Abstract
Scholars of classical economics have largely rejected the popular view of Adam Smith as an apologist for big business indifferent to the plight of the poor. To test and ultimately vindicate this consensus, I attempt to tabulate all mentions of the poor in Smith?s pub-lished works in which their well-being is under discussion. For each such appearance I assess his attitude toward such well-being, as well as where his sympathies lie should there be a conflict between the poor on one side and the rich and powerful on the other. The textual search strongly supports the idea that Smith was indeed partial to workers and the poor, although this judgment requires that the reader enter into Smith?s patterns of thought about property rights, economic growth, and the system of natural liberty. ? 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Scholars of classical economics have largely rejected the popular view of Adam Smith as an apologist for big business indifferent to the plight of the poor. To test and ultimately vindicate this consensus, I attempt to tabulate all mentions of the poor in Smith?s published works in which their well-being is under discussion. For each such appearance I assess his attitude toward such well-being, as well as where his sympathies lie should there be a conflict between the poor on one side and the rich and powerful on the other. The textual search strongly supports the idea that Smith was indeed partial to workers and the poor, although this judgment requires that the reader enter into Smith?s patterns of thought about property rights, economic growth, and the system of natural liberty.
In this essay I argue that Adam Smith?s policy stances are largely consistent with a preference for the well-being of the least well-off in society. Specifically, I attempt to validate a claim about Smith made by Carl Menger in the nineteenth century. The claim is noted both in Emma Rothschild?s well-known article ?Adam Smith and Conservative Economics? (1992) and in a recent excellent translation of Menger by Dekker and Kolev (Menger 1891/2016). In his essay on ?The Social Theories of Classical Political Economy and Modern Economic Policy? Menger claimed: In every conflict of interest between the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak, Smith sides without exception with the latter. I use the term ?without exception? with proper consideration, as one cannot find one single instance in the works of Smith in which he represents the interests of the rich and powerful against the poor and weak. ( Menger 2016 , 475; see also Rothschild, 1992 , 89). While dramatic, this claim was perhaps more shocking when Menger wrote it than it is today. The view of Adam Smith