Its re-

to enact and to enforce laws about laws; about the

circumstances in which citizens seek to influence laws and the enforce-

ment of laws.

It is

concerned with corruption, intimidation, and

political

contributions, or with the transformation of money into political power. It influences the

norms of political

to distinguish the ingenuously

and the

licit

from the

illicit

influence: the choice, for example, of how

from the disingenuously public

interest,

exercise of political power.

EVOLVED ORDERS The other way of thinking about

the invisible

hand

—about

desirable or-

ders in which "the rules themselves are the unintended products of hu-

man

actions," in

Hayek

Vaughn's description

explicidy denies,

—

is

at first sight strikingly different.

on behalf of the theory of the "spontaneous order

of the market," any objective of "maximising aggregate

come. "^^^ The equilibrium version of the modern responds to the

utilitarian political objective

through the consequences of one's

hand

cor-

of seeking to contribute,

policies, to the greatest possible happi-

ness of individuals. This utilitarianism, for Hayek, "false 'constructivist' rationalism"

real social in-

invisible

is

a variation

of the

which was characteristic of the Conti-

nental European as distinct from the English enlightenment: a "constructivist particularist utilitarianism

[which] rests on the belief that reason

capable of directiy manipulating

the details of a complex society. "^^^

is

all

The Bloody and

Hand

Invisible

147 |

It is

the rules and institutions of an evolved order,

nomic outcomes, which

The English view of

are in

Hayek's view subject to the

a liberal social order

evolutionary interpretation of

more than

is

eco-

its

hand.

invisible

founded, he writes, on "an

phenomena of culture and mind." The the economy is ordered by an invisible

all

disposition of opportunities in

hand. But so too are the rules which order the dispositions. So, in turn, are the rules which order the rules. (So, even,

about

rules

rules; the liberalism

which Hayek favors

The

of a theoretical construction.

sult

mournings and markets,

is

suspended

"institutions

which

not the

re-

of individuals, with

its

like airplanes

much

planes never land; they are not so

The outcome of all

life

"is itself

overseen by an imposing sequence of invisible

hands, stacked up, one above the other,

veillance planes,

the theory of rules and of

is

in a limitless

waiting to land.

The

AWACS

sur-

like airliners as like

holding position.

this surveillance, in

Hayek's description, consists in

are necessary conditions for the achievement

of men's

conscious purposes," rather than in institutions which contribute to "social

welfare. "1^2

But the

criterion

of necessity

institutions are necessary if they turn

rion of success prevail

more

do

so,

is

established after the event;

is

out to have been needed. The

to have succeeded, or to have survived.

successful."

"Grown institutions,"

being planted, presumably

rules

rules

crite-

which

Hayek writes, because "the groups who observed them were together with "tradition and cus-

tom," are the proper subject of esteem. They have grown

also

The

when

not understand,

"It

is

significance

this

submission to undesigned

and importance we

reverence for the traditional,"

this

from

they were already large), and they have

been growing for some time.

and conventions whose

(as distinct

Hayek

largely

do

says, that "is in-

dispensable for the working of a free society. "^"^^ The popular odium

attached to corn dealers, in both Condorcet's and Smith's description,

such

only

as to attract

of public

dislike

is

men without

"character," or for

is

whom the prospect

only a modest disincentive.

Smith's system of moral sentiments exercised a profound influence

on Condorcet's moral thought, both in his early exchanges with Turgot about Helvetius, and, most direcdy, in his last writings of the 1790s about public instruction and the future society of the "Tenth Epoch." As the

nineteenth- century scholar Mathurin Gillet wrote, in a study of Condor-

Condorcet

cet's "Utopia,"

his inclination

Economic

"is

of preference

relationships, like

fused with sentiments.

The

is

the servile disciple of

no

master, although

to the sentimentalism of

Adam

Smith. "^^

moral relationships, are for Condorcet

essential disposition

of moral

life,

for

suf-

Condor-

cet as for Smith,

is

to think oneself into the feelings of other people; to feel

sympathy. This

is

similar, in its reflexiveness, to the disposition

nomic

life.

To

people think.

think about economic decisions

is

to think about

of eco-

how other

A All individuals (the philosopher

and the

common

sailor)

and the

much

have

Fatherless World

street porter, the philosopher

the same universal disposition, in

The way

Smith's and Condorcet's relentless evocation of natural equality. to understand the decisions of individuals in their ers in

225

economic

lives,

malt and proprietors of ponds, of seamstresses and flower

of deal-

sellers, is

to think of them as people like ourselves; to think oneself into their

Smith "introduced into

theory of the motives to exertion and

his

lives.

sacrifice

various desires and sentiments besides those which have wealth for their object," T. E. Cliffe Leslie wrote in 1879, tion in

and he examined

"many of the ordinary employments of life

.

.

their opera-

the butcher's, the

.

jeweller's, the soldier's, the sailor's, the barrister's, the author's." Smith's

examination was based on observation, and

it

was unjust,

concluded, to charge him with "evolving from his

own

Cliffe Leslie

consciousness the

circumstances and motives that diversify the employments of a nation. "^^

But to think of others as

as

though

their consciousness

though our sentiments were the

of justice, for Smith,

like

our own, or

of theirs, was also

a question

Condorcet; a question of sympathy.

as for

A third preoccupation which is dorcet's has to

reflection

were

do with public

similar in Smith's

instruction

thought and

Con-

in

and public enlightenment.

Smith's denunciation of civilized society, in the chapter on public instruction in the Wealth of Nations,

is

a description

by

division of labor tends, unless prevented

of the process by which the

a system

of public instruction,

to bring about an epidemic of "gross ignorance and stupidity." vidual

"whose whole

cannot exert

his

which

is

universal,

indi-

spent in performing a few simple operations"

life is

understanding, or use his intellectual

thereby "mutilated and deformed." ing,

The

and

it is

He

faculties,

and he

is

has the capability of understand-

torn from him: "The torpor of his

mind

renders him, not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender senti-

judgment concerning many great and extensive inter-

ment, and consequently of forming any

just

even of the ordinary duties of private

Of the

ests

of his country, he

Condorcet

refers to

is

life.

"^^ altogether incapable of judging.

Smith

in his first proposal for "a true public instruc-

tion," shortly before the Revolution; he concludes that universal public in-

struction

is

societies. 2^

the "only effective remedy" for the iUs of modern commercial

In his memoirs on public instruction of 1791-92, he again in-

vokes Smith: "Instruction

is

the only

remedy

for this iU

.

.

.

The

laws pro-

claim an equality of rights, and only institutions for public instruction can

make

this equality real."^^

of the eighteenth century,

Universal instruction was identified, for as a

source of economic

prosperity.

The

much advice

Economic Sentiments

226 I

of Mentor or Minerva, in Fenelon's Telemaqm, mucli

XV,

vice to Louis

like

Quesnay's ad-

the sovereign should "establish public schools, to

is tliat

teach fear of the gods, love of country, respect for the laws," and should

young men

good

carpenters or oarsmen,

"industrious, patient, hardworking, clean, sober,

and cautious. "^^ But

also ensure that

Smith's view of education, lic

instruction, like the

as

or

more than

a

it is

are trained to be

Condorcet's, was strikingly different. Pub-

like

freedom of commerce, is an end in itself, as much means to the end of national (or individual) pros-

perity.

All children, in Smith's description at the outset tions,

of the Wealth of Na-

have the capability to become philosophers; the difference between

philosophers and porters

matter of habit, custom, and education

a

is

rather than of genius and disposition, and they were "perhaps, very alike" until they

were

six

wonder, and to conversation. The lack of

ural disposition to curiosity, to

education tunes."

much

or eight years old. All children also share the nat-

thus for the children of the poor "one of their greatest misfor-

is

They

of "subject for thought and speculation," Smith

are deprived

on jurisprudence; a boy who starts work when he is very "when he is grown up he has no ideas with which he can

said in his lectures

young finds that amuse himself "^^ Instruction in science, Condorcet writes, should be seen "as much as a means of happiness for individuals as of usefiil resources for society";

should encourage a use of time which, "although limited,

it

even, to simple amusement," struction, or the

"reflective pleasure," fiil

disquiet

is

which

is

and

at the

fend oneself against the

ills

The great benefit, for more than economic. It are instructed,

intellectual faculties,

same time

fear

by which one

society,

Smith

of not

really

above

a source

of

is

own

ignorance,

being in a position to de-

threatened. "^^

of public instruction

consists,

is

a protection against "that pain-

associated with being aware of one's

and which produces the vague

who

not thereby "a frivolous occupation." In-

development of the

all,

is

indeed

in political security.

says, are less liable to

political

People

"the delusions of enthusi-

asm and superstition." An "instructed and intelligent people" are "always more decent and orderly than an ignorant and stupid one." "They feel themselves, each individually, more respectable":

They

are

more disposed

to examine,

and more capable of seeing

through, the interested complaints of faction and sedition ... In free countries,

where the

the favourable

safety

of government depends very

much upon

judgment which the people may form of its conduct,

it

A

Fatherless World

227 |

must

surely be of the highest importance that they should not be dis-

posed to judge rashly or capriciously concerning Science

is

the "great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and supersti-

Smith

tion,"

it.

says; public diversions

"temper of mind,"

induce a "gaiety and good humour," a

a disposition to see the ridiculous in political projects,

which wards off "that melancholy and gloomy humour which

is

almost

al-

ways the nurse of popular superstition and enthusiasm. "^^

Hume's idyll of enlightenment, once again; his indissoluble chain. In Hume's easy and sociable age, "men enjoy the privilege of rational creatures, to think as well as to act"; science, conversation, and good humor vanquish superstition, and knowledge begets mildness and moderThis

is

ation.^^ It

is

Condorcet's

idyll,

too.

Even the constitution of one's own is something which

country, in Condorcet's project of public instruction,

should be taught in public schools only

one

speaking about a

is

constitution,

and to

recite

as a

matter of information, or as

if

Children should not be made "to admire a

fact.

by heart the

political rights

of the new public instruction should rather be to

of man." The object

set

out for individuals

"the discussions which are of interest to their rights or their happiness,"

and to "offer them the means necessary to decide for themselves. "^^

The fourth preoccupation which economic thought

is

is

similar in Smith's

and Condorcet's

with uncertainty. Natural philosophy and moral phi-

losophy. Smith says in his account of education in the Wealth of Nations,

correspond to two universal dispositions of individuals.

One

the disposi-

is

ently

wonder and curiosity; to think about and try to connect the appardisjointed phenomena of nature (or of human contrivance). The

other

is

tion to

the disposition to moral reflection: "In every age and country of

the world

men must have

attended to the characters, designs, and actions

of one another," and they must also have tried to connect their observations into general life,

that

events:

is

to say,

is

maxims,

principles, or rules.

The course of ordinary

to be surrounded by disconnected and often disorderly

thunder and storms, the pulleys and wheels of dye workshops, the

sentiments of other people.

It is

to imagine that these events

make

sense;

that they constitute a system, or an order.

This universe of imaginative uncertainty

merce.

The

is

also the universe

Condorcet's merchant, calculating the "probability sell at

ally

of com-

individuals Smith describes in the Wealth of Nations,

a particular price, a part

of his grain

will

be

left"

that, if

like

he refuses to

unsold, are continu-

judging, and misjudging, their prospects of success.

They

are like the

Economic Sentiments

228 I

men of America," who

"leading prizes

ony

which

are to be

faction,"

found

choose between "piddling for the

what may be

in

called the paltry raffle

and seeking "the great prizes which sometimes come from

the wheel of the great state lottery of British politics. "^^

own

sense of their

But they

They

try to

make

prospects, and of the lotteries under which they

are confronted,

like

live.

the angelic administrator described in Tur-

commerce des grains," with a "multitude of obscure unknown causes, acting slowly and by

got's "Lettres sur le facts,

little

of col-

the action of a mass of

degrees," which "combine and change the price of tradeable things. "^^

They should understand, like the man of practical or particular reason, in Hume's essay "Of Commerce," that tiiey ought never to draw their "arguments too fine, or connect too long a chain of consequences together": "Something

sure to happen, that will disconcert his reasoning, and pro-

is

duce an event different from what he expected. "^^

Even reason which

is

als

uncertain. Reason, for Smith as for

continuously disconcerted.

ridiculed. It visible

is

is

hand.

diverse, as

was seen

at different times.

political

life,

is

and the pretentious reason of the

philosophers

it

is

a place

as

was seen

should yet

should

To some differ so

it

man

6.

can, as in the less

endowed with

Platonist":

all

mankind,

the same fac-

utterly

condemn what is fondly sought by anstill more surprise, that a man

appears matter of

widely from himself at different times; and, after pos-

me

was the object of all

this feverish uncertainty

and

his

vows

irresolution, in hu-

conduct, seems altogether unavoidable.

