Adam Smith’s History: Artifacts and Analytic

for presentation at the

36th Annual Meeting of the Economic and Business HistoricalSociety

Columbus, Ohio

April, 2011

Laurence J. Malone, Ph.D.

Economics Department

Hartwick College

Abstract

Philosophers and historians of Economic Thought have long wrestled with the so-called Adam Smith Problem; that is, how to reconcile his Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) with the Wealth ofNations (WN). We begin with a reminder that Smith intended for TMS and WN to be read as expositions in a larger intellectual scheme concerned with the evolution of human society. Smith’s methodological employment of history as both facts and as a way to characterize a series of evolutionary phases in the

development of society is shown to work on conjoined levels in all of his surviving writings. On one level specific historical events illuminate his arguments, and on the other the structures of history provide a framework for the theoretical and logical underpinnings of the argument itself. The first we deem the artifacts of Smith’s history, and the second the analytic. These terms are used to demonstrate how Smith connoted meaning and understanding through the deliberate ways he employed history to formulate a grand vision of both individual motivations and the organization and workings of society.

Introduction

What is generally understood about the work of Adam Smith

has been distilled by the mathematical formulations of economic

science over the past two centuries. We are led to assume that

all of his great insights are found in the Wealth of Nations

which, we are told, posed the fundamental question for future

theoretical economic inquiry: how do price and value serve as

organizing principles for a market society?1

Smith’s distinction between price and value was a major

intellectual achievement. Market price, what purchasers paid for

a particular commodity, was the real, concrete category of price.

Natural price, a ‘center of gravitation’ around which the various

market prices of a commodity fluctuated, was the ideal, abstract

category of value. Exchange mediated between these real and

ideal categories of price and value, and provided the basis for

the order of the market system.

For Smith, the market was no longer just a place, it was an

abstract category of a theory. This finding came from an

historical investigation of the evolution of markets. The

exchange of commodities at market prices tending to move toward

1 In terms of a general understanding of Smith, contemporary introductory economics textbooks ignore his formulations of a labor theory of value. Instead, Smith’s contributions are reduced to the Invisible Hand, which is typically presented to mean “competition.” N. Gregory Mankiw writes, for example: “Smith is saying that participants in the economy are motivated by self-interest and that the ‘invisible hand’ of the marketplaceguides this self-interest into promoting general economic well-being.” See Mankiw, Principles of Macroeconomics, 6th Edition, Mason, Ohio: South-Western Cengage Learning, 2009, 12.

natural prices did not result from the customary or traditional

practices of exchange that prevailed under a feudal society.

And, as marketplaces began to take root, exchange occurred under

a well-defined set of conditions, at customary prices, and at a

particular time. The whole process assumed regularity because

the conditions of exchange rarely changed.2 Describing

systematic order did not require abstracting about tendencies or

‘centers of gravitation’ because the real and ideal aspects of

exchange were one and the same.

When Adam Smith considered the markets of the late 18th

century, he no longer observed regular patterns and obvious

conditions of exchange. Instead, any particular good was found

in abundance, could be brought in many places, at different times

and, most problematically, at several possible prices. How was

exchange organized where anonymous individuals with no previous

social connection brought or sold goods to other unknown buyers

or sellers under a variety of situations? What, moreover, was

2 For a rich description of 16th century traditional conditions ofexchange in European town markets see Fernand Braudel, Chapter 1,“The Instruments of Exchange,” in The Wheels of Commerce: Civilization and Capitalism 15 th –18 th Century , Volume 2, New York:Harper and Row, 1979, 25-80.

the systematic manifestation of this process? Smith’s insightful

answer was to construct a theory, grounded in immediate

observation and historical evidence, that abstracted from real

phenomena and established the general systematic tendencies that

regulated prices.

The distinction between market and natural prices in the

Wealth of Nations helps pose the first of two aspects in my

argument: Adam Smith has been virtually ignored save for economic

science, which, by and large, employs a sharply construed

understanding of the Wealth of Nations that consequently focuses

attention on a limited portion of his conceptual riches. Smith’s

intended unity with the Theory of Moral Sentiments, where both

books were partial expositions of a series of works concerned

with the historical evolution of man, is lost in such a narrow

understanding of his system.3 This leads us to the second aspect

of my argument, which is best related to the first in terms of a

follow up question: How were both works to be treated as a

whole?

