The Balance
Like Shaftesbury, most British Enlightenment thinkers were heavily influenced by religious values. But like Mandeville, they also wanted to get on with their worldly affairs. In their efforts to reconcile spiritual with economic well-being, they struggled to encourage just enough self-interest, but not too much.
Some influential spokesmen of the Church of England offered the comforting view that God-given self-love always takes a virtuous form. A healthy balance between concern for oneself and others was prescribed. Another, less explicit balance was based on gender. Men could pursue their self-interest because women would stay home to provide love and care. This was the natural order of things, but one that apparently required the exclusion of women from political participation and the restriction of their opportunities for economic independence.Adam Smith is often described as the father of economics. Within the discourse of self-interest, however, he represented the end, not the beginning of an era. Smith's emphasis on moral sentiments and his confidence in masculine morality linked him strongly to his Enlightenment predecessors. Whether or not he actually changed his mind as he wrote the Wealth of Nations, his previous writings lent an air of genteel respectability to his endorsement of self-interest. The strict boundaries he drew around the market itself promised to protect society in general and the family in particular. Free trade, he seemed to promise, would never lead to free love, and self-interest would always stop well short of greed.