Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T18:21:15.612Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The “Wisdom of the State”: Adam Smith on China and Tartary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 May 2014

RYAN PATRICK HANLEY
RYAN PATRICK HANLEY*
Affiliation:
Marquette University
*
Ryan Patrick Hanley is Associate Professor at Marquette University, Department of Political Science, PO Box 1881, Milwaukee, WI 53201-1881. Tel: 414 288 3420; FAX: 414 288 3360 ([email protected]).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Adam Smith's engagement with China and Tartary is a central yet underappreciated element of his economic and political thought. This article reconstructs this engagement and demonstrates its broader significance, arguing that it focuses on three themes: the economic institutions that promote domestic growth in a manner that alleviates the material conditions of the poorest, the social and political conditions that minimize the dependence of the poor on the wealthy, and the ethical values and civic institutions that guarantee the existential survival of the state. This treatment is significant for three reasons: It offers useful insight into the contested issue of Smith's conception of legitimate state action; it clarifies Smith's vision of a commercial order that promotes human dignity; and it reveals the depth of his participation in a specific contextual debate.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 108 , Issue 2 , May 2014 , pp. 371 - 382
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2014 

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

REFERENCES

Ahmed, Siraj. 2012. The Stillbirth of Capital: Enlightenment Writing and Colonial India. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Arrighi, Giovanni. 2007. Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the Twenty-First Century. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Bell, John. 1763. Travels from St. Petersburg in Russia to Diverse Parts of Asia. . .to which is added, a translation of the Journal of Mr. de Lange. Glasgow: Foulis.Google Scholar
Chen, Jeng-Guo. 2004. “The British View of Chinese Civilization and the Emergence of Class Consciousness.” Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation 45: 193–205.Google Scholar
Chen, Jeng-Guo. 2012. “Translation, Trans-nation and Trans-context: Adam Smith in China, 1890–1911.” Paper presented at the “Adam Smith in International Contexts” Seminar, Taipei.Google Scholar
Clarke, J. L. 1997. Oriental Enlightenment: The Encounter between Asian and Western Thought. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Coase, Ronald, and Wang, Ning. 2012. How China Became Capitalist. London: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, Walter W. 1992. “China, the Confucian Ideal, and the European Age of Enlightenment.” In Discovering China, eds. Ching, Julia and Oxtoby, Willard. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 1–26.Google Scholar
Dawson, Raymond. 1967. The Chinese Chameleon: An Analysis of European Concepts of Chinese Civilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Debes, Remy. 2012. “Adam Smith on Dignity and Equality.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 20: 109–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorn, James. 2007. “Adam Smith in China.” The Freeman 57: 11–13.Google Scholar
Evensky, Jerry. 2005. Adam Smith's Moral Philosophy: A Historical and Contemporary Perspective on Markets, Law, Ethics, and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fleischacker, Samuel. 2004. On Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations: A Philosophical Companion. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Haakonssen, Knud. 1981. The Science of a Legislator: The Natural Jurisprudence of David Hume and Adam Smith. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanley, Ryan P. 2009. Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanley, Ryan P. 2012. “Political Economy and Individual Liberty.” In The Challenge of Rousseau, eds. Grace, Eve and Kelly, Christopher. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 34–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harkin, Maureen. 2005. “Adam Smith's Missing History: Primitives, Progress, and Problems of Genre.” ELH: English Literary History 72: 429–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harvey, David A. 2012. The French Enlightenment and Its Others: The Mandarin, the Savage, and the Invention of the Human Sciences. London: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hont, Istvan. 2005. Jealousy of Trade: International Competition and the Nation-State in Historical Perspective. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hont, Istvan. 2009. “Adam Smith's History of Law and Government as Political Theory.” In Political Judgement, eds. Bourke, Richard and Geuss, Raymond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 131–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hung, Ho-Fung. 2003. “Orientalist Knowledge and Social Theories: China and the European Conception of East-West Differences, 1600 to 1900.” Sociological Theory 21: 254–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, David M. 2001. The Image of China in Western Social and Political Thought. London: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lai, Cheng-Chung. 2000. “Adam Smith and Yen Fu: Western Economics in Chinese Perspective.” In Adam Smith across Nations, ed. Lai, C. C.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 16–26.Google Scholar
