Adam Smith′s Discourse

Citation

Alvey, J. (1999), "Adam Smith′s Discourse", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 26 No. 6, pp. 222-224. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijse.1999.26.6.222.2

The status of Adam Smith in economics is fundamental. The proper interpretation of his work remains important for social economists (see Duhs, 1998).

Vivienne Brown′s Adam Smith′s Discourse is the second book written from the perspective of discourse analysis. It followed only one year after the publication of Shapiro′s Reading “Adam Smith”. The publication of her Discourse catapulted Brown into celebrity status. It appears to me, however, that the primary reason for her success is the alleged novelty of her approach.

Like Shapiro, Brown rejects the methodology of assuming coherent authorial intent. She accepts the postmodern view which “problematises the process by which meaning is constructed in the process of reading rather than lying immanent in the text awaiting discovery.” Further, “once it is accepted... that language has a kind of fecundity with a potential proliferation of different readings, it is no longer axiomatic that the ‘meaning′ of a text is given by authorial intent.” Hence, “the ‘meaning′ of a text is now seen as the product of a process of reading rather than implanted by the author in the act of writing” (p. 3). Strangely, Brown′s best evidence for the validity of such a methodology does not appear until the end of Chapter 7 (pp. 196‐206) where she discusses the changes in the interpretation of Smith′s Wealth of Nations. If Brown had made her book a summary of how interpretations of Smith had changed, the book would have been very valuable. This was not to be the case.

Instead what we get in Discourse is a full‐scale attempt to provide a new postmodernist “reading” of Smith′s writings. Brown tries throughout most of her discourse to show the inconsistencies between Smith′s works. Each of “the three main texts” associated with Smith, namely the Theory of Moral Sentiments, the Lectures on Jurisprudence, and the Wealth of Nations, is “read in its own terms and not cross‐read through the others” (pp. 20‐1). This is done to bolster her claim that it is pointless to attempt to find authorial intent, as there are numerous intentions.

After examining Smith′s works separately, Brown concludes that there is no unified Smith oeuvre. I will leave aside the complexity of the Lectures on Jurisprudence, as their style “is more akin to that of the WN” (p. 100). Smith′s two published works are inconsistent because “the form, style and moral import of the TMS and the WN carry the reader along different tracks” (pp. 53‐4). Brown says that the Wealth of Nations is an amoral discourse while the Theory of Moral Sentiments is a moral discourse. “WN has no place for the moral discourse of TMS; in this sense WN is an amoral discourse” (p. 46 emphasis added). Indeed, time and time again, in Discourse she refers to the Wealth of Nations as an amoral discourse (pp. 26, 162, 195, 209, 215, 218).

In other words, Brown accepts the charge of the early German commentators, who formulated Das Adam Smith Problem. This puts her at odds with virtually all of the important commentators during the last 30 years or so. Even if one does not accept postmodern approaches to “reading,” one may still be interested in the problem that Brown raises. It means that her Discourse claims a methodological and substantive novelty. What evidence does Brown give for this controversial substantive conclusion?

Brown says that, for Smith, moral action requires “the moral agent” to take “an active part” (p. 25). This requires “an imaginary change of situation between the moral agent and the relevant other” (p. 27). Hence, “[t]he primary and emblematic metaphor of the moral discourse of TMS is that of the ‘impartial spectator”′ (p. 24). Then Brown constructs two pairs of Smithian virtues and uses them as the focus of her study of Smith′s view of morality. On the one hand, Brown discusses benevolence and self‐command. She argues that there is a dialogue with the “impartial spectator” in these virtues. On the other hand, Brown claims that prudence and justice do not involve continual dialogue with the “impartial spectator.” Hence, the former pair are “higher” moral virtues (pp. 26, 46), while the latter pair are “lower‐order” virtues (pp. 5, 26, 33, 54, 76, 93, 100, 140, 162, 209‐10). In any event, this all sounds quite reasonable.

It is the next step that gets Brown into trouble. She claims, most of the time, that these “lower” virtues have no moral content. “[O]nly those virtues that are subject to this dialogic process are truly ‘moral virtues,′ the other virtues belong in a lower, amoral order” (p.33 emphasis added). Justice and prudence “although clearly denominated as virtues... stand outside the discourse signified as moral discourse by the arguments of the TMS” (p. 46). In other words, Brown claims that there are amoral virtues. I cannot understand the notion of an amoral virtue. (The use of terms that are internally contradictory must be a peculiar advance of postmodern discourse over the old fashioned tradition that assumed authorial intent and attempted to resolve apparent contradictions within the writings of an author.) In any event, these amoral virtues are especially important as she has in mind the commercial virtues that suffuse the Wealth of Nations. Economic agents and economic activity “occupy a shadowy, twilight space in the moral universe, somewhat outside of moral discourse proper” (p.52 see also p.211). It is on this basis that she arrives at the same conclusion as the early German commentators.

Brown′s conclusion that the Wealth of Nations and the commercial virtues are amoral cannot be sustained. At times, Brown seems to grasp that commercial virtues must have a moral status that is positive, not amoral. She states that “all the virtues are underwritten by the moral force of the impartial spectator′s approval” (p. 34). Rules, including rules of justice, “have a certain moral force... because they embody approved responses” by the spectator (pp. 36‐7, see also p.48 n.42). For an excellent reply to Brown′s claim that the commercial virtues are amoral, see Kleer, 1993. If one abandons Brown′s view that commercial actions are amoral, and claim that they display “lower” but genuine virtues, then the Wealth of Nations is no longer an amoral discourse. Indeed I have argued that Smith provides, in the latter book, a guide to moral education within commercial society (Alvey, 1998). Before ending this discussion let me say some positive things about Brown′s Discourse.

I argue that Smith′s books were both works of literature and persuasion. Hence, I believe that Brown is quite correct to point to some of Smith′s work having “an oppositional, ironic or sardonic tone” (p. 132). There is also a nice discussion late in her book (pp. 192‐4) showing the polemical nature of a good deal of the Wealth of Nations. Brown goes so far as to claim that “the rhetorical claims of WN have triumphed over the analytical argument” in the work (p. 197). While this may overstate the case, the point is well taken and is often forgotten by commentators who refer to the Wealth of Nations as a strictly “scientific” work that begins modern economic science.

Brown′s Discourse is extremely patchy. It contains some nice sections of analysis. On the other hand its postmodernist method undermines it.