3 See Jacob Viner’s article on Adam Smith in the International Encyclopedia of the Social Science (New York: Free Press, 1968) Vol. 14, 323.

As the title of the essay hints, I consider Smith’s

inductive method of exposition, through his use of history, to be

one common thread from which to treat Theory of Moral Sentiments

and Wealth of Nations holistically. Smith’s methodological

history operates on two conjoined levels: on one level there are

events of history, on the other the structures. The first I call

the artifacts, the second the analytic. I introduce these terms to

emphasize how Smith connoted meaning to history—the unavoidable

consequence of utilizing history methodologically. Let us

consider the basis of Smith’s historical method in his writings

and how it helps us to treat the body of his work as a systematic

whole.

“History of Astronomy”

We begin where Adam Smith would begin with his students—with

a theory of knowledge.4 Smith’s theory of knowledge was

grounded in the premise that human nature could be examined

through the historical evidence of the relation of individuals to

their society. Such evidence from previously existing societies

4 Consider that Smith lectured to classes of fourteen to sixteen year old boys at Glasgow.

was to be considered from our reference point as socialized

individuals in the present state of society.

The clearest exposition of Adam Smith’s theory of knowledge,

integrated with his case for the inductive use of historical

method, is found in the “History of Astronomy.”5 Smith’s

preoccupation with system-building is evident throughout this

short, but important essay. Here he traced the movement of the

mind from a state of indolence to action when an astronomical

event, such as the appearance of a comet, was observed. The

event produced a ‘violent and sudden’ change upon the mind, and

the consequent action produced a reaction of Surprise.6 From

Surprise the mind took pleasure in observing and discovering

resemblance and connections with similar past events through

Recollection, which produced Wonder, the mind’s association of

5 The exact date of the “History of Astronomy” is unknown. Scholarly consensus places it before 1759, the first year of publication for the Theory of Moral Sentiments. See the editor’sIntroduction to the Essays on Philosophical Subjects, W.P.D. Wightman, ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976. A.S. Skinner suggests in “Adam Smith: Science and the Role of the Imagination,” in W. B. Todd, ed., Hume and the Enlightenment, Edinburgh: The University Press, 1974, that Smith’s ‘theoretical history’ applies even to cases where direct evidence is lacking. 6 Adam Smith, Essays on Philosophical Subjects, W.P.D. Wightman, ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976, 34-35.

objects and events with regularity and irregularity. A ‘second

species of Wonder’ came from the discovery of ‘an unusual

succession of things’ and provided order, classification and

sequence to related events.7 After the mind had examined a

particular ‘theatre of nature’ and rendered it ‘a more coherent

and therefore more magnificent spectacle than otherwise it would

have appeared to be,’ Admiration followed. The mind, however, was

not complacent in this return to a state of indolence. Rather,

as Smith prodded the reader of the “History of Astronomy” to do,

it employed this theory of knowledge to examine all the different

systems of nature through their history.8

The “History of Astronomy” thus provides early insight into

the nature, direction, and methodology of Adam Smith’s own

intellectual investigation. First, the classification of events

and their systematic ordering was a primary object. Knowledge

ordered and provided explanatory connections to the historical

evidence, and removed the ‘intolerable anxiety of the

incomprehensible’ by restoring the chaos of ‘jarring and

7 Ibid., 39-42.8 Ibid., 46.

discordant appearances’ to a tone of ‘tranquility and

composure.’9 Second, natural events were observed directly by

the mind; but natural history was what gave natural events

classification and order. Human nature, it inductively followed,

could likewise be observed, classified, and ordered according to

a process of historical investigation.