Lockwood, William. 1964. “Adam Smith and Asia.” Journal of Asian Studies 23: 345–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackerras, Colin, ed. 2001. Sinophiles and Sinophobes: Western Views of China. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Marouby, Christian. 2007. “Adam Smith and the Anthropology of the Enlightenment: The ‘Ethnographic’ Sources of Economic Progress.” In The Anthropology of the Enlightenment, eds. Wolff, Larry and Cipolloni, Marco. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 85–102.Google Scholar
Marshall, P. J., and Williams, Glyndwr. 1982. The Great Map of Mankind: Perceptions of New Worlds in the Age of Enlightenment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Meek, Ronald L. 1976. Social Science and the Ignoble Savage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Millar, Ashley Eva. 2010. “Revisiting the Sinophilia/Sinophobia Dichotomy in the European Enlightenment through Adam Smith's ‘Duties of Government.’” Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science 38: 716–37.Google Scholar
Montes, Leonidas. 2009. “Adam Smith on the Standing Army vs. Militia Issue: Wealth Over Virtue?” In Elgar Companion to Adam Smith, ed. Young, Jeffrey T.. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 315–34.Google Scholar
Muller, Jerry Z. 1995. Adam Smith in His Time and Ours: Designing the Decent Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Muthu, Sankar. 2008. “Adam Smith's Critique of International Trading Companies: Theorizing ‘Globalization’ in the Age of Enlightenment.” Political Theory 36: 185–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Otteson, James. 2010. “Adam Smith and the Great Mind Fallacy.” Social Philosophy and Policy 27: 276–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paganelli, Maria Pia. 2013. “Commercial Relations: From Adam Smith to Field Experiments.” In Oxford Handbook of Adam Smith, eds. Berry, Christopher J., Paganelli, Maria Pia, and Smith, Craig. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 333–50.Google Scholar
Pitts, Jennifer. 2005. A Turn to Empire: The Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pocock, J. G. A. 2001. Barbarism and Religion, vol. 2: Narratives of Civil Government. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pocock, J. G. A. 2005. Barbarism and Religion, vol. 3: The First Decline and Fall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pocock, J. G. A. 2006. “Adam Smith and History.” In The Cambridge Companion to Adam Smith, ed. Haakonssen, Knud. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 270–87.Google Scholar
Quataert, Donald. 2005. The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rasmussen, Dennis C. 2008. The Problems and Promise of Commercial Society: Adam Smith's Response to Rousseau. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press.Google Scholar
Rothschild, Emma, and Sen, Amartya. 2006. “Adam Smith's Economics.” In The Cambridge Companion to Adam Smith, ed. Haakonssen, K.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 319–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1992. Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, Polemics, and Political Economy, vol. 3 of The Collected Writings of Rousseau, eds. Masters, Roger D. and Kelly, Christopher. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1–95.Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya. 2009. “Introduction.” In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. Hanley, Ryan P.. London: Penguin, vii–xxvi.Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya. 2011. “Uses and Abuses of Adam Smith.” History of Political Economy 43: 257–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Craig. 2006. Adam Smith's Political Philosophy: The Invisible Hand and Spontaneous Order. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Craig. 2013. “Adam Smith: Left or Right?” Political Studies 61: 784–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spence, Jonathan. 1999. The Chan's Great Continent: China in Western Minds. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Van Kley, Edwin J. 1973. “News from China: Seventeenth-Century European Notices of the Manchu Conquest.” Journal of Modern History 45: 561–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wheatcroft, Andrew. 2009. The Enemy at the Gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans, and the Battle for Europe. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Whelan, Frederick G. 2009. Enlightenment Political Thought and Non-Western Societies: Sultans and Savages. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zakaria, Fareed. 2010. Interview with Wen Jiabao, 3 October 2010; selections at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2024207,00.html (Accessed February 5, 2013).Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.