BrewerDP. Pdf

 

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here: Greece is divided into relatively small cultivable territories separated by sea and 

mountains, so each such area became the territory of a city-state.  

Starting from a Tartar-style government, each city was initially ruled by a single king, but the 

territories were too small for the king's wealth to outclass that of other prominent inhabitants, 

leading to republican governments, either dominated by a few aristocrats or democracies with 

offices open to all citizens. The development of luxury helped to promote democracy as the 

wealth of the rich was diverted to private pleasures. The institution of slavery also promoted 

'democracy', meaning a system open to all free, male, citizens (LJ(A) 63–73). 

A developing city state faces a choice. It can  either seek to keep the benefits of citizenship for 

the existing citizens  within its limited boundaries, a 'defensive' republic, as in classical 

Greece, or it can seek to expand its territories, as Rome did, a 'conquering republic'. In either 

case, the republic is doomed, because 'when the arts arrive at a certain degree of 

improvement, the number of the people encreases, yet that of fighting men becomes less' 

(LJ(B) 37). 'All defensive states at length fall a sacrifice to their neighbours' through military 

weakness’ (LJ(A) iv.92), especially when improvements in seigecraft made it harder for them 

to hold out behind their city walls. A conquering republic may defeat external enemies, as 

Rome did for many centuries, but only by developing a standing army. With the development 

of arts and luxury, the natural consequence of a developing division of labour, 'the rich and 

the better sort of people will no longer ingage in the service. The lower ranks make up the 

armies' (LJ(A) iv.88). The army commander becomes  irresistibly powerful, as first Julius 

Caesar and then Augustus did, and the republic becomes a 'military monarchy'. 

The Roman military monarchy was, in one crucial respect, different from those of Asia. The 

Roman monarchy was imposed from within, not by external conquest, and the emperors 

recognized that it was in their interest to retain  and improve  the framework of civil law 

inherited from the republic.  The emperor’s rule was dictatorial, but the  civil law was well 

constructed and predictable, allowing continued economic development. But eventually the 

(western) empire fell victim to the divorce between the citizen body and the army. 

In this manner the great security, and opulence, and progress of arts and commerce which 

takes place in a military government of some standing makes it both difficult and 

prejudicial to the state for the people to go to war themselves. They begin therefore first to 

recruit amongst the barbarians, and afterwards to make a bargain with the chiefs. (LJ(A) 

iv.103) 

As the defence of the western empire came progressively into the hands of Germanic tribes, 

the authority of the centre faded. When the defence finally failed, the gains of the Roman 

system – the extensive trade and division of labour – were lost. 

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Medieval and modern Europe  

Smith described the new rulers of most of western Europe in terms very similar to those he 

used about the Homeric Greeks. ‘The northern nations which broke into Europe in [the] 

beginning of  the 5 century were arrived at the state of shepherds, and had even some little 

agriculture’ (LJ(A) ii.97). The societies they formed in Western Europe, however, followed a 

trajectory radically different from the city states formed in Greece in the earlier period. 

The story of development in Europe after the fall of the western Roman empire will be 

familiar to any reader of the Wealth of Nations. The Lectures,  more than a decade before the 

Wealth of Nations, tell a very similar story,  though  the later work places a more systematic 

stress on the role of capital accumulation. Smith  emphasized  two main features of the 

societies that emerged in the early Middle Ages.  The commerce of the towns was destroyed 

by the violence and insecurity which persisted for centuries and the ‘chiefs and principal 

leaders’ of the invaders seized  huge tracts of land (WN III.ii.1; see also LJ(A) i.116, iv.115, 

LJ(B) 50–1). These, of course, point to two of the recurrent themes of Smith’s lectures: the 

‘improvement of the arts’ (or, here, its absence) and the pattern of inequality. 

