Liberalism, Civic Humanism, and the Case of Adam Smith Author(s): Edward J. Harpham Source: The American Political Science Review, Vol. 78, No. 3 (Sep., 1984), pp. 764-774 Published by: American Political Science Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1961842 Accessed: 01-07-2016 16:52 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. American Political Science Association, Cambridge University Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The American Political Science Review This content downloaded from 129.110.242.69 on Fri, 01 Jul 2016 16:52:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 764 Liberalism, Civic Humanism, and the Case of Adam Smith EDWARD J. HARPHAM The University of Texs at Dallas In this article, I examine critically Donald Winch's interpretation of the politics of Adam Smith. I explain how Winch wrests Smith's political thought out of the larger vision of commercial society that is found in his moral, political, and economic writings, and how Winch misreads Smith's under- standing of particularpoliticalproblems such as the dehumanized workforce and the standing army. I also show how Winch's civic humanist reading of Smith's political thought fails to appreciate Smith's liberal conceptualizations of corruption and public-mindedness in a modern commercial society. Finally, I suggest that our failure to understand the politics of Adam Smith does not lie in our liberal interpretation of his work, as Winch claims, but in our understanding of what constitutes liberal political discourse. The concepts of virtue and corruption have terpretations has been the work od J. 0. A. played a major role in the history of political Pocock. thought since the ancient Greeks. Traditionally, According to Pocock, there emerged in post- histories of political thought have associated the 1688 England a purely secular form of social criti- decline of these concepts with the rise of liberal- cism that drew heavily upon the civic humanist ism in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth tradition of renaissance Florence in order to centuries, and Marxism in the nineteenth and understand the impact of an expanding commer- twentieth centuries (Cropsey, 1957; Cumming, cial economy upon English political life. Rejecting 1969; Sabine, 1961; Wolin, 1960). A growing in- or minimizing the role of the individual in the terest in the economic forces underlying political marketplace, or of the merchant class in the econ- change is seen to displace gradually classical at- omy, this civic humanism was based upon a per- tempts to view politics through moral categories, ception of changes in the role of the individual as and to give rise to a modern mechanistic view of citizen, and in the autonomous citizen's ability to the political order. perform certain political and military duties. The Over the past 15 years, a number of important function of property in the civic humanist para- attempts have been made to reinterpret seven- digm was to insure the autonomy of each in- teenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century dividual citizen in the performance of one's thought through a reading of the republican or duties. Property, particularly landed or real prop- civic humanist tradition (Bailyn, 1967; Kramnick, erty, was perceived to be the foundation upon 1968; Pocock, 1973, 1975a, b; Robbins, 1959; which an individual's civic personality and civic Wood, 1972). Focusing upon the central role virtue rested. played by the concepts of virtue and corruption in Pocock's interpretation has culminated in a the republican tradition, these studies have led to serious reevaluation of the importance of liberal a striking revisionist understanding of an evolving modes of thought in the seventeenth and eigh- Anglo-American tradition of political discourse. teenth centuries. For Pocock, civic humanist Among the most prominent of the revisionist in- writers were "the first intellectuals on record to express an entirely secular awareness of social and economic changes going on in their society, and to say specifically that these changes affected both their values and their modes of perceiving reality" Received: October 17, 1983 Accepted for publication: December 21, 1983 (1975b, p. 461). Civic humanists did not investi- gate the dynamics of the marketplace nor did they I would like to thank Robert Cumming, Merle Levy, accept the assumptions of "possessive individual- Michael Levy, and Alan Stone for their assistance in ism." They analyzed the modes of property which reading and discussing earlier drafts of the article. I also would like to thank the Institute for Humane Studies left men unduly dependent upon others from the for its support. An earlier version of the article was pre- property-personality-civic autonomy matrix. To sented at the 1983 meetings of the Southwestern Politi- the degree to which emerging social types such as cal Science Association. the monied interest could not conform to these This content downloaded from 129.110.242.69 on Fri, 01 Jul 2016 16:52:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 1984 Liberalism, Civic Humanism and Adam Smith 765 criteria, civic humanists denounced them as of his work, but in our understanding of what undermining or corrupting the social and eco- constitutes liberal political discourse. nomic foundations upon which the polity rested. To the degree to which these social types could Winch's Smith conform to these criteria, civic humanists cham- pioned them as forces promoting virtue and At the heart of Winch's reading of Adam stabilizing the political order.' Smith's politics lies an attempt to recover a lost In Adam Smith's Politics, Donald Winch has political dimension to Smith's thought. Accord- written "an essay in historical revision" that ing to Winch (1978, p. 26), "Smith employs a draws heavily upon the civic humanist interpreta- consistent method or style of political analysis in tion of eighteenth-century thought. By placing his writings and lectures which cannot readily be Smith in the context of civic humanism, Winch encompassed within the categories of the liberal seeks to show how Smith's political views were capitalist perspective." In order to understand affected by attitudes that were not liberal- this lost dimension "it is necessary to bear in mind capitalist in orientation and to explain why that he is frequently employing a well-established Smith's politics were not simply an episode "that public language for discussing such matters-a occurred some way along a road which runs from language, the resonances of which were already Locke to Marx" (1978, p. 180). Far from repre- well known to the educated members of his im- senting the cutting edge of a liberal vision of the mediate audience" (1978, p. 5). Surprisingly, world, the politics of Adam Smith were part of Winch's explanation of exactly what this "well- the evolving tradition of seventeenth- and eigh- established public language" encompasses is teenth-century civic humanism. rather vague. Constant references to the work of In this article I examine critically the Winch in- J. G. A. Pocock and his ongoing attempt to read terpretation of Adam Smith's political thought. I Smithian political ideas in light of the property- argue that Winch's civic humanist reading of personality equation found in the civic humanist Adam Smith's politics has led to a serious mis- tradition leave little doubt that the "public understanding of Smith's thought. Winch wrests language" Winch is referring to is civic human- Smith's political thought out of the larger vision ism. Indeed, chapters 4-7 demonstrate a sys- of commercial society that is found in his moral, tematic attempt to read Smith's analysis of par- political, and economic writings. As a result, ticular political questions of the day, such as the Winch fails to appreciate the degree to which question of the relationship between commerce Smith's understanding of particular political and liberty, the problem of a dehumanized work- problems, such as a dehumanized workforce or force, the public debt issue, and the standing- the standing army, exists not only outside the army controversy, in terms of the ideas of con- logic of civic humanist thought, but in direct op- temporary civic humanist writers. position to it. I also explain why Winch's analysis The problem with Winch's civic humanist read- fails to appreciate Smith's "liberal" concep- ing of Smith's politics is that it ultimately fails to tualizations of the problem of corruption and come to terms with the broader world view that public-mindedness in a modern commercial socie- structures Smith's analysis of particular political ty and how these, too, stand outside the orbit problems of the day. This world view does not of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century civic work out of the assumptions or the logic of the humanism. Smith's vision of commercial society, traditional civic humanist language of discourse, his understanding of what holds it together, and nor does it reflect a suspicious outlook toward the his insight into what threatens to undermine it are modern commercial order as is found in the work a far cry from seventeenth- and eighteenth- of most civic humanists. Indeed, the Smithian century civic humanist thought. Our failure to world view both accepts and champions the understand the politics of Adam Smith does not modern commercial order.