A SYSTEM OF

SENTIIVIENTS

Smith's philosophical universe,

To be

Chapter

widely in their pursuits and inclinations,

session, reject with disdain what, before,

and wishes. To

"The

appears matter of surprise, that

differ so

and that one should other.

"man

in

of uncertainty and irresolu-

Hume in his essay

possessing of the same nature, and being ulties,

great),

be content with probabilities which are more or

the universe described by

To some

in-

Condorcet's procedural and probabilistic view of

strong. ""^^ His universe, like Smith's, tion. It

of the

circumstances, in different individu-

In the political and moral sciences, Condorcet wrote, life,

also to be

it is

5, in tiie discussion

economy, too, was influenced by Hume,

conduct of his

a condition

is

to be revered, and

Chapter

It is different in different

(the reason of domestic

and

It is

in

Hume,

like

Hume's,

a philosopher, in his description,

is

is

one of profound

insecurity.

to be surrounded by a swirling.

A

Fatherless World

229 |

swerving disorder of impressions, and to imagine that

phenomena,

the

verse

is

t±ie

impressions, or

constitute a single, beautiful, orderly system.

made up of

The

uni-

"events which appear solitary and incoherent," he

writes in his "History of Astronomy,"

and the endeavor of philosophy

is

"to introduce order into this chaos of jarring and discordant appearances." the "science of the connecting principles of nature. "^^

It is

sophically

is

to find tranquillity.

one has introduced

is

But it

is

To

think philo-

also to be conscious that the order

the product of one's

own imagination; that all philo-

sophical systems, as Smith says in his description of Newton's cosmology, are

"mere inventions of the imagination. "^^

and

frighteningly,

The

sions. less,

It is

to find oneself, suddenly

plunged again into the universe of disconnected impres-

aesthetic experience of philosophy indeed consists in an end-

recursive journey,

from the perception of

a multitude

of individual,

incoherent events, to the perception of a sufficiently orderly universe, and

back once more to the perception of incoherence.

"The universe

is

nothing but a heap of perceptions without a sub-

stance," James Beattie wrote in his Essay on Truth, of Hume's metaphysics;

the soul

is

for

Hume,

in Beattie's description,

of different perceptions, or objects, that

tion, heap, or bundle, in succession,

"nothing but a mass,

with inconceivable

petually in motion. "^7 This

is

rapidity, perpetually

collec-

fleet

away

changing, and per-

the universe of Lucretius, or of a multitude

of obscure events, veering and swerving in an immeasurable the universe of Lucretius, too, in the sense that

it is

infinity.'*^ It is

the expression of a

metaphysical uncertainty, of what Smith described as "the very suspicion

of a fatherless world."

Who could be powerful enough to rule

"the

sum of

the immeasurable," the philosopher asks, in the words of Lucretius which

Philo quotes in

Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion; and who

could hold in his hand the "mighty bridle of the unfathomable ".^'^'^

It is a

source of consolation. Smith says, to believe in the powers of a "great, benevolent, and is

a source

all- wise

Being,

who

directs

of melancholy to think that

and incomprehensible space may be and

all

"all

filled

the

the

movements of nature."

It

unknown regions of infinite

with nothing but endless misery

wretchedness. "50

lessly,

The destiny of the philosopher is to oscillate, endbetween one condition and the other, or between the perception of

orderliness,

"All

of the

and the perception of a heap.

knowledge resolves Treatise,

and

it is

itself into probability,"

Hume wrote

in

Book

1

an extended, recursive procedure of the correction

of judgments and sentiments. There

is

in every probabilistic

"beside the original uncertainty inherent in the subject, a

new

judgment, uncertainty

derived from the weakness of that faculty, which judges." But the process

Economic Sentiments

230 I

similar, in general, to the

is

reasoning of common

life;

to the confidence of

the merchant, for example, in the experience of the accountant and in

the

structure of the accounts."

"artificial

Even the philosopher, who

plunged, from time to time, into the deepest darkness,

and talldng

game of backgammon,

play a .

.

in

.").^^

is

restored by living

common affairs of life" ("I converse, and am merry with my

other people, "in the

like

I

In one view of science, the

of the philosopher

life

Wordsworth's Prelude: "The marble index of

a

is

mind

like

They

very different.

sions

live

and

and sentiments. They

talk in the

try to

make

dine,

I

friends

Newton's,

for ever

aging through strange seas of Thought, alone. "^^ Smith and is

is

/ Voy-

Hume's view

midst of a multitude of impresa system, or successive systems,

out of all these sentiments. They are sometimes confident, and sometimes uncertain. their

own

They

are in this respect, as in other respects, like everyone else;

sentiments, like everyone

else's, are

part of the sentiments to be

corrected, or part of the multitude.

The image of a system of individual

impressions, or sentiments,

is

omni-

present in Smith's philosophical thought, as in Hume's, and as also in

Condorcet's.

the aesthetic, in particular, of Smith's moral philosophy,

It is

or of the "sentimentalism" which in Gillet's description was

Hume,

Smith, and Condorcet. Morality

come of innumerable conversations. It

is

mestic virtues. is

uncertain;

It is

it is

is

their

to

the out-

and

of relationships, including relationships be-

own past and fijture

selves. It

is

a

system of do-

without "substance," or foundation, in the sense that

not the sort of order which

ments of nature," by an

Dugald Stewart,

in this theory,

itself,

individual judgments, reflections, sentiments,

a collection

tween individuals and

common

"all-wise Being," or

in his

ory of moral sentiments

is

by a

"Account" of Smith's as the

directed, like the

outcome of a

it

"move-

single, unified theory.

fife,

describes Smith's the-

successive rejection of earlier

explanations of the principle of moral judgment. Smith, like

Hobbes

(in

his controversy

with Ralph Cudworth), thus rejects the view that moral

distinctions are

founded on reason. Like

Hume

(in his controversy

with

Francis Hutcheson), he rejects the view that moral distinctions are

founded on

feeling, or

on moral

sense.

Both Smith and

Hume then pro-

pose systems of sympathy, in which moral judgments are the result of a cursive

and sociable process of

think about their

ments. In

own and

Hume's

system,

reflection, in

other people's feefings, and correct their sentiit is

our judgment of and pleasure in the useful

consequences of actions which are

moral sentiments.

Utifity,

dis-

the course of which people

at the heart

or the "pleasure of

of the convergence of

utifity," is

the principle of

A

Fatherless World

231 |

moral judgment. But his

own

at this point,

Smith

rejects

even Hume's system. In

system of sympathy, the convergence of sentiments depends on

judgments about motives,

as well as

about consequences; on judgments

about the judgments of others

(their gratitude);

rules" of sympathy with motives

and with gratitude.

The fundamental

principle

that the objects of moral

other people. is

The

and on the "general

of Smith's theory, in Stewart's description,

principle

of moral judgment, that

is

no fundamental principle of moral judgment. There

there

is, is

to say,

is

is

that there

no foundation;

the correction and convergence of sentiments. Smith

concerned than

is

judgments are the actions (and judgments) of

is

all

more

Hume with the general rules which Hume described as an

"unphilosophical species of probability," and which provide a sort of mne-

monic

in

moral

reflection; as

Hume

himself says, our situation

is

in "con-

and it would be impossible that we could "ever conon any reasonable terms" without some general points of view, or general rules. But Smith is also more concerned than Hume with people's motives, or with the stories of why people act in the way that tinual fluctuation,"

verse together

they do. Reasonable conversations, in his view, are concerned with the

much

character and moral choices of individuals, as

as

the consequences or utility of the individuals' actions. tions, often,

or more than with They are conversa-

about "our nearest connections," and about the "private and

domestic affections. "^^ As in Condorcet's morality of domestic virtues, they are conversations about one's

moral constitution of one's

tliey are the

"touched by novels and tragedies," and

cumstances which excuse

constitution,

and about the

friends, one's sisters, one's children.

Turgot's morality of indulgence, are

own moral

As

conversations of people

who

in

who

are interested in "the cir-

the individual. "^^

Hume's and Smith's systems of moral sentiments cleansed of everything, or almost everything, which

is

are scrupulously

a matter

of revela-

They are systems of secular virtue. Cudworth's morality founded on reason, which Hume and Smith rejected, was a morality founded on di-

tion.^^

vine order; moral distinctions were like the discovery of truth and false-

hood because

there are laws of duty which are also God's laws. Hutche-

son's moral sense, too,

God.

It

was

was

ineffable, or

a condition

of nature, implanted

in nature

beyond the power of rational understanding. The

—of the

procedures of a continuing, conversational morality

moral sentiments

—

are far

of which Smith makes so art's

by

more

much

insecure.

For the general

rules

are derived exclusively, in

system of

of morality

Dugald Stew-

account, from the sentiments and experience of the world.

"Still

he

Economic Sentiments

232 I

insists,"

Stewart writes, that "our moral sentiments have always some

cret reference, either to

sentiments of others";

innermost conscience

what

are, or to

what we imagine ought to

se-

be, the

he contends" that the jurisdiction of even the

"still,

"is, in a

great measure, derived from the authority"

of the turbulent outside world.

The substance of stances,

is

the system of moral sentiments, in these circum-

to be found in the sentiments themselves, or in the individuals

whose sentiments they

are.

"These beings,

feeling, thinking,

and

willing,

proposing ends to themselves, and choosing means, constitute an order of things at least as real and at least as certain as the supposedly purely material

beings,

moved

to action by purely mechanical causes," Turgot wrote

to Condorcet in 1774, against the "irreligious philosophers"

who

sought

on pleasure and pain.^^ Condorcet's indissoluble chain happiness, and virtue is in this setting no more than a provisional,

to found morality

of truth,

fluctuating source of security. It

ment

that

is

the expression of a probabilistic judg-

most people, most of the time,

will

be "subject in their con-

duct to the rules of morality, although sometime led into crime. "^^

Hume's other indissoluble is

chain, of industry, knowledge,

Li]^^

and humanity,

it

the expression of confidence in the disposition of individuals to discuss

and to

live

by principles of morality; to be mild and moderate, and to

feel

an increase of humanity, from the very habit of conversing together.

CIVILIZED POLITICAL

The

aesthetic

DISCUSSION

of Smith's

political

"philosophical politics," like sentiments. It litical

is

principles,

a description

philosophy

Hume's,

is

is

very

similar.

in large part a theory

of a world without violent

without revolutions, and without

of political po-

conflicts over

"The good be the most es-

certainty.

temper and moderation of contending factions seems to sential

Smith's

circumstance in the public morals of a free people," Smith wrote in

account of education in the Wealth of NcttionSy and it is this idyll, of innumerable, decorous political conversations, which is at the heart of his

his

political

lectures

thought. The most on jurisprudence, or

essential part at least

the child should learn "to bring to others.

of education. Smith said in

of education within

down

its

Even philosophical education

families,

is

his

that

passions" and to

accommodate

in universities,

he says in the

Wealth of Nations, should tend "to improve the understanding, or to

mend

the heart. "^^

The

disposition to

or to seeing through political projects,

mild-humored is

itself

political discussion,

the foundation of political

A As

security.

Hume's

in

Fatherless World

easy and sociable age, "factions are then less invet-

erate, revolutions less tragical, authority less severe,

quent.

233

and seditions

less fre-

"^^

There is no divine right, in this political universe, and no divine order. "Hume's political philosophy is wholly and unambiguously secular," Duncan Forbes writes in Hume^s Philosophical Politics; in the political philosophy of the Treatise, there is "no mention of God," and an "uncanny silence with respect to anything to do with religion, natural or revealed. "^^ Sovereign princes, in the Wealth of Nations, are in no respect the representatives

of political principles, or of political wisdom. They, together with

their ministers, serve rather as a depiction

individuals in bettering their

own

of the universal interest of

conditions; they include princes

all

who

imagine that they have an interest in adulterating the coinage, dukes of

who

Cornwall tin

pursue their interest in public revenue by selling rights in

mines, the "proud minister of an ostentatious court"

who

builds great

highways to be "seen by the principal nobility," the medieval king

who

grants privileges to wealthy burghers as to the "enemies of his enemies. "^^

The purpose of political tory of England,

is

history,

Hume wrote in the peroration to his His-

to instruct in "the great mixture of accident, which

commonly concurs with

a small ingredient

erecting the complicated fabric of the

The foundation, or found, lions

principle, or "substance"

of individuals, or in their disposition to is

of

politics

is

thus to be

the foundation of moral judgment, in the sentiments of mil-

like

Politics

of wisdom and foresight, in

most perfect government. "^^

for

chinery," as

Smith and

Hume

Donald Winch has

a matter

written,

civilized political discussion.

of "legal and constitutional ma-

more than

a

matter of political

tues (the "specifically political qualities" of men in public settings).

machinery requires very

little

in the

way of civic

which Turgot's opponent Seguier described

virtue.

vir-

This

The corporations

as "little republics"

within the

which each worked for the good of all, and without which no artiwould be more than "an isolated being," were for Smith a locus of endless oppression. The independence which Seguier described as "a vice state, in

san

in the political constitution"

dom.71

It is just, in

Hume's

was for Smith a condition of political freemaxim of political constitu-

view, to take, as a

man must be supposed "men are generally more

tions, the false proposition "that every

But

it is

also the case,

he adds, that

their private than in their public capacity.

