Riot, Debauchery and the Science of a Legislator

I have argued that it is the actual process of sympathetic interaction within a specific socio-economic nexus, that makes society possible, and not any particular set of social structures.

It is this process of social interaction which renders society both universal and coherent. Deviant behaviour will of course occur, when men let their self-interest override the judgement of the impartial spectator — this is why an adequate legal system is both necessary and, at a very basic level, sufficient, for society to function but the overall pattern is one of conformity and coherence.

Smith, however, recognises that there is a wide range of potential and actual imperfections in this dynamic process. These imperfections are not in any sense ad hoc or contingent, but are necessary concomitants of his basic model. Indeed, as we shall see, it is a fundamental implication of his perspective that the imperfections in question will, in the absence of corrective measures, get worse as the division of labour proceeds.

The range of imperfections to be discussed is very wide indeed, covering monopoly, restrictive practices, faction, dual standards of morality, inequality of income, debauchery in the towns, loss of martial vigour, the restriction of the individual’s intellectual and cultural development, his ‘estrangement’ from society, the maladministration of justice and the corruption of political power.

Many aspects of this process have been recognised by those writers who have sought, within Smith’s work, anticipations of Marx’s views on alienation, and some of the recent literature will be examined in detail (in so far as it concerns Smith) below.¹ Indeed ‘alienation’ presents itself as a possible term to label the set of imperfections to be discussed in the present work. I have however rejected this, partly because of the dangers of an anachronistic ‘reading backwards’ inherent in the use of Marx’s term, to discuss Smith’s concepts, but mainly because ‘alienation’ is a concept which is much narrower than the range of problems we are to examine. A much better candidate for the task is ‘corruption’, which was in common use in the eighteenth century, and was indeed used by Smith on occasion. However, since I wish to avoid conflating the position taken here, with that to be found in the contemporary literature on corruption (discussed below), I have chosen the term ‘social estrangement’ to cover the problems of incomplete universalisation as interpreted here.

We can begin a detailed analysis of Smith’s view of social estrangement by recalling that, like many of his contemporaries,

Riot, Debauchery and the Science of a Legislator he held that men were roughly equal in innate ability, and that their diversity was largely the result of the division of labour. As he puts it:

The difference of natural talents in different men is in reality much less than we are aware of and the very different genius which appears to distinguish men of different professions... is not upon many occasions so much the cause as the effect of the division of labour. (WN, I.II.4.² See also LJ: 1766, p. 493.)

We have already seen that in Smith’s dialectical model, ‘social reality’ is shaped by the underlying structure of economic organis­ation, and that the individuals whose labour constructs the social nexus, are themselves constrained and formed by the nature of their labour within the context of prevailing institutions and customs. As he says in the Wealth of Nations: ^ζ... the understandings of the greater part of men are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments.’ (MW, V.I.f.50.)

This is a line of argument which occurs frequently in Smith’s writing, and which he illustrates with numerous specific examples, as for instance, when he discusses commerce in the towns, in Chapter IV of Book III of the Wealth of Nations:

The habits... of order, economy and attention to which mercantile business naturally forms a merchant, render him much fitter to execute with profit and success, any project of improvement.³

or again, in his essay entitled ‘Of the External Senses’, he says, concerning differences in visual ability:

... it no doubt, may sometimes depend upon some differences in the original configuration of their eyes, yet seems fre­quently to arise altogether from the different customs and habits which their respective occupations have led them to contract.

and he goes on to illustrate the point by reference to ‘men of letters’ and mariners.

This thesis is of course from the ‘individual’ side of his model; it is concerned with the formation of the individual, not with the

formation of macro-social structures. Both are really aspects of the same process, being parts of a dialectical interaction, in which the individual shapes the society, and the society shapes the individual; but for the purpose of analysis they will here be examined separately.

It was suggested above (Chapter 5) that when Smith comes to apply his division of labour concept to an exchange economy, the concept itself undergoes a qualitative transition to become his ‘special theory’ of socio-economic development. It takes on a much more institutional content and functions in the context of a specialised society in which ‘exchange-value’, rather than feudal obligations and rights⁴ has become the medium which binds men into society. It is this specialisation that makes possible the greatly improved standard of living enjoyed by all in the exchange economy; but it is important to realise that, as in the development of language and machinery, specialisation for Smith is a process of simplification. Men become more productive in the process of performing simpler tasks.⁵ As the exchange economy develops, therefore, men are engaged in increasingly simple tasks; given the thesis that men are formed by their productive labour, it is, therefore, (ceteris paribus) inevitable that they should become narrower in outlook. Smith’s account of this is quite explicit:

In the process of the division of labour, the employment of the far greater part of those who live by labour, that is, of the great body of the people, comes to be confined to a few simple operations frequently one or two. But the under­standings of the greater part of men are necessarily formed by their employments. The man whose life is spent in per­forming a few simple operations...

It is for this reason that Smith regards the farm labourer, who works in a sector where the division of labour cannot be taken very far, as being greatly superior to the specialised worker in manufacturing. Of the former he says:

His understanding, however, being accustomed to consider a greater variety of objects is generally much superior to that of [the mechanic] — whose whole attention from morn­ing till night is commonly occupied in performing one or two very simple operations. (f⅝V, I.X.C.24.)⁷

Smith is saying in effect, that the socio-economic context in which the individual labours, largely determines his intellectual and cultural development, and the increasing simplification which the division of labour produces, results in a severe restriction of that context. He is thus cut off from the full range of experience that is necessary for him to develop his full potential. The reference to ‘those who live by labour’ is important; the vast majority of the people are shaped and developed by their employment, but there are other ways of providing the stimulus that promotes intellectual development. One of the most important of these, as we shall see, is education.

However, one of the problems of the increasing simplification of labour is that education tends to be neglected

... where the division of labour is not far advanced, even the meanest porter can read and write... A boy of 6 or 7 years of age at Birmingham can gain his threepence or sixpence a day, and parents find it to be in their interest to set them soon to work. Thus their education is neglected. (LJ∙. 1766, p. 541.)

This not only cuts off the growing child from sources of ‘thought and speculation’ but also has detrimental effects on parental authority. The end result of this process of intellectual and cultural deprivation is that the grown man has no interests outside of work and drunken debauchery.

... their work thro’ half the week is sufficient to maintain them, and thro’ want of education they have no amusement for the other but riot and debauchery. So it may very justly be said that the people who clothe the whole world are in rags themselves. (Z/: 1766, p. 541. See also WN, V.I.f.52.)

The same themes of fragmentation and contextual impoverish­ment are to be found in Smith’s discussions of the migration of rural workers into the growing towns. As the division of labour increases, the prospect of higher wages in the towns causes labour to leave agriculture and domestic service and enter manufacture.

While he remains in the country village his conduct may be attended to, and he may be obliged to attend to it himself... But as soon as he comes into a great city he is sunk in obscurity and darkness. His conduct is observed and attended to by nobody, and he is, therefore, very likely to neglect it himself, and to abandon himself to every sort of low profligacy and vice. (WN, V.I.g. 12. See also TMS, I.iii.2.1.)

Further, the pernicious effects of the increasing division of labour are not confined to mental, cultural and moral impoverishment, for it also,

... corrupts even the activity of his body, and renders him incapable of exerting his strength with vigour and persever­ance, in any other employment than that to which he has been bred. (WN, V.I.f.50.)

