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Adam Smith and the liberal tradition in international relations*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1996

Andrew Wyatt-Walter
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Extract

The name of Adam Smith is most commonly associated with the notion of a natural ‘harmony of interests’ between individuals in the market, whereby the ‘invisible hand’ of competition turns self-regarding behaviour into aggregate social benefits. Joseph Cropsey echoes this view in suggesting that ‘Smith is of interest for his share i n the deflection of political philosophy toward economics and for his famous elaboration of the principles of free enterprise liberal capitalism’. Smith is often seen as standing in a long line of British political philosophers stretching back to Hobbes and Locke and on to Bentham and ultimately John Stuart Mill, his principal contribution to the liberal tradition being his role as the great spokesman of laissez-faire and the minimalist state.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , January 1996 , pp. 5 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1996

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References

1 Cropsey, Joseph, ‘Adam Smith and Political Philosophy’, in Skinner, Andrew S. and Wilson, Thomas (eds.), Essays on Adam Smith (Oxford, 1975), p. 132Google Scholar.

2 See also Carr, E. H., The Twenty Years’ Crisis 1919–1939 (London, 1946), pp. 43–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Ibid., p. 43.

4 Waltz, Kenneth N., Man, the State and War A Theoretical Analysis (New York, 1959), pp. 86, 90Google Scholar. It ought to be noted, however, that Waltz does view Smith's comments on international relations as ‘uniformly more perspicacious than those of most liberals of the period’. Ibid., p. 96 n. 33.

5 Wight, Martin, International Theory: The Three Traditions, ed. Wight, Gabriele and Porter, Brian (Leicester and London, 1991), p. 263Google Scholar. See also p. 115.

6 Gilpin, Robert, The Political Economy of International Relations (Princeton, 1987), p. 27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 For a discussion, see Zacher, Mark W. and Matthew, Richard A., ‘Liberal International Theory: Common Threads, Divergent Strands’, in Kegley, Charles W. (ed.), Controversies in International Relations Theory: Realism and the Neoliberal Challenge (New York, 1995)Google Scholar.

8 Shotwell, James, War as an Instrument of National Policy (New York, 1921)Google Scholar, quoted in Waltz, Man, State and War, p. 98.

9 Howard, Michael, War and the Liberal Conscience (Oxford, 1981), pp. 25Google Scholar, 29.

10 Shapiro, Michael J., Reading ‘Adam Smith’: Desire, History and Value (London, 1993)Google Scholar, also departs from the conventional view in claiming Smith as ‘a quintessential critical theorist’, a different line of enquiry to that taken in this essay.

11 The full title of Smith's work is An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations [1776], ed. Campbell, R. H. and Skinner, A. S. (Oxford, 1976)Google Scholar. Citations from this and other of Smith's works will use the now standard format associated with the Glasgow bicentennial edition of Adam Smith's works and correspondence (published by Oxford University Press), including the following abbreviations:

WN The Wealth of Nations [1776], ed. Campbell, and , Skinner (1976)Google Scholar.

TMS The Theory of Moral Sentiments [1759], ed. Macfie, A. L. and Raphael, D. D. (1976)Google Scholar.

LJ Lectures on Jurisprudence [Reports of 1762–3 and 1766], ed. Meek, R. L., Raphael, D. D. and Stein, P. G. (1978)Google Scholar.

Corr. Correspondence of Adam Smith, ed. Mossner, E. C. and Ross, I. S. (2nd edn, 1987)Google Scholar.

12 See Muller, Jerry Z., Adam Smith in his Time and Ours: Designing the Decent Society (New York, 1993)Google Scholar, ch. 3, and more generally, Hont, Istvan and Ignatieff, Michael (eds.), Wealth and Virtue: The Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1983).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 WN, IV.ii.9.

14 Ibid.

15 Viner, Jacob, ‘Adam Smith and Laissez Faire’, Journal of Political Economy, 35 (April 1927), pp. 198–232CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in Viner, Jacob, The Long View and the Short: Studies in Economic Theory and Policy (Glencoe, 1958), p. 227Google Scholar.

16 WN, I.ii.2.

17 WN, IV.ix.51. For a discussion of the role of benevolence and sympathy in the moral order of TMS, see Viner, ‘Smith and Laissez Faire’, and Wilson, Thomas, ‘Sympathy and Self-Interest’, in Wilson, Thomas and Skinner, Andrew S. (eds.), The Market and the State: Essays in Honour of Adam Smith (Oxford, 1976)Google Scholar.