“Lectures on Jurisprudence”

Smith was strongly influenced by the Classical Greek notion

of defining by functional observation. But Smith’s interest in

establishing definitions that were socially meaningful raised a

philosophical problem of a different nature.10 The problem is

that the criteria used to arrive at socially defined meaning—

moral rules and percepts—must be defined through a social

9 Ibid., 46.10 Smith also appears to be influenced by Giambattista Vico’s The New Science (1725). Vico was the first to emphasize the method of historical construction as modification of the human mind. This avoided the need to specify an ‘essence to human nature’ since reason resulted from tradition, social practice, and habit.Smith, on the other hand, took knowledge to be germane from our innate ability as humans to reason.

reference point.11 Smith’s response to this problem was to

determine a socially meaningful history.

Individual historical events showed man’s engagement with

nature in the first instance, and ultimately man’s engagement

with man at higher levels of social order.12 Smith used this

distinction to derive a stage theory of socially meaningful

history—with man emerging as the product of social cohesion. Man

could then be viewed in the context of his own creations—or

artifacts—which, in turn, had to be ordered. The ordering—or analytic

—was Smith’s task, and inductively our task as well.

The social cohesion between the artifact and analytic levels

of history is revealed in its periodization. The first time Adam

Smith presented a periodization of history was in a series of

lectures to his classes at Glasgow between 1762 and 1766.13

These Lectures on Jurisprudence illustrated the particular 11 See Alisdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, Notre Dame, Indiana; University of Norte Dame Press, 1981. 12 Smith also frequently makes this distinction between primal andsocial man. 13 Smith’s Lectures on Jurisprudence survive in the form of elaborate notes taken by one of his conscientious students. Their author, unfortunately, remains unknown. See R.L. Meek, D.D. Raphael, and P.G. Stein, eds., Lectures on Jurisprudence, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.

properties of Government through a progression from military

monarchy and despotism to the more refined forms of feudalism and

parliamentary rule. By structuring his exposition in this

manner, Smith traced the triumph of social authority over the

initial historical givens of inferior, contrarily acting

individuals in a raw state of nature. Such rank orderings

subsequently determined a sequence of historical stages that

began in the disorder of man’s individual isolation and ended

with an observable assumption that order predominated in the

reference point of the present.

Theory of Moral Sentiments

The assumption of higher order in the present introduced two

new questions: How did the current system come into being, and

how was systematic harmony maintained? Smith’s answer is found

in the Theory of Moral Sentiments, which was first published in

1759, prior to his classes and Lectures on Jurisprudence. Smith

began the Theory of Moral Sentiments with a systematic derivation

of the origin and nature of our moral sentiments and the basis on

which we render moral judgment. In the exposition of his

argument, a number of historical artifacts are incorporated to

contrast the observed range in the individual moral rules and

precepts between primal and social man. This derivation of

morality in self-interested individuals is integrated into a

society of self-interested individuals by conforming individual

passion to social requirements, carried out by the specification

of a divine purpose through the deception of Nature. Nature

deceives us, through the workings of the deity, to act in the

interest of all.

There was, however, a peculiar twist to Smith’s deistic

determinacy in the Theory of Moral Sentiments. An ‘Impartial

Spectator,’ present in every socialized individual—‘a voice

within’—brought about system and order without the intervention

of a deity through our ability to empathize with other

individuals.14 Smith left it unclear whether the Impartial

Spectator is the manifestation of the deity in every individual,

or if it is the result of the reciprocity of empathy among

socialized individuals.

14 Ibid., 26.

Let us note some important characteristics of how systematic

determination in the Theory of Moral Sentiments conforms to Adam

Smith’s historical methods. First, the reader is subjected, as

in all of Smith’s surviving writings, to an inductive appeal to

our knowledge of what it means to be an individual in a society.

Second, his method moves from this existing body of knowledge of

the present state of society through a consideration of

historical artifacts.15 There is no need to abstract from what

is immediately under investigation because the reader knows the

outcome at the outset—we can Admire the social stability and

order of the present by comparison and contrast with the

discordant past. The dynamic element is the historical process

through which the invariant essences of human nature—our capacity

for empathy and our sense of reason—transform primal humans into

socialized individuals.

Individuals can thus be driven by both self-interest and

social-betterment, just as the reader observes them to be in

15 The historical artifacts in Theory of Moral Sentiments also feature the activities of a full range of historical individuals.For example, Part VI, Section 3 includes Genghis Khan, Cicero, the Spartan Lysander, Jean de Santeul, and Vicomte de Turenne.

society. But, in the end, the reader must fall back upon belief

and take man to act with limited ends in view as Nature

ameliorates our self-motivation into beneficial social activity.

