【Editor's note】2023 marks the 300th anniversary of Adam Smith's birth. The "father of economics" is full of contradictions: he is gifted, he attended the University of Glasgow at the age of 14, Oxford University at the age of 17, and became a full professor at the University of Glasgow, his alma mater, at the age of 25; But at the same time, he is known for his obsession: he is often in a daze when he reads, he is too lazy to reply to his friends, and he has never married and has no children in his life. He left only two works—The Wealth of Nations, which is regarded as the "pioneering work" of modern economics, but The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which is regarded as a classic of ethics.
For 300 years, Adam Smith's ideas still influenced the trajectory of modern economics, and his image was once clouded by history. In order to restore a real Adam Smith, The Paper launched the "300 Years of Adam Smith" feature, inviting a number of scholars to show the multiple faces of the "father of modern economics" from the aspects of history, philosophy, economics and other dimensions.
Adam smith
To understand Adam Smith accurately, we must first understand his time. In the mid-to-late eighteenth century, in Scotland, especially in cities such as Edinburgh and Glasgow, an unprecedented group of outstanding thinkers emerged: Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746), David Hume (1711-1776), Adam Smith (1723-1790), Adam Ferguson, 1723-1816), Thomas Reid (1710-1796), etc. It was a highlight moment in Scottish cultural history. Because it was in the Age of Enlightenment in Europe and echoed the ideological enlightenment in France and other places, later generations called it the "Scottish Enlightenment".
The "Scottish Enlightenment" has made extraordinary contributions to human thought, which roughly includes: First, Scottish Enlightenment thinkers continue the "empiricist" tradition of English thinkers such as John Locke, but pay more attention to the function of human sense, such as Thomas Reed and the "Common Sense", which is the philosophical starting point for their thinking about problems; Second, on this basis, compared with the French Enlightenment thinkers who mainly focused on political issues, the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers paid special attention to thinking about issues such as morality and happiness, and made great achievements in the fields of psychology, moral philosophy, and ethics, such as Adam Smith's "Theory of Moral Sentiments"; Third, in form, Scottish thinkers were less "systematic" than the Enlightenment thinkers in England, France, and especially Germany, who were keen to write essays, especially David Hume; Even for large tomes, they often improvised them.
Adam Smith was an outstanding representative of the Age of Enlightenment in Scotland, which should be the starting point for our understanding of Smith.
Adam Smith was born in 1723 in Fife, a county in southern Scotland, near England, home to one of the oldest universities in the world, St Andrews. The exact date of Adam Smith's birth is unknown, but it is recorded that the baptism date was June 5 in the Julian calendar, June 16 in the A.D. year. Smith was a widow who was rumored to have been briefly abducted by Gypsies as a child. Around the age of 14, Smith entered the University of Glasgow and studied moral philosophy under Francis Hutcheson. From 1740 to 1746 he attended Oxford University , but claimed to have learned nothing and was allegedly severely punished for reading Hume's " A Treatise on Human Nature " ( 1738 ) . Smith was 12 years younger than Hume, exactly one round according to Chinese. In 1723, the year Smith was born, Hume entered the University of Edinburgh to study, also criticizing his alma mater.
In 1748, Smith began teaching at the University of Edinburgh, a series of lectures sponsored by a nobleman and not a formal position. If Hume had been born more than ten years late and entered the University of Edinburgh at this time, he might not have been so disrespectful to his alma mater; Not necessarily, however, because Smith still taught mainly rhetoric and literature, which Hume regarded as irrelevant, before turning to topics such as "affluence and progress." This year, the "Gemini" of the Scottish Enlightenment finally met, when Hume was a librarian of the Edinburgh Bar and Smith was a university professor. Later authors of Heresy and the Professor (Dennis M. C. Rasmussen, translated by Xu Qiuhui, Gezhi Publishing House, 2021), vividly portrays the spiritual outlook, friendship and differences between the two. "Infidel" refers to Hume, who questioned religious beliefs and was known for his skepticism; In addition to referring to Smith's identity, "professor" also meant "religious person" in English at that time.
In 1751, Smith was appointed professor of logic at the University of Glasgow, and the following year he became professor of moral philosophy, where his lectures expanded to include ethics, rhetoric, law, political economy, and policing and taxation. In 1759, on the basis of these lectures, Smith published A Theory of Moral Sentiments. Unlike the karmic teacher Hutcheson, Smith wrote better than speech, and his work was successful. Smith's writing has a sonorous, even gorgeous, temperament, but the Chinese translation is difficult to convey.
In 1764, Smith was hired by a nobleman as a governess with a salary of up to £300 a year. He resigned from his university teaching position and was replaced by Thomas Reed, another Scottish Enlightenment thinker mentioned above and a representative of the "common sense school". Smith accompanied his private disciple, later the Duke of Bukelech, on a journey to Europe, where he met Voltaire, who had taken refuge, and in Paris, Benjamin Franklin, a visiting American. In 1766, Smith returned home to Scotland after completing his tenure as a tutor, where he devoted himself to writing for the next ten years. In 1776 (the year of Hume's death), The Wealth of Nations was published to such success that the first edition sold out in just six months. In 1778, Smith was appointed Commissioner of Customs and Scotland and moved with his mother to Edinburgh. In 1783, Smith became a founding member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. From 1787 to 1789, Smith was honorary chancellor of the University of Glasgow. In 1790, Smith died. Like Hume, Smith left no record of marriage or heirs.