The

virtue

Smith and

which contributes to

Hume

a very

legal

a knave."

honest in

"^^

and constitutional

security

modest condition. Like the domestic

is

for

virtues, or

Economic Sentiments

234 I

the conversations about gratitude and remorse, which constitute the sys-

tem of moral sentiments,

an unheroic sort of heroism.

it is

of the "middle station" of life, with

its

It is a

condition

of friendship

characteristic virtue

("among equals"), and of which Hume wrote that it is the "middling rank of men, who are the best and firmest basis of public liberty. "^^ Turgot, too, wrote to Condorcet that

"it is in

found sentiments which

are to be

the middle station [l^etat mitoyen] that are honest, directed,

and

by ed-

fortified

ucation, by reflection, by the need for public esteem. "^^

These

political virtues are the virtues

of humanity, and they are even, in

some circumstances, the virtues of women. "Humanity is the virtue of a woman," Smith wrote in the Theory of Moral Sentiments, and it consists in the "exquisite fellow-feeUng which the spectator entertains with the senti-

ments" of others;

it

"no

requires

passages that Smith added before his death, litical

philosophy.

He

is

no self-command, no

self-denial,

exertion of the sense of propriety." But the

man of humanity, is

hero of Smith's po-

also the

the opposite, in any case, of the

of the sovereign prince, with

and even

his "general,

great

in the last

man of system,

or

systematical, idea of

the perfection of policy and law."^^

Condcrcet's

political

philosophy

is

in several respects very different.

was more credulous than either Smith or Hume; he was

He was more ingenuous,

constitution, to the disorder of enthusiasm.

fore the Revolution, about the heroism of ministers,

He

immune, by

less

be-

and even of sover-

eigns (there was an "indissoluble chain," he said in 1782, describing the future enlightenment of the

young son of Louis XVI, which

in the case

of

own hapHe was far more interested and

sovereign princes connected "personal interest and justice, their piness,

and that of their feUow citizens" ).^^

Hume

involved than either Smith or

democracy, before

Condorcet's

as well as

politics, too,

in the

philosophy and the politics of

during the Revolution.

of

is

a

But the

aesthetic

system of sentiments. Political

life is

scene of innumerable interests, opinions, preferences, and decisions, ring and swerving.

the scene

is

The

role

of the

in fact orderly. It

is

political

also to

philosopher

is

of a

jar-

to imagine that

imagine systems of political order,

including constitutions, and rules for making political decisions.

vent ways in which individuals can cooperate to order their

It is

own

to in-

prefer-

ences and political sentiments.

There ter.

is

no

certainty, in this liberal political order; there

Public instruction, Condorcet wrote at the end of his

have

as its object "philosophical

sort of catechism.''^

is

no paternos-

life,

should not

or political dogmas"; there should be no

For Talleyrand, who,

like

Condorcet, wrote exten-

A

Fatherless World

235 |

on public

sively

exist "if it did

instruction, the

not spread

print, for ever,

French constitution of 1791 would not

roots in the soul of all citizens,

if it

did not im-

new sentiments, new morals, new habits": "The

declaration

its

of rights and the principles of the constitution should in future make up a

new

catechism for childhood, which will be taught in even the smallest

schools of the kingdom. "^^ But for Condorcet, children should not be

taught to revere even true political opinions; to adore those principles

which

"it will

"^^ It will ity.

one day be

their right

be their right, that

and

is

their

duty to judge with impartial-

to say, to be like the "political Pyr-

rhonists" of the Revolution, in Benjamin Constant's description of 1796,

who go

here and there, "collecting doubts, weighing probabilities, and

endlessly asking of the majority whether they

still

prefer present forms. "^^

In Condorcet's new, discursive political society, as in Hume's, there

very litde political virtue.

The sovereign

sighted father. But neither

is

"that every law which

wrote

in his Vie de

those, even,

is

M.

is

no

in

The error of supposing power is just," Condorcet

the sovereign people.

made by

a legitimate

Turcot, could have arisen only "in republics, in

which have the appearance of democracy. Anywhere

would have seemed the expression of the most source of certainty, in such a society, tic

virtues

"tempers of men,"

provement

in the

tions with

women, and meeting them

life;

is

abject flattery. "^^

else,

they

The only

to be found, once again, in domes-

is

and domestic conversations.

Condorcet, too,

is

respect a wise and far-

as a

Hume

looks forward to an im-

consequence of having conversa-

in

an easy and sociable manner.^*

prepared to defend the softness or sweetness of modern

to look forward to the "easy virtues" of a world in which improve-

ments

most

in education

useless. "^^

He

and laws would have made "the courage of virtue alalso recognizes the frightening insecurity of such a

world, in which there

is

no foundation of political

ence for divine right, or in

There

is

a

fear,

moving passage

Public Instruction, of 1791,

order, either in rever-

or in political virtue.

at the

end of Condorcet's

when he

first

Memoir on

asks his readers to "suppose, for ex-

ample," that in the capital of a country with a free constitution, there

should

arise a small

ther groups in five

group of dangerous men, that they should form

hundred other

cities,

that they should gain docile supall

powers, governing

terror."

By what means, he

porters, that they should eventually seize hold of

"the people by seduction, and public asks the "friends

fur-

men by

of equality, of liberty," could "your laws, which respect

the rights of men, prevent the progress of such a conspiracy .>" Condorcet finds his

own

answer, and the possibility of "public virtues," in public in-

Economic Sentiments

236 I

struction.^^

But even

this possibility,

he came to believe, was no more than

the distant expectation of an almost universal habit. Sainte-Beuve said that

people would die of boredom in Condorcet's future society, and that ev-

eryone would

live in a

heroism," where the great virtues are ever

and not to make them

is

is

"to

in-

without "acts of

and

less necessary,

object of policy, in respect of these public virtues, less,

This was

condition of "universal mediocrity.

deed Condorcet's prospect: of a country whose history

in

which the

make them

use-

usual. "^^

ECONOMIC SENTIMENTS Economic

life,

too,

is

a system

of sentiments.

It is in

Turgot's description a

"multitude of obscure facts," a "mass of unknown causes," a "multitude

of causes which combine with one another and change the prices of things

which can be bought and spirit

of system, which

know

"wishes to

Turgot

is

sold."^^ It

is

an unpromising territory for the

"dazzled by an idea or a principle," and which

everything, explain everything, arrange everything,"

also wrote, in his

"Eloge de Vincent de Gournay";

tude of operations, the knowledge of which mensity, and which moreover stances

which

predict. "^^

is

a "multi-

prevented by their very im-

depend continuously on

are always changing,

it is

a

mass of circum-

and which one can neither control nor

For Condorcet, too, economic relationships are not susceptible

of the order or regularity of "absolute and precise truths," or of "general principles of mechanics." ried out, in an

Economic

life is

rather a "mass of operations car-

independent manner, by a large number of men, and

di-

rected by the interest, the opinion, by the instinct, so to speak, of each of

them."9i

The

objective of the

cumstances,

is

"new

science" of political economy, in these

to depict an irregular order. It

scription, to the

is

new, modest philosophical thought of the seventeenth

and eighteenth centuries. John Locke, Condorcet wrote prq^res, "fixed the limits

the

cir-

suited, in Condorcet's de-

of

method of philosophy

how not to know, in the

human

in the Esquisse des

understanding"; he understood that

consists in "savoir ignorer," or in

end, what

it is still,

ble to understand." Unlike Leibniz,

what

it

"knowing

always will be impossi-

Locke was content with "a modest

philosophy," and with the persistence of doubt in respect of the great questions of spirituality and liberty.

He

showed, Condorcet wrote, that

the analysis of individual ideas was the only

way "not

to lose oneself in this

chaos of incomplete notions, incoherent and indeterminate, which chance

A

Fatherless World

237

we have received without renew philosophical method was suited, in Condorcet's description, to the new political economy of the eighteenth century. For the object of political economy was to seek a general law in "this apparent has presented to us without order, and which flection." Locke's

chaos," this "external shock of opposing interests," this astonishing variety

of works and products, of needs and

sources; in this frightening complexity of interests,

which

re-

links to the

general system of societies, the subsistence, the well-being of an isolated individual;

on

nature,

all

which makes him dependent on

all

the accidents of

the events of politics; which extends, in

some

respects,

to the entire globe his capacity to experience either enjoyments or deprivations. Political its

economy must

also,

however, be concerned to recognize the lim-

of general laws. Even when the principle of entire freedom had been

recognized, Condorcet wrote, there would

power"; they would "inevitable

consist,

above

all,

still

be duties of "public

in preventing or

moderating the

of nature," or "unforeseen accidents. "^^

ills

The depiction of economic

life as

a

heap or mass or multitude was om-

nipresent in the period with which this

book has been concerned. The

velopment of political economy, Hegel wrote

a

little

de-

condescendingly in

the Philosophy ofRi^fht, "affords the interesting spectacle (as in Smith, Say

and Ricardo) of thought working upon the endless mass of details which confront

at the outset

it

the thing. "^^

tion of political

too

little

and extracting therefrom the simple

One of the economy

criticisms in the

principles of

of Smith, in the period of reconstruc-

1790s and 1800s, was indeed that he was

concerned with the simple principles of the thing, or too much

concerned with

all

the details of economic

life.

The Wealth of Nations is

a

"confused assemblage," "a vast chaos of good ideas, pell-mell with pieces

of positive knowledge," Jean-Baptiste Say wrote in the "Discours preliminaire" to his Traite d^Economie Politique. treatise,"

and

it is

it is

"not

a

complete

quite inadequate as an exposition of general or fun-

damental principles. "Smith

is

lacking in clarity in

method almost everywhere," Say facts," full

But

writes; his

book

many is

and

in

a "depository

of

of "long digressions," and overfull of "so many

The Wealth of Nations is

places,

details. "^^

unsystematic, in this sense; in the philosophical

sense of the spirit of system, which Turgot described as an enthusiasm for

"explaining

all

phenomena" and

from the "particular

fact," as a

for the "general principle" as distinct

misunderstanding of "the inexhaustible va-

Economic Sentiments

238 I

riety

of nature." But

spirit

of system,

public

as a political disposition,

The merchant Gournay,

life.

of the

also unsystematic in the popular sense

it is

or a

commitment

for Turgot,

was

a

to principle in

man of system in this

man who thinks has a system" ).^^ Smith own description. In his elaborate, extended is again less systematic, in his comparison between the man of system and the man of humanity besecond sense (and, in

"every

fact,

—

tween the public

spirit

public spirit which

charm

both

in

which

is

inspired by the love of system, and the

inspired by the love of humanity

is

He

principles.

—he

sees a certain

describes the circumstances (in times of

"turbulence and disorder") under which the two principles tend to mix together.

But he takes

a position, in general, in favor

man

of the

of hu-

manity; of moderation, accommodation, "fellow-feeling," and respect for

other individuals, including for their privileges and prejudices. Smith's use of the phrase "the invisible hand,"

it

was suggested

in

the expression of these conflicting inclinations with respect to the

ter 5,

is

spirit

of system.

On

the one hand, the invisible

hand

is

the depiction of

On

"something grand and beautiful," or of "the beauty of order." other hand,

it is

slightly ridiculous. It

"toys" of the rich; is

own

the beauty of his

is

a toy,

is

attractive to the

ideal plans.^^ It

philosopher, or to the philosopher

know." Smith's use of the

is

is

of economic

his

own

The

does not yet "know

image of the

own

in the

how

invisible

not to

hand

is

uncertainty about whether

imagination the phenomena"

superiority of his

It is also

the expression of doubt about the

own judgment, and about

the consequences of

plans, or principles.

difficulty, at its

most general,

is

of how to

live

with insecurity. For

the system of economic sentiments, or of economic relationships,

profound

insecurity. It

been described; ture.