As Smith described it, early medieval society was in an almost static equilibrium, in which 

the territorial magnates, with no urban luxuries to spend on, maintained large retinues of 

dependents to maintain their power and defend their estates. They had little incentive to 

improve productivity because it was more important to defend or expand their holdings. The 

servile status of the cultivators and of those few townsmen who remained left them with little 

incentive to produce more than a minimum, since they had no security.  Primogeniture and 

entails were introduced to keep the huge estates together, since dividing the estate would 

leave it open to attack. 

Things changed, very slowly, as the king, who had even larger resources than the leading 

barons, succeeded in establishing some stability. Feudalism, in the formal sense, represented 

a step towards royal control, as the barons were forced to accept that they held their land from 

the king in return for military service. Critically, monarchies encouraged relatively 

independent urban development as a counterweight to the land-owning nobility,  allowing  a 

slow development of manufacturing and trade, and an increasing availability of luxury 

consumption goods. The improvement of the arts finally tipped the balance, as feudal lords 

sacrificed their military power and switched their spending from maintaining dependents to 

luxury consumption. The landlords  now  had reasons to maximize rent income, and 

introduced contracts which gave tenants greater security of tenure and incentives to increase 

output. A relatively independent middle class of merchants, farmers and master craftsmen 

started to emerge.  

A revolution of the greatest importance to the public happiness was in this manner brought 

about by two different orders of people who had not the least intention to serve the public. 

To gratify the most childish vanity was the sole motive of the great proprietors. The 

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merchants and artificers, much less ridiculous, acted merely from a view to their own 

interest, and in pursuit of their own pedlar principle of turning a penny wherever a penny 

was to be got. Neither of them had either knowledge or foresight of that great revolution 

which the folly of the one, and the industry of the other, was gradually bringing about. 

(WN III.iv.17) 

A key difference between ancient Mediterranean society and post- medieval western Europe 

was the absence of slavery in the latter (though not, of course, in European colonies). Smith 

thought slavery was the norm in human societies, so its abolition in some places required 

explanation. 

Slavery 

…

 has been universall in the beginnings of society, and the love of dominion and 

authority over others will probably make it perpetuall. The circumstances which have 

made slavery be abolished in the corner of Europe in which it now is are peculiar to it, and 

which happening to concurr at the same time have brought about that change. (LJ(A) 

iii.117) 

Slavery had been abolished in western Europe, but not in ‘Moscovy and all the eastern parts 

of Europe, and the whole of Asia, that is, from Bohemia to the Indian Ocean, all over Africa, 

and the greatest part of America’ (LJ(A) iii.101).  

Smith listed a number of factors to account for the special case of Europe. In the centuries 

following the Germanic invasions urban manufacturing and trade almost ceased. ‘Our 

ancestors were then a rough, manly people who had no sort of domestic luxury or 

effeminacy; their whole slaves were then employed in the cultivation of the land’ (LJ(A) 

iii.121), so  slavery  consisted of villainage,

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 in which cultivators were tied to the soil and 

subject to the judgements of the lord’s court. The king had a motive for seeking to end this 

form of slavery in order to weaken the hold of the landowning nobility and to widen the sway 

of royal courts. It was even in the landlords’ interest to emancipate the villains, once their 

tastes had swung over to luxury consumption, since free  cultivators would be more 

productive. In addition, the church and clergy found that they had a greater ‘authority over 

the lower and more laborious part of mankind than over the rich and the powerfull’ (LJ(A) 

iii.118), so sided with the villains. Villainage ended, Smith argued, where both monarchy and 

church were powerful (LJ(A) iii.121–2; LJ(B) 142 has a rather weaker claim). The ending of 

servitude in (parts of) Europe was important, of course, in itself, and also important (with 

other conditions, such as an appropriate legal system) in creating a setting in which 

individuals have incentives to produce as efficiently as possible. Slavery, for example, acts a 

barrier to invention (LJ(B) 299–300). 

                                                 

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 Now usually spelled villeinage, that is, serfdom. 