And this results in a loss of ‘martial spirit’ and in cowardice, so that, in the absence of corrective action by the state he becomes

... a man incapable either ofdefending or revenging himself... He is as much mutilated and deformed in his mind, as another is in his body, who is either deprived of some of its most essential members, or has lost the use of them. (MW, V.I.f.60.)

Taking Smith’s discussions of the ill effects of specialisation in their entirety, it seems that he presents a fair summary when he says that: ‘His dexterity at his own particular trade seems... to be acquired at the expense of his intellectual, social and martial virtues’ and that, ‘... in every improved and civilised society this is the state into which the labouring poor, that is the great body of the people, must necessarily fall, unless government takes some pains to prevent it.’ (MW, V.I.f.50.)

To this we can add the ‘estrangement’ of the individual, in the Hegelian sense of the word, in that, as his work becomes more specialised, he is unable to comprehend his role in society, or his active part in creating social structures. As Smith puts it:

But though the interest of the labourer is strictly connected with society, he is incapable either of comprehending that interest, or of understanding its connection with his own. His condition leaves him no time to receive the necessary information, and his education and habits are commonly such as to render him unfit to judge even though he was fully informed. In the publick deliberations, therefore, his voice is little heard and less regarded... (WN, I.XI.P.9. See also V.I.f.50 and V.I.f.61.)

We can now generalise all of this by relating it to the interpretation of Smith’s model already developed. The individual is formed by a process of sympathetic interaction which takes place within a progressively developing material context, which is specified by the level of the division of labour. As the division of labour proceeds, what was a more or less universal context within which all men interacted, becomes increasingly fragmented into a number of sub-contexts. This results in a narrowing of the range of formative experience and the development of the indivi­dual is thus distorted resulting in his mental, moral and physical ‘mutilation’. He is cut off from important aspects of human cultural, moral and political activity, and his potential, measured relative to the overall level of human development in his society, is not fully realised.

So far we have only examined the effects of this process upon the formation of the individual, but as we would expect, given the dialectical nature of Smith’s model, they have analogous effects at the macro-social level. It is to these that we now turn. Here again we will find a firm linking of the stage to which the division of labour has progressed, and the degree of social estrangement to be expected.

As the division of labour proceeds, so there is a progressive fragmentation of the population into more or less discrete sub-sets. In part, this is a consequence of the resultant demographic changes for whilst: ‘The inhabitants of the country, dispersed in distant places, can not easily combine together’ (WN, I.X.C.23) this is not the case when they have been attracted to the towns, where, because of the possibility of greater specialisation: ‘Industry... must be better rewarded, the wages of labour and the profits of stock must evidently be greater...’ (HW, I.X.C.21).

Here:

The inhabitants of a town, being collected into one place, can easily combine together. The most insignificant trades carried on in towns have accordingly, in some place or another, been incorporated; and even where they have never been incorporated, yet the corporation spirit, the jealousy of strangers, the aversion to take apprentices, or to commu­nicate the secrets of their trade, generally prevail in them, and often teach them, by voluntary associations and agree­ments, to prevent that free competition which they cannot prohibit by bye-laws. (WN, I.X.C.22.)

In addition to these demographic changes, we find that there is an increase in the number of trades and specialisation into which the business of the towns is divided, for:

In all commercial countries the division of labour is infinite and everyone’s thoughts are employed about one particular thing. In gold trading towns, for example, the linen merchants are of several kinds; for the dealing in Hamburg, and Irish linens are quite distinct professions... Each of them is in great measure unacquainted with the business of his neighbour. (LJ: 1766, p. 540.)

or again, ‘Country gendemen and farmers dispersed in different parts of the country, cannot so easily combine as merchants and manufacturers collected into towns’ (WN, IV.II.21. See also IV.V.b.15 and IV.VIII.34).

The increasing division of labour thus fragments the contextual framework within which sympathetic interaction takes place, and since the ideas and actions of men are largely shaped by that context, there is a corresponding social fragmentation. The rules, conventions and habits of specific groups no longer reflect the interests of society as a whole. The interactive process which had previously enabled practical reason to form institutional structures which reflected the interests of a whole society, now functions in a restricted and distorted context. In short, in the absence of corrective action there will be a loss of generality, simplicity and coherence; what in this context I have called social estrangement.

This will manifest itself in many different ways. Perhaps most obviously, there will be a tendency to form monopolies and engage in restrictive practices. ‘People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the publick, or in some contrivance to raise prices’ (WN, I.X.C.27).

Smith, on numerous occasions makes an explicit linking between the level of the division of labour, and the tendency to place restrictions upon free competition. Thus:

When manufactures have advanced to a certain pitch of greatness, the fabrication of the instruments of trade becomes itself the object of a great number of very important manufactures. To give any particular encouragement to the importation of such instruments would interfere too much with the interests of these manufactures. Such importation, therefore, instead of being encouraged, has frequently been prohibited. (MW, IV.VII. See also I.XI.P.10.)

This discussion of the detrimental effects of partial interests is typical of many such treatments in the Wealth of Nations', a similar line is taken concerning the activities of corn merchants (IV.V.a.22), woolen manufacturers (IV.VIII.17) and merchants in general (IV.VIII.51 et seq).

The tendency to strive for a monopoly situation also manifests itself in the way that Britain’s colonies are administered. In the case of‘our American and West Indian colonies’...:

A great empire has been established for the sole purpose of raising up a nation of customers who should be obliged to buy from the shops of our different producers, all the goods with which these could supply them. (WN, IV.VII.53. See also WN, IV.VII.C. 62-63.)

Smith goes on to point out that over two hundred million pounds of public money has been spent on this enterprise, and huge public debts incurred to protect the interests of a minority group of ^ς... our merchants and manufacturers [who] have been by far the principal architects’ (WN, IV.VIII.54).

As the division of labour proceeds, social estrangement also manifests itself in the formation of different ‘orders’, or ‘subaltern societies’ whose interests do not always reflect those of society as a whole. As the editors of the ‘Glasgow’ edition of the Wealth of Nations have pointed out

... Smith spends a good deal of time in describing the ‘subaltern’ societies which comprise the state and the loyalties which they attract; an interesting emphasis when we recall that Part VI was the last major work Smith completed, together with the emphasis given to the economic pressure groups, especially in the Wealth of Nations, Book IV.⁸

Often the interests of such groups distort the formation of legal and political structures. Thus...

Whenever the legislative attempts to regulate the differences between masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the masters. (WN, I.X.C.61.)

and

Whenever the law has attempted to regulate the wages of workmen, it has always been rather to lower them than to raise them. (WN, I.X.C.34.)

and he goes on to show that the law can be far from impartial because of this. He takes a similar approach when discussing the opening of home markets to foreign competition, where he writes:

The legislature, were it possible that its deliberations could always be directed, not by clamorous importunity of partial interests, but an extensive view of the general good, ought to be particularly careful neither to establish any new monopolies of this kind, nor to extend further those which are already established. (WN, IV.II.44. See also IV.VII.C.63.)

The same forces which call forth these pressure groups also result in a growing inequality of income, and the increasing subordination of the poor by the rich:

Civil government supposes a certain subordination. But as the necessity of civil government gradually grows up with the acquisition of valuable property, so the principle causes which naturally introduce subordination gradually grow up with the growth of that valuable property. (WN, V.I.b.3.)

and

In a society of a hundred thousand families, there will be perhaps one hundred who don’t labour at all, and who yet, either by violence or by the orderly opposition of the law, employ a greater part of the society than any other ten thousand in it. The division of what remains too after this enormous defalcation is by no means made in proportion to the labour of each individual. On the contrary those who labour most get least. (‘Early draft’ of The Wealth of Nations, p. 327.)

