Read Online On the Wealth of Nations by P.J. O'Rourke - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: P.J. O'Rourke
Ads: Link
15 (Smith's own, of course, was still awaiting publication.)
Smith's approximation to the truth was, mercifully, more approximate.
The Wealth of Nations
is less an R than a diagnosis. It is mostly free of those perfect abstractions for which men kill and die. It's hard to picture a furious mob mounting the barricades and shouting, as they fall upon the gendarmerie, 'OF THE CAUSES OF IMPROVEMENT IN THE PRODUCTIVE POWERS OF LABOUR, AND OF THE ORDER ACCORDING TO WHICH ITS PRODUCE IS NATURALLY DISTRIBUTED AMONG THE DIFFERENT RANKS OF THE PEOPLE!!!'
Smith should have been tougher on the physiocrats. He should have heeded his friend David Hume. Hume wanted to 'thunder them, and crush them, and pound them, and reduce them to dust and ashes'. 16
CHAPTER 12
Adam Smith's Lost Book
Adam Smith didn't write his book on politics. There were a number of reasons that the third part of Smith's betterment trilogy, his work on 'jurisprudence', was never finished. He was busy making revisions to
The Theory of Moral Sentiments
. He became a government official in Scotland. He died.
But I wonder if there wasn't another reason. Smith was a moral philosopher. It may be that at some point he realized politics isn't a good place for philosophy and is no place for morals. Could it have been while he was writing book 5 of
The Wealth of Nations
? Smith's old footnote on himself in
Moral Sentiments
about being concerned with 'a matter of fact' rather than 'a matter of right' could never be applied to a consideration of politics. Politics is all about right, which is to say wrong.
Political systems are founded upon paradoxes too deep for philosophy. Adam Smith was aware of this when he was writing
Moral Sentiments
in the 1750s. He alluded to it in the first chapter: 'A prison is certainly more useful to the public than a palace; and a person who founds the one is generally directedby a much juster spirit of patriotism, than he who builds the other.' 1 Yet no father says to a newborn baby, 'Someday you may be warden of Leavenworth.'
The best intentions of political systems are refuted by dilemma. Political leadership is charged, Smith wrote, with 'promoting the prosperity of the commonwealth, by establishing good discipline, and by discouraging every sort of vice and impropriety'. 2 To neglect this 'exposes the commonwealth to many gross disorders and shocking enormities, and to push it too far is destructive of all liberty, security, and justice'. 3
Politics is unreceptive to the obvious and simple system of natural liberty. Imagine the politician who stood on the hustings and said, 'Oh, do what you want.'
As for the more successful kind of politicians, Smith addressed their character in a section of
Moral Sentiments
added in 1790:
They have little modesty; are often assuming, arrogant, and presumptuous; great admirers of themselves, and great contemners of other people ⦠Their excessive presumption, founded upon their own excessive self-admiration, dazzles the multitude ⦠The frequent, and often wonderful, success of the most ignorant quacks and imposters ⦠sufficiently demonstrate how easily the multitude are imposed upon by the most extravagant and groundless pretensions. 4
But â and in politics there is always a but â¦
⦠when those pretensions are supported by a very high degree of real and solid merit, when they are displayed with all the splendour which ostentation can bestow upon them, when they are supported by high rank and great power ⦠even the man of sober judgment often abandons himself to the general admiration. 5
What may have been most defeating to Smith about politics was the conundrum of justice and injustice in even the most justifiable political systems. In
The Wealth of Nations,
Smith stated the requirements for a political order that promotes well-being:
Commerce and manufactures can seldom flourish long in any state which does not enjoy a regular administration of justice, in which the
Smith's approximation to the truth was, mercifully, more approximate.
The Wealth of Nations
is less an R than a diagnosis. It is mostly free of those perfect abstractions for which men kill and die. It's hard to picture a furious mob mounting the barricades and shouting, as they fall upon the gendarmerie, 'OF THE CAUSES OF IMPROVEMENT IN THE PRODUCTIVE POWERS OF LABOUR, AND OF THE ORDER ACCORDING TO WHICH ITS PRODUCE IS NATURALLY DISTRIBUTED AMONG THE DIFFERENT RANKS OF THE PEOPLE!!!'
Smith should have been tougher on the physiocrats. He should have heeded his friend David Hume. Hume wanted to 'thunder them, and crush them, and pound them, and reduce them to dust and ashes'. 16
CHAPTER 12
Adam Smith's Lost Book
Adam Smith didn't write his book on politics. There were a number of reasons that the third part of Smith's betterment trilogy, his work on 'jurisprudence', was never finished. He was busy making revisions to
The Theory of Moral Sentiments
. He became a government official in Scotland. He died.
But I wonder if there wasn't another reason. Smith was a moral philosopher. It may be that at some point he realized politics isn't a good place for philosophy and is no place for morals. Could it have been while he was writing book 5 of
The Wealth of Nations
? Smith's old footnote on himself in
Moral Sentiments
about being concerned with 'a matter of fact' rather than 'a matter of right' could never be applied to a consideration of politics. Politics is all about right, which is to say wrong.
Political systems are founded upon paradoxes too deep for philosophy. Adam Smith was aware of this when he was writing
Moral Sentiments
in the 1750s. He alluded to it in the first chapter: 'A prison is certainly more useful to the public than a palace; and a person who founds the one is generally directedby a much juster spirit of patriotism, than he who builds the other.' 1 Yet no father says to a newborn baby, 'Someday you may be warden of Leavenworth.'
The best intentions of political systems are refuted by dilemma. Political leadership is charged, Smith wrote, with 'promoting the prosperity of the commonwealth, by establishing good discipline, and by discouraging every sort of vice and impropriety'. 2 To neglect this 'exposes the commonwealth to many gross disorders and shocking enormities, and to push it too far is destructive of all liberty, security, and justice'. 3
Politics is unreceptive to the obvious and simple system of natural liberty. Imagine the politician who stood on the hustings and said, 'Oh, do what you want.'
As for the more successful kind of politicians, Smith addressed their character in a section of
Moral Sentiments
added in 1790:
They have little modesty; are often assuming, arrogant, and presumptuous; great admirers of themselves, and great contemners of other people ⦠Their excessive presumption, founded upon their own excessive self-admiration, dazzles the multitude ⦠The frequent, and often wonderful, success of the most ignorant quacks and imposters ⦠sufficiently demonstrate how easily the multitude are imposed upon by the most extravagant and groundless pretensions. 4
But â and in politics there is always a but â¦
⦠when those pretensions are supported by a very high degree of real and solid merit, when they are displayed with all the splendour which ostentation can bestow upon them, when they are supported by high rank and great power ⦠even the man of sober judgment often abandons himself to the general admiration. 5
What may have been most defeating to Smith about politics was the conundrum of justice and injustice in even the most justifiable political systems. In
The Wealth of Nations,
Smith stated the requirements for a political order that promotes well-being:
Commerce and manufactures can seldom flourish long in any state which does not enjoy a regular administration of justice, in which the
Similar Books