It

or "the discovery of an immense chain of the most im-

portant and sublime truths. "^^

immense

the "trinkets" and

man of system, enamored with

familiar, unsecular

"an attempt to connect life,

like

attractive, too, to the systematical

who

the expression of this ambivalence; of his

system

much

the

corresponds to the beauty "of art and contrivance."

it

the sort of thing which

his

Chap-

But

it is

same time

it is

is

is

one of

insecure in the metaphysical sense that has just

an imaginary order, and not an eternal truth of na-

also insecure in the sense that

a plan, or a policy. It

is

makes sense out of the chaos of economic principle of policy, or

of politics; and

it is

an order, and

it is

at the

the description of a principle which

it is

life; it is

the description of a

also the description

of the limits

of this policy, or of the circumstances in which the principle of entire

dom must

free-

be supplemented by the principle of public power. There are

"institutions

which

are usefiil for the general society,

which society should

A

Fatherless World

239 |

establish, direct, or oversee,

and which

are a

supplement to what the

will

of private persons, or the competition of individual interests might not be

do immediately," Condorcet wrote

able to

There

in the Esquisse des pro^resP"^

are certain public institutions, in Smith's description in the Wealth

of Nations, which are highly advantageous to a "great society," and of

which "the

profit

could never repay the expense to any individual or small

number of individuals. "^^° The system of economic ject to

relationships

continuous reexamination.

system of policy, or a system which for

what Smith,

in his

is

insecure, too, because

system of order, and

It is a

it is

it is

sub-

also a

supposed to have good consequences

is

account of the

man

of system and the

man

of hu-

manity, described as "the welfare of the whole society. "^^^ It suggests policies (including policies for public institutions)

plement the

will,

"whole society"

is

policies

own

which

Hume's

interests,

about the

interests

it is

or practical one."^^^

individuals

who

are depicted in the eighteenth- century

writings with which this

and they

book has been concerned way of life. They are contracting

are thereby the sort

ideas about principles.

on

The

jurisprudence,

whom

is

of people

who form

parties,

expectations, and have

obligation in a contract, Smith says in his lec-

constituted by the "reasonable expectation" of

Hume,

is

The doctrine of the original unsound because the people

supposed to have consented to

it

"are not conscious of

the person to

the promise was made.

contract, he also says, following are

economic

are occupied in a dis-

cursive, uneasy, self-conscious

who

society,

promote these interests. It is a the sort of society in which no party, as

description of eighteenth-century England, "can well support

its political

The

tures

of the

who

without a philosophical or speculative system of principles, annexed

itself,

to

supposed to sup-

are likely to

system of people with systems; in

are

constituted by a mass or multitude of individuals,

have opinions about their

and about the

which

or the calculations of profit, of individuals. But the

therefore cannot be

bound by

it

.

.

.

confused of the principle upon which they parties have ideas, principles,

it,

and

They must have some idea however act."^°^ All these contracting

and expectations. They

are interested, like

who were James Anderson's correspondents in The Bee, in "the history of the human mind."^^* They are inquisitive, like the man of speculation who is disposed, in Smith's description, to "enter the commercial travelers

into in

many

reasonings" about the effects of distant events (an earthquake

China) on "the commerce of Europe, and the trade and business of the

world

in general. "^^^

The world of eighteenth-century commerce was

insecure, or risky, in

Economic Sentiments

240 I

the sense that ships.

The

rise

it

was

full

of new investments and new economic relation-

of commerce, for Turgot, was "a revolution which can only

operate slowly and by degrees";

sort.''^^^

required confidence, experience, rela-

and the establishment of "means of com-

tionships with correspondents,

munication of every

it

Commerce and communication,

together

with the regular execution of justice, was the condition for the "great revolution" which Smith describes in early

modern Europe. One means of

communication was by the exchange of goods; another was by the tion of

money and

credit ("the judicious operations

circula-

of banking," Smith

wrote, provide "a sort of waggon-way through the air"); yet another was

by the exchange of news. The merchants whom Turgot encountered in Angouleme had opinions about public debt, about rumors of European war, about the solvency of the king of Spain, about bad weather in the Bal-

about the anxieties of Lyon

tic,

of great empires,

ment of reading

People

silk traders.

who

in

the newspapers the exploits of their

mies." But they are also wracked by anxiety.

of the description of the at least

some of his

whom

he

trusts,"

know

own

fleets

amuse-

and

ar-

who is at the

heart

hand in the Wealth of Nations, likes to "always under his own view." He feels "un-

invisible

capital

easiness" at "being separated so far"

because "he can

the capitals

The Amsterdam merchant,

trading in corn from Konigsberg and fruit from Lisbon,

have

live in

in Smith's description, "enjoy, at their ease, the

from

it.

better the character

He

likes the

"home-trade,"

and situation of the persons

and the "laws of the country from which he must seek

redress."io7

The new world of commerce was

insecure, too, because

it

was subject to

frequent and oftien sudden changes in laws, regulations, and the jurispru-

dence of property. Napoleon, reflecting itation

in St.

which torments us," the "furious

Helena on the "universal ag-

oscillations"

of modern times,

identified their principal source in a "great revolution in property." first

sort of property, in land,

the time

when he was

had been augmented, he

studying the Wealth of Nations

said

—

this

The

was

at

—by a second sort of

property, in industry; this was augmented, in turn, by a third sort of prop-

"derived from the enormous charges raised from taxpayers," and dis-

erty,

tributed by the government.

The

conflict

among

these three kinds of

property, he said, was the "great struggle of our times. "^^^ Turgot's re-

form also

edicts

of 1776,

at the outset

turned on the conflicts

of the epoch of universal agitation, had

among

different kinds of property,

and

differ-

ent kinds of rights: the privileges of bakers' and millers' guilds, the right to impose charges, the "superstitious respect" for property originally

A

Fatherless World

241 |

"founded on usurpations," and respect for the "most sacred of the property of man in the fruit of his labor.''^^^

erty

.

.

The world which Condorcet and Turgor France of the ity

prop-

all

.

last

decades of the ancien regime

describe in the provincial is

one

in

which "the

of laws has given way to force of things," and an "arbitrary and

"moderated in practice

ating jurisprudence" has It is also a

its

rigid-

fluctu-

speculative principles."

world of prohibitive laws, which vary with circumstances, and will never know, under their empire, if the laws un-

whereby "a merchant

der which he has bought will be those under which he will

whole commercial system of Great

Britain,

which

is

sell."^^^

The

the object, Smith says,

of his violent attack in the Wealth of Nations, is itself an immense, haphazard, changing organization of regulation and vexation. Smith refers in his discussion

of apprenticeship to fourteen consecutive statutes which ob-

of labour. "^^^ Richard Burn's Justice of the Peace, which was one of Smith's important sources, includes, in its 1758

struct the "free circulation

no fewer than forty-two paragraphs concerned with "starch and hair powder," and refers to well over one hundred statutes on the woollen manufacture, which it seeks simply to "reduce into some kind of order. "^^^ The eighteenth-century system of commerce was insecure, above all, in an even more insidious way. For it was subject to continuing flux not only edition,

and

in events,

in rules, but also in the dispositions

(the moleculae) of

no way

whom

is

composed.

confound the conditions of men;

to

and laws," Louis XVI But

edicts.

the system

said at the

I

of the individuals

"My

intention

wish to reign only by

is

in

justice

end of the Lit de Justice over Turgot's

a flux in the condition

of men

is

the essential circumstance of

modern commerce, in Smith's, Turgot's, and Condorcet's description. The desire of bettering our condition, which Smith describes in the Wealth of Nations tinual,

tional, as

weU

condition

is,

disposition,

The

"uniform, constant, and uninterrupted," or "universal, con-

as

and uninterrupted," as private

is

the "principle from which public and na-

opulence

is

originally derived. "^^^

however, to change one's condition;

and to become

flux in conditions

a different sort

and dispositions

teenth-century commercial

life.

it is

To

also to

better one's

change one's

of person.

is

thus at the heart of late eigh-

This was the opinion,

at least,

of the op-

ponents of commercial reform. Seguier argued in the Lit de Justice, against

Turgot and against the king, that the "indefinite freedom" of commerce

would

lead to a "default of security," and thereby to the destruction of all

the activities of commerce, which was itself dependent

confidence."

It

would lead

on "the most blind

to an influx of people into the large cities

Economic Sentiments

242 I

(where they would be able to

live

from "the smallest commerce"), and to

a

transformation in their ways of thinking. This indefinite freedom, he said,

"knows no other laws than those which

it

its

and admits no other

caprices,

sets for itself; this sort

of freedom

is

rules than

nothing other than

a

true independence." "As soon as the spirit of subordination will be lost,

the love of independence will start to germinate in

hearts," Seguier

all

foresaw; "the multitude, which nothing will be able to contain, will cause

the greatest disorders " ^ ^ ^ .

The

love of independence

"Nobody but

prosperity.

a

is

by contrast,

for Smith,

a cause

of public

beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the be-

nevolence of his fellow-citizens," he writes in his eulogy to the

and

"fair

deliberate exchange" of civifized society, at the outset of the Wealth of Na-

("Even a beggar does not depend upon

tions.

it

Smith goes on

entirely,"

to say, with a characteristic taste for the exception and the observation; the

beggar exchanges money for food, and old clothes "for other old

which

him

suit

better. ")^i7 Seneca,

whom

preacher of insensibility," pointed in

De

Smith describes

clotJies

as "that great

beneficiis to the folly

of seeking

benevolence, or the exchange of benefits, in commercial relations: "In an inn or hotel no one regards himself as the guest of the landlord. "^^^ This insubordinate, insensible independence of commercial relations was for

Smith

a sign

of the universal disposition of men, or of what distinguishes

the society of men from the society of dogs; of the independence of spirit

which makes possible the interdependence of economic

not

lives. "It is

from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner," Smith says.

more or

less

It is

dress ourselves" to their self-love, tages, their

we

own

rather

from our relationship to them,

equal participants in a rhetorical, cognitive exchange.

"interest"

them

advantage"; this

we

as

"ad-

them" of their own advanwe "show them that it is for

"talk to

in a transaction, is

We

the "meaning" of commercial exchange.

Seguier's foreboding, in respect of this universal discursiveness, was that

would turn out to be unlimited; that the freedom, or license, which adno other rules than those which it sets for itself, and which is busily interested in the rules for making rules, will in the end destroy all rule. For one characteristic of eighteenth-century commerce, much observed then and subsequendy, was that the rules which delineate the universe of commerce the rules as to what it is that can be bought and sold were them-

it

mits

—

selves in a condition

—

of continuous change.

wrote in 1753, was one

in

A commercial

which the participants "as

happiness. "^20 Everyone, that

is

to say,

is

it

buying and

society,

Turgot

were, buy and

sell

selling; individuals

A

Fatherless World

243 |

are

buying and

selling social condition, happiness, Indian cotton, political

influence, defective goods, horses, places, consideration, the factitious be-

nevolence of the innkeeper. thing

is

It is

"the true

London maxim,

that every

to be got with money," Jane Austen wrote in Mansfield

This universality of transactions was not in

with which eighteenth-century observers were

itself

ParkP^

novel, in the history

familiar.

Like Seneca, Taci-

"own utility" (sua cuique utiliRome: "Everything was for sale [venalia cuncta]^''^

tus described the rise of "self-interest," or in

tas),

imperial

"everywhere there were auctions and speculators, and the lawsuits. "^22

turbed by

freedom of commerce, or

new circumstances of an incipientiy indefinite of a new interest in commercial freedom.

at least

For Smith's or Turgot's independent merchants were interested

which governed the of thing to

sell

sale

of bread and

including the risk of incurring a particular branch, they

choice of

means to

how

visits

to inns.

buying

They chose what

(which branch of commerce to embrace) on the

of their estimation of the

particular,

in

bread or visits to inns, and they were also interested in the rules

selling

part,

dis-

But the transactiveness of commercial society was

particularly unsettiing in the

and

was

city

riskiness ill

sort

basis, in

of a particular sort of commerce,

Once they were

repute.

established in

were confronted, repeatedly, with the further

to advance their

own

advantage.

They had

to choose, in

between the use of political and commercial (or "competitive") drive out their competitors.

They had

to choose

what

sort

of

people to be.

Smith

says

of the individual competitor in "the race for wealth, and

honours, and preferments," in the Theory of Moral Sentiments, that "he may run as hard as he can, and strain every nerve and every muscle, in order to outstrip

all

his competitors.

But

if

he should

any of them, the indulgence of the spectators uneasy circumstance, in the difficult to define,

real races

and defined

think and

feel.

The man who

or throw

down

entirely at an end."^24 jj^^

of commerce,

is

that jostiing

is

both

differentiy at different times. Conversation,

in Smith's domestic, sociable morality, uals correct their sentiments,

is

jostie,

is

one of the ways

and come to understand is

condemned

in

which

how

to spend his

few simple operations becomes incapable. Smith writes

life

individ-

other people

performing a

in the

Wealth of

Nations, of enjoying "any rational conversation," or conceiving "any generous, noble, or tender sentiment." But conversation can also lead one astray.

In one kind of (bad) conversation, in the Wealth of Nations, the

young boy

in a seaport

town

is

enticed, by "the sight of the ships and the

conversation and adventures of the sailors," to underestimate the dangers

Economic Sentiments

244 I

of the "lottery of the sea," and to go to

sea.

