Labour Affairs has come across remarks coming from the left putting forward Adam Smith as admirable in some ways.
I don’t think we can bring ourselves to reproduce the original remarks. Adam Smith is an early champion of the worst aspects of capitalism: alienated work (the pin maker who makes one part of the pin only and not the whole thing, and becomes dehumanised in the process, as Smith recognises); bad working conditions and the interdiction for workers to unite for better conditions; free trade (which harms weaker countries, as Smith recognises); the idea that only the exchange of money makes for productivity (the commodification of everything) and the dislike for public works.
What is there to like ?
Why promote a champion of those ideas ? and especially, why associate him with China ? is it to say China is capitalist ? is it to promote Smith? but why ?
A piece on Adam Smith might be of interest on its own however. It is possible to give too much importance to Adam Smith’s the Theory of Moral Sentiments and neglect the Wealth of Nations. As Dave Gardner says (see below) the two books are not coherent with each other. Smith’s moral declarations were directed at the East India Company (immoral) when he preferred exploitation of India to be opened to all merchants (morally acceptable).
For more on this see the book by Labour Affairs contributor Madawc Williams on Adam Smith, called Wealth Without Nations (Athol Books 2000).
As regards the apparent endorsement of pro Smith remarks by a Chinese economist, I wouldn’t necessarily give it that much weight. I had occasion to speak with some high ranking Chinese academics at a conference in Germany, and I found they were extremely accommodating and wanting to meet Western interlocutors half way, or more than half-way. For example they said that the fact that Hong Kong was British so long helped to preserve aspects of traditional China; as for the opium wars ‘that page was turned’. The Chinese go out of their way to find common ground, which you can’t disagree with.
That doesn’t mean we should distort the truth about Adam Smith.
From Dave Gardner:
I found these remarks quite disturbing. It looks like yet another attempt to resurrect Smith. Dubious characters like Gordon Brown have also attempted this in the past. My main problem is that it is a caricature of Smith and ignores the harm that his ideas have done and may continue to do in China if this caricature is taken up. I’ll make a number of specific points.
1] Smith published the Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) in 1759 and the Wealth of Nations (WoN) in 1776. They do not constitute one coherent continuous body of work (see Madawc Williams ‘Wealth without Nations’ – Athol Books 2000). There is a contradiction between the ideas of sympathy (TMS) and of self-love (WoN) in the two books, which is never properly reconciled.
2] Smith, as well as propagating the idea of universal self-love in WoN was closely allied with the subjectivist ethics of his friend and contemporary Hume (who was more sceptical about self-love). Definitely not a virtue ethicist or Confucian despite some of the rhetoric that may be plucked out of the text.
3] The idea that Smith championed public goods or public works is ludicrous. I’m quoting Smith here from the Liberty Fund edition of WoN Volume 2, pp, 729-30. Talking of public works (a form of public good) in China he writes:
“The accounts of these works, however, which have been transmitted to Europe, have frequently been drawn up by weak and wandering travellers; frequently by stupid and lying missionaries. If they had been examined by more intelligent eyes, and if the accounts of them had been reported by more faithful witnesses, they would not, perhaps, appear to be so wonderful.”
In other words, he abuses people whose views he does not like, while offering no counter-evidence himself. There is more of this stuff in the same chapter. In Book one he devotes a whole chapter to denouncing vocational education in the form of apprenticeship ‘The Policy of Europe’.
4] His idea of productive labour is also absurd. To quote his great critic, the nationalist economist Friedrich List, on Smith’s idea of productive labour:
“”The man who breeds pigs is, according to this school (i.e. that of Smith and his followers-CW), a productive member of the community, but he who educates men is a mere non-productive. The maker of bagpipes or jews-harps for sale is a productive, while the great composers and virtuosos are non-productive simply because that which they play cannot be brought into the market. The physician who saves the lives of his patients does not belong to the productive class, but on the contrary the chemist’s boy does so, although the values of exchange (viz. the pills) which he produces may exist only for a few minutes before they pass into a valueless condition. A Newton, a Watt, or a Kepler is not so productive as a donkey, a horse or or a draught-ox (a class of labourers who have been recently introduced by M’Culloch into the series of the productive members of human society).”
In other words, markets determine what is and what is not productive.
5] Free trade. Smith’s advocacy of this, as List points out, is special pleading. It allows economically and militarily powerful nations to wreck the economies of subordinate nations such as India and China. China (opium) and India (destruction of textile industry) have no good grounds to celebrate Smith.
6] Corruption. Smith’s ideas about combinations of employers led to no successful prosecutions under the Combination Acts. On the other hand it was criminal for two or three labourers to assemble to discuss their conditions of work under the same legislation. These abominable acts were inspired by Smith and of course a double standard was applied. Shame this isn’t mentioned.
I could go on… I note that the author does not source any of his quotes from Smith. Marx had some respect for Smith because of the labour theory of value, but did not subscribe to his other liberal doctrines. I’d find it especially worrying if the Chinese were to start taking Smith seriously as a ‘Confucian’. Anyone who wants to know about the real Smith should read Madawc’s excellent book on the topic.
Labour Affairs is not a suitable vehicle for Smith worship. Sorry to be blunt about this, but it’s a serious matter for socialist education that we have a clear view about Smith securely rooted in what he actually said, rather than in fantastical reconstructions.