The process of fragmentation which accompanies an increase in specialisation is also to be found in the formation of moral rules and principles. Here again the contextual framework within which sympathetic interaction takes place is restricted, and less than universal structures emerge. In the Theory of Moral Sentiments, he contrasts the ‘uncorrupted’ morality of the lower orders with that of the people of rank (I.iii.2.4 et seq and V.2.5), whilst in the Wealth of Nations, this uncorrupted morality becomes the ‘austere’ morality of the lower ranks. Thus:

In every civilised society, in every society where the distinction of ranks has once been completely established, there have always been two different schemes or systems of morality current at the time; of which one may be called strict or austere; the other the liberal or if you will the loose system. (HW, V.I.g.10.)

Finally, the effects which the division of labour has upon the individual’s ability to defend himself have their counterpart at the macro-social level. Smith in fact provides a long discussion of this issue at the start of Book V of the Wealth of Nations, showing that whilst it is the ‘first duty of the sovereign’ to protect society from external aggression by means of a military force,

... the expense both of preparing this military force in time of peace, and of employing it in time of war, is very different in the different states of society, in different periods of improvement. (BW, V.I.a.l.)

and he goes on to give an account of this development, beginning with a nation of hunters. In commercial society, he says, the division of labour causes two specific problems: Firstly, whilst the agricultural worker can leave his land for a considerable period, without any substantial loss of revenue, ⁱ... the moment that an artificer, a smith, a carpenter or a weaver, for example, quits his workhouse, the sole source of his revenue is completely dried up’ (WN, V.I.a.9).

Secondly, the art of war itself is subject to specialisation and it becomes necessary that ‘...it should become the sole or principal occupation of a particular class of citizens, and the division of labour is as necessary for the improvement of this, as of every other art’ (WN, V.I.a.14).

It is, therefore, necessary to have either a militia, or a standing army (or both)⁹ and, despite his being a founder member of the Edinburgh Poker Club, which actively promoted the opposite view, Smith, in the Wealth of Nations, makes it clear that a standing army is to be preferred {WN, V.I.a.23). The reasons he gives for this preference are again expressed in terms of the division of labour; greater specialisation will give greater skill in the management of arms (WN, V.I.a.24) and ‘the habit of ready and instant obedience’ (WN, V.I.a.25).¹⁰

This then is social estrangement. The problems discussed have in common that they are all aspects of the tendency towards an incomplete universalisation of society, that follows from the increasing division of labour. Their apparent heterogeneity tends to conceal the fact that they have underlying similarities, being derived from the same model, and being closely linked to his underlying epistemological approach.

Smith’s presentation of the negative aspects of the division of labour is unambiguous, and his treatments of the topic are exten­sive. We cannot dismiss such discussions as being merely ad hoc observations based upon his keen empirical study of eighteenth­century society, for, as I have tried to show, they are logical implications of the assumptions and formal structure of his model. However, discussions of the potentially detrimental effects of the division of labour are balanced in Smith’s work, by rather more frequent reference to the advantages of specialisation. We must take at least a brief look at such statements, and it will again be convenient to make a — somewhat artificial — distinction between the ‘individual’ and the ‘macro-social’ effects of the division of labour. We can begin with the individual, as formed by society, and look at two aspects of his condition, one being his material welfare as measured in terms of the goods and services provided for a given expenditure of labour, and the other being his non­material welfare, moral, aesthetic and intellectual.

For the first, a single quotation will serve to illustrate a theme which is pervasive in the first two books of the Wealth of Nations. In Book I, Chapter I, Smith says, when discussing the effects of the division of labour

... without the assistance and co-operation of thousands the very meanest person in a civilised country could not be provided, even according to, what we very falsely imagine, the easy and simple manner in which he is commonly accom­modated. Compared indeed, with the more extravagant luxury of the great, his accommodation must no doubt appear extremely simple and easy; and yet it may be true, perhaps, that the accommodation of a European prince does not always so much exceed that of an industrious and frugal peasant, as the accommodation of the latter exceeds that of many an African king, the absolute master of the lives and liberties of ten thousand naked savages. (FKV, I.I.1.)

As implied in this quotation, Smith holds that wealth, originally acquired by the ‘superior’ ranks of society, will, despite the problem of social estrangement, filter down to the lower ranks gradually raising their standard of living. Thus:

It is the great multiplication of the products of all the different arts, in consequence of the division of labour which occasions, in a well governed society, that universal opulence which extends itself to the lowest ranks of the people...’ [Because of this] ‘...a general plenty diffuses itself through all the different ranks of society. (FKV, I.I.11.)

Smith does not work with a subsistence theory of wage determination¹¹ since tastes are socially defined, both relatively and absolutely, and there is therefore a progressive growth in workers’ expectations and attainments as the division of labour proceeds.¹² As long as the division of labour is increasing, the standard of living will tend to rise and as we have seen, this ‘advancing’ society is the standard case in Smith’s dynamic model.

There is thus a clear implication that the material welfare of all classes in society will increase as the division of labour proceeds; an implication that seems strongly opposed to the negative impli­cations, discussed above. Smith however explicitly rejects the view that the ultimate ‘good’ lies in the material prosperity of the individual.¹³ It is true that he values an increase in aggregate wealth, but as Viner has pointed out, this is

... because it makes possible an increase in handsome buildings and great avenues in the towns, the ‘magnificence’ so extolled by the writers of classical antiquity and of the Renaissance, but he treated these as public rather than individual riches.¹⁴

The ultimate good here lies not in the wealth itself, but in the aesthetic and cultural improvements that it makes possible.¹⁵

Just where final values do reside is not entirely clear, for Smith never really provides us with a definitive statement upon the subject. Indeed, it has been claimed that this is one of those areas where his tendency to introduce theological (or perhaps, Stoical) platitudes at crucial moments, prevents him from pushing his analysis as far as he might otherwise have done. However, taking the totality of his discussions on the subject of final values, and bearing in mind the criteria that he uses in his basic epistemology, it seems highly probable that he saw them as being bound up with moral, aesthetic and intellectual progress, as well as with the quasi-stoical conception of ‘propriety’, or fitness for a given end (see Chapter 7).

Fortunately, for our present purposes, he does make it clear that material progress — and thus the division of labour — is a precondition of the sort of non-material progress that we have been examining. For instance, he is reported as saying:

Tis the Introduction of Commerce, or at least of opulence that is commonly the attendant of Commerce which first brings on the improvement of Prose — Opulence and Commerce commonly precede the improvement of arts and refinement of every Sort. I do not mean that the improvement of arts and the refinement of manners are the necessary consequences of Commerce — the Dutch and Venetians bear testimony against me — but only that [it] is a necessary requisite. (LRBL, p. 137.)

Or again in the Theory of Moral Sentiments, he says:

Before we can feel much for others, we must in some measure be at ease ourselves. If our own misery pricks us very severely, we have no leisure to attend to that of our neighbour; and all savages are too much occupied with their wants and necessities to give much attention to those of another person. (TMS, VII.ii.2.5.)

These passages are characteristic of many of Smith’s discussions of the effects of the division of labour, and again their tone is in apparent contradiction to his more negative discussions, which although they are in a minority, are still numerous enough to be significant.