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Asia 

Smith’s lectures focused on Europe  – reasonably so, since they were lectures on 

jurisprudence for an audience of young Scots. The great civilizations of Asia were only 

mentioned in passing. There is almost nothing about the early history of south or east Asia, 

while only the Tartars  featured significantly from  western and central Asia. He saw the 

Asiatic societies of  his own time mainly in terms of the effects of conquest by Tartars or 

Arabs. ‘The Tartars, a savage nation, have overrun all Asia severall times and Persia above 

12 times’ (LJ(A) iii.41). 

Asiatic governments 

…

 are purely military. Turky, Persia, and the other countries were 

conquered by Tartars, Arabians, and other barbarous nations, who had no regular system 

of laws and were entirely ignorant of their good effects. 

…

 A Turkish bashaw or other 

inferior officer is decisive judge of every thing, and is as absolute in his own jurisdiction 

as the signior. Life and fortune are altogether precarious, when they thus depend on the 

caprice of the lowest magistrate. A more miserable and oppressive government cannot be 

imagined. (LJ(B) 46) 

Smith saw China, for example, as rich and well developed but also as stagnant, due to 

arbitrary government and lack of security, as well as trade barriers. 

Parts of Europe had also been overrun but had recovered their independence. ‘Germany is 

every 10 or 12 year almost totally possessed by the troops of foreign states, but no city ever 

remains with the conquerors. Hungary has been often conquered by the Turks, but was never 

long in their possession’ (LJ(A) iii.45–6). Smith explained the difference between Europe and 

Asia by pointing to the existence in Europe of a hereditary territorial aristocracy who lead 

attempts to restore the status quo ante, and by  arguing that Asia lacks a corresponding class 

because of the prevalence of polygamy, itself introduced by Tartar conquerors, which 

undermines the hereditary principle. Again, Europe appears as a special case. 

Conclusion 

The four stages theory served Smith in two different ways. First, it  had  a static, or 

comparative, function in accounting for the form of law and government in different 

societies. Thus, hunters live in small groups with little need for a concept of property, 

pastoral peoples need a concept of property in herds of animals but not necessarily in land, 

and so on. In a lecture course on jurisprudence, that is, on the forms of law and government, 

this clearly bulks large, but it is not, as it stands, a theory of history. It becomes a theory of 

history when the stages are placed in order, with a claim that each stage, given suitable  

conditions, evolves into or is replaced by the next. The evidence available to Smith provided 

some basis for the first, comparative, use of the idea of four different types of society, but not 

for the second use, as a theory of history, except for the final stage, the evolution of a simple 

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agricultural society towards the commercial stage. The evolution from hunting via 

pastoralism to agriculture was wholly conjectural. Smith gave no substantive account of the 

transitions between stages before the  transition from  agriculture to  commerce, making it 

perhaps doubtful whether the four stages theory deserves to be called a theory of history at 

all. 

A very simple, mechanical, version of the theory would have the institutions and 

development of a society determined wholly by the stage it has reached, so all (say) pastoral 

societies would be the same. Smith’s use of the theory is clearly more flexible than this, as it 

had to be given the very different evolution of ancient Mediterranean societies and of post-

Roman Europe. Indeed, he seems to have seen the success of Europe not as inevitable but as 

a remarkably lucky special case. 

If the four stages alone do not determine the evolution of society, that does not mean that 

anything goes. Smith’s discussion of history is (implicitly) deterministic, in the sense that he 

aimed not simply  to describe but to explain the  economic, legal and  governmental 

development of society, that is, to identify the causes which led one path to be followed 

rather than another. He clearly recognized that adventitious events, such as the fact that 

Queen Elizabeth 1st of England was childless (LJ(A) iv.171), could matter, but wherever 

possible he seems to have preferred general to particular explanations. Roughly speaking, one 

might say that Elizabeth’s decision to run down the assets of the monarchy, thus undermining 

her successors’ position, shunted the development of government in England onto a different 

track, but it was still a track governed by more fundamental considerations.  

