IMAGINING OTHER
How Enlightened was the
Enlightenment?
Week 6 Enlightenment views on ‘human nature’: extra
notes: Adam Smith 1723 – 1790, and the British and Scottish Enlightenments.
Links: Imagining Other Index page
Week 6: Human Nature and
Ethics in Smith, Rousseau and Kant
Week 6: Human nature in Rousseau (extra
notes)
Week 6: Kant's Ethics (extra notes)
Political Philosophy Part 1: Adam Smith
Summary (NB the first part of this material duplicates
notes in ‘Human Nature and Ethics in Smith, Rousseau and Kant’):
Introduction: the British Enlightenment
Adam Smith (1723 – 1790)
His ethical ideas
His view of politics and the state
Smith
and economic theory
Have
Adam Smith’s economic theories been misrepresented?
Other Reactions to the Wealth of
Nations:
Conclusion
Extracts.
The ‘British Enlightenment:
Gertrude Himmelfarb (2008)
argues that the British Enlightenment was different to the French – and,
paradoxically, it was the French who most revered
Sabine comments that the philosophy of Adam Smith’s
time, as with Locke 100 yrs before, was an odd mixture of empiricism (the basis of scientific method: we find out about the
world by observing its behaviour) and a
belief in natural law/natural rights, which must be God-given): for Smith,
"natural law (God's law)" could be seen in the empirical regularities
at work in society [Peng. pp 19 - 20]
A key idea of writers such as Adam
Smith, and before him Shaftesbury and others, was that we all have an innate
moral sense – a ‘sympathy’ as Smith put it, which allows us to imagine what
others are feeling, and which then brings us to sympathise with them, and hence
to condemn whatever is making them suffer and praise what is making them happy
etc.
This was a step on from Locke and
The Earl of Shaftesbury on the other hand wrote in 1699 An Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit: virtue comes form a
‘moral sense’ the ‘sense of right and wrong’ – not from religion,
self-interest, sensation or reason. We
also had a ‘natural affection’ which he saw as ‘social affection’ virtuous man
is motivated by ‘a natural affection for his kind’. Locke was wrong, he argued,
to believe that moral sense was learned: this would make it determined by
‘fashion and culture’… (and relative!).
On the other hand, Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees 1705
tried to refute Shaftesbury by arguing that: self-love is the primary
motivation of all men, and it can be reduced to pleasure and pain. Fellow
feeling and condolence for others was a spurious passion (and one which
afflicted the weakest minds the most…) - ‘what we call evil in this world,
moral as well as natural, is the grand principle that makes us sociable
creatures.’
Smith dismissed these views as
‘licentious’ and ‘wholly pernicious’ – Mandeville was also attacked by
Berkeley, Francis Hutcheson, Edward Gibbon…
Hutcheson in 1726 wrote: An Inquiry Concerning the Original of Our
ideas of Virtue or Moral Good – he defended Shaftesbury’s ideas (especially the ‘moral
sense’) against Mandeville. He was in fact the first to use the expression:
“The greatest happiness for the greatest numbers’ NB it was not Helvetius or
Bentham! And it was not the same ideas as theirs, because for utilitarians it
derives from rational calculations of utility.
Hutcheson argued that fellow-feeling
cannot come from self-love, because it involves feeling others’ pain. It was ‘antecedent to reason or instruction’
(GH p 32). Reason alone cannot guide us – we needs our senses in situations
where the problem is self-preservation, and we need our moral sense when we
need to ‘direct our actions for the good of the whole’.
Even Hume believed in a
‘sentiment’ a ‘moral sense’ a ‘moral taste’ common to all men. A ‘disinterested
benevolence’ was an essential quality of human nature (disinterested = divorced
from personal relations and affections).
Adam Smith (1723 – 1790)
Smith's ethical ideas:
In his ethics (“The Theory of
Moral Sentiments” 1759…) he tackled questions of: the individual & society, conflict and co-operation, self-interest
and altruism.
The opening words (Extract TMS 1) contain a
statement of his view on the ability of humans to feel pity, compassion,
benevolence, sympathy.
Extract TMS 1. “How
selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature,
which interest him in the fortune of others and render their happiness
necessary unto him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of
seeing it. Of this kind is pity or compassion, the emotion which we feel for
the misery of others when we either see it or are made to conceive it in a
lively manner… By the imagination we place ourselves in his situation… we
enter, as it were, into his body and become in some measure the same person
with him.” (Opening words of TMS)
Note that we do not imagine
ourselves feeling the suffering etc of the other, but we ‘become in some
measure the same person with him’ – so sympathy is not a selfish principle (a
man might also sympathise with a woman’s pain in childbirth…). Also, he says
that we have an ‘immediate sense and feeling’ – we do not come to it as a
result of reasoning.
He argued that there must be an
element of perceived common interest for any
society to function, and that we
acquire our moral sense from being in society
(cf. Rousseau):
TMS 2. Were it possible that a human creature could grow up to
manhood in some solitary place, without any communication with his own species,
he could no more think of his own character, of the propriety or demerit of his
own sentiments and conduct, of the beauty or deformity of his own mind, than of
the beauty or deformity of his own face. All these are objects which he cannot
easily see... and with regard to which he is provided with no mirror which can
present them to his view. Bring him into
society, and he is immediately provided with the mirror which he wanted
before. [from Raphael, D.D.: Adam Smith,
TMS 3. We suppose ourselves the spectators of our own behaviour, and
endeavour to imagine what effect it would, in this light, produce upon us. This is the only looking-glass by which we
can, in some measure, with the eyes of other people, scrutinize the propriety
of our own conduct. [TMS I iii (iii) (?)]
-
what is right for the individual is also right for society:
Extract TMS 4. Self-preservation and the propagation of
the species, are the great ends which Nature seems to have proposed in the
formation of all animals... [TMS II i (v)].
Nature, indeed, seems to have happily adjusted our sentiments of
approbation and disapprobation, to the conveniency both of the individual and
of the society… [TMS IV ii]
[note the emphasis
on the species rather than the individual? (cf Locke - Smith is closer to Hayek
in seeing society as automatically following from sum of individuals...?) (note Skinner p. 16, on civil soc etc p
29ff)
How are ethical standards formed? [see: Cole and Strauss, Cropsey]
There are four steps in the
formation of ethics and social standards:
1. self-judgment
2. imagining effects of our
actions on others
3. imagining others'
perceptions/assessments of our actions
4. social code and sanctions
To pass to stages 2 and 3 we
make use of the idea of an ‘impartial
observer’ -so it is not just a
question of thinking ‘how would we feel?’ – since that might lead to
‘distortions’ in our judgment of others’ feelings (evidence not here for this).
In other words, the basis of
morality is sympathy not abstract reason (but S & C: only rationality can promote freedom...) Here there is a strong contrast with Kant,
whose ethical theory we will deal with in week 6.
Smith is therefore attempting to
ground ethics in a ‘scientific’, humanist approach: ethics must be derived from "man as man."
It can also be argued (S & C) that this (as against
earlier formulations (e.g. Plato: philosophers discover the ethical ‘truth’;
the Christian view: God reveals it) represents a ‘democratisation of morality.’ GH makes much of the ‘implicitly
democratic character’ of Smith’s political economy (p 67)… after all, she
points out, the labourer is the source of value. Smith declares, too, that ‘The
difference in natural talents in different men is, in reality, much less than
we are aware of… By nature a philosopher is not in genius and disposition half
so different from a street porter as a mastiff is from a greyhound, or a
greyhound from a spaniel’ (p 69) - in this she believes Smith to be very
different to the French philosophes, who were, as I have suggested, explicitly
elitist.
(However, Hobbes also declared
all to be equal, and the consequences of his philosophical system were far from
democratic).
His view of politics and the state:
Although he believed that feelings of sympathy are
natural, this not the same as saying that man is a political animal; for Smith politics and justice are
"negative":
to do with constraining or punishing, returning evil for evil. They
are
therefore not "praiseworthy" – nor are those actions ‘good’ which are
carried
out as a result of fear of punishment or a sense of obligation.
This
is in contrast (GH) to the ‘civic humanist’ tradition, where virtue etc are
derived from public affairs.
Perhaps he would approve of Cameron’s ‘Big
Society’
– i.e. it is in the ‘private realm’ (family etc) that we most naturally act
in
an ethical manner.
I would also argue that Smith
sets quite high standards of morality:
TMS 5. [The perfection of human nature is] to feel much for others
and little for ourselves... to restrain our selfish, and to indulge our
benevolent affections... As to love our neighbour as we love ourselves is the
great law of Christianity, so it is the great precept of nature to love
ourselves only as we love our neighbour, or, what comes to the same thing, as
our neighbour is found capable of loving us.
[TMS I i (v)]
TMS 6. Mere justice is, upon most occasions, but a negative
virtue, and only hinders us from harming our neighbour. The man who barely
abstains from violating either the person or the estate, or the reputation, of
his neighbours, has surely little positive merit. [TMS II ii (v)]
Another reason for his
negative view of politics comes from the fact that, as he saw it, politics is
based on reasoning (not feeling…), and on nationalism, which is
"arbitrary."
Smith
and economic theory:
The Wealth of Nations:
Three key ideas: division of
labour, free market enabling self-interest to operate for the common good,
hidden hand…
In a ‘system of natural
liberty’ i.e. a free market, individuals’ self-interest would operate in such a
way that everyone benefited.
Adam Smith is regarded as the first writer to have
“explained”, in “The Wealth of Nations” (1776), the workings of what we
now call ‘capitalism’. Note that he used the expression “the obvious and simple system of natural liberty” – the word capitalism was not used until
Marx’s time.
Smith argued that individual acts (buying and
selling), whilst motivated by self-interest, nevertheless promoted the common
good, through the “hidden hand” of the market; that
is, roughly, by the workings of the laws of supply and demand. For a producer
will only sell at a price that will bring a profit, although of course it has
to be a price that consumers will accept. Likewise, consumers only make
purchases when the price is right for them – they will of course contribute to
the wealth of the producers, but their main motive is self-interest. In the
end, everyone benefits.
From The Wealth of Nations:
WN 1 As
every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his
capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry
that its produce may be of greatest value; every individual necessarily labours
to render the annual revenue of society as great as he can. He generally,
indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he
is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to foreign industry, he
intends only his own security; and by directing that industry insuch 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 society that it was no part of it. By
pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of society more
effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much
good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an
affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need
be employed in dissuading them from it. [Wealth of Nations (1776) IV ii]
The book was an attack on
mercantilism, where national wealth and power was the goal, and the state
directed trade etc. In these circumstances men would conspire together, ‘deceive’
and ‘oppress’ each other – whereas the market would give everyone their
freedom. (GH p 57).
GH points out also a number of
ways in which Smith supported the poor and sought a more just economic system:
- he rejected mercantilism’s
tendency to benefit merchants and manufacturers at the expense of the workers
(who, he believed, would get a better deal in a free market). This was because
mercantilism, says GH, set a maximum wage and not a minimum, based on the
prevailing belief that workers kept poor would maintain a favourable balance of
trade, and provide a better incentive for them to work hard!
- he believed the labourers
should have higher wages because ‘Where wages are high, we shall always find the
workmen more active, diligent, and expeditious, than where they are low.’
- he supported taxation of
luxuries so that ‘the indolence and vanity of the rich is made to contribute …
to the relief of the poor.’
- finally, GH points out that
the economy he is describing is one that would promote growth, and cater for
higher wages and an increased population, bringing a ‘plentiful subsistence’
which would give the common man the hope of ‘bettering his condition.’
(But it strikes me that he has
to demonstrate that a free market would do this more successfully than e.g.
mercantilism – I am not sure that GH has given us the arguments that
demonstrate this…)
In the market, then,
self-love/self-interest promotes the general good, and he saw it as moral (in the
market-place).
The ‘hidden hand’ – which appears both in WN
and TMS (Extract TMS – is a metaphor for the unintended consequences of
individual actions. In TMS it ensures the distribution of the necessaries of
life, in WN it increases the revenues of society. It is not teleological (as
Hegel) nor does it suggest a ‘general good’ (as did Rousseau), rather Smith’s
general interest was ‘simply the totality of interests of all the people who
constituted society’. (GH p 59)
What has come to be called the
"hidden hand of market" (quote ) - i.e. the fact that supply and
demand, through the market, leads to the sale of a good at the price "it
is worth" (covering the costs of rent, labour etc) - can perhaps be seen
as analogous to the "impartial and well-informed spectator"? (Macfie...Bus Org and Comp Trad).
Alternatively it can be seen as equating with God... (Heilbroner)
However, I would point out
that there is a logical link in Smith’s thinking : he criticises the tendency
to see benefits in wealth which are in fact illusory; then he states that this
desire for more, and this envy of the rich, is what drives the economic system;
however, in my view (against GH) it should be clear from this that he is not saying that the system is morally just.
TMS 7. This
disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and powerful, and to
despise or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition, though
necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks in the
order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of
the corruption or our moral sentiments. [TMS I iii (iii)]
TMS 8. In
what constitutes the real happiness of life, [the poor and obscure] are in no
respect inferior to those who would seem so much above them. In ease of body
and peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level, and
the beggar, who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that
security which kings are fighting for. [TMS IV]
TMS 9. And it is
well that nature imposes upon us in this manner. It is this deception which arouses and keeps
in continual motion the industry of mankind...
It is to no purpose that the proud and
unfeeling landlord views his extensive fields, and without a thought for the
wants of his brethren, in imagination consumes himself the whole harvest that
grows upon the. The homely and vulgar proverb, that the eye is larger than the
belly, was never more fully verified than with regard to him. The capacity of his stomach bears no
proportion to the immensity of his desires, and will receive no more than that
of the meanest peasant. The rest he is obliged to distribute (my emphasis) among those who prepare [....]
that little which he himself makes use of, among those who fit up the palace in
which this little is to be consumed [....] all of whom thus derive from his
luxury and caprice, that share of the necessaries of life, which they would in
vain have expected from his humanity or his justice. The produce of the soil maintains at all
times nearly that number of inhabitants which it is capable of
maintaining. The rich ... consume little
more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity,
though they mean only their own conveniency, though the sole end which they
propose from the labours of all the thousands whom they employ, be the
gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, they divide with the
poor the produce of all their improvements.. They are necessarily
led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the
necessaries of life which would have been made, had the earth been divided into
equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it,
without knowing it, advance the interests of society and afford means to the
multiplication of the species. [TMS IV]
Have
Adam Smith’s economic theories been misrepresented?
Smith is often cited by those who wish to
defend the “free market” against
“distortions” such as trade union activity,
and state intervention; also his ideas,
through ‘classical political
economy’ were used later to justify opposition to
legislation to improve workers’
conditions etc. (Heilb. p 70, Samuel Kydd
p
40...). But it is probably not true
that he would have opposed such legislation.
It
is often forgotten, or glossed over, that:
(a) in his portrayal of capitalism he recognised
that it had severe failings (such as alienation of the worker by excessive
division of labour) – see GH p 62 – 62…
(b) he saw the need (GH argues this is to put
right what he has just described – though the excessive division of labour that
a competitive economy produces is surely something that no amount of state-run
services can put right) for the state to provide for services (education,
health) that were not such as could be run by the market, and he argued the need for fair
business practices (not just ‘competition’), and for the courts if necessary to
promote/ensure this. (cf now..) [quote p 39....
GH also (p 64 – 5) criticises
Marx’s proposals for education tied to work as being ‘primitive and regressive’
– and she says he reduced humans to ‘working animals’ where labor is the very
essence of man. I am not sure this is justified, since Marx is writing of the
kind of education that would be needed in a socialist society – whereas
elsewhere he was reluctant to try to describe how a future system would work in
such detail. Her point that the early writings of Marx do address the issues of
alienation as an inevitable by-product of the division of labour is one I would
agree with, however.
(c) he did not trust businessmen (when they
got together, he said, they would plot against the consumer e.g. to fix prices…! ), and he actually said that self-interest frequently
promotes the common good, etc – however, the word "frequently" has
been omitted in translations…
(d) he actually oppose both monopolies and the then
new-fangled joint-stock companies with limited liability (he opposed them on
the basis that businesses ran best when controlled by the owner, whose
self-interest would ensure they were successful – limited liability, and in
fact the widespread distribution of shareholders, so that they did not control
the business, would militate against commercial success) and
(e)
he said that society can easily produce our needs; most production therefore
is
for wealth and power – in contrast, as noted, Smith favoured "prudence,
parsimony and productivity." His account of the division of labour, where each
does what he is good at, and we satisfy our needs without each of us having to
be good at everything, stresses its role in promoting production - more goods, not more money... [He also believed that more
specialisation means more interdependence (Cole p 32)].
(f)
he acknowledged that too much self-interest leads to selfishness, which in
society
is prevented by family ties, neighbours etc; these factors don't work in
the
economy.
(g)
(see quote 6) the "corruption of our natural sentiments" that goes
with the
motivation
to produce more – this to me is a very significant ethical statement,
clearly
criticising the market system for not
being a result of sympathy.
(h) most importantly, as noted above, he had an ethical
theory and, when
he revised the TMS towards the end of his life, he added a chapter ‘Of the corruption of our moral sentiments
which is occasioned by this disposition to admire the rich and the great, and
to despise or neglect persons of poor and mean condition.’ (Extract 7)
All this suggests to me that he would have been
horrified to hear people use his name to defend unbridled competition in the
market as it occurs today. However, if Smith would have objected (as I do!) to
the oligopolies and monopolies – not to mention the financial speculation –
that are inherent in today’s ‘market capitalism,’ the question then is: can the
market now be opened up and re-structured so that it ensures the ‘freedom’ that
Smith saw as essential to its working in a just and fair way?
GH’s main conclusion – p 66 – seems to be that
Smith’s importance lies in his linking economic, political, civil and
religious freedom. And, taking points from Cropsey: ‘he advocated
capitalism for the sake of freedom.’
I wonder if we still can go along with this, given
the behaviour of market economies with regard to individual freedom in recent
decades?
Other Reactions to the Wealth of
Nations:
Smith’s Wealth of Nations was
influential, and Burke, Paine, Gibbon and others said they agreed with it… (!)
Others saw a contradiction
between the two books, and argued the W of N must be a refutation of the TMS:
John Ruskin disliked WN, and
E.P.Thompson said the WN was
‘disinfested of intrusive moral imperatives’ because that was the consequence
of his doctrine.
Schumpeter, on the other hand,
thought WN was not sufficiently de-moralised…
Conclusion:
One way of reconciling WN with TMS is to argue that the
market will only work fairly if we are motivated primarily by sympathy.
But what a different market it would be!
(In a similar fashion we might argue that Rousseau’s
idea of the general will could only work given humans with a (high?) degree of
sensibilité – my own view on this is that they would need to be like Rousseau
himself!!)
At the very least I think we could criticise Smith
for not being able to suggest any alternative to the market… however, how many
of us can see beyond the economic and political system we live in (the ‘tyranny
of the present’, in Cicero’s words)? Perhaps if he had been able to envisage an
alternative he would have put it forward.
Needless to say, this debate over the comparative
importance of the individual and of society – and how to maximise the good of
society (by state management, or by individual freedom) is still going on
today!
Finally
it can be argued that Smith reveals a paradox, or a contradiction,
within this liberal/capitalist
kind of society, where self-deceiving, greedy and
selfish individuals, seeking
status and power, actually promote the common
good: that is, “social
production" is driven by “private consumption (and
private greed)". Marx was
to take up and build his theory on a similar
‘contradiction’– that is, the
contradiction between social production and private ownership.
Extracts:
From The Wealth of Nations:
WN 1 As
every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his
capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry
that its produce may be of greatest value; every individual necessarily labours
to render the annual revenue of society as great as he can. He generally,
indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he
is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to foreign industry, he
intends only his own security; and by directing that industry insuch 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 society that it was no part of it. By
pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of society more
effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much
good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an
affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need
be employed in dissuading them from it. [Wealth of Nations (1776) IV ii]
From the Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS):
TMS 1. “How selfish soever man may be supposed,
there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the
fortune of others and render their happiness necessary unto him, though he
derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this kind is pity
or compassion, the emotion which we feel for the misery of others when we
either see it or are made to conceive it in a lively manner… By the imagination
we place ourselves in his situation… we enter, as it were, into his body and
become in some measure the same person with him.” (Opening words of TMS)
TMS 2. Were it possible that a human creature could grow up to
manhood in some solitary place, without any communication with his own species,
he could no more think of his own character, of the propriety or demerit of his
own sentiments and conduct, of the beauty or deformity of his own mind, than of
the beauty or deformity of his own face. All these are objects which he cannot
easily see... and with regard to which he is provided with no mirror which can
present them to his view. Bring him into
society, and he is immediately provided with the mirror which he wanted
before. [from Raphael, D.D.: Adam Smith,
Fontana 1985]
TMS 3. We suppose ourselves the spectators of our own behaviour, and
endeavour to imagine what effect it would, in this light, produce upon us. This is the only looking-glass by which we
can, in some measure, with the eyes of other people, scrutinize the propriety
of our own conduct. [TMS I iii (iii) (?)]
TMS 4. Self-preservation and the propagation of the species, are the
great ends which Nature seems to have proposed in the formation of all
animals... [TMS II i (v)]. Nature,
indeed, seems to have happily adjusted our sentiments of approbation and
disapprobation, to the conveniency both of the individual and of the
society… [TMS IV ii]
TMS 5. [The perfection of human nature is] to feel much for others
and little for ourselves... to restrain our selfish, and to indulge our
benevolent affections... As to love our neighbour as we love ourselves is the
great law of Christianity, so it is the great precept of nature to love
ourselves only as we love our neighbour, or, what comes to the same thing, as
our neighbour is found capable of loving us.
[TMS I i (v)]
TMS 6. Mere justice is, upon most occasions, but a negative
virtue, and only hinders us from harming our neighbour. The man who barely
abstains from violating either the person or the estate, or the reputation, of
his neighbours, has surely little positive merit. [TMS II ii (v)]
TMS 7. This
disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and powerful, and to
despise or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition, though
necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks in the
order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of
the corruption or our moral sentiments. [TMS I iii (iii)]
TMS 8. In
what constitutes the real happiness of life, [the poor and obscure] are in no
respect inferior to those who would seem so much above them. In ease of body
and peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level, and
the beggar, who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that
security which kings are fighting for. [TMS IV]
TMS 9. And it is
well that nature imposes upon us in this manner. It is this deception which arouses and keeps
in continual motion the industry of mankind...
It is to no purpose that the proud and
unfeeling landlord views his extensive fields, and without a thought for the
wants of his brethren, in imagination consumes himself the whole harvest that
grows upon the. The homely and vulgar proverb, that the eye is larger than the
belly, was never more fully verified than with regard to him. The capacity of his stomach bears no
proportion to the immensity of his desires, and will receive no more than that
of the meanest peasant. The rest he is
obliged to distribute among
those who prepare [....] that little which he himself makes use of, among those
who fit up the palace in which this little is to be consumed [....] all of whom
thus derive from his luxury and caprice, that share of the necessaries of life,
which they would in vain have expected from his humanity or his justice. The produce of the soil maintains at all times
nearly that number of inhabitants which it is capable of maintaining. The rich ... consume little more than the
poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity, though they mean
only their own conveniency, though the sole end which they propose from the
labours of all the thousands whom they employ, be the gratification of their
own vain and insatiable desires, they divide with the poor the produce of all
their improvements.. They are
necessarily led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of
the necessaries of life which would have been made, had the earth been divided
into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it,
without knowing it, advance the interests of society and afford means to the
multiplication of the species. [TMS IV]