Turning to the macro-social level we again find that the majority of Smith’s pronouncements on the implications of the division of labour are favourable. He frequently contrasts the honest and sober frugality of the new commercial order with the dissolution of the spendthrift landowning order that had preceded it, and he holds that commerce and manufacture will inculcate habits of thrift, punctuality, discipline and industry in the lower classes of society, whilst those maintained by the ‘expense of revenue’ are ‘corrupted’ by their mode of existence. Indeed, he goes so far as to say that

... commerce and manufactures gradually introduced order and good government and with them the liberty and security of individuals, among the inhabitants of the country, who had before lived almost in a continual state of war with their neighbours, and of servile depending upon their superiors. This though it has been the least observed, is by far the most important of their effects. (WN, III.IV.4. See also III.IV.11 el seq.')^,6

Smith’s normal position is that division of labour brings steady improvements to society in its morality, laws and institutional structures, and that increasing specialisation is of advantage to all (WN, III.I.1 et seq).

We have then, both at the level of the individual and at the macro-social level of Smith’s model a series of apparent contradic­tions between its ‘negative’ and its ‘positive’ implications, and these occur in connection with both the material and the non­material aspects of a developing society. Both sets of implications are the logical outcome of his metascientific world-view, being the product of his synthesis of aspects of rationalism and Associationist empiricism; neither consists merely of ad hoc empirical observations.

That Smith himself saw the contradiction is made clear by this passage from the ‘early draft’ of the Wealth of Nations-.

The poor labourer who has the soil and seasons to struggle with, and, who while he affords the materials for supplying the luxury of all the other members of the commonwealth, and bears, as it were, upon his shoulders the whole fabric of society, seems himself to be pressed down below ground by the weight and to be buried out of sight in the lowest foundation of the building. In the midst of so much oppressive inequality in what manner shall we account for the superior affluence and abundance commonly possessed even by this lowest and most despised member of civilised society, compared with what even the most respected and active savage can attain to. (Early draft of the Wealth of Nations, p. 328.)

The apparent contradictions outlined above have led numerous writers to suggest that there is a fundamental dichotomy in Smith’s work. West for example, distinguishes between Smith the sociol­ogist, and Smith the economist, and says that: ‘Proceeding from the different starting points the sociological and economic methods thus yielded different results.’ (West, 1964, p. 31.)¹⁷

With the economic method producing optimistic conclusions, whilst the sociological method led to the opposite view, West considers that:

Smith’s selection... on one causal condition — the division of labour — was perhaps a hasty and rather doctrinaire attempt to apply a contemporary behaviouristic philosophy to a problem which sociologically was much more complica­ted than he imagined. Confronted with large groups of apparently stupid people, his sense of outrage led him to overstate his case against the factory system so wildly as to contradict the more objective findings of the economic analysis of the division of labour. (Ibid.)

This passage is highly interesting, in that West explicitly interprets Smith as working within a causal-deterministic (‘behaviourist’) methodology, and then, unable to reconcile Smith’s apparently contradictory conclusions with this structure, introduces the economic-sociological distinction to explain the dichotomy. His distinction must, I think, be held to be an anachronism of the type discussed above (Chapter 3). There is no convincing evidence that Smith, explicitly or implicitly, worked with different methodologies in his Wealth of Nations analysis of concrete socio-historical situations; in fact, as has been demonstrated above, his work is remarkable for its homogeneity of approach. West has not seen that Smith’s conclusions, both ‘optimistic’ and ‘pessimistic’, are logical implications of the one set of assumptions. This is made very clear by his assertion that Smith’s view of the inferiority of town people compared with country people ^ζ... may well have been prejudice, but there is no doubt that Smith treated it as established fact.’ (Ibid.) — when in fact Smith’s conclusion is a direct implication of his interactive model.

A similar charge of‘dualism’ is levelled against Smith by Lamb. He criticises West, who he says:

In his efforts to compartmentalise the various aspects of alienation into ‘powerlessness’, ‘isolation’ and ‘self­estrangement’ has lost sight of their interaction in the total system of Smith’s moral theory. (Lamb, 1973, p. 281.)^l8

But despite this, Lamb says that the explanation of the contradictions in Smith’s treatment of the division of labour

... would appear to be that Smith’s statements about the socialising effects of the division of labour are based on his abstract model of society built up from conjectural individual propensities originating in man’s innate tendency to truck, barter and exchange. On the other hand, his critique of the division of labour’s effect on detail factory labourers is drawn from observations of the real social effects of such institutions on individuals. (Ibid., p. 278.)

so that there are ^ζ... two methods employed by Smith: one leading to an abstract theory of capitalism; the second to socialist criticism of existing society.’ (Ibid.)¹⁹

On this interpretation, Smith’s ‘abstract’ model seem distinctly inadequate, since it yields implications that are apparently opposite to empirically observed conditions.

Lamb’s position is in many respects very close to that of West; the essential difference between them being confined to the relative weighting they give to Smith’s positive and negative discussions of the effects of the division of labour. West concludes that ‘... of the three aspects of alienation so far outlined only the third (self­estrangement) could have possibly been intended in Smith’s writ­ing.’ (West, 1969, p. 7; see note 17) — and that, in any case:

In his ‘alienation passage’ Smith seems in fact to be giving us no more than his own impressionistic view of what workers are like in factories, together with his own personal view of what they ought to be like. (Ibid.)

Lamb, however, believes that Smith considered that ‘... workers in some ways were self-estranged, powerless, and isolated.’

Two points can be made in criticism of this whole debate: Firstly, it is unfortunate that West (in his 1969 paper; see note 17) suggests that ‘... alienation from work includes especially feelings of powerlessness, isolation and self-estrangement’... and then proceeds to, more or less, confine his discussion to these three, somewhat arbitrary, categories. Lamb tends to accept these categories, and to dispute West’s interpretation within the same framework. In fact as a definition of Marxian (or indeed ‘Smithian’) alienation these categories are severely inadequate; in particular they reduce drastically the portions of Smith’s writings that seem relevant to alienation. It is for this reason that West claims there is only one ‘alienation passage’. West also has a thoroughly mistaken interpretation of Marx’s prescriptions for the removal of alienation, and couples him with Rousseau in urging a return to ‘organic primitivism’ (West, 1969, p. 20; see note 17).

Secondly, West and Lamb have focused their attention on opposite sides of Smith’s model, with West giving most weight to its ‘positive’ implications, and Lamb, its ‘negative’ aspects. This polarisation is a direct result of their interpretation of Smith’s methodology; they see him as doing social science within the causal-determinist perspective, that is now standard. Given this interpretation, there is no possibility of reconciling his apparently contradictory statements. The interpretation presented in the present work yields very different conclusions, which can be presented as follows:

At the level of his ‘special theory’ of the exchange economy, Smith’s dialectical materialist model takes on a great deal of institutional content, which is not present at the level of the ‘general theory’. His treatment does not simply involve drawing out the implications of a causal-deterministic theory and testing them against empirical observation, as West and Lamb tacitly assume; it is much more ‘rich’ in the sense of incorporating actual historical content into its dynamic concepts. The central division of labour model is, at this level, a highly complex construct designed to explain — to reflect, or make comprehensible — the actual course of development (as perceived by Smith) of commer­cial society. It is a crucial feature of such constructs, that in so far as there are considered to be contradictory tendencies in the actual social world, they should be mirrored within the model, which should in turn provide a theoretical explanation for them.²⁰ Provided the model does offer an internally consistent theoretical resolution of actually existing contradictory trends depicted by it, such contradictions are surely not a weakness in the model, but a strength.

