Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T09:25:24.447Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Liberalism, Civic Humanism, and the Case of Adam Smith

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Edward J. Harpham
Edward J. Harpham*
Affiliation:
The University of Texas at Dallas
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this article, I examine critically Donald Winch's interpretation of the politics of Adam Smith. I explain how Winch wrests Smith's political thought out of the larger vision of commercial society that is found in his moral, political, and economic writings, and how Winch misreads Smith's understanding of particular political problems such as the dehumanized workforce and the standing army. I also show how Winch's civic humanist reading of Smith's political thought fails to appreciate Smith's liberal conceptualizations of corruption and public-mindedness in a modern commercial society. Finally, I suggest that our failure to understand the politics of Adam Smith does not lie in our liberal interpretation of his work, as Winch claims, but in our understanding of what constitutes liberal political discourse.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 78 , Issue 3 , December 1983 , pp. 764 - 774
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1983

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bailyn, B.The ideological origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967.Google Scholar
Bowley, M.Studies in the history of economic theory before 1870. London: Macmillan, 1973.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, T. D.Adam Smith's science of morals. London: George, Allen and Unwin, 1971.Google Scholar
Cropsey, J.Polity and economy. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1957.Google Scholar
Cumming, R. D.Human nature and history: A study of the development of liberal political thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969.Google Scholar
Forbes, D.Hume's philosophical politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.Google Scholar
Harpham, E. J.Natural law and early liberal economic thought: A reconsideration of Locke's theories of value. Social Science Quarterly, in press.Google Scholar
Hirschman, A. O.The passions and the interests. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hollander, S.The economics of Adam Smith. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Höpfl, H. M.From savage to Scotsman: Conjectural history in the Scottish enlightenment. Journal of British Studies, 1978, 17, 19–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kramnick, I.Bolingbroke and his circle: The politics of nostalgia in the age of Walpole. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968.Google Scholar
Kramnick, I.Republican revisionism revisited. American Historical Review, 1982, 87, 629–664.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindgren, J. R.The social philosophy of Adam Smith. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macpherson, C. B.The political theory possessive individualism. London: Oxford University Press, 1962.Google Scholar
Meek, R.Economics and ideology. London: Chapman and Hull, 1967.Google Scholar
Meek, R.Smith, Marx, after: Ten essays on the development of economic thought. London: Chapman and Hull, 1977.Google Scholar
Morrow, G. R.The ethical and economic theories of Adam Smith. New York: A. W. Kelley, 1969.Google Scholar
Pocock, J. G. A.Early modern capitalism—the Augustan perception. Feudalism, capitalism and beyond. Kamenka, E. & Neale, R. S. (Eds.). Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1975. (a)Google Scholar
Pocock, J. G. A.The Machiavellian moment: Florentine political thought and the Atlantic republican tradition. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975. (b)Google Scholar
Pocock, J. G. A.Politics, language and time: Essays on political thought and history. New York: Atheneum, 1973.Google Scholar
Robbins, C.The eighteenth century commonwealth-man: Studies in the transmission, development and circumstances of English liberal thought from the restoration of Charles II until the war with the thirteen colonies. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959.Google Scholar
Sabine, G.A history of political theory (3rd ed.). New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1961.Google Scholar
Skinner, A.Adam Smith: An economic interpretation of history. Essays on Adam Smith. Smith, A. & Wilson, T. (Eds.). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975.Google Scholar
Skinner, A.Natural history in the age of Adam Smith. Political Studies, 1967, 15, 32–48.Google Scholar
Smith, A.An inquiry into the nature and the causes of the wealth of nations. (Cannan, E. & Lerner, M., Eds.). New York: Modern Library, 1965.Google Scholar
Smith, A.Lectures on police, justice, revenue, and arms. (Cannan, E., Ed.). New York: Kelley and Mill-man, 1956.Google Scholar
Smith, A.A theory of moral sentiments. Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1976.Google Scholar
Vaughn, K. I.John Locke: Economist and social scientist. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Winch, D.Adam Smith's politics: An essay in historiographie revision. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.Google Scholar
Wolin, S.Politics and vision: Continuity and innovation in western political thought. Boston: Little, Brown, 1960.Google Scholar
Wood, G.The creation of the American republic. New York: W. W. Norton, 1972.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.