After the election of Obama I heard some commentary which suggested the Republican agenda had been rejected by the majority of voters. It was suggested that they had not kept pace with changing demographics.

The Republican conservative perspective has traditionally been framed as an adherence to the free market economics extracted from the philosophy of the 18th century scholar, Adam Smith. Many will have heard of ‘free markets’ or ‘laissez faire’ economics drawn from Adam Smith’s famous notion of the ‘invisible hand.’ This can be envisaged as an invisible hand whereby market forces naturally and efficiently distribute resources, products and services. It is depicted graphically as the intersection of a demand (DD) and supply (SS) curve plotting the optimum price (P) and quantity (Q). The free market doctrine espoused by conservatives or in Australia Liberals, calls for small government, lower taxes for the wealthy, deregulation (reduces business costs), users pay, selling off public assets and a general agreement that the market (corporations) are in the best position to ensure efficiency, stability and profitability. Therefore, Adam Smith’s Laissez-faire philosophy has been reframed to justify market power. Many social ills or externalities have arisen by unfetted market power as a result.

I felt inspired tonight to revisit Adam Smith. In truth, Adam Smith was an economist, philosopher and notably the author of Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations. Adam Smith was only 14 when he started as a student at Glasgow university. In 1751 he returned as Professor of Logic, transferring to the Chair of Moral Philosophy shortly afterwards.

Excerpts from the historic film below highlight Adam Smith predominantly as a moral philosopher, he was committed to a moral point of view, selected quotes as follows:

(Smith) “… how selfish so ever that man may be supposed for there are evidently some principles in his nature which interest him in the fortune of others and render their happiness necessary to him though derive nothing from it but the pleasure of seeing it…”  

(Professor Berry Professor of Political Theory) “…Morality is founded on certain truths about human nature everyone is capable of sympathy or fellow feeling and that ability enables us to imagine what we would feel if we were in the situation of another. Once we have made that imaginative move we can then judge if those feelings are appropriate… Smith likened society to a mirror it is this responsiveness to others pleasure in their approval and pain in their disapproval that Smith used to explain why the rich parade their wealth or the poor hide their poverty. The rich value their possessions more from the esteem they bring then any use they get from them, and it is this disposition to go along with the passions of the rich and powerful that establishes the foundation for the distinctions of status. This desire for esteem which explains the incentive we all possess to better our condition. This is one of the links between (Smith’s books) Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations. In many ways the moral interactions Smith describes in Moral Sentiment characterise the contemporary commercial society… the very complexity of that society meant that the bulk of interpersonal dealings were with strangers. A society of strangers is a commercial society which Smith identifies in the Wealth of Nations as one where every man is a merchant. Most societies coherence, its social bonds, do not depend on love and affection, you can coexist socially with those with whom you are emotionally indifferent.”

As Smith famously said “…not through the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner but from their regard to their own interests. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self love and never talk to them about our own necessities but of their advantages, no-one but a beggar chooses to depend cheapily on the benevolence of his fellow citizens…”

Professor Berry continues… (paraphrase) Smith is not denying benevolence in the Wealth of Nations he made it clear that the wealth lay in the wellbeing of the people, this covered not only material prosperity but also their moral welfare. Cordially thought to be in poverty was to be in a miserable condition, commerce is to be praised for improving human life. The great achievement of the Wealth of Nations was to discern the principle of order in the seeming chaos of commercial or market behaviour.  It wasn’t random could be reduced to central principles. Smith was described as the Newton of Political Economy.

Thus the purpose of his theory was the wellbeing of all people.

First an overview of Adam Smith followed by a link to his moral history.

http://www.universitystory.gla.ac.uk/biography/?id=WH0016&type=P

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 The moral philosopher and political economist Adam Smith (1723?-1790) was appointed Professor of Logic at the University in 1751. He became Professor of Moral Philosophy the following year and held the chair until 1764. Smith served as Dean of Faculties and as the library’s Quaestor (an official in charge of accounts), and he was elected to serve as Rector from 1787 to 1789. The University has a building, a library, a chair and a research foundation named in his honour.

Born in Kirkcaldy, Smith matriculated to study at the University in 1737 and was profoundly impressed by the teaching of the Professor of Moral Philosophy, Francis Hutcheson. He went to Balliol College, Oxford as a Snell Exhibitioner in 1740, returning to Scotland in 1746. He established his reputation as a teacher and writer at the University (Theory of Moral Sentiments was published in 1759, based on his lectures on Ethics), but left in 1764 to accompany the young Duke of Buccleuch on a continental tour. He returned three years later to live in Kirkcaldy, where he worked on his classic study An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, published in 1776. In 1778 he was appointed a Commissioner of Customs in Edinburgh.

During his time in Glasgow, Smith lived in Professors’ Court off High Street with his mother and his cousin. He was a sociable man who cultivated the opinions of local merchants as well as those of intellectuals. In 1787, he remembered his years as a professor at the University as “by far the happiest and most honourable” in his life.

Here is a video of Adam Smith’s Moral Philosophy presented by Professor Berry from Glasgow University.

http://www.gla.ac.uk/about/history/fame/adamsmith/