That such a theoretical resolution exists in Smith’s model, becomes clear if we consider its overall structure.²¹ For it is one of its central features that there is, in the interaction between individual and society, a process of ‘creative destruction’ during which socio-economic institutions can evolve in response to the needs of a progressively developing society. Skinner puts the point rather well in his introduction to the 1970 edition of the Wealth of Nations-.

On Smith’s argument, the existence of selfish (or at least self regarding) propensities suggests that those facets of human nature which incline man to the social state cannot be sufficient to sustain it in any degree of harmony or order. In other words certain sources of control are required over the self regarding activities of individual men; sources of control such as the rules of justice and morality...

and further:

Smith’s discussion of the necessity and origin of those general rules which guide the activities of men is of great importance... briefly stated it may be said that some aspects of human nature require certain sources of control, while others ensure that they do in fact develop.²²

This interpretation is broadly consistent with the present perspective, which can now be further developed by looking at the measures Smith proposes to alleviate the negative effects of the division of labour.

It has been argued above that social estrangement in his model results, in every case, from a fragmentation or distortion of the contextual framework within which the attributes of the individual are formed. To further support this view, it must now be shown that each of the remedies that Smith proposes can also be interpre­ted from this perspective, as measures aimed at providing an adequate context for the formative dialectical interaction. We can now begin by noting that whilst specialisation results in the individual being confined within a highly restricted context, the range of experience available to society as a whole is greatly increased. As Smith puts it:

Though in a rude society, there is a good deal of variety in the occupations of every individual, there is not a great deal in those of the whole society... In a civilised state, on the contrary, though there is little variety in the occupations of the greater part of individuals, there is an almost infinite variety in those of the whole society. (f½V, V.I.f.51.)

The social context, taken in its entirety, is thus much richer in range and content, as the division of labour proceeds, and the collective knowledge of its specialists will increase. Further, because of the growing division of labour, some individuals will become specialists in studying society in its entirety. For such people:

The contemplation of so great a variety of objects necessarily exercises their minds in endless comparisons and combina­tions, and renders their understandings, in an extraordinary degree, both acute and comprehensive. (f½V, V.I.f.51.)

Rosenberg has, in fact, made both these points, in a valuable contribution to the West/Lamb debate discussed above.²³ He says,²⁴ concerning the effects of the division of labour on the lower classes:

There are, however, important forces working in the opposite direction, for the collective intelligence of society grows as a result of the very process which causes the understanding of the ‘inferior ranks of people’ to become increasingly defec­tive. For the increased productivity resulting from specialis­ation and division of labour is evident too in those trades which are concerned with the production of new knowledge.

And in an advanced society:

Although then the model level of understanding is very low, the highest levels of scientific attainment permitted by the extensive specialisation in the production of knowledge are quite remarkable. The collective intelligence of the civilised society then, is very great and presents unique and unprece­dented opportunities for technical progress.

Whilst agreeing that this interpretation squares very well with what Smith has to say on the subject, I would want to go somewhat further than Rosenberg, and add this: Given the overall structure of Smith’s model, it is clear that if the collective intelligence of society is growing, then there is potential for the individual, who is formed within the social nexus, to develop along with society. This is why Smith sees education as being so crucial. Its role is to break through the barriers of social estrangement that tend to form as the division of labour progresses, and which divide society into, more or less, discrete sub-sets, and to impart some of the knowledge gained by society as a whole, to even the meanest labourer’s child. In short, education is seen by Smith as another aspect of ^llabour^,, which is capable of making its contribution to the formation of the individual, outside of the restricted framework of his increasingly specialised working environment. Education thus provides the stimulation and variety that is denied to the industrial worker, and can be regarded as a vehicle for transmit­ting the better aspects of a developing society to the individual. This interpretation rather neatly explains Smith’s frequent criticisms of the universities;²⁵ since they continue to transmit outmoded forms of knowledge and morality, they fail in their central function of combatting social estrangement in the society of 1776. Indeed they are not just behind the times; it is rather that they are appropriate to the previous stage of social develop­ment and not to commercial society.

Smith re∞gnises that the ‘common people’ have little time, money or even inclination for education, but holds that: ‘For a very small expense the public can facilitate, can encourage, and can even impose upon almost the whole body of the people, the necessity of acquiring those most essential parts of education.’ (WN, V.I.f.54.)

He takes a similar line concerning the loss of martial spirit and physical fitness which tend to follow from the impoverishment of context that the division of labour engenders, holding that these effects will follow unless the government, ‘takes proper pains to support’ military exercise (WN, V.I.f.59). Such a policy, whilst it would not eliminate the need for a specialised standing army, would supplement it with a well-trained populace, from which a militia could be raised. A smaller standing army would, therefore, suffice.

Further, a well-trained populace would also reduce the dangers of political corruption, implicit in a standing army.

As it would very much facilitate the operations of that army against a foreign invader, so it would obstruct them if unfortunately they should ever be directed against the constitution of the state. (_tWN, V.I.f.59.)

However, these effects, though welcome, are secondary to the contextual enrichment that government action can promote, for:

Even though the martial spirit of the people were of no use towards the defence of the society, yet to prevent that sort of mental mutilation, deformity and wretchedness, which cowardice necessarily involves in it, from spreading them­selves through the great body of the people, would still deserve the most serious attention of government. (WN, V.I.f.60.)

The deleterious effects upon the morality of the lower orders which follow from specialisation, and its associated demographic movements, also require the attention of the state. The ‘profligacy and vice’ to which the town dweller tends follow from the distorted contextual framework within which the sympathy mechanism has to function. The anonymity of the specialised worker in a large town causes an attenuation of the process which should confine his behaviour within socially acceptable limits, and the state must seek to remedy this defect. It is for this reason that Smith holds that the state should promote competition amongst the churches, in the belief that this would persuade people to become members of religious sects (½W, V.I.g.8 et seq).

The town dweller

... never emerges so effectively from this obscurity, his conduct never excites so much the attention of any respectable society, as by his becoming the member of a small religious sect. He from that moment acquires a degree of consideration which he never had before... In little religious sects, accordingly, the morals of the common people have been almost always remarkably regular and orderly... (WW, V.I.g.12.)

Indeed he considers that such a strengthening of the framework within which sympathetic interaction can function might result in morality being too ‘rigorous and unsocial’, and that the state, therefore, has a further role in promoting ‘painting, poetry, music (and) dancing’ and in encouraging the study of ‘science and philosophy’ (WN, V.I.g.13 et seq.).

The measures discussed above have several things in common. Each is addressed at combatting some aspect of social estrange­ment as it affects the individual; each requires the intervention of government, and, each involves a deliberate ‘enrichment’ of the environment within which the increasingly specialised worker functions. Upon the present interpretation we can see these measures as attempts to restore the generality of the contextual framework within which the process of sympathetic interaction functions. Both problems and solutions are closely linked to Smith’s fundamental model of socio-historical development, and are in no sense ad hoc. Upon this view Marx’s statement that: ‘For preventing the complete deterioration of the great mass of the people by division of labour, A. Smith recommends education of the people by the State, but prudently, and in homeopathic doses.’²⁶ — severely underestimates the importance of the measures proposed by Smith, and misunderstands the grounds upon which they are based.