In another bad conversation,

"the great roads, the great communications" which

it is

of conversation

jects

"extreme

utility."

become the "sub-

detriment of

at the court," to the

"little

works" of

In yet another, even worse conversation, merchants en-

courage one another to compete by unjust means, or

at least

by jostling

merchants in other branches of trade: "People of the same trade seldom

meet together, even

merriment and diversion, but the conversation

for

ends in a conspiracy against the public. "^^^ It is

only the very immensity of commercial relationships, in these

cir-

cumstances, which can provide the foundation of civilized competition.

Smith seems to have been confident, the system of commercial freedom

like

Turgot and

Condorcet, that

like

would provide very much

less

opportu-

opposed to commercial) means of competition, than the system of commercial regulation. He be-

nity for conspiracy, or for the use of political (as

lieved, like

Turgot, and,

later, like

John Stuart

Mill, that "the conditions

of

any exchange cannot be unjust, except to the extent that they have been influenced by violence or fraud. "^^^

He

was confident that there would be

very litde opportunity for violence in a free, civilized, commercial society,

advantage to be derived from fraud. Condorcet imagined that in

and

litde

the

new world of the Tenth Epoch,

"the interest in acquiring things by

il-

means will present itself less ofi:en, to a smaller number of individuals," and that individuals will become better at estimating "the uncertainty of success, the dangers to which one is exposed, the reduction of legitimate

legitimate resources, occasioned by the loss of the confidence of others. "^^^

This prospect, founded on what Condorcet described as the is Smith's own best hope as well. The on the manners of a people," Smith said in his lec-

"crudest calculation of interest," "influence of commerce

on jurisprudence, is that they turn the most "fashionable" of virtues: tures

A dealer

is

of losing

afraid

ing every engagement. day, he cannot gain so

to "probity

a

ality in

would make him

it

.

.

we

Wherever dealings

much by any one

are frequent, a

Where somewhat

lose.

find that they are

man does not

contract as by probity and punctu-

the whole.

The commercial as

.

scrupulous in observ-

much by endeavouring to impose on his neigh-

bours, as the very appearance of a cheat

expect to gain so

is

as to

person makes perhaps 20 contracts a

people seldom deal with one another, disposed to cheat

and

his character,

When

and punctuality,"

society

becomes more

resilient,

on

this

becomes ever more enormous. But the opposite view

consoling view, is

also possible;

A it

was the advocate- general Seguier's view,

Fatherless World

245

for example, thirteen years be-

The isolated individuals of would not, on this view, cluster into orderly neighborhoods of commerce, in which their dealings would be repeated frequently over time. They would have fleeting, instantaneous, distant refore the beginning of the French Revolution.

the new, universal society

lationships.

chant

Smith

this year,

and

merchant the year

of the speculative merchant that he

said

wine merchant the next, and

a

after. "^^9

and

who

"a corn mer-

a sugar, tobacco, or tea

someone who

j^^^y ^[^q

changes in regulation this year,

is

speculates

on

next year buys regulations, or the

enforcement of regulations. The interest in "the general happiness of the society,"

Condorcet

said in

1776, "ceases almost absolutely for the owner

of money, who, by a banking operation, within an instant becomes English,

Dutch, or Russian";

so, too,

may

the interest in conforming to the

On

disposition, or the character, of the society.

one view, that

the swerving moleculae of the universe of commerce tend to orderly, or

more well

is

become more

disposed, as the size of the universe increases.

become

to say,

On the

They make innumerThey are not, perhaps, disposed to cheat. But their circumstances are even more insecure, in that they are not even certain what it is like to be a cheat, and what it is like to be well disposed. They are buying and selling, buying and sellopposite, frightening view, they

less orderly.

able contracts each day, but with distant, different people.

ing; in the end, they are

own

buying and

selling rules,

and customs, and

their

dispositions.

The which

theories of moral, political, I

and commercial enlightenment with

have been concerned have a similar composition, or aesthetic; the

composition of a system of sentiments, or of a swerving universe of individuals,

which

also the

same system,

is

at the

same time

a system.

in the sense that they

But the

different systems are

depend on one another. The of good-tempered

discursive political society, or the philosophical politics

discussion, requires a society of good-tempered, prudent moral senti-

ments;

this

the condition for civilized conflict.

is

The system of commerce power that

requires an orderly political constitution, in which the public defines the limits of commercial discussion,

and of orderly

political

economic competition and of commerce,

as has just

freedom

his

is

itself

reform; this

the subject of political

is

Condorcet's Pelion of

Ossa of constitutional choice. The system

been seen, requires

or a good-tempered, prudent society; this

a system is

of moral sentiments,

the condition of civilized

competition.

The odds,

in this lottery

of civilized

society, are cosmic; the probabilities

of political, economic, and moral improvement are

all

founded upon one

Economic Sentiments

246 I

another, and they

when he

Smith,

Macbeth's

eventually, turn out to be without foundation.

all,

hand, and Oedipus'),

invisible

in the system will

may

hand (which

uses the image of the invisible is

expressing his

of indefinite freedom of commerce, and

have good consequences for the

his

own

also

is

confidence

judgment

that

it

Condorcet, when he uses

society.

the similarly familiar, similarly unsecular image of the indissoluble chain

(which

is

also the chain

of the son of Louis XVI),

expressing his con-

is

judgment

fidence in the system of secular, discursive virtue,

and

his

have good consequences for the

But

their

too

will

society.

that

judgments

it

are

not the expression of sublime and important truths. They are judgments

about

how

people might

world without sublime truths; judg-

live, in a

ments about other people's judgments.

AWORLDUNRESTORED "The Emperor has

us in a prophetic agitation," Francois-Rene de

left

Chateaubriand wrote in 1841, in political society,

"everything

is

his

Memoires

outre -tomb e. In the

longer admitted, or everyone interprets them in his

which distances

commodities which emperor's

will disappear,

travel,

and

own prophecy was much

for all,"

no

fashion." There

is

Napoleon its

which

"it will

not only be

have wings. "^^^ The

will

the same, in his lugubrious reflections

Helena by the vexatious au-

in St.

thority of the British Indian Empire. It

nations," which, with

in

but also ideas which

on the Wealth of Nations, surrounded

commerce

own

of

life

are

"confusion of needs and images," an "anarchy of

a "universal society," a

ideas," in

and morality

transitory. Religion

was the system of "freedom of

said to Las Cases,

which "agitated

all

imagi-

revolution in property, "led naturally to indepen-

dence," and which was "entirely identical with equality." "I have not for-

gotten the power of the sentiment of equality over the imagination," he also said; "it

is

the passion of the century, and

1

am,

I

wish to remain, the

child of the century! "^^^

This view of the commercial imagination teaubriand's

—

^was quite

—Napoleon's view, or Cha-

unseemly, in the new, orderly Europe of the post-

Napoleonic restoration. Enlightenment was

1807 the dominion of pure

insight

and

its

in

Hegel's description of

diffiision,

ety like a perfume, or like an infection. Its

which seeps into

enemy was

faith,

and

soci-

faith

is

moves listlessly to and fro within itself. It has been expelled from its kingdom. "^^^ The political restoration of the 1810s was the return of faith to its kingdom, and kingdoms, all over Euconquered by consciousness;

"it

A

Fatherless World

247

rope. It was the reinstatement of faith in religion, in political authority, in

the security of thrones, in the subordination of dispositions, in the innocu-

ousness of philosophy, in the orderliness of science, in a France restored,

under the "paternal government of her kings. "^^^

The reconstruction of

political

economy

as

an innocuous, unpolitical

French Revolution, was

subject, in the generation following the

a part

the extended process of restoration. So was the First Empire itself

leon said to the Conseil d'Etat, in 1800: the Revolution: the time has

and possible

which

is

real

which

is

speculative

would be

come

"We

to begin

in the application

of

Napo-

have finished the novel of history, to see only that

its

of principles, and not that

and hypothetical. To follow any other path today,

to philosophize and not to govern. "^^^

As J.-E.-M.

Portalis,

Na-

poleon's minister of religion and the principal author of the Civil Code,

wrote

eulogy of Turgot's opponent Seguier, the emperor (the "au-

in his

gust liberator

who

has received into his arms a France torn apart by impi-

ousness and anarchy") had sought to "reestablish the settle

and confirm the

first of. empires."

Portalis said, to see the "rebirth in particular,

principle

altars, in

of France."

He would have

been pleased,

with the reconstruction of guild organization,

of order," in opposition to the

to the materialist

and

atheist spirit

order to

Seguier would have been happy,

"false speculations

as

"a great

of avidity," and

of the eighteenth century,

in

which phi-

losophers "saw nothing, everywhere, but sad games of chance. "^^^

One foundation of the long constituted political

nineteenth-century restoration was the re-

power of established

religion; the

reunion of eternal

and secular reverence. "Is the Nineteenth Century to be Eighteenth.^ Is

it

to extinguish

all

the Lights of

its

a Contrast to the

Predecessor.^

Are the

Sorbonne, the Inquisition, the Index expurgatorius, and the Knights Er-

and restored?" John Adams wrote November 1815, as they studied the news of the But the religion of the nineteenth century was

rant of St Ignatius Loyola to be revived

to

Thomas

Jefferson in

Congress of Vienna.

founded on the

revival

the century both in

of faith,

as well as

of power. "The

England and France was

John Morley wrote of the eighteenth century in

The estabUshed trast, lity,

its

lifeless

official religion

of

and mechanical,"

his essay

on Condorcet.^^^

religion of the nineteenth century was concerned, by con-

with the thoughts and feelings of men. The slow decline of incredu-

or the process by which "the respect for religion gradually recovered

empire," was in Tocqueville's description in Vancien regime

revolution, a matter institutions. It

of sentiments and memories more than of

was "the

fear

et la

political

of revolutions," Tocqueville wrote, which

Economic Sentiments

248 I

brought an end to the incredulity of the eighteenth century, or its

outward

signs;

it

was

a disorder

at least to

of the mind, more than of the heart, or

of morality, which had been the most extreme of all the

of the

irreli-

new security of individual

iden-

effects

gion of the Revolution.

The tities,

restoration was founded, too,

in the

on

a

world of Smith's and Condorcet's and Chateaubriand's cos-

mopolitan, stateless merchants. Condorcet wrote in 1792 that to require passports of those wishing to leave France was a "formal attainder against

freedom of one's "interests" and one's

individual freedom," including the "tastes";

it

was a way to make the individual "hate the country which one

can only make him love by the sentiment of his independence, and by the free exercise

of his

sion for the

new

faculties. "^^^

religion

But the 1790s were

of national

also a period

of expan-

For Napoleon's correspon-

identity.

dent Joseph Fievee, writing in 1802 from London, the sense of the "superiority"

of one's

own

nation was an "instinct," and one which had been

"cruelly betrayed by the French writers of the eighteenth century. "^^^ instinct

The

of national sentiment was reinforced, in turn, by a new security of

and of racial superiority; by what Benjamin Constant de1826 as "the new system which ingenious writers have established on the difference of races," and which for Constant was a "new pretext for inequality and oppression. "^^^ The restored security of the early nineteenth century was founded, even racial identity,

scribed in

more

new

on

ubiquitously,

restoration sect

and to

a religion

common

of science,

their enemies, the votaries

men

of the

of new revolutions.

The

to the

of "industry" in the 1820s, Constant wrote, takes

men who

tion "the pretention of certain

as its

founda-

proclaim themselves to be the

guides of everyone"; "the ideas of liberty have very litde to do today, this sect says, because

we

are entering an

to coordinate than to dissolve, and critical theories. "^^^

This was the

epoch where

where

spirit

it is

a positive

of the

much more

urgent

theory must succeed

scientific socialism

of the

middle of the nineteenth century; of the evolutionary view of class struggle, in the

words of Engels, which was "destined to do

Darwin's theory has done for biology. "^"^^ entific

Baptiste Say wrote; "our that

is

to say,

knowledge

we can succeed

gether compose this science tions,

economy

study of wealth. Political

.

It

is

.

.

[It] is

for history

also the spirit

what

of the

sci-

an experimental science, Jean-

in political

in discovering

from the moment when the

was

all

economy can be complete, the general facts which to-

established

principles

on unshakable founda-

which serve

rigorous deductions from unquestionable general

facts. "^^^

as its basis are

A All these

new

religions

Fatherless World

249

were expected, eventually, to transform the

dis-

positions of the multitude. For the reconstruction of order, in the post-

Revolutionary world, was to be a restoration, above

and unquestioned ways of thinking. The changes

many

so

all,

of unquestionable

in sentiments with

nineteenth -century observers were concerned

which

—Tocqueville's

"sort of inner shuddering" of the last decades of the ancien regime,

Southey's "great moral revolution" of the lower orders in England, the revolution "in the

Thomas

to

Minds of the People" of which John Adams reminisced

Jefferson, the decline in "opinions

tion" which so preoccupied the len manufacture

—

and

of subordina-

feelings

Committee of 1806 on the English wool-

^were the object,

throughout Europe, of continuing

wonder. They were juxtaposed, in different, shifting ways, to the changes

which took place

in the course

of the French Revolution

"most important of all revolutions ...