Our well-intentioned ends occasionally produce negative

unanticipated consequences.16 There is a distinction in thus

knowing and understanding firsthand the subjective intent of

action—which can be viewed in the past artifacts of history—and

in taking as belief an objective effect that produces harmony in

systematic order.17 16 The phrase unanticipated consequences of purposive social action comes from an article by Robert K. Merton entitled “The Unintended Consequences of Purposive Social Action” in the American Sociological Review, December, 1926, 894-904. This was a problem of great concern to Enlightment writers in the period. When Smith considered history from a social standpoint in Theory of Moral Sentiments, he found that it reflected a process where unanticipated outcomes sometimes come out of individual intended actions. See Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie, eds., Oxford 1976, 93. 17 This distinction, linked to an historical method, appears in many philosophical writings at the time. It bears, for example, close resemblance to Hegel’s ‘cunning of reason,’ and more noteworthy in Smith’s case, to a short, late essay by Immanuel Kant entitled “Idea of a Universal History From a Cosmopolitan Point and View” (1784). See Patrick Gardiner, ed,. Theories of History, New York: The Free Press, 1959, 21. Kant takes the position that the general human condition is one of “unsocial sociability,” where out of social conflict arises social order, and ultimately, a world civilization. Individual interest in Kant’s essay is taken to direct action according to our own plan and design. But this is, simultaneously, the root of the

There remains an unresolved philosophical problem with this

distinction and, consequently, with Smith’s determination of

socially meaningful history. Nature, or the deity, is both the

initial cause of our passions and the final cause of our

actions.18 It is final cause in the sense that the passions are

assumed to work throughout history toward social welfare, the

ultimate purpose of the deity. Thus, every individual action is

subject to necessity, which, in turn, denies the individual free

will Smith sought to establish systematically. In the end, his

determination therefore fails because of the intrinsically

conflictual tendency. Human history, however, emerges as a triumph of a certain plan or design, which in turn, actualizes the greater plan of Nature. Thus Kant, too, must appeal to deistic ordering in the end. The date of this essay suggests thepossibility of a Smith to Hume to Kant connection where Kant would have had access to Smith’s ideas in the Theory of Moral Sentiments through Hume, a great admirer of the book. The strength of the Hume to Smith connection is affirmed in the fact that Smith was the executor of Hume’s estate.18 This Smith problem has been nicely pointed out by Henry Bittermann in his article “Adam Smith’s Empiricism and the Law ofNature” in the Journal of Political Economy, October, 1940. Bittermann considers Smith’s choice of terms in the Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations regarding deistic order. He suggests the careful wording was ultimately to diffusethe problem that Smith, like Kant and others, had to rely on a natural theology to explain the order of the world. Smith’s concern for later interpretation of this problem is reflected in his decision to order that all of his substantial collection of writings on Natural Theology be burned as he lay in his deathbed.

deistic argument concerning the systematic mechanism of the

Invisible Hand.19

Nevertheless, the sheer beauty of Smith’s rhetoric, as

illustrated below in the famous watchmaker passage, remains a

delight to behold. This passage is included because it recounts

the essential features of Smith’s method, with a watch utilized

as both a general artifact and a key component of the analytical

method. Moreover, it is one of only two places in the Theory of

Moral Sentiments where the deistic underpinnings of his argument

are rendered directly.

The wheels of the watch are all admirably adjustedto the end for which it was made, the pointing of the hour. All their various motions conspire in the nicestmanner to produce this effect. If they were endowed with a desire and intention to produce it, they could not do it better. Yet we never ascribe any such desireor intention to them, but to the watchmaker, and we know that they are put into motion by a spring, which intends the effect it produces as little as they do. But though, in accounting for the operations of bodies,we never fail to distinguish in this manner the efficient from the final cause, in accounting for thoseof the mind we are very apt to confound these two different things with one another. When by natural principles we are led to advance those ends, which a refined and enlightened reason would recommend to us,