Cover of "The Theory of Moral Sentiments"
Smith's ideas are condensed in two famous works: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), the former is generally a work of moral doctrine, and the latter is generally a work of economics. This seems to remind us that Smith, like other Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, took virtue as the starting point for thinking. For a long time, many Chinese readers only knew that Smith was a teacher of wealth, not that he was also a teacher of virtue—being unkind to wealth is not the essence of Smith's thought.
The Chinese title of The Theory of Moral Sentiments is somewhat misleading, and may seem like a book of moral teaching. In fact, the book is in line with the Scottish Enlightenment era of the style of thought that emphasized senses, knowledge, and morality, and the title of the book may be more appropriately translated as "On Moral Perception". Karma Hutcheson believes that people's sense of morality comes from the senses, for example, if I feel sick, then the thing that causes me to be disgusting is immoral; Hume's A Study of the Principles of Morality and Thomas Reed's "common sense" ("common sense") also hold this theory in general. However, Smith believed that man's sense of morality did not come from his senses, but from his ability to "empathize." "Sympathy" is sometimes translated as "sympathy", which is not very appropriate, because "sympathy" has the meaning of pity, while "common feeling" is more neutral. Empathy is not a physical form of the senses, but Smith believed that it is an innate emotional trait of human beings. People living in groups, will perceive the attitude of others to themselves, and make some kind of emotional or even action response, in turn, others are the same, thus forming a "empathetic" relationship. People want to get the good empathy of others, in layman's terms, hope to get more praise and fewer bad reviews from others. If an action causes the good empathy of others, it is moral, and vice versa, it is immoral, so that empathy becomes a pointer to people's moral practice. This is the basic principle of Smith's "theory of moral perception" (moral sentiment theory). Smith's "theory of moral perception" did not simply change the basis of moral perception - from Hutchison's "senses", Reed's "common sense", etc. to his own "common feelings", its greater significance is to reveal the "utilitarian" basis behind human moral behavior - to get more praise. Later scholars have called Smith one of the founders of utilitarianism, which is based on this. Significantly, Smith referred to this utilitarian motivation in this book as the "invisible hand" and pointed out that, if properly played, it could lead to wealth—the grand thrust of Smith's next ambition, The Wealth of Nations.
The title of the Chinese of The Wealth of Nations is also somewhat misleading, and many readers mistakenly think that it is about how to achieve national prosperity and strength. This understanding cannot be said to be completely wrong, but it is intrusive. In fact, the English word nations in the title of the book should be accurately understood as "national", not "country". "The Wealth of Nations" mainly discusses not the source and nature of the wealth of the "country", but the source and nature of the wealth of the "people", in other words, it first cares about the wealth of the people, and then cares about the wealth of the country, that is, people often say "rich countries first rich people".
Like so many grand themes, economics is a time-honored theme of Western thought – after all, it's human nature to love money. The ancient Greeks were concerned with economics, typical of Xenophon's On Economics (Οἰκονομικός, Oeconomicus), which can be said to be the origin of the word "economy". In the Middle Ages, secular wealth was not a prominent theme in theology, but it was not entirely devoid of theologians' concerns, and Thomas Aquinas of the late Middle Ages argued in his Summa Theologica that high prices based on high demand were tantamount to theft. Beginning in the sixteenth century, what academics call the "early modern period," mercantilism flourished in Europe. "Mercantilism" is actually another misleading Chinese translation, which is a little laid out here.
Wealth was significant to the rise of Europe's early modern monarchs (known in academia as "new monarchs"). But what is wealth? The "new monarch" and his financial staff understood differently than we do today, or narrower than. In general, they believe that wealth is equivalent to heavy metal currency such as gold and silver; The total amount of wealth in the world is constant, and the wealth of countries grows and decreases; If a country wants to grow its wealth, it must seize the wealth of other countries, especially those abroad, whether through trade or plunder; As far as trade was concerned, domestic commerce and industry should be developed, exports should be encouraged, imports should be restricted and tariffs raised. In short, gold and silver are wealth, and the less gold and silver flow out, the better, and the more gold and silver flow in, the better. This is actually "heavy money" - a simple, practical way to make money. This "heavy money" concept and practice is essentially the "involvement" of wealth among countries, rather than common growth. From the mid-eighteenth century onwards, it was constantly revised and criticized. The French "physiocrat" thinker Marquis de Mirabeau believed that the source of a country's wealth was not gold and silver, but land and agriculture, and he satirized "heavy goldism" as mercantilisme (French), which means "mercenary". Voltaire, Rousseau, Hume and others also criticized this "heavy goldism".