18 Myrdal, Gunnar, The Political Element in the Development of Economic Theory (London, 1953), p. 107Google Scholar.

19 WN, IV.ii.21.

20 WN, I.x.c.27.

21 WN, I.x.c.61. For similar concerns, see TMS, VII.iv.36.

22 WN, IV.vii.c.61. See Rosenberg, Nathan, ‘Some Institutional Aspects of The Wealth of Nations’, Journal of Political Economy (December 1960), p. 558Google Scholar, and also Viner, ‘Smith and Laissez Faire’, pp. 228ff.

23 WN, I.iii.

24 WN, IV.ix.51.

23 For an assessment of the role of rhetoric in economics and the social sciences in general, see McCloskey, Donald N., The Rhetoric of Economics (Madison, 1986).Google Scholar

26 Viner, ‘Smith and Laissez Faire’, pp. 231–5.

27 WN, II.iii.36.

28 WN, V.ii.a.4.

29 For a similar argument, see Jacob Viner, ‘Power versus Plenty as Objectives in Foreign Policy in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, in Viner, Long View, and Earle, Edward Meale, ‘Adam Smith, Alexander Hamilton, Friedrich List: The Economic Foundations of Military Power’, in Earle, Edward Meale (ed.), Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought from Machiavelli to Hitler (Princeton, 1971)Google Scholar.

30 WN, IV.ii.24ff.

31 WN, IV.ii.30.

32 WN, V.i.b.l.

33 TMS, VII.iv.36; WN, V.i.b.2–3, 12, and V.iii.7.

34 WN, I.i.10, and editors’ introduction, p. 37.

35 WN, IV.ii.40–4.

36 WN, IV.vii.c.95, V.i.e.30. See also Gilpin, Political Economy, pp. 180–3.

37 WN, II.iv.15.

38 WN, l.x.c.27.

39 WN, IV.ii.43.

40 See Carr, Twenty Years’ Crisis, p. 45.

41 WN, IV.ii.24. See also WN, IV.v.a.36, where Smith also recommends for national security reasons bounties upon the exportation of British sailcloth and gunpowder.

42 HW, IV.ii.29.

43 HW, II.v.31, italics added.

44 Viner, ‘Power versus Plenty’, p. 286.

45 WN, IV.vii.c.22–64.

46 Note the potential contradiction with his earlier views on the Acts: compare WN, FV.vii.c.23 with IV.ii.29. It is also notable that this potential contradiction was pounced upon by Governor Thomas Pownell, MP, in his letter to Smith of 25 September 1776. (Con., appendix A, pp. 357–8.)

47 WN, IV.vii.c.43–4. See also Con., letter 262.

48 WN, IV.vii.c.44.

45 Hirschman, Albert O., The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism Before Its Triumph (Princeton, 1977), p. 79Google Scholar.

50 WN, IV.iii.c.9, and TMS, VI.ii.2.3.

31 WN, IV.iii.c.9.

52 WN, IV.iii.cll, italics added.

53 WN, IV.iii.c.13, italics added.

54 WW, V.i.a.l5.

55 TMS, VI.ii.2–3.

56 WN, IV.ii.9, italics added.

57 WN, III.iv.4. As Smith notes, this was a theme on which Hume also had much to say (and indeed the Scottish enlightenment as a whole). Smith in his writings identified four stages of socioeconomic development: the stages of hunters, of shepherds, of agriculture, and of commerce.

58 WN, III.iv.10. Se e also WN, III.iv.17.

59 WN, III.iv.15.

60 See Zacher and Matthew, ‘Liberal International Theory’.

61 WW, IV.iii.c.9.

62 Both quoted in Hirschman, Passions and Interests, p. 80.

63 WN, V.ii.a.4.

64 WN, V.iii.37. For an equally cynical and remarkably similar view of the relationship between democracy and war, see Galbraith, John Kenneth, The Culture of Contentment (London, 1993)Google Scholar, ch. 9.

65 See Doyle, Michael W., ‘Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 12, nos. 3 and 4 (1983)Google Scholar.

66 WN, IV.vii.c.66.

67 WN, V.iii.92.

68 Con., appendix B: ‘Smith's Thoughts on the State of the Contest with America, February 1778’, pp. 382–3.

69 WN, IV.vii.c.66.

70 WN, lV.vii.c.74, 75. Smith's proposal entailed full equality of representation and taxation, freedom of trade, and even a provision for the future removal of the seat of the Empire to that part ‘which contributed most to the general defence and support of the whole’. (See WN, IV.vii.ci.75–9.)

71 For Smith's scepticism regarding the relationship between commerce and representative government, see Duncan Forbes, ‘Sceptical Whiggism, Commerce and Liberty’, in Skinner and Wilson (eds.), Essays. Forbes also indicates how Smith's emphasis upon man's baser instincts led him to scepticism that economic progress would bring about the demise of slavery, which Smith held to be economically inefficient as well as immoral. (Ibid., pp. 199–200.)