We must now turn to the macro-social aspects of social estrange­ment. It was argued above that the fragmentation of society, which follows from the increasing division of labour, leads to partial interests entering into combination against the rest of society, and thus to monopolies, restrictive practices, faction etc. Unchecked, such forces would seriously affect the process by which universal and coherent structures should be evolved, and thus distort the long-term working of practical reason. What checks are in fact available, within Smith’s model, to ensure that these problems do not become too severe? Let us begin with a distinction that Smith makes when discussing retaliatory restrictions on foreign trade in Book IV of the Wealth of Nations. Such retaliations may on occasion be of value, in forcing foreign powers to repeal their own restrictive measures, he says, and

... to judge whether such retaliations are likely to produce such an effect, does not, perhaps, belong so much to the science of a legislator, whose deliberations ought to be governed by general principles which are always the same, as to the skill of that insidious and crafty animal, vulgarly called a statesman or politician, whose councils are directed by the momentary fluctuations of affairs. (WN, IV.II.39.)

The same distinction is implicit in his discussion of the colonies, where he says:

Such statesmen, and such statesmen only, are capable of fancying that they will find some advantage in employing the blood and treasure of their fellow citizens, to find, and to maintain such an empire. (WN, IV.VII.c.63.)

The legislator then, as opposed to the statesman, is he who can abstract from day-to-day events to discern the underlying general principles by which long-term development should be regulated. But at least on the present interpretation, these general principles can be nothing less than those produced by the working of practical reason, and to the extent that he is capable of comprehending them, the legislator is in fact fulfilling the role of the impartial spectator. This point has been well made by Knud Haakonssen who has said:

There is no sharp distinction between moral and legal terminology. The spectator is an ‘impartial judge’ and ‘the magistrate... acts in the character of an impartial spectator’. This makes it even more obvious than it might otherwise have been to see the principles of practical reasoning employed by the impartial spectator as at the same time the principles of legal reasoning.²⁷

and further,

The most obvious of these principles is naturally the principle of impartiality, which really amounts to a principle of universality... Closely connected with the requirement of universality are two others which we might call consist­ency and coherence. (Ibid.)

This seems to me to be a sound interpretation. To the extent that it is accepted we can, in the present context, now see that it is a key role of the legislator to prevent the formation of social structures which reflect only partial interests, and thus preserve the generality of the institutional framework. The judgement involved is contextually based; the legislator must apply the rules derived by the interactive process of practical reasoning to specific situations, by assessing their adequacy or ‘fitness’ for the specific purpose in hand.

An implication of the present interpretation here, is that the legislator makes minor modifications to an existing body of laws and rules, so as to deal with new problems, or adapt to new situations, seeking at all times to preserve the generality, coherence, simplicity and familiarity of the whole. The careful, piecemeal, approach of the legislator can then be contrasted with the ‘man of system’ who seeks to remodel society from first prin­ciples, and without due regard to the existing conventions and laws. In this respect the ‘science of a legislator’ is like that of the scientist in physics or astronomy; both seek to adapt their model to an external reality, whilst preserving its overall coherence. The analogy can be pushed a little further, for, as the division of labour proceeds, we have qualitative change in society, so that both the contextual framework within which decisions are taken, and the standards by which they are evaluated must also change. To the extent that this interpretation really does represent Smith’s approach, it can be claimed that the criteria by which the acts of the legislator must be evaluated, are, like those that apply in science, contextually based, and, in the ultimate analysis, aesthetic (see Chapter 3).

This view also helps to explain the limitations of the legislator, and thus of effective government intervention, for he can fulfil his proper function only when he has a detailed knowledge of the contextual framework within which a decision must be made. He is thus well suited to make decisions of national policy, but lacks the detailed information which would, for example, enable him to regulate the usage of capital, which may safely be left to the informed self-interest of the merchant:

... the law ought always to trust people with the care of their own interest, as in their local situations they must generally be able to judge better of it than the legislator can do. (f⅝V, IV.V.b.16. See also WN, IV.II.10.)

Indeed, it seems to me that most of Smith’s discussions of self-interest fit in well with such an interpretation, and that it also provides a theoretical underpinning for his views on the proper limits of government.

What is beyond dispute is that he sees the legislator as having a role in preventing what I have called social estrangement. Thus

... the mean rapacity, the monopolising spirit of merchants and manufacturers, who neither are, nor ought to be, the rulers of mankind, though it cannot perhaps be corrected, may very easily be prevented from disturbing the tranquility of any body but themselves. (P½V, IV.III.c.9.)

However, the same fragmentation of society which causes monopoly and restrictive practices to flourish, also creates pressure groups who will seek to defend their partial interests, so that there is an ever-present danger of political and legal corruption.

This monopoly has so much increased the number of some particular tribes of them, that, like an overgrown standing army, they have become formidable to the government, and upon many occasions intimidate the legislature. (IV.II.43. See also WN, I.XI.p.10 and I.X.c.61.)

For the same reason, he ∞nsiders that prevention is better than cure, since existing monopolies and restrictive practices are exceedingly difficult to remove. Not only are private interests damaged, but there can also be a considerable loss of dedicated fixed capital. He is at his most cynical when making this point.

The legislature, were it possible that its deliberations could always be directed, not by the clamorous importunity of partial interests, but by an extensive view of the general good, ought upon this very account, perhaps to be particu­larly careful neither to establish any new monopolies of this kind, or to extend further those which are already estab­lished. (WW, IV.11.44.)

Similar problems confront the legislator when he seeks to remove those institutions and laws which, although they were appropriate to earlier stages of development, have been rendered obsolete by qualitative changes in the social context. Thus, for example, he holds that protection of some trades against competi­tion was necessary,

... in the first stages of the arts to bring them to their proper perfection... But as this end is now fully answered, it were much to be wished that these as well as many other remains of the old jurisprudence should be removed.(A/ 1762-63, p.83)

Smith clearly regards the corrupting effects of partial interests upon the legislature, as the most serious aspect of social estrange­ment, and the one most likely to hold back the natural course of the division of labour.

Laws frequently continue in force long after the cir­cumstances, which gave occasion to them, and which alone could render them reasonable are no more. (WW, III.II.4.)

and,

The capricious ambition of kings and ministers has not, during the present and preceding century, been more fatal to the repose of Europe, than the impertinent jealousy of merchants and manufacturers. (WW, IV.III.c.9.)

This opens up interesting questions concerning the role of human agency in Smith’s model. We can have both good and bad legislators, and social estrangement can distort the process of impartial judgement so that institutional structures can be formed that reflect only partial interests. There is thus a clear implication that the actual course of human history will be influenced by factors external to the dialectical interaction depicted by the model. As Haakonssen puts it:

Since each individual’s motives,... are formed through the volatile medium of mutual sympathy with the motives of other people in more or less similar situations, we can see how the motivational factor in the shaping of behaviour really forms a huge social network which both influences and is influenced by the external world — but in each individual instance of behaviour is neither completely determined by, nor completely determining for, external 28

events.

I accept that this is indeed Smith’s position and that this presents a challenge to the view expressed above that Smith’s model is, in a significant sense, ‘materialist’. However, I would offer the following points in defence of this position.

Firstly, as has already been argued the range of possible individual responses is restricted by the level of specialisation that has been reached. It is thus the material side of the dialectic that defines the limits of the possible.