I

mean

itself;

to the

a revolution in sentiments,

manners, and moral opinions" which could be dated, in Burke's description, to

The

October

principles

6, 1789.1*7

of public instruction were in these circumstances of the

The

highest political interest.

some

desires in

common,

ultraconservatives of the restoration

Constant suggested

as

slyly in

"De

had

la liberte

des anciens comparee a celle des modernes," with the eighteenth-century

Mably and with Rousseau. Like Mably, they wished to educate men to be virtuous, and to obey the law. They wished to prescribe belief; they wanted the law to exercise its authority not merely enthusiasts of Sparta; with

over the deeds of individuals, but "to extend into their thoughts, their

most

fleeting impressions. "^^^

tion,

who

They

believed, like the

men

ations, to dictate to

them what they should

believe," that

should "take hold of new generations, to fashion them

The

of the Revolu-

sought, in Condorcet's description, to "take hold of new gener-

as

it

government

wishes. "^^^

no longer frightened by the Constant suggested. They understood that com-

conservatives of the restoration were

commercial disposition.

merce had become "the ordinary condition, the versal tendency, the true

life

single objective, the uni-

of nations." But they wanted an obedient, a

dependent, and for Constant a bizarre form of commerce. They wanted industrious subjects,

be

whose only

free, themselves, to give

jects

objective was happiness.

They wanted

to

happiness to their subjects. They wanted sub-

who were prejudiced and frivolous; who were easily led, with the

help

of "positive knowledge and the exact sciences. "^^^

There merce,''^

is

"a hidden relation between these two words: liberty and com-

Tocqueville wrote in 1835, in the journal of his voyage to England

Economic Sentiments

250 I

and

Ireland.

tence at

full

every

For to be

free

one has to become accustomed to "an

exis-

of agitation, of movement, of danger; to be always watchful, and

moment

to look around

one

uneasily; this

All these things are equally necessary to succeed in

disposition of commercial political oppression.

could

life

the price of liberty.

is

commerce. "^^^ But the

also, for Tocqueville,

be a source of

In one outcome, which was characteristic of France in

the late eighteenth century, the discontents of

hand with the disposition to revolution. In

commerce went hand

a different

characteristic, in Tocqueville's later description,

in

outcome, which was

of France under the Sec-

ond Empire, the effect of the commercial way of life was rather to distract individuals jects

from public

interests. It

turned them,

the imaginary sub-

like

of Constant's conservative statesmen of the 1810s and 1820s, into

the obedient dupes of oppression. It passions," with "the desire to

become

with "debilitating

any price, the

rich at

taste for busi-

of gain, the quest for well-being and for material enjoy-

ness, the love

ments." In an oppressive society of

them

ern. It encloses

relation to

filled their lives

in private

one another;

it

this sort, individuals are easy to

life; "it

isolates

them."

freezes

It

them;

it

gov-

makes them cold

makes them "tremble

in

at the

very idea of revolutions. "^^^

The

relationship

between the disposition of commerce and the

tion of political liberty was for Tocqueville the

nineteenth- century public

life.

The

unquiet, independent

gard inquietof the English, or, for Constant in 1819, the of modern individuals was sometimes, as in Manchester

—

in

Hamburg and

disposi-

overwhelming question of

mind

—the

re-

noble inquietude in the

Liibeck in the 1780s, an adjunct of liberty.

1830s, or

But

it

was

sometimes an adjunct of oppression; the oppression of incipient revolution, or

of the orderly, frightened

There

a

is

good

merce and viduals.

societies

of post-restoration Europe.

disposition of enlightenment, that

is

liberty are interrelated in the sentiments

There

is

a

to say, in

which com-

and opinions of indi-

bad disposition of enlightenment,

in

which individuals

own discontent, or by their own cupidity, in a soci-

are imprisoned

by their

ety of universal

commerce.

SUITABLE EQUALITY This book has been about an earlier and more unsuspecting world, in

which the agitation of commerce life

—was the subject of

—the unquiet imagination of ordinary

less fear. It

was

a

time of bounded uncertainty; an

uncertainty of which the consequences were expected to be

no more than

A

Fatherless World

251 |

But the disputes of this

a slow revolution.

suggested at

time are also familiar, as

earlier

the beginning of the book, in the

commerce of the The European

new

society of universal

early twenty-first century.

revolutions of

eventual end, after

two

1989-1991 have been taken is

to be the

epoch of a new and

cure political society; a universe of commerce. But there

which the

early twenty- first century

rather the

is

is

that

to say, of the epoch in

is

dom. The

Revolution, and to prevent or at least of security.

faith,

faith has

collective resolve to bring to

end of the epoch It is

the end,

been restored to her king-

an end the "novel" of the French

future revolutions, was itself a source of

all

It

less inse-

also a different

of the post- Revolutionary and post-Napoleonic restoration.

which

mark the

to

epoch of revolutions. The

centuries, of the long

twenty- first century, on this view,

view, in

I

was the foundation of the two hundred-

year-long coalition of laissez-faire and political conservatism, in which the

system of commercial freedom was in alliance, against Napoleon's

with the "old system" of political order.

stincts,

may now be I

have been concerned, in

in

It is this coalition

which

insecure.

which uncertainty and

last in-

is

this

book, with an economic thought in

the overwhelming condition of commercial society,

which "interference with the freedom and openness of the under-

standing," in the words Morley used of Condorcet, sacrilege. "^^^ It

odd,

is

at

the

moment of the most

is

"the worst kind of

enthusiastic triumph of

the system of "indefinite freedom of commerce," to remind oneself how

important uncertainty was to the greatest theorists of

much

they disliked enthusiasm. But there

is

a

how

this system;

new freedom

that has

come

with the eventual defeat, after almost two centuries, of the opposing tem, or of the positive theory of the coordination of economic

sys-

life. It is

a

freedom, or an opportunity, to remember a different economic enlighten-

ment. I

have talked often about the shortcomings of the

liberal

economic

The most obvious shortcoming is the one to which Napoleon pointed, in St. Helena. The system of economic freedom is founded on order.

the equality of all individuals, and

their

money

it is

at the

endless circle in which

ity 1 55 jj^jg js

to

buy power, to buy other

same time subversive of equalbecome rich, and use

individuals

individuals,

and to influence the

ways in which other individuals think. The imaginary world of the enlight-

enment

is

one

in

which no one

is

enormously

rich,

Hume wrote,

mously poor (or poor enough to be bought);

as

"Of Commerce,"

among

"a too great disproportion

and no one

is

enor-

in his essay

the citizens weakens

Economic Sentiments

252 any

state.

Every person,

in a full possession life.

if possible,

ought to enjoy the

fruits

of his labour,

of all the necessaries, and many of the conveniencies of

No one can doubt, but such an equality is most suitable to human na-

ture. "^^^

Smith seems to have assumed that equality

in this sense

was the

condition of mid-eighteenth-century England, and Condorcet tried to ensure, with his elaborate projects

the inequality of security, that

it

of

social insurance, or insurance against

would be the condition of late eighteenth-

century France. But they also expected that the disproportion citizens

would continue to ebb and

Mona

merce. Equality, in

flow, in

all

among

future systems of

the

com-

Ozouf's description, summarizing the debates

over universal public instruction in which Condorcet was involved during the early years of the French Revolution, was "not a condition, but a process

of becoming. "1^7

The

insidious shortcoming of the liberal

cumstances,

is

the system's

security, or the

economic system,

insecurity. It

is

all

security.

Smith and Condorcet

ent ways, confident in the fijture of the sort, in the

at the

same

They were

each, in differ-

human disposition. They had faith,

ordinary virtues of conversation, and in the ordinary ex-

changes of political discussion. They believed, uals in

it is

lived in an imagina-

which was prodigiously uncertain by the orderly standards of

the early twenty-first century; a fatherless world.

of a

in these cir-

founded on the (minimal)

(minimal) equality, of all individuals, and

time subversive of tive universe

own

commercial

societies

like

Constant, that individ-

longed for individual independence, and not,

They beodd condition of humanity, which was for Smith the characteristic virtue of women, and which for Condorcet was a word on the lips of all tyrants. They believed, even, in their own capacity, and in the capacity of others, to live without certainty. This is much more difficult in the

like

Tocqueville, that they were frozen in individual isolation.

lieved in the

twenty-first century.

that

But our ordinary enjoyments

Adam Smith described in December

cal style

of Thucydides: "It

and give us

is

are

still

a litde like those

1762, in a lecture on the

histori-

these uneasy emotions that chiefly affect us

a certain pleasing anxiety. "^^^

Notes

Acknowledgments Index

NOTES

Abbreviations Corn

The Correspondence of Adam Smith. 2nd ed. Ed. E. C. Mossner and Ross. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987.

EPS

Adam J.

Smit±i. Essays on Philosophical Subjects. Ed.

and

G. Stein. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978.

and

Smith. Lectures on Rhetoric

Clarendon

ford:

Belles Lettres.

Ed.

J.

C. Bryce. Ox-

Press, 1983.

Oeuvres de Condorcet. Ed. A. Condorcet

O'Connor and M.

F.

Arago.

Firmin Didot, 1847-1849.

Paris:

OT

D. Wightman and

Smith. Lectures on Jurisprudence. Ed. R. L. Meek, D. D. Raphael,

P.

LRBL Adam

OC

P.

S.

C. Bryce. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980.

Adam

LJ

W.

I.

Oeuvres de Turcot

et

documents

le

concernant. Ed. Gustave Schelle. Paris:

Alcan, 1913-1923.

TMS

Adam Smith.

The Theory ofMoral Sentiments. Ed. D. D. Raphael and A. L.

Macfie. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976.

WN

Adam

Smith.

An

Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Na-

Ed. R. H. Campbell and A.

tions.

S.

Skinner. Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1976.

Introduction 1.

WN,

664;

p.

Schmidt 2.

Comte de Las

(Paris: Editions

du

Cases, Le

Seuil,

Memorial de Sainte-Helene,

ed. Joel

1968), 2:1441-42.

"Discours preliminaire," in Jean-Baptiste Say, Traite d^Economie Politique, ou simple exposition de la maniere dont se forment, les richesses {V^iYis:

se distrihuent, etse

consomment

Deterville, 1803), pp. v-vi, xxv; Jane Marcet, Conversations

on Political Economy; in which the Elements of that Science are familiarly ex2nd ed. (London: Longman, 1817), pp. 5-6.

plained, 3.

"Sur

le

prejuge qui suppose une contrariete d'interets entre Paris et

inces" (1790), in

les

prov-

OC, 10:136. 255

Notes to Pages 3-8

256 I

4.

Condorcet,

of 1771 to Count Pietro Verri, in OC, 1:282-284;

letter

[J.

B.

de La Porte], Le defenseur de Fusure confondu, ou refutation de Vouvra^c intitule: Theorie

de Vinteret d^ar0ent (Paris: Morin, 1782), pp. 1-3, 9.

5.

"Discours preliminaire," in Say, Traite d^Economie Politique,

6.

George Pryme,

An Introductory Lecture and Syllabus,

the University of

Cambridge, on

to

p. vi.

a Course delivered in

the Principles of Political

Economy (Cam-

bridge: Smith, 1823), pp. 3, 6. 7.

G. W.

F.

Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit {IS07),

Oxford University 8.

trans. A. V. Miller

(Oxford:

Press, 1977), p. 31.

"Sur I'instruction publique" (1791-92), in OC, 7:536-537; on Condorcet's conception of social science, see Keith Baker, Condorcet: From Natural Philosophy to Social Mathematics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

1975). 9.

10.

"An Early Draft of Part of The Wealth of Nations,'' in LJ, p. 570. Thomas Robert Mai thus. An Essay on the Principle of Population, as it affects the Future Improvement of Society, with Remarks on the Speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and other Writers (1798), in The Works of Thomas Robert Malthus, ed. E. A. Wrigley and David Souden (London: William Pickering, 1986), 1:5.

11.

Immanuel Kant, The Contest of Faculties, in Kant's Political Writings, Hans Reiss (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 183.

12. This

in a letter

is

ed.

of February 27, 1799. See Robert Darnton, "Condorcet

and the Craze

for

traits from the

American

America

in France," in

Franklin and Condorcet: Two Por-

Philosophical Society (Philadelphia:

American Philo-

sophical Society, 1997), p. 37. 13. "Avertissement" to the Esquisse despro^fres, in 14. Arthur

OC, 6:282.

Condorcet O'Connor, Le Monopole cause de tous

les

maux

(Paris:

Firmin Didot, 1849), 1:51. 15.

Condorcet was

critical

of the new society of the United States on several

grounds, including the continuing regulation of commerce, the persistence

of slavery, and certain remaining limitations on religious tolerance. "De fluence de la revolution d'Amerique sur I'Europe" (1786), in I'instruction publique," in

1. 1.