General causal factors operating at the level of whole societies can only take effect through 

the actions of individuals. Smith’s view of individual motivation, as set out in the Theory of 

Moral Sentiments, was complex, and cannot be discussed here. In his discussions of history 

the motivation of the relevant actors is essentially self- interested, though, as Skinner has 

pointed out,  it was a self interest which was  often ‘political rather than simply economic’ 

(1975 168). It is not, in fact, clear that any simple distinction between economic and political 

motivation can be drawn.  Thus, for example,  if early medieval magnates sought to keep the 

family estate together for purposes of defence, it was their source of income (as well as 

power) that they were defending. It makes little sense to debate whether to call their 

motivation economic or political. 

Haakonssen (1981) and Winch (1983) in their criticism of ‘materialist’ readings of Smith 

rightly insist on the importance of non-economic factors, but they seem to want more. As I 

read them, what they really want is to reject determinism altogether in order to make room 

for a ‘science of the legislator’,  who  can design institutions and policy to improve social 

welfare. There is no doubt that the Wealth of Nations, to take the most obvious example, is in 

part a work of advocacy, making a case against the ‘mercantile’ system and in favour of 

‘natural liberty’, so Smith must have thought that advocacy can make a difference, despite the 

deterministic character of his treatment of history. The issue here is surely methodological. 

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The past cannot be changed, so the study of history can only explain what actually happened. 

The future is not tied down in the same way, though the scope for choice may be constrained 

by factors revealed by the study of history. 

References  

Alvey, J. (2003a) ‘Adam Smith’s View of History: Consistent or Paradoxical?’,  History of 

the Human Sciences, 16:2, pp. 1–25 

Alvey, J. (2003b)  Adam Smith, Optimist or Pessimist: A New Problem Concerning the 

Teleological  Basis of the Commercial Society, Aldershot: Ashgate. 

Barker, G. (2006)  The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory: Why Did Foragers Become 

Farmers?, Oxford University Press. 

Bellwood, P. (2005) First Farmers: the Origins of Agricultural Societies, Oxford: Blackwell. 

Brewer, A. (1995) ‘Rent and profit in the  Wealth of Nations’,  Scottish Journal of Political 

Economy, 42:2, pp. 183–200. 

Coleman, D. (1980) ‘Mercantilism Revisited’, Historical Journal, 23:4, pp. 773–91. 

Fleischacker, S. (2004)  On Adam Smith’s  Wealth of Nations: a Philosophical Companion, 

Princeton University Press. 

Haakonssen, K (1981)  The Science of a Legislator: The Natural Jurisprudence of David 

Hume and Adam Smith, Cambridge University Press. 

Meek, R. (1971) ‘Smith, Turgot, and the “Four Stage s” Theory’,  History of Political 

Economy, 3:1, pp. 9–27. 

Meek, R. (1976) Social Science and the Ignoble Savage, Cambridge University Press. 

Mizuta, H. (2000) Adam Smith’s Library: a Catalogue, Oxford: Clarendon Press. 

Pascal, R. (1938)  ‘Property and Society: the Scottish Contribution of the Eighteenth 

Century’, Modern Quarterly, 1, pp. 167–79. 

Pocock, J. G. A. (1999) Barbarism and Religion Volume II: Narratives of Civil Government , 

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

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Pocock, J. G. A. (2006) ‘Adam Smith and History’ in K. Haakonssen (ed)  The Cambridge 

Companion to Adam Smith, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 270–87. 

Raphael, D. and Skinner, A. (1980) ‘General Introduction’ in Smith, EPS. 

Shaw, B. (1982–3) ‘Eaters of Flesh, Drinkers of Milk: the Ancient Mediterranean Ideology of 

the Pastoral Nomad’, Ancient Society, 13/14, pp. 5–31. 

Skinner, A. (1975) ‘Adam Smith: an