19 Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie, eds., Oxford 1976, 184.

we are very apt to impute to that reason, as to their efficient cause, the sentiments and actions by which weadvance those ends, and to imagine that to be the wisdom of man, which in reality is the wisdom of God. Upon a superficial view, this cause seems sufficient toproduce the effects which are ascribed to it; and the system of human nature seems to be more simple and agreeable when all its different operations are in thismanner deduced from a single principle.20

The artifacts of history in Theory of Moral Sentiments

furnish perspective to the systematic explanation of the origin

and nature of man’s moral sentiments. Although we witness a

continuous contrast between primal and social man, there is no

evolutionary progression from one to the other. Instead, the

artifacts serve as reminders that the reader’s own sentiments are

deeply rooted in the past. The motives and actions of ruthless

barbarians are recounted from our own perspective of how these

actions would be viewed today.21 Likewise, we are forced to

ponder that our concern for thousands of victims of an earthquake

in China might not be as great as that of the loss of our little

finger.22 And we learn how a society of robbers and murderers

20 Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, D. D. Raphael and A. L.Macfie, eds., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976, 87. 21 Ibid., 253.22 Ibid., 136.

is, indeed, a society, and likely to be a just society since a

society cannot be orderly without some system of justice, no

matter how crude or unjust.23

Wealth of Nations

The Theory of Moral Sentiments leads the reader, by

reflection upon historical artifacts, from the present to the

past through rhetorical situations that place the reader in

empathy with historical individuals. The reader of the Wealth of

Nations is not asked to reflect upon the past through empathy.

The point of reference of the Wealth of Nations adheres largely

to the present, albeit Smith’s late 18th century present.24 An

understanding of the historical method of Theory of Moral

Sentiments is an important given in the Wealth of Nations. The

object of the Wealth of Nations is a systematic understanding of

present order in the society of perfect liberty, and how it is

maintained. How that order comes into being through the

23 Ibid., 86.24 Given our earlier discussion of Smith’s historical investigation of nature and causes in “The History of Astronomy,”it is worth noting that the full title of the book is An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.

deception of Nature is assumed from the Theory of Moral

Sentiments.

Smith’s history in the Wealth of Nations builds upon the

earlier Lectures on Jurisprudence. Artifacts are freely

interspersed throughout the book, as they illustrate and support

the evolution of the society of perfect liberty by providing it

with a factual basis for characterization. Simultaneously, these

instances pertain to the general method of exposition—the

analytical aspect of the history, which is delineated in the

stage theory, or periodization of history in Book III “Of the

Different Progress of Opulence in Different Nations.”25

Book III rests squarely in the middle of the thousand-odd

pages of the Wealth of Nations and is a scant fifty pages long.

It is, however, the centerpiece of all that comes before and

after in ways other than mere location. The stage theory of

history in Book III sets out the importance of man’s relation to

nature and fellow man from artifacts that illustrate a

progressive improvement in the human condition. These 25 Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealthof Nations, Volume I, R. H. Campbell, A. S. Skinner and W. B. Todd, eds., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976, 376-427.

improvements and artifacts, in turn, are derived from a

progressive movement through four main periods of human history

and society. The first period is rude hunter society, with

insignificant settlements or communities. Next comes the period

of nomadic agriculture, which has some settlement and community,

but little permanence in either. The third period is the feudal

stage, where settlements and community assume some prominence

because a person of complete authority guarantees it. The

permanence, however, is still subject to sudden, violent change

from the outside world. Hence, there is a distinction between

towns as settlements, and the outlying areas of the countryside

where there are few communities. Finally, there is the period

that Smith believed to characterize his time—the stage of

commercial interdependence—the society of perfect liberty.

Most of the historical artifacts in the Wealth of Nations

describe the transition from the third to the fourth stage—from

feudal society to commercial society.26 Smith’s outline of this

26 The level of historical detail throughout the book is often noteworthy. Smith’s lengthy “Digression on Silver” and specific citations of prices at the end of Chapter 1, for example, is so comprehensive that economic historians consider it a valuable reference tool. See Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and

transition occupies the pages of Book III. The transition is

situated in the changing relationship between the town and

surrounding countryside in Europe. The schematic elements of

Smith’s presentation are sketched in Figure 1. The diagram

oversimplifies Book III, and serves mainly as a heuristic device.

