The document discusses Adam Smith's liberalism and its evolution, emphasizing the importance of individual liberty and the pursuit of personal interests through a system of commutative justice. It outlines the historical context of liberalism from the 18th century in Britain to modern interpretations, highlighting key thinkers and developments that shaped the liberal nation-state. Furthermore, it critiques the potential dangers of disunity within liberalism while advocating for a balanced approach to high ideals and practical governance.

1. Adam Smith 300
5 June 2023

2. 2

3. The Great Enrichment
3
Deirdre McCloskey

4. 4
Born
1723
Died
1790

5. 5
“allowing every man to
pursue his own interest
his own way, upon the
liberal plan of equality,
liberty and justice”

6. Smith, WN
Christens it “liberal”
 liberalism
6

7. Smith WN passages:
“Were all nations to follow the liberal system of free
exportation and free importation, the different states into which a
great continent was divided would so far resemble the different
provinces of a great empire. As among the different provinces of a
great empire the freedom of the inland trade appears, both from
reason and experience, not only the best palliative of a dearth, but
the most effectual preventative of a famine; so would the freedom
of the exportation and importation trade be among the different
states into which a great continent was divided. The larger the
continent, the easier the communication through all the different
parts of it, both by land and by water, the less would any one
particular part of it ever be exposed to either of these calamities,
the scarcity of any one country being more likely to be relieved by
the plenty of some other. But very few countries have entirely
adopted this liberal system.”
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8. liberal burgeoning: principles,
policy, ideas, system,
government, plan
8
1770 1820

9. 18th century Britain
 Integrated polity
 Stable polity
 Functional polity
 Liberal polity
The idea of the liberal nation-state.
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10. Erik Matson
https://www.adamsmithworks.org/documents/matson-smith-moral-authorizations
10

11. Larry Siedentop:
Christianity made
liberalism possible
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By creating a humankind-encompassing
ethical backdrop to mitigate the discohesion
problems of liberalism

12. 12

13. P.J. Hill
13
“[T]he Jewish and Christian concept of
all human beings as God's image bearers
is an important contributor to the rule of law in Western civilization.”
“The Religious Origins
of the Rule of Law” 2020

14. 1440 (the printing press)
THE EMERGENCE
1776 (WN, Decl. of Ind.)
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15. What emerged?
Traditional society 1440.
And then:
 Printing press. Disjointed interpretation.
 Reformation, Wars of religion, Westphalia 1648
 Toleration, rise of nation-state, print culture, “the
public,” “the people.”
 Inversion of government’s focus. Natural
jurisprudence.
 TMS & 1776 WN: “the liberal plan”, “the liberal
system”
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16.  Arthur Melzer:
“[E]arly modern thinkers…endeavored to find a form of politics
that could do without such consensus. They deliberately set
out to subvert traditional society and to replace it with a
fundamentally new kind of social organization, one that would
renounce the ever precarious attempt to define the truth about
life’s highest goods. Instead, it would unite men on the promise
of preventing the most obvious and basic evils…Thus, by
standing traditional society on its head, by openly switching the
purpose and moral basis of the state from our highest to our
lowest end, they attempted to separate politics from the whole
disputed sphere of morality and religion…” (2014, 171)
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17. High things, sacred things.
Low things, mundane things.
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The low things
Clarifying pieces: Dividing and
subdividing rights and duties
Basic rules: operating system
“the liberal plan”
• dangers of discohesion
• a faith in spontaneous order

18. High things, sacred things.
Low things, mundane things.
18
The liberal plan DOES monkey with the
high-things space: It frowns on some of
it, and seeks to condemn and preclude it.
The liberal plan does NOT forsake high
things – virtue, right, (larger) justice,
goodness.
It is better than the alternatives.
The liberal plan is NOT a maximand.