Secondly, Smith’s model is designed to depict the ‘natural’ course of events which can be roughly equated with the optimal. This can be contrasted with ‘actual’ events which can, and do, deviate from this path, especially when social estrangement permits the creation of inadequate structures. Consider for example:

The order of things which necessity imposes in general, though not in every particular country, is, in every particular country, promoted by the natural inclinations of man. If human institutions had never thwarted those natural inclin­ations, the towns could no-where have increased beyond what the improvement and cultivation of the territory in which they were situated could support. (f½V, III.1.3.)

or again...

According to the natural course of things, therefore, the greater part of the capital of every growing society is, first, directed to agriculture, afterwards to manufacturers, and last of all to foreign commerce... But though this natural order of things must have taken place in some degree in every such society, it has, in all the modern states of Europe, been in many respects, entirely inverted... The manner and customs which the nature of their original government intro­duced, and which remained after that government was greatly altered, necessarily forced them into this unnatural and retrograde order. (PK2V, III.1.8/9.)

The contrast between the optimal ‘natural’ and the distorted, and therefore, sub-optimal ‘actual’, is clear in these passages. Smith is doing real empirical history, within a taxonomic frame­work provided by the model he uses. The model depicts the optimal path for socio-economic evolution, but real history follows this path imperfectly.

Thirdly, Smith’s model is not only descriptive, but also pre­scriptive — and what it prescribes is that we should stay as close as possible to the path depicted by the model. Further, contained within the model, as a logical development of its dialectical materialist structure, we have a specification as to how and why deviations from the natural path (social estrangement) occur, together with a prescriptive statement of the forces that will tend to alleviate their worst effects.

Fourthly, the model provides us, at least in principle, with criteria by which to evaluate specific social institutions, or indeed specific acts of the legislator. They are to be judged by the standards of generality and coherence. When evaluating, say, a new law, we must ask if it promotes universal interests, rather than those of some faction, and we must assess its coherence relative to the overall institutional framework. It must not contradict existing laws, it should as far as is possible be based on familiar principles, and it should be simple in that it does not require numerous exceptions and qualifications. Whilst these general, ‘aesthetic’, principles remain unchanged, the context in which they are employed is undergoing qualitative change as the division of labour proceeds. The adequacy of any specific decision must, therefore, be assessed relative to the socio-economic context in which it is taken. In short, the material context not only defines the limits of the possible, but also supplies the standards by which that action must be evaluated. Whilst these standards fall short of a full ‘ex-ante’ specification of which sorts of social institution will be ‘adequate’, they do provide a means of evaluating specific measures in their empirical context. It can, of course, be argued that the criteria are somewhat vague, and that any specific appli­cation of them will be very much a matter of interpretation. Smith, however, with his belief in the possibility of‘impartial judgement’ clearly thinks they are adequate, and indeed that it is precisely the role of the social scientist to apply them.

Given the above points it seems to me that the label of ‘materialism’, whilst in need of heavy qualification, can be applied with propriety to Smith’s model of social interaction.

Before concluding this chapter, a number of closely related points need to be made, concerning the relationship between Smith’s formal model and some aspects of the cultural and philosophical environment in which he was writing. Firstly, there exists a considerable volume of contemporary literature which examines the political dimensions of eighteenth-century thought from what might be termed the ‘civic humanist’ perspective. The work of John Pocock is both central to, and in some ways typical of, this perspective. Pocock traces the progress of the civic humanist tradition from its origins in the thought of Machiavelli and his Florentine contemporaries (notably Savonarola, Guicciardi and Giannotti) through to its developments in eighteenth-century British and American thought. In the process of this extensive study, he has argued that the early civic humanist confrontation of ‘virtue’ with ‘fortune’ was still very much a ‘vital problem’ in the eighteenth century, but that:

The role of ‘fortune’ was increasingly assumed by the concepts of‘credit’ and ‘commerce’...

and

... while this led thinkers to perceive secular time more as dynamic and less as merely disorderly, the antithesis of ‘virtue’ with ‘corruption’ — or ‘virtue’ with ‘commerce’ — continued to operate as the means of expressing the quarrel between value and personality on the one hand, history and society on the other, in its first modern and secular form.^,29

On this view, much of what I have called social estrangement is contained within eighteenth-century views on corruption, and the associated perception of a tension between Court and Country, and thus continues a theme which has clear British antecedents in, say, Harrington, Shaftesbury and, of course, Ferguson.

Pocock’s thesis has not gone unchallenged; most radically, it has been attacked by Alan Macfarlane³⁰, who in explicit contradiction to Pocock holds that the origins of many of the concepts of ‘civic humanism’ are to be found in English thought as early as the thirteenth century. In fact:

We could describe thirteenth-century England as a capitalist market economy without factories, (p. 196)

and

When Jefferson wrote, ‘We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and indepen­dent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and unalienable’ he was putting into words a view of the individual and society which had its roots in thirteenth-century England or earlier, (p. 203.)

However, it seems to me that Macfarlane’s basic position is untenable, and that he fails to establish his specific case on anything other than the most superficial level.³¹ Pocock’s work is grounded on a depth of scholarship which is not susceptible to such attacks and offers a much more cogent explanation of eighteenth-century political attitudes and perceptions. For the present purpose, let us accept Pocock’s general line of argument, and specific conclusion that:

... Scottish and French conjectural historians continued to employ the language of virtue and corruption — to employ, that is, the language of civic humanism in that English form which since 1698 had been a means of stating the quarrel between value and history.³²

Given this position I would also wish to maintain that Smith is well aware of this ‘quarrel between history and value’, and, accepting that corruption is an ever present danger in commercial society, builds it into his model. If, as argued above (Chapter 2) the function of a dialectical model is to reflect the actual progress of society, and if, as Pocock argues, Smith considers that corrup­tion is a ‘vital issue’, then it follows that his model must depict the dynamics of corruption, and its alleviation, if it is to be adequate. Further, it is clear that Smith’s treatment of corruption, despite apparent similarities, is very different from that provided by his contemporaries of the Scottish Historical School, precisely because Smith does present corruption as part of an overall model which is scientific in intention. In Smith’s work, the civic humanist concept of corruption has been translated into the scientific concept of social estrangement, the difference between his treatment and that of, say, Ferguson, is one of qualitative difference.

A very similar point can be made concerning Smith’s treatment of militias and standing armies. This too (in ways that will not here be considered) is very much bound up with the civic humanist conception of corruption, where we find a clear implication that loss of martial spirit, and the hiring of others to fight on one’s behalf, involves a substantial loss of civic virtue. This perspective is also incorporated into Smith’s scientific model as an aspect of social estrangement. On this view Smith’s apparent ambivalence on this issue stems from the fact that his basic model yields both the implication that a specialised army is essential for adequate defence, and the view, derived from civic humanism, that this involves ‘mental mutilation, deformity and wretchedness’. We have already seen that he reconciles this apparent contradiction by advocating both a militia and a standing army and imposes upon the legislator the task of seeing that this is the case.

Notes

1. In addition to the works cited later in this chapter, see R.L. Meek, ‘The Scottish contribution to Marxist sociology’ in his collected essays Economics and Ideology (Beekman Publications, London, 1973); F. Papperhoim, The Alienation of Modem Man (Monthly Review Press, London, 1959) and W.F. Campbell, ‘Adam Smith’s theory of justice, prudence and benevolence’, American Economic Review (1967).

2. ‘Genius is more the effect of the division of labour than the latter is of it. The difference between a porter and a philosopher in the first four or five years of their life is, properly speaking, none at all.’ (LJ: 1766, p. 493.)