The chart is read from top to bottom, assuming a complete

separation of towns and countryside at the top, as was the case

in Smith’s feudal stage. Following the broken lines to the

bottom leads through a progression of structures to eventual

unity under the society of perfect liberty.

Figure 1

social community differentiated individuals

Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Volume I, R. H. Campbell, A. S. Skinner and W. B. Todd, eds., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976, 195-275.

TOWN COUNTRYSID

smiths,carpenters, wheelwrights

ploughwrights, masons,bricklayers

tanners, shoemakers, coopers, taylors, etc.

when the market between the town and countrysidebroadens and ultimatelyassumes new internal and external dimensions

ARTIFIC

MARKET

TRADE

COMMERCIAL

MANUFACTURING TOWNS

IMPROVEMENT OFTHE COUNTRYSIDE

SOCIETY OF PERFECTLIBERTY

The transition from feudalism to commercial society in

Figure 1 raises the fundamental unresolved problem of Adam

Smith’s historical method. As we can see from working down the

diagram, the division between the top and the bottom expresses a

separation of historical events according to some criteria of

division. Or, looking at the problem in reverse, if we are to

distinguish between the bottom of the diagram and the top, there

is a consequent need to reconnect both. The chart attempts to do

this as simply, and best as we can from Smith’s outline in Book

III. Does it succeed? To consider this question we must first

look deeper into how Smith’s methodology connotes meaning to

history.

The Unresolved Problem in Smith’s Historical Method

Qualitatively illustrating and distinguishing four separate

stages of development appears to present no problem in and of

itself. Smith supported his stage distinctions with historical

artifacts, and more importantly, with references to social

groupings that were contemporary to his time. He wrote, for

example, of the natives of North America to illustrate his first

stage, where hunters roam with little social cohesion. The

Tartars and Arabs served as examples of the second stage, where

nomadic agriculture was predominant. And he used the surviving

fiefdoms of Eastern Europe as examples of his third stage of

social development. Within these groups he highlighted

productive activities, the forms and arrangements of property,

and authority structures. These were referenced and contrasted

from the assumption he placed on his audience—that they possessed

a certain degree of familiarity and understanding of their own

state of society.

The problem with Adam Smith’s history was not at this level,

the level of artifacts. His distinctions between periods can be

accepted from the evidence he presents. Rather, the problem is

at the analytic level: methodologically positing a progressive

tendency to history requires that you also posit causality to its

movement.27 Some systematic mechanism must necessarily propel

and transform society into successive stages. Stating something 27 This is a problem that continues to plague historical method according to an excellent article by Oreste Popescu entitled “Periodization in the History of Economic Thought” in the International Social Science Journal, No. 17:4 1965, 607.

about connectedness, even in general terms, presupposes a

movement from cause to effect or conversely from effect to cause.

Connectedness is assumed in the Wealth of Nations; but no causal

connection is found in either direction to explain the transition

from stage to stage. The stages must be causally reconnected if

the objective of obtaining a coherent system is to be realized by

delineating a process of social progression through historical

artifacts.

Causal determination is less specified in the transition

from the earlier stages than the later stages of Smith’s history.

There is little concern for what transforms primal man into pre-

social man. What is specified in all stages, on the other hand,

are the forms of social cohesion—the struggle that progresses

between self interested, passionate individuals who forge social

contracts in history. But this offers little regarding a dynamic

mechanism—internal or external to the individual—that moves

history progressively forward into a higher stage of

socialization in the Wealth of Nations.

The problem of Adam Smith’s methodological history therefore

leads back to the central organizing problem of the Theory of

Moral Sentiments: Do individuals act freely in determining the

structures of their history or are the structures created by

deistic necessity? Although the problem is never adequately

resolved, recognition of the problem offers much insight into the

methodological objectives of Adam Smith’s attempts at system-

building as a social science. The investigation was rooted in

historical artifacts, and the body of Smith’s work demonstrates

the longstanding difficulties in constructing a methodologically

meaningful social history.

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