The most profound and systematic criticism of this heavy money ideology can be said to be Smith. Borrowing the terminology of the Marquis de Mirabeau, Smith criticized "heavy metalism" as a "mercantile system." Since then, the term mercantilism has become synonymous with the idea of "heavy gold". Chinese usually translates mercantilism as "mercantilism", who pioneered this translation and whether it is a mistranslation, can be discussed separately, here we will follow the convention and continue to use it. I just hope that readers will not look at the text and think that "mercantilism" means valuing business, but in fact, its original meaning is "heavy goldism" - and even it doesn't hurt to call it "money worship".
The Wealth of Nations begins with a critique of mercantilism, and its core view is diametrically opposed to mercantilism: gold and silver are not attributes or essences of wealth, but the embodiment or appearance of wealth; The growth of national wealth stemmed mainly from the growth of production, not from overseas trade and plunder; Production growth is related to factors of production such as raw materials, markets, and labor, in which the market plays a leading role, not the intervention of the king. Smith advocated the role of the "invisible hand" and advocated "laissez-faire." However, the term "laissez-faire" (laissez-faire) was not pioneered by Smith, it was originally in French, derived from the aforementioned French physiocrats. At this point, it must be added that primarily in the economic sphere, Smith emphasized the role of the market, but in the areas of justice, defence, education, and public service, he believed that legislators should bear active responsibilities (The Wealth of Nations, Book V).
For the first time, Smith and The Wealth of Nations placed thinking about economics in a prominent position in human thought, thus forming a mature discipline - economics. Before the modern era, or rather, before Adam Smith, there was only sporadic economic thinking, but not economics. In Smith's day, wealth or economic issues were not yet the "manifestations" of most Enlightenment thinkers, for example, the French Enlightenment philosophers were more concerned with political issues such as the social contract, while other Enlightenment thinkers in Scotland were more concerned with moral issues. In the three centuries since Smith, economics has developed many schools. The first genre is naturally the economics pioneered by Smith, whose representatives include: David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus, etc., and the most familiar to Chinese readers is Karl Marx. Later generations called this school of economics "political economics", as the name suggests (although simplistic), political economy is to think about economic problems from a political perspective, just as the later "behavioral economics" is to think about economic problems from the perspective of human behavior. Political economy is concerned with the relationship between economics and politics, and its basic position is to oppose excessive political intervention in the economy, and in this sense, it would not hurt to call "political economy", or at least Smith's political economy, "anti-political economy". In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, more schools of economics emerged, calling Smith's economics, that is, political economy, "classical economics" or "classical political economy", which means that the children and grandchildren honor their ancestors, but the word "classical" is easy to mistake for ancient Greece and Rome. By the mid-to-late twentieth century, there was another kind of "neoclassical economics", which understandably was a revival and transformation of Adam Smith's school of economics. In short, Smithian economics, political economy, and classical (political) economics mean roughly the same thing; Smith is known as the "father" of economics as described by these terms, and rightly so.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments shows that Smith was a moralist, The Wealth of Nations shows that he was an economist, and in fact Smith was a very broad thinker. Smith's concern in his will for the destruction of almost all of his manuscripts is unknown. Fortunately, his lectures at the University of Glasgow were well documented by some students, and some friends were given his manuscripts, which show the breadth of Smith's involvement. One of the most noteworthy is Smith's reflections on the "feudal" economy in European history, which is very important for us to understand the original meaning of the word "feudal" in its true origin. His thinking on many topics of "civil society," such as policing, law, and defense, was also far-reaching. His exposition of the "four stages" of the history of human civilization (fishing and hunting, animal husbandry, agriculture, and commerce) shows that he inspired Karl Marx not only in political economy, but also in historical materialism.
Adam Smith adhered to the moral practice style of Scottish Enlightenment thinkers such as his mentor Hutcheson and his best friend Hume, not only studying morality, but also practicing morality. Later generations honor Smith, not only as the originator of modern economics, but also as his personality. Today, visitors visit Edinburgh, and the two bronze statues of Adam Smith and David Hume are a must-see sight. The new £20 note issued in 2007 features Adam Smith's head. Adam Smith was also an important theme of the "learning from the West and the East" in the late Chinese Qing Dynasty, and Yan Fu translated his "The Wealth of Nations" as "Yuan Fu".
£20 note
Today's Chinese readers commemorate Smith, the first thing to do is to restore the context of Smith's Scottish Enlightenment thought. Specifically, one is to understand Smith from the perspective of enlightenment thought, not just from the perspective of economic thought; The second is to think about economic issues from the perspective of virtue, not just from the perspective of wealth. Smith's contribution was not only to economics in The Wealth of Nations, but also to the moral doctrine of The Theory of Moral Sentiments. In fact, economics and morality are inherently one. The Chinese word "economy" originally contains moral meanings, and ancient Chinese merchants have always said that "gathering wealth with virtue". Today, China's economic development is accelerating, and it is self-evident that we can revisit Smith's doctrine of wealth and morality.