3. Cf. also WN, I.VIII.48; WW, I.XI.p. 8; BW, V.I.f.52; EPS, p. 221.

4. Smith discussed the implications offeudalism at WN, III.IV. 10 etseq.

5. His most famous illustration (which in fact he borrowed from the Encyclopedists) is to be found at WW, 1.1.6: ‘The different operations into which the making of a pin, or a metal button, is subdivided, are all of them much more simple, and the dexterity of the person of whose life it has been the sole business to perform them is usually much greater.’

6. Marx was to quote this passage in Das Capital (3 vols., Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1974), Vol. 1, p. 342. He adds a rather curious footnote: ‘Being a pupil of A. Ferguson who showed the disadvantageous effects of the division of labour, Adam Smith was perfectly clear on this point.’

The odd notion that Smith was merely a ‘pupil’ of Ferguson in this respect is also present in much of Marx’s writing. Marx on occasion seems to give Smith much less credit than is his due, particularly when ‘anticipations’ of his own historical perspective are involved.

7. See also LJ∙. 1766, p. 539: ‘Where the division of labour is brought to perfection, every man has only a simple operation to perform. To this his whole attention is confined, and few ideas pass in his mind but what have an immediate connection with it. When the mind is employed about a variety of objects it is somehow expanded and enlarged...’

A similar line is taken by Ferguson: ‘Manufactures... prosper most where the mind is least consulted, and where the workshop may... be considered as an engine, the parts of which are men.’ A. Ferguson, An Essay on the History of the Civil Society (1793) (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1966), p. 306.

8. R.H. Campbell, A.S. Skinner and W.B. Todd (eds), The Wealth of Nations (Adam Smith) (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1976).

9. For an early, but still relevant discussion of Smith’s views on militias and standing armies, see J. Rae, Life of Adam Smith (1895) (Kelly, New York, 1965).

10. There is in fact a degree of ambivalence in Smith’s discussion of this topic, as for example, when he points out that a militia which ‘has served for several successive campaigns in the field, becomes in every respect a standing army.’ (MW, V.I.a.27.) This issue is discussed in some detail in D.M. Winch, Adam Smith’s Politics (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1978), Chapter 5.

11. Nor for that matter did Ferguson: ’The necessary of life is a vague and relative term: it is one thing in the opinion of the savage; another in that of the polished citizen: it has a reference to the fancy, and to the habits of living.’ A. Ferguson, An Essay on the History of the Civil Society (1793) (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1966), p. 142.

12. This is again the result of ‘sympathetic interaction’ — note the implicit existence of social estrangement in that the tastes of the inferior ranks are determined in a different sphere of interaction from that of the superior ranks, despite the fact that both sets of tastes are, in a sense, endogenous variables in his model.

13. This is not, of course, to say that Smith regards such material progress as unimportant. See for example WN, I.XI.C. Cf. also J.M.A. Gee, ‘Adam Smith’s social welfare function’, Scottish Journal of Political Economy (1968).

14. J. Viner, ‘Adam Smith’, International Eruyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. 14, p. 325.

15. See D.M. Winch, Adam Smith’s Politics (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1978) (p. 134). Winch holds that: ‘The entire argument, from the denigration of the satisfactions derived from individual wealth, to the laudatory references to aggregate wealth... conforms... to a classical renaissance view of communal enrichment.’

See also J. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ., 1975), p. 246, for a discussion of the probable origins of this view.

16. Smith follows this passage by paying a rather strange tribute to Hume as being ^,... the only writer who, so far as I know, has hitherto taken notice of it.’ The notion is indeed explicit in Hume’s work but there are clear anticipations in Montesquieu with which Smith was undoubtedly familiar, and by 1776 the idea was almost commonplace in the writings of the Scottish Historical School.

17. Cf. E.G. West, ‘The political economy of alienation’, Oxford Economic Papers (1969); ‘Adam Smith’s two views on the division of labour’, Economica (1964); ‘Adam Smith and alienation — a rejoinder’, Oxford Economic Papers (1975); and his paper ‘Adam Smith and alienation’, in A.S. Skinner and T. Wilson (eds), Essays (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1980). In the same work, see R.L. Heilbroner, ‘The paradox of progress’.

18. R. Lamb, ‘Adam Smith’s concept of alienation’, Oxford Economic Papers (1973), and also his ‘Adam Smith’s system: sympathy not self­interest’, Journal of the History of Ideas (1974).

19. Lamb goes on to label these ‘two methods’ the ‘positive’ and the ‘normative’ theories; in fact, in so far as the labels are applicable, both Smith’s optimistic and pessimistic conclusions are ‘positive’ in Lamb’s sense, and the normative content of his model is stricdy confined to his metascience.

20. Clearly Smith did regard both the growing stupidity of the lower classes, and the overall progressive nature of society, as objective empirical data. He was probably right in this, but the issue need not detain us since we are here concerned with the structure of his theoretical work; rather than the accuracy of his empirical observation. But see A.W. Coats, ‘Changing attitudes to labour in the eighteenth century’, Economic History Review (1956), and R. Koebner, ‘Adam Smith and the industrial revolution’, Economic History Review (1959).

21. Marx disputes this; he says: ‘Adam Smith’s contradictions are of significance because they contain problems which it is true he does not solve, but which he reveals by contradicting himself. His correct instinct in this connection is best shown by the fact that his successors take opposing stands based on one aspect of his teaching or the other.’ K. Marx, Theories of Surplus Value (Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1971), p. 151.

I fully accept the second sentence, but dispute the first — Smith’s solution was radically different from Marx’s, but a solution it remains.

22. A.S. Skinner, The Wealth of Nations (Adam Smith) (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1976).

23. N. Rosenberg, ‘Adam Smith on the division of labour: two views or one?’, Economica (1975).

24. Both views expressed here are from N. Rosenberg, ‘Some institu­tional aspects of the Wealth of Nations', Journal of Political Economy (1960), p. 136-7.

25. ‘The improvements which, in modern times, have been made in several different branches of philosophy, have not, the greater part of them, been made in universities; though some no doubt have. The greater part of universities have not even been very forward to adopt those

Riot, Debauchery and the Science of a Legislator improvements that were made; and several of those learned societies have chosen to remain, for a long time, the sanctuaries in which exploded systems and obsolete prejudices found shelter and protection, after they had been hunted out of every other corner of the world’ (WN, V.I.f.34.)

26. K. Marx, Das Capital (3 vols., Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1974), vol. 1, p. 342.

27. K. Haakonssen, The Science of a Legislator (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1981), p. 137. The rest of this chapter owes a considerable debt to Haakonssen’s work, which enabled me to see substantial errors in my initial presentation of the issues involved. Despite Haakonssen’s use of the term ‘practical reasoning’ in this context, I am not, of course, claiming his support for any use I have made of the concept in other parts of the present work. He does not, in fact, make central use of the concept.

28. K. Haakonssen, The Science of a Legislator (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1981), p. 187.

29. J. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment (Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1975), p. ix.

30. A. Macfarlane, The Origins of English Individualism (Blackwell, Oxford, 1978).

31. Although he bases his arguments on a great deal of empirical material, Macfarlane makes some highly dubious extrapolations in order to reach the position he wishes to justify. In addition there is a lack of logical rigour in some of his interpretations, and many major anachronisms (as the passage first quoted tends to show).

32. J. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1975), p. 498. Pocock also holds that ‘specialisation, in short, was a prime cause of corruption’ and that ‘once land and commerce were placed in historical sequence, civic man found himself existing in a historical contradiction.’ (Ibid., p. 499.)