72 Montesquieu, De Vespril des bis [1748], XXI, 20, quoted in Hirschman, Passions and Interests, p. 73.

73 WN, V.iii.40.

74 Waltz, Man, State, and War.

75 TMS, VI.ii.2.3.

76 Ibid.

77 WN, III.iv.15.

78 WN, V.iii.3, 8, 10. Smith shared with Burke, Hume and others of his time a grave concern about the corrupting influence of increasing public indebtedness. See Pocock, J. G. A., ‘The Political Economy of Burke's Analysis of the French Revolution’, Historical Journal, 25, no. 2, (1982), pp. 331–349CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the classic account of the ‘financial revolution’ of the seventeenth century which enhanced the war-making capabilities of the British state, see Dickson, P. G. M., The Financial Revolution in England: A Study in the Development of Public Credit, 1688–1756 (London, 1967).Google Scholar

79 WN, V.iii.50.

80 WW, V.iii.67.

81 WN, V.i.f.50.

82 WN, V.i.a.36, and V.i.f.59.

83 WN, V.i.a.43–4.

84 WN, V.i.a.39.

85 See the discussion in Winch, Adam Smith's Politics, pp. 105–12.

86 WN, V.i.a.40. In his Lectures, Smith is more Lockean in the case of Britain (LJ(A), iv. 178), though his general position is that a standing army loyal to king and country is the best guarantor of domestic liberty. (LJ(A), iv.179, and WN, V.i.a.41.)

87 Rosenberg, ‘Institutional Aspects’, p. 560.

88 TMS, VI.ii.2.4.

89 TMS, VI.ii.2.6. See also TMS, IH.3.4.

90 TMS, VI.ii.3.6.

91 U(B), 344–5.

92 See Haakonssen, Knud, The Science of a Legislator The Natural Jurisprudence of David Hume and Adam Smith (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 133–134CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and TMS, III.3.42.

93 WN, IV.i.32, and IV.vii.c.80, 100.

94 TMS, VI.ii.2.3.

95 LJ(B), 339. Smith's discussion is largely confined to the laws of war and diplomatic immunity (based on reciprocity). See LJ(B), 339–58, and TMS, III.3.43, VI.ii.2.2–5, and VII.iv.37.

96 TMS, III.3.42.

97 WN, IV.vii.c.80 (italics added).

98 LJ(B), 355–6, and TMS, VI.ii.2.6.

99 See Howard, War and Liberal Conscience, pp. 42–4.

100 LJ(B), 353–8.

101 WN, IV.iii.c.9.

102 WN, IV.ii.38–9 (italics added).

103 See WN, editors’ introduction, pp. 1–4.

104 Wight, Martin, ‘Why Is There No International Theory?’, in Butterfield, Herbert and Wight, Martin (eds.), Diplomatic Investigations (London, 1967)Google Scholar.

105 Viner, ‘Smith and Laissez Faire’, p. 221.

106 For a discussion of the long-debated ‘Adam Smith problem’ concerning the supposed inconsistency of WN and TMS, see editors’ introduction, TMS, pp. 20–5.

107 See editors’ note on ‘The Text and Apparatus’, WN, 61–6. Moreover, these changes do not relate to the main passages on international relations.

108 See Ceadel, Martin, The Birth of the Peace Movement: From Fatalism to a Pacific Theory of International Relations in Britain, 1730–1854 (forthcoming, Oxford, 1996)Google Scholar.

109 Smith, Michael Joseph, ‘Liberalism and International Reform’, in Nardin, Terry and Mapel, David R. (eds.), Traditions of International Ethics (Cambridge, 1992), p. 202Google Scholar.

110 WN, IV.ix.28.

111 For an account of the apoliticism of much liberal thought, see Wolin, Sheldon S., Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought (London, 1961), pp. 299ffGoogle Scholar

112 Hirschman, Passions and Interests, pp. 107–13.

113 Quoted by Hirschman, Albert O., ‘Interests’, in The New Palgrave: The World of Economics, ed. Eatwell, John, Milgate, Murray and Newman, Peter (London and Basingstoke, 1991), p. 355Google Scholar.

114 George J. Stigler, ‘Smith's Travels on the Ship of State’, in Skinner and Wilson, Essays, pp. 237–8. See the more extended critique of Stigler in Winch, Adam Smith's Politics, pp. 165–72.

115 In TMS, VH.iii.I, Smith firmly rejects the idea that moral theory could be based entirely upon individual ‘self-love’.

116 See Zacher and Matthew, ‘Liberal International Theory’, pp. 120ff.