I'in-

OC, 8:13; "Sur

OC, 7:434^35.

Economic Dispositions

LRBL,

pp. 112-113. These are students' transcriptions of lectures which

Smith gave

in

1762-63

at the

University of Glasgow. Smith had

that the lectures should be published, his manuscripts, including the text

fore his death. See

Adam

p.

Life

327.

3.

"Account," pp. 271, 291-292, 314-315. Smith to Andreas Holt, October 26, 1780, in Corr,

4.

WN,

2. Stewart,

pp. 25, 30.

intention

virtually

all

of earlier lectures on rhetoric, shordy be-

Dugald Stewart, "Account of the

Smidi, LL.D." (1793), EPS,

no

and he indeed destroyed

p.

251.

and Writings of

Notes to Pages 8-10 5.

William Robertson, The History of the Rei^fn of the Emperor Charles F (London: Strahan, 1769), 1:18-20; after Charlemagne, Robertson wrote, "the darkness returned, and settled over Europe

merly"

more

thick and heavy than for-

(p. 20).

commerce des

6. "Lettres sur le

prets d'argent" (1770), in 7.

257

"Monopole

et

"Memoire

grains" (1770), in OT, 3:326;

sur les

OT, 3:192.

monopoleur" (1775),

in

OC, 11:43; Laurence

Sterne,

A Sen-

timental Journey (1768) (London: Penguin Books, 1986), pp. 33, 38. Sterne's book was extraordinarily popular in France in the 1770s and 1780s.

Two of its most notable Julie

de Lespinasse,

admirers were Condorcet's friends Amelie Suard and

who

indeed adopted the name "Eliza,"

loved Anglo-Indian Eliza Draper (which was also the pet

after Sterne's be-

name

given later to

Condorcet's daughter). See Francis Brown Barton, Etude sur ^influence de

Laurence Sterne en France au dix-huitieme pp. 25-37,

and Correspondance

siecle (Paris:

inedite de Condorcet et

Hachette, 1911),

Mme.

Suard, M.

Suard, et Garat (1771-1791), ed. Elisabeth Badinter (Paris: Fayard, 1988), pp. 139, 180. 8.

9.

pp. 25-26, 29. L/.p. 352.

10.

TMS,

11.

W,pp.

12

Reflexions sur

.

13.

p. 50.

120,768. le

commerce des hies ( 1 776 )

"Reason and sentiment concur clusions,"

David

Hume

,

in almost

OC, 11:161, 191.

in

moral determinations and con-

all

wrote in the Enquiry concerning

the Principles of

Morals, and they also concur, or coexist, in the commercial relationships that

Smith and Condorcet describe. David

man

Understanding and concerning

Hume,

Bigge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), 14.

Giacomo Leopardi, "Zibaldone

Enquiries concerning the

Hu-

the Principles of Morals, ed. L. A. Selby-

172.

p.

di pensieri," in Tutte le opere, ed.

Walter

Binni (Milan: Sansoni, 1993), 2:1213-16, 1234-35. 15. "'Sentiments'

and

'passions,' as

Hume

uses those terms, are far from exclud-

They positively require them," Annette Baier has In Hume's theory of morality, based on "reflective passions and cor-

ing thought and judgment. written.

rected sentiments," thought flection"

A

Baier,

and "correction,"

is

as essential as

it is

to pure reasoning; both "re-

in turn, are essentially sociable activities.

Progress of Sentiments: Reflections on

Hume's

Treatise

Annette

(Cambridge,

Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991), pp. 180-181. See also Peter Jones,

Hume's

Sentiments: Their Ciceronian

and French Context (Edinburgh: Uni-

John Mullan, Sentiment and Sociability: The Language of Feeling in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988); and Chapters 5 and 8. On Smith's account of emotions and judgment, see Mar-

versity Press, 1982);

tha C.

Nussbaum,

Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination

and

Public Life

(Boston: Beacon Press, 1995). 16. "Letter to the 17.

W^,

Edinburgh Review'' (1756),

in

pp. 285, 376, 405, 412, 711-717>. In

EPS,

p.

253.

Duncan

Forbes's description,

Notes to Pages 10-13

258

Smith gave "the theme of commerce and in the nature of man,"

and

this

is

liberty a philosophical foundation

in turn related to "the

chological factor in social progress [which]

is

most important

the fact that

men

psy-

are highly

sensitive to the opinions and feelings of others." Duncan Forbes, "Sceptical Whiggism, Commerce, and Liberty," in Essays on Adam Smith, ed. Andrew S. Skinner and Thomas Wilson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), p. 194. 18. "Of Commerce," in David Hume, Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, ed. Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1987), p. 265. 19. Reflexions sur le commerce des bles, in OC, 11:197, 201, 207-208.

21.

W^,p. 910. WN,p^. 145,

22.

W,p.

23.

WN,p. 96. Hume, "Of Commerce,"

20.

24.

376.

412.

p.

265.

25. WiV, pp. 96,99-101. 26. Condorcet, Esquisse d^un tableau historique des pro£rres de Fesprit humain, in

OC, d-.lZl-ll^, 27.

WN,

pp. 782, 783, 788; Essai sur la constitution et lesfonctions des assemblees

OC, 8:476-477; "Sur I'instruction publique" (1791OC, 7:192; and see Chapters 4 and 8. See also Emma Rothschild, "Condorcet and Adam Smith on Education and Instruction," in Philosophers on Education: Historical Perspectives, ed. Amelie Oksenberg Rorty (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 209-226. 28. "The History of Astronomy," in EPS, p. 50; Smith also speaks in his history provinciales {17 SS), in

92), in

of ancient physics of the "pusillanimous superstition" which was characteristic

of the

"first

ages of the world," and which consisted in the ascription of

"almost every unexpected event, to the arbitrary

though 29.

invisible beings."

"The History of Ancient

"Of Superstition and Enthusiasm," Astronomy,"

in

EPS,

in

Hume,

will

of some designing,

Physics," in EPS, p. 112.

Essays, p.

78;

"The History of

p. 50.

30. "Alexander the False Prophet," in The Works ofLucian, trans. A.

M. Harmon

(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), 4:235. This is the work of Lucian's of which Smith says in his lectures on rhetoric that "few things are

more

entertaining," and which

Enquiry Concerning

Human

Hume

describes at length in the

Understanding: LRBL,

p. 52;

Hume,

Enquiry,

pp. 120-121; and see Chapter 5. 31. David

Hume,

A

Treatise of

Human

Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford:

Clarendon Press, 1978), p. 444; TMS, p. 30. 32. "Fragment de I'histoire de la Xe epoque," in OC, 6:566-567. 33. 34.

TMS, pp. 32-33. TMS, p. 164; WN,

35. WiV, pp. 36.

WN,

37.

On

p.

797.

285,418,610.

pp. 729, 828; Esquisse desprogres, in

OC, 6:171.

anxiety and authority in sixteenth-century England, see Stephen Green-

Notes to Pages 13-16

259 |

blatt,

Shakespearean Ne^fotiations: The Circulation of Social Ener£fy in Renais-

sance England (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), chap.

5.

38. ly^.p. 798. 39.

"Monopole et monopoleur," bles, in OC, 11:205,223.

40.

WN,

pp.

in

OC, 11:45, 54;

Reflexions sur

le

commerce des

664,910.

41. LJ, pp. 50, 61, 120, 430, 480. 42. Esquisse, in

OC, 6:14; "Fragment de

de

I'histoire

la

Xe epoque,"

OC,

in

6:594.

OC, 7:259. OC, 4:182.

43. "Sur I'instruction publique," in 44. Vie de Voltaire (1789), in 45.

A

"Reform der Denkungsart," a change in the "Sinnesart des Volks." Immanuel Kant, "Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklarung.>" (1784), in Werkaus£[abe, ed.

What

61;

is

Wilhelm Weischedel

(Frankfiirt:

Suhrkamp, 1968), 11:55,

Hans

Enlightenment"? in Kant^s Political Writings, ed.

Reiss

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), pp. 55, 59. 46. Ian Ross and David Raynor, "Adam Smith and Count Windisch-Gratz:

New

Letters," Studies on Voltaire

and

the Eighteenth Century,

358 (1998),

172.

W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit (ISO?) Oxford University Press, 1977), pp. 329, 331.

47. G.

,

trans. A. V. Miller

48. Johann Gottfried Herder, Journal meiner Reise

Reclam, 1976),

p. 79;

Robert Southey,

"On

im Jahr 1769

(Oxford:

(Stuttgart:

the state of the Poor, the princi-

on Population, and the Manufacturing System" and Political (London: John Murray, 1832), pp.

ple of Mr. Malthus's Essay

(1812), in Essays, Moral

110-111. This new disposition or

spirit

of the times, Southey

said,

was asso-

"Adam Smith's book is the

ciated with the "manufacturing system," of which

code, or confession of faith" (p. 111). 49. Tore Frangsmyr, Sdkandet efter Upplysningen:

En

essd

om

1700-talets svenska

kulturdebatt (Uppsala: Wiken, 1993), pp. 13-32; Franco Venturi, Europe des lumieres: recherches sur le ISesiecle (The Hague: Mouton, 1971), p. 3; Robert

Darnton, "George Washington's False Teeth",

March 27, 1997,

p. 34;

J.

Islew

Tork Review of Books,

G. A. Pocock, Barbarism and Religion,

vol. 1,

The

Enlightenments of Edward Gibbon, 7737-77(54 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1999), pp. 7, 9.

50. "It was an overall purpose of Enlightenment to discourage physical certainty,"

Pocock

writes; the disposition

all

forms of meta-

of enlightenment was a

condition both of the writers (some of them philosophers or philosophes) of

whom this was the intention, and of all the other, less philosophical individuals,

51.

who might come, eventually, to live without certainty.

and Religion, 1:250. "What Morellet did in France, why should I not do that Journal meiner Reise im Jahr 1769, pp. 29, 80, 86-87.

Pocock, Barbarism

elsewhere.^" Herder,

52. "Apologie de I'abbe Galiani," in Denis Diderot, Oeuvres, ed. Laurent Versini

Notes to Pages 16-18

260 I

Robert Laffont, 1995), 3:123-160; "Observations sur

(Paris: ibid.,

53.

Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, St.

54.

le

Nakaz,"

576-577. N.

trans.

Kemp Smith (New York:

Martin's Press, 1965), p. 412.

A quality relative to "universal human inclinations and needs" thus has a market price (Marktpreis); a quality relative to taste alone (such as "wit, lively

imagination, and ties

humour") has

a

luxury price (Affektionspreis); moral quali-

based on "the maxims of the will" (such

"kindness based on princi-

as

Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, trans. H. J. Paton (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), pp. 102-103. See also Kant's observations on the market price of talent, the luxury price of temperament, and the inner worth,

ple") have "an unconditioned and incomparable worth."

beyond

all

price,

of character. Anthropolo^ie in pragmatischer Hinsicht, in

Kant, Werkaus^fabe, 12:634. 55. D'Alembert, "Elements de Philosophic" (1759), quoted in Ernst Cassirer,

The Philosophy of the Enlightenment,

C. A. Koelln and James

trans. Fritz

P.

Pettegrove (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951), p. 4. 56.

Edmund

Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), ed. Conor

Cruise O'Brien (London: Penguin Books, 1982), pp. 170, 188. 57. Alexander Carlyle, Autobiography of the Rev. Dr. Alexander Carlyle (Edin-

burgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1860), p. 547. 58. Kant, 59.

What is Enli^fhtenment? pp. 55-56,

59.

Anderson proposed to publish reports from "gendemen in foreign parts," which could be submitted either to "mercantile houses" with Edinburgh connections (from Venice to Elsinore), or to the editor (written, "if possible,"

on "one sheet undivided;

small, pays a separate postage").

for in Britain every slip

of paper, however

James Anderson, "To Foreign Correspon-

dents," The Bee, or Literary Weekly Intelligencer, 1 (1791), xvii-xxviii.

60. Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, pp. 171, 183, 213, 308, 359.

Pocock, in

his pluralist

account of European "Enlightenments," argues that

"Burke himself was an Enlightened

figure,

hghtened Europe against the ^ens de sors."

who saw

lettres

and

himself defending En-

their revolutionary succes-

Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, 1:7, 251. Burke's Reflections, with

—

on the changing use of metaphors of light confine the terms enlightened and liberal to one

observations

means to

"if this

set

its

gendeman

of men

in

Eng-

land," he says of Richard Price, and, of Talleyrand's views of enlightened usury, "if the nary, as

it

word

always

is

'enlightened' be understood according to the in

your new schools"

—was of

in the diffiision in English, in the course

the

new dictio-

vast influence, undoubtedly,

of the 1790s, of the

word "enlightened," and of the conception of a

sect

political use

of

of enlightenment.

Burke, Reflections, pp. 182, 308-309. 61.

Abbe

Barruel, Memoires pour servir a Vhistoire

du Jacobinisme (London: Le

Boussonier, 1797), 1:27, 316, 382-383; 2:128. 62. William Playfair, "Introduction," in

Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature

Notes to Pages 19-23

261 |

and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 11th ed., ed. Playfair (London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1805), l:xvi-xvii, xxx; many of the meetings were supposed to have been concerned with subsidizing the price of irreligious books. 63. Alexis de Tocqueville, Vancien regime et la Revolution (1856), ed. J. -P. Mayer

Gallimard, 1967), pp. 230-231, 238-240, 255-263,

(Paris:

283-

286. 64. Ibid., p. 257.

65.

On the crisis of "the movement of the Enlightenment" in the fifteen years which preceded the Revolution and the relationship between "social history and political economy," see Venturi, Europe des lumieres, pp. 28-29; see also

Politics, and Political Economy in the Rei^n of Louis XV, vol. 2 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976). 66. TMS, p. 229. 67. "Sur I'instruction publique," in OC, 7:215; Esquisse, in OC, 7:224-225; and

Steven L. Kaplan, Bread,

see Chapter 7.

68.

WN,

p.

456.

69. "Eloge de Vincent de

Gournay" (1759),

in

OT, 1:602, 605, 620; "Fonda-

tions"(1757),in OT, 1:591. 70. Ferdinand Galiani, Dialogues sur

1984),

p.

le

commerce des

bles

(1770)

(Paris: Fayard,

175.

71. "Apologie de I'abbe Galiani," in Diderot, Oeuvres, 3:132, 138. 72.

Note

(p), in

chap. 3, in

WN,

p.

The Wealth of Nations, ed. Playfair, 2:253 (comment on Book 4, p. 493); note (f), 2:559 (comment on Book 4, chap. 8, in

WN,

660).

73. Jean- Jacques Rousseau, Discours sur

les sciences et les arts,

ed. Jean Varloot

Gallimard, 1987), pp. 44, 61, 76; d'Alembert, "Lettre a J. -J. Rousseau, citoyen de Geneve," in Rousseau, Discours, p. 373; "Droit Naturel," in (Paris:

Diderot, Oeuvres, 3:44, 47. 74.

"Of Refinement Chapter

in the Arts," in

Hume,

Essays, pp.

270-271, 277; and

see

8.

75. "Essais sur

la

peinture pour faire suite au salon de 1765," in Diderot,

Oeuvres, 4:506.

76. Salons of 1761 and 1763, ibid., 4:218, 278. See Pierre Rosenberg,

"Un

peintre subversif qui s'ignore," in Chardin, ed. Rosenberg (Paris: Editions de la

Reunion des musees nationaux, 1999),

p. 33.

77. Letter of 1785, in Corr., p. 286; The Autobio£fraphy ofJohann Wolfyan^i von Goethe, trans.

John Oxenford (Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 1974),

2:350. s'est passe au Lit de Justice, Tenu par le Roi a Versailles, Mardi douze Mars 1776 (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1776). The texts of the six edicts are printed in OT, 5:200-213, 218-229, 234-238, 238-255, 260-

78. Proces-Verbal de ce qui le

265, 267-269, and a long extract from the Proces-Verbal m OT, 5:273-295. 79. "Lit de Justice," in OT, 5:288.

80. Jean-Etienne-Marie Portalis, Elo^e d^Antoine -Louis Se^uier, avocat-£jeneral

Notes to Pages 23-28

262 I

au Parlement de Paris (Paris:

Nicolle, 1806), pp. 66-67, 80, 82; see also,

Seguier, Kaplan, Bread, Politics,

and Political Economy,

on

vol. 2, chap. 9.

81. "Lit de Justice," in OT, 5:295. 82. Jacques Necker, Sur la le£fislation etle commerce des grains {\7 7^), in Oeuvres completes {V2ins: Treuttel

and Wiirtz, 1820),

1:5,

126-128, 131.

OC, 11:9, 15, pp. 43-44, 47, 182, 270-271.

83. "Lettre d'un laboureur de Picardie" (1775), in 84. Tocqueville,

Vancien regime,

18.

271,273,276. VAncien Regrime et la Revolution: Fra£fments et inedites sur la Revolution, ed. Andre Jardin, in Oeuvres completes, ed. Mayer (Paris: Gallimard, 1952-1953), vol. 2, pt. 2, pp. 37-38, 44-47. 87. Tocqueville, Vancien regime, pp. 72, 280, 291. 85. Ibid., pp.

86. Alexis de Tocqueville,

88.

J. -P.

WN,^^. 341-345.

89. Tocqueville,

Fragments 90.

notes

Vancien regime,

et notes, p.

p.

373, and VAncien Regime

"They acted by the ancient organized

states in the

and not by the organic moleculae of

zation,

et la

Revolution:

381.

a

shape of their old organi-

disbanded people":

this

is

Burke's description of the English during the Restoration and the Revolution.

Burke, Reflections,

91. Herder,

p.

106.

/owm^/ meiner Reise im Jahr

1769, pp. 94-95, 114-115.

92. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile (1762), in Oeuvres completes (Paris: Pleiade,

1969), 4:596, 633. 93. Johann

Georg Hamann,

Briejwechsel, ed.

Arthur Henkel (Wiesbaden:

Insel,

1965), 5:290-291; idem, Sdmtliche Werke, ed. Josef Nadler (Vienna: Herder, 1951), 3:279. See also Jean Blum, La vie

du

''Mage

Nord,''

Berlin, The

1730-1788

Magus

Irrationalism, ed.

(Paris: Felix

of the North:

J.

G.

Voeuvre de J.-G. Hamann,

et

Hamann and

Henry Hardy (New

le

Alcan, 1912), pp. 289, 515; Isaiah the Origins of Modern

York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux,

1994), pp. 107-108. 94. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, pp. 339, 353, 359-360; idem. Philosophy of

Mind p.

(1830), trans. William Wallace (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971),

256.

95. Louis-Gabriel-Ambroise de Bonald, "Observations sur

de Condorcet," in Oeuvres completes, ed.

J. -P.

Migne

un ouvrage posthume (Paris:

Migne, 1864),

1:721-723. 96. "Sur

PEconomie

Politique," ibid., pp. 297, 299;

"De

la

Richesse des Na-

tions," ibid., p. 309.

97.

TMS,^. 157.

98.

WN, WN, WN,

99.

100.

pp. 142, 310, 496, 563, 947.

pp. 138, 157, 394, 405, 636, 639, 648, 734, 823, 853.

898-899, 927, 936. Vexation is also one of Laurence Sterne's "vexation upon vexation," as in the eventual wreck of the post-chaise. Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy pp. 827,

preoccupations:

(1759-1767) (London: Penguin Books, 1985),

p.

494.

Notes to Pages 28-31 101.

"Memoire

263

|

Emma

sur les prets d'argent," in OT, 3:161-164, 199; see also

"An Alarming Commercial Crisis in Eighteenth- Century Angouleme: Sentiments in Economic History," Economic History Review, Rothschild,

51,2 (1998), 268-293. 102. Reflexions sur le commerce 103.

Thomas

des

bles,

OC,

in

11:

145-146, 191.

Paine, The Rights ofMdn, pt. 2 (1792) (London:

J.

M. Dent, 1956),

pp. 153, 158,238.

104. Esquisse, in OC, 6:190-191.

105.

"De

la

nature des pouvoirs politiques dans une nation libre" (1792), in OC,

10:607; "Sur I'impot progressiP (1793), in OC, 12:632. 106. "Lit de Justice," in OT, 5:288. 107. Burke, Reflections, pp. 194, 197, 351-352. Burke's eulogy to the fiscal state was the object of considerable merriment, even to his fi-iends. Philip Francis

wrote in

copy of the Reflections that

his

"if I

understand

this stuff,

he means

to affirm that public virtue increases with the increase of the revenue

the

more the people

are taxed below, the

Francis says that he himself

money and opinion,

comes

virtue are not related

if it

had suited

his

.

more

which he

.

Mr B would

repair the

then

have been of the same

Of Burke's famous

on the proponents of political reform

as nearly as possible in the style

would you

.

purpose." These are annotations in the copy of

Library at Harvard University.

calls

.

to the "opposite conclusion, viz that .

the Reflections that Burke sent to Francis in October 1790,

Houghton

.

virtue there will be above."

to

now

in the

peroration, in

"make the reparation asks, "In what style

of the building," Francis

government of Morocco.^"

108. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Friend, in The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), Vol. 4, pt. p.

1,

198.

109. Leo Tolstoy,

War and

Peace, trans.

Rosemary Edmonds (London: Penguin

Books, 1982), pp. 1188-91. 110. "Fragmente" (1810), in Adam MuUer, Ausgewdhlte Ahhandlungen, ed.

Jakob Baxa (Vienna: Gustav Fischer, 1931),

Adam Miiller,

Entreprise," in

p.

86; "Der Staat,

als niitzliche

Vermischte Schriften iiber Staat, Philosophic

und

Kunst {Yicnn2i: Heubner, 1817), 1:228. 111. Comte de Las Cases, Le Memorial de Sainte-Helene, ed. Joel Schmidt (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1968), 2:1441. 1 12. Burke can be credited with one of the first great pubUc uses of "market" in its most

abstract sense,

ment appears Thoughts and

at

when he writes,

market,

all

in

1795, that "the

moment that govern-

the principles of market will be subverted."

Details on Scarcity, in The Works of the Ri^fht Honourable Ed-

mund Burke (Boston:

Little,

Brown, 1894), 5:154;

see also Chapter 2.

113. Burke, Reflections, pp. 134, 194. 114. "Monopole et monopoleur," in OC, 11:41.

115. "Reflexions sur

la

jurisprudence criminelle" (1775), in OC, 7:8.

116. "Foire" (1757), in OT, 1:580.

Notes to Pages 31-36

264 I

117. Proces-Verhal, p. 39; "Declaration Royale supprimant lice, ainsi

que

les droits et offices etablis a Paris

118. "Lettre d'un laboureur de Picardie," in

merce des 119. This

bles,

in

les

reglements de po-

sur les grains," in OT, 5:221.

OC, 11:21;

Reflexions sur

le

com-

OC, 11:235.

Gustav SchmoUer's phrase, quoted in Anton Zottmann, Die Wirt-

is

schaftspolitik Friedrichs des Grossen (Leipzig:

120.

WN,pp. 136-137,

121.

WN,

472, and

p.

Franz Deuticke, 1937),

p. 26.

141.

fn.

60; TMS, p. 230.

122. Sir Lewis Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III

(1957) (London: Macmillan, 1961), 123.

pp.

p.

45.

471-472.

124. Burke, Reflections, pp. 197-198. 125. 126.

WN, WN,

pp.

793,797.

pp. 157-158.

127. Vie de M. Turcot, in OC, 5:28, Reflexions sur

11:200; and see Chapter 128. Sur 129.

les

WN,

le

commerce des

bles,

in

OC,

6.

OC, 8:391. OC, 6:264.

assemblees provinciales, in

797;

p.

Esquisse, in

130. "Lit de Justice," in OT, 5:279, 288, 291, 293. 131.

WN,

pp. 135-136.

132. Felicite de Lamennais, Essai sur ^indifference en matiere de religion (Paris:

Tournachon-Molin, 1820), 1:88-89, 158. On criticisms ofVoltaire's double religion, or irreligion, see Owen Chadwick, The Secularization of the Euro-

pean Mind in

the Nineteenth

Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1975), pp. 10, 104.

133. Tocqueville, L^ancien regime, pp. 238-239, 259-260. 134. [Abbe Barruel], Les Helviennes, ou Lettres Provinciales philosophiques, 4th ed., (Paris: Briand,

1789), 1:5.

135. "Lit de Justice," in OT, 5:290, 293. 136. Lamennais, Essai sur ^indifference, 1:52, 390. 137. Rapport sur ^instruction publique. Fait

parM.

au nom du Comite de

Constitution,

Talleyrand-Perigord (Paris: Assemblee Nationale, 1791), p. 4; and see

Chapter

8.

138. Vie de Voltaire, in OC, 4:20. 139. Letters of December 26, 1769; February 2, 1770;

March 23, 1770; and December 21, 1770, in OT, Z\77 374, 384, 398-399. Tocqueville says of Turgot that "the taste for poHtical freedoms" came to him only late in life, and Turgot's projects of public education of the early 1770s his promise to Louis XVI, in a memorandum drafted by Dupont de Nemours, of a "new ,

—

people" als,

—are

far less

concerned with the rights of humanity, or of individu-

than Condorcet's later proposals. Tocqueville, L^ancien regime, p. 2S7\

"Memoire Chapter

sur les municipalites" (1775), in

OT, 4:580-581, 621; and see

6.

140. Letter of July 10, 1769, in The Letters of David ford:

Clarendon Press, 1932), 2:205; see

Hume,

ed.

J.

Y. T.

also n. 1, in C