ABSTRACT
Do you know Adam Smith, the man, the myth, his work? Certainly somewhat, rather well perhaps. So the answer is ‘yes’. Adam Smith remains one of the most influential, the most commented on and even – and this is far from obvious – one of the most read authors in the history of economic thought and even the general history of ideas. Unfortunately, however, this effort often results in the citation of some well-known phrases, which, read out of context, provide more questions than answers. Readers seeking to go beyond the fixed ideas, the standard opinions
and the stock quotations will easily be disoriented by the complexities of a protean work characterised by strong internal tensions and an overabundant secondary literature, unified only by its desire to smooth and simplify this work. For want of being understood, Adam Smith fascinates, but the majority of commentators never feel the need to look into the sources of this fascination. This is unfortunate. The Adam Smith Problem, the allusion of a number of diligent nineteenth century academics to a major faultline in Smith’s work, is no longer fashionable. Today, the vast majority of commentators on Adam Smith’s
major works, The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations, seek to attribute to them one sense, one well-specified linear interpretation. Most of these contributions are diligent, well-informed and well-intentioned explorations of particular aspects of the work. They may consist of a careful historical or philosophical contextualisation, the recognition of an earlier source of a particular concept, or a classification of modern economic concepts contained, explicitly or implicitly, in Smith’s work. Such partial investigations sometimes lead to surprising results. Liberal and anti-liberal economists thus both find
support for their positions in a dense and complex work. Neither group, of course, bothers much to search for a fuller truth in the texts beyond the confirmation of conventional positions, most of them wellknown in advance. However, one does not approach a work that has maintained its
fascination for more than 200 years, with the intention of silencing it forever. On the contrary, it is necessary to understand the undiminished fertility of the tensions and the wide-ranging implications of the tenuous synthesis that characterise Adam Smith’s work. Each generation of scholars and policymakers needs to face these tensions and formulate the resulting synthesis anew to make it pertinent for their time. After all, with Adam Smith we stand both at the dawn of a new scientific discipline and at the beginning of the social organisation which is ours today. For a fuller understanding of Adam Smith, there is only one way: to trust the texts, in particular those of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations. One needs to approach them with respect, certainly, but with eyes and ears open and with the least amount of prejudice possible. Very few critics – one may think of David D. Raphael, Vivien Brown
or even Jacob Viner – have had the courage to approach Adam Smith’s work with a mind sufficiently open to appreciate its heterogeneous elements and its contradictions, all of which contribute to the same radical project. That project is, of course, structured by the convergence of the individual and the general interest, of conscious human intentions and a universal plan of perhaps divine nature. The key issue is that most critics take this convergence as a given, as a hypothesis formulated a priori. They are thus satisfied by commenting on its implications, frequently from an entirely personal perspective. There are not many who have dared, with Adam Smith, to explore the origins of this very particular self-interest, which are hidden in a complex economy of the passions but perfectly elaborated in all their details. Reading Adam Smith’s major works can reserve many a surprise for
the amateur as well as for the professional of the history of thought: the apparent lack of any systematic organisation and its tight coherence, its restless and heterogeneous nature, the vast, eclectic and capricious erudition of its author, its pragmatism and its syncretism, its occasional aloofness and its passionate commitment, its literary gems and its set-piece formulas, its humour and its ruthless dedication to a contradictory project and its successful conclusion. Additional pleasure is provided by Adam Smith’s English, which is
elaborated with great care. This results from the great prudence with
which Smith advances and the underlying tension that characterises his argument. This tension also shows up occasionally in a punctuation which is dense and little orthodox, even by the standards of his time. The organisation of Smith’s major works does not follow any discernible system. ‘Books’, ‘chapters’, ‘sections’, ‘parts’, ‘articles’, ‘introductions’ and ‘conclusions’ alternate without any systemic ambition. Their length and the number of textual hierarchies vary greatly according to the need of the specific argument being treated. The work of Adam Smith resembles one of those fractal designs,
where the same figure is repeated from the smallest to the largest scale, thus creating an image that is utterly devoid of any linear system and yet displays a profound coherence. This essay about the structure, the informational assumptions and the ethical aspirations of Adam Smith’s work draws the attention of the reader to its singularity and even strangeness, in order to better understand the ongoing fascination it exerts and to appreciate the lasting importance that it still has today. The objective is to allow us to regard the original texts with a fresh view. We propose a new reading of the work of Adam Smith
Such a new reading requires clear indications in order to avoid being distracted either by the multiple secondary threads weaving themselves through the central narrative of the work or by the cacophony of voices surrounding it. To facilitate orientation, it is best to reveal the principal argument immediately. Without further ado, we will thus present, in the following, the central theses of this essay, foregoing the usual preliminaries concerning the general importance of the work and the respect we owe to the man, founder of a new discipline, which a more complete work would have required.1
