Un-Sourced Adam Smith Quote

daniel
Posts: 305 Joined: 08-04-06
Submitted by daniel on 28 July, 2006 - 19:52.

I found a brilliant quote by Adam Smith in Class War's book Unfinished Business, but as it did not say where it was from, I'm leery about using it. Does anyone know where they got the quote:

"Law and governments may be considered in this and indeed in every case as a combination of the rich to oppress the poor and preserve to themselves the inequality of the goods which would otherwise soon be destroyed by the attacks of the poor, who if not hindered by the government would soon reduce the others to an equality with themselves by open violence."

If anyone could help, that'd be great. I'm trying to write an essay on The State, so it would be brilliant. Thanks.

Nemo "Desperately in need of a new tagline"
Posts: 678 Joined: 12-07-06 Location: Behind you!
28 July, 2006 - 20:39

Sorry I can't help with your quote. But Smith is certainly not as bad as liberals make out. For instance in The Wealth of Nations he clearly takes a swipe at private property -- something liberals don't like to mention too loudly.

Adam Smith wrote:
In that original state of things, which precedes both the appropriation of land and the accumulation of stock, the whole produce of labour belongs to the labourer. He has neither landlord nor master to share with him.

Had this state continued, the wages of labour would have augmented with all those improvements in its productive powers to which the division of labour gives occasion. All things would gradually have become cheaper. They would have been produced by a smaller quantity of labour; and as the commodities produced by equal quantities of labour would naturally in this state of things be exchanged for one another, they would have been purchased likewise with the produce of a smaller quantity.

EDIT: And if you don't already have it: here is a quote by David Hume (a close friend of Adam Smith):

David Hume wrote:
Nothing appears more surprizing to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. When we enquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find, that, as Force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular.

Nemo "Desperately in need of a new tagline"
Posts: 678 Joined: 12-07-06 Location: Behind you!
28 July, 2006 - 21:19

Google found the source of your quote: ADAM SMITH , THE GLASGOW EDITION OF THE WORKS AND CORRESPONDENCE OF ADAM SMITH (1981-1987)
VOL. V: LECTURES ON JURISPRUDENCE - REPORT OF 1762-3 (VOLUME FOUR OF MS.)

This definitely looks like it is worth a read for anyone who wants to make liberals who like to quote Adam Smith look stupid(er).

Joseph K. "the thinking man's idiot"
Posts: 8540 Joined: 14-03-06 Location: Brighton
28 July, 2006 - 21:50

On a related note (but not as juicy):

Adam Smith wrote:
'All for ourselves and nothing for other people' seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind

p.512 of the Penguin 1999 Edtion of The Wealth of Nations Books I-III

of course that's what he saw a competitive market as a counterweight to, but we have the benefit of hindsight.

jef costello "Beautiful, just like Nuremburg"
Posts: 9938 Joined: 09-02-06 Location: razorblade of apathy, shave me with your irony
29 July, 2006 - 05:48

I believe that liberals don't use Adam Smith in this way. I can remember at least 3 articles in the Guardian over the last year or so trying to 'reclaim' Smith from the right as a liberal.

Joseph K. "the thinking man's idiot"
Posts: 8540 Joined: 14-03-06 Location: Brighton
29 July, 2006 - 07:39
jef costello wrote:
I believe that liberals don't use Adam Smith in this way. I can remember at least 3 articles in the Guardian over the last year or so trying to 'reclaim' Smith from the right as a liberal.

but what's interesting is he was advocating capitalism ("a system of perfect liberty") before it really existed, and was honest enough to say that the purpose of government is solely to protect the private property of capital by oppressing the dispossessed with violence. This confirms the very violent processes of primitive accumulation were not simply a temporary violence to set up a peaceful order, and helps put the lie to all the later bourgoise propaganda about capitalism being 'natural' and 'inevitable' whatnot.

Nemo "Desperately in need of a new tagline"
Posts: 678 Joined: 12-07-06 Location: Behind you!
29 July, 2006 - 07:43
jef costello wrote:
I believe that liberals don't use Adam Smith in this way. I can remember at least 3 articles in the Guardian over the last year or so trying to 'reclaim' Smith from the right as a liberal.

To be honest I'm not entirely sure how liberals use him -- I assumed they used him to justify what they call capitalism even though he would be appalled by it. But certainly conservatives use him in this way. They get all wet over the invisible hand thingy, even though he only mentions it once.

Nemo "Desperately in need of a new tagline"
Posts: 678 Joined: 12-07-06 Location: Behind you!
29 July, 2006 - 08:02

People also like to quote Smith with enthusiasm about how fantastic the division of labour is. I've just found something which I've been looking for for a while:

Adam Smith wrote:
In the progress of the division of labour, the employment of the far greater part of those who live by labour, that is, of the great body of the people, comes to be confined to a few very simple operations, frequently to one or two. ... He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become. ... But in every improved and civilised society this is the state into which the labouring poor, that is, the great body of the people, must necessarily fall, unless government takes some pains to prevent it.

The Wealth of Nations, Book Five, Chapter I, Part 3, Article II http://www.adamsmith.org/smith/won-b5-c1-article-2-ss3.htm

I've just checked, and the reason I was not able to find this in the past is that it doesn't appear to be in my print copy (even though this section does). Obviously it was written in or out of later editions.

Joseph K. "the thinking man's idiot"
Posts: 8540 Joined: 14-03-06 Location: Brighton
29 July, 2006 - 08:13
Nemo wrote:
They get all wet over the invisible hand thingy, even though he only mentions it once

he does only use that phrase once (in book IV i think), but a recurring theme throughout is that people's 'natural' asocial greed can be turned to social ends by means of free competition. Obviously i'd question his Hobbesian conception of 'human nature', and thus his conclusion that the only way to tame it is competition, but hey.

Nemo "Desperately in need of a new tagline"
Posts: 678 Joined: 12-07-06 Location: Behind you!
29 July, 2006 - 08:20

Yeah, that's why I like Gerrard Winstanley so much. He's a contemporary of Hobbes, and essentially argues against this view. Unfortunately everyone knows who Hobbes is, and practically no one knows who Winstanley is.

Joseph K. "the thinking man's idiot"
Posts: 8540 Joined: 14-03-06 Location: Brighton
29 July, 2006 - 08:27
Nemo wrote:
Yeah, that's why I like Gerrard Winstanley so much. He's a contemporary of Hobbes, and essentially argues against this view. Unfortunately everyone knows who Hobbes is, and practically no one knows who Winstanley is.

Thats a fascinating pair of writers. They were both writing during the societal breakdown of the civil war, but had very different perspectives. Hobbes worked as a tutor to aristocrats, and all he saw beyond the gates was a bloodthirsty mob let loose by the absence of a sovereign. Winstanley was part of the mob, and saw the potential for free co-operation and communism (though they were foiled by local landowners e.g. at Little Heath).

Obviously Hobbes is far more useful to bourgois apologists, so its him who gets the attention, even though Winstanley was certainly the more visionary.

Nemo "Desperately in need of a new tagline"
Posts: 678 Joined: 12-07-06 Location: Behind you!
29 July, 2006 - 08:39

Just finding anything written by Winstanley is a real pain as nearly everything is out of print. There are so many different editions of Leviathan, that you are spoilt for choice.

EDIT: Now this is what I call taking the piss:

Works of Gerrard Winstanley (Textbook Binding)
Price: $737.04 LOW PRICE
Condition: Used - Good

Joseph K. "the thinking man's idiot"
Posts: 8540 Joined: 14-03-06 Location: Brighton
29 July, 2006 - 08:47
Nemo wrote:
EDIT: Now this is what I call taking the piss

If you want communism boy you're gonna have to pay eek

Heres a thought, its all out of copyright and doesn't need translating etc - if they can be found and formatted nicely print on demand services like lulu could be a way to make it more available for little outlay. In fact i think p-o-d was mentioned as a possibility linked into the new library and online store thats coming soon to libcom (they say wink )

Nemo "Desperately in need of a new tagline"
Posts: 678 Joined: 12-07-06 Location: Behind you!
29 July, 2006 - 09:14
Joseph K. wrote:
If you want communism boy you're gonna have to pay eek

Maybe that's why it never caught on.

The p-o-d thing is a good idea, but tracking down a copy may be hard, unless they can use a library copy. And I'm not volunteering for this task, BTW! wink Someone at a university would have more luck.

UPDATE: I said I couldn't find the quote about the division of labour making people ignorant in my copy of The Wealth of Nations -- but it is actually there. There are about 30 pages of waffle about teaching philosophy before it, which the Adam Smith Institute version omits, which is why I missed it.

ghostzart
Posts: 200 Joined: 19-06-06 Location: Vienna, Austria
30 July, 2006 - 20:29
Nemo wrote:
Just finding anything written by Winstanley is a real pain as nearly everything is out of print. There are so many different editions of Leviathan, that you are spoilt for choice.

http://www.bilderberg.org/land/lawofree.htm
http://www.rogerlovejoy.co.uk/philosophy/diggers/diggers1.htm
http://www.rogerlovejoy.co.uk/philosophy/diggers/diggers2.htm

"Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Prize." - Tom Lehrer

Nemo "Desperately in need of a new tagline"
Posts: 678 Joined: 12-07-06 Location: Behind you!
31 July, 2006 - 08:10

Yeah, thanks, I knew about those. (It was me who put the Winstanley stuff in the library.) But the book I linked to above is several hundred pages in length, and together those links probably account for no more than 50 or 60 pages. Amazon does not say, but I have seen references to it, one of which is to page 531. It's getting at all that other stuff that is the problem.

jef costello "Beautiful, just like Nuremburg"
Posts: 9938 Joined: 09-02-06 Location: razorblade of apathy, shave me with your irony
31 July, 2006 - 22:13
Nemo wrote:
Yeah, thanks, I knew about those. (It was me who put the Winstanley stuff in the library.) But the book I linked to above is several hundred pages in length, and together those links probably account for no more than 50 or 60 pages. Amazon does not say, but I have seen references to it, one of which is to page 531. It's getting at all that other stuff that is the problem.

If you try the academic website COPAC that would give you a list of unis that have it, and then you could probably find someone at the uni.
I may be able to help, depending on which library.

Nemo "Desperately in need of a new tagline"
Posts: 678 Joined: 12-07-06 Location: Behind you!
1 August, 2006 - 11:41

It's OK, I'm not too fussed about getting it. That was more of a comment on the lack of availability of anything by Winstanley versus anything by Hobbes.