19. Natural jurisprudence,
Political theory
19
Hugo Grotius
John Locke
Jean Barbeyrac
Samuel Pufendorf
Francis Hutcheson
Also:
Gershom Carmichael

20. Stephen Buckle
20

21. Some genealogy of
liberalism 1.0
Grotius-Locke-Hume
Hume-Smith
“liberal” as the name
1600 1689 1776 …. Gladstone….
21
We extend “liberal” backward in time, before 1776
“proto-liberals”  Political stability in Britain

22. Adam Smith
1723-1790
22
Treats virtues
you are to practice

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25. Commutative justice
“The most sacred laws of justice…are the
laws which guard the life and person of our
neighbour; the next are those which guard
his property and possessions; and last of all
come those which guard what are called his
personal rights, or what is due to him from
the promises of others.”
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26. Adam Smith
Commutative justice:
Not messing with
other people’s
stuff
Understood within historical context.
 Uniformity amidst variety.
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27. J.G.A. Pocock
“The child of jurisprudence is
liberalism, in which the disjunction between
individual and sovereign remains, no matter how close
the two are brought to one another; whereas
republican virtue pertains immediately to the individual,
not as proprietor or rights-bearer but as citizen, sharing
self-rule among a number of equals without the need
of any prior translatio.” (essay in Hont & Ignatieff 1983, 249)
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28. Flipside of CJ
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Flipside: Others not messing with your
stuff
In E-E: “security”
In S-i: “liberty,” “natural liberty.”
“Both laws were evident violations of
natural liberty, and therefore unjust” (WN,
530.16)

29. Smith, WN
 The spine of liberalism 1.0 is CJ/liberty.
 WN morally authorizes pursuit of
honest income and a presumption of
liberty.
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30. 30
“…and the pursuit
of happiness”
“life, liberty,”

31. The Great Enrichment
31
Deirdre McCloskey

32. 32

33. 33
Erik Matson
https://www.adamsmithworks.org/documents/matson-smith-moral-authorizations

34. Smith, WN
Presumption of liberty
“All systems either of preference or of restraint,
therefore, being thus completely taken away,
the obvious and simple system of natural
liberty establishes itself of its own accord.
Every man, as long as he does not violate the
laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue
his own interest his own way, and to bring both
his industry and capital into competition with
those of any other man, or order of men. “
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35. Smith, WN
Focalism
“Every individual is continually exerting
himself to find out the most
advantageous employment for whatever
capital he can command…. But the study
of his own advantage naturally, or rather
necessarily leads him to prefer that
employment which is most advantageous
to the society.”
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36. Smith, WN
Focalism
“[H]e intends only his own security; and by
directing that industry in such a manner as its
produce may be of the greatest value, he
intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as
in many other cases, led by an invisible hand
to promote an end which was no part of his
intention. Nor is it always the worse for the
society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his
own interest he frequently promotes that of the
society more effectually than when he really
intends to promote it.”
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39. WN: Vision of the liberal
nation-state
Wealth and the division of labor
Division of labor and obstructions
Removing obstructions
Invisible hand, spontaneous order
Focalism & presumption of liberty
Review of policies
A vision of the good polilty: The liberal nation-state
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40. “new liberalism”
“old liberalism”
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1880

41. Three faces of “liberal”
1. Liberalism 1.0: The presumption of liberty
2. Democratism (see Wolin p. 263)
3. The governmentalization of social affairs
T.H. Green L.T. Hobhouse J.A. Hobson J. Dewey J. Stiglitz
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43. Should We Read Adam
Smith’s WN Today?
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Thank you
for your attention!

45. Links to share
Erik Matson, ”Adam Smith’s Synergistic Moral Authorizations,” Just Sentiments, Liberty
Fund. 22 June 2022. https://www.adamsmithworks.org/documents/matson-smith-moral-
authorizations
Erik Matson, “The Edifying Discourse of Adam Smith: Focalism, Commerce, and
Serving the Common Good,” JHET:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3730236
Dylan DelliSanti, “The Dynamism of Liberalism: An Esoteric Reading of Adam Smith,”
JEBO 2020:
https://econfaculty.gmu.edu/klein/PdfPapers/SHLE_paper/DelliSanti%20Smith%20Esot
ericism%20v13.pdf
Dan Klein, ”Is It Just to Pursue Honest Income?,” EA, 2020:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3421472
“Conservative Liberalism: Hume, Smith, and Burke as Policy Liberals and Polity
Conservatives,” JEBO 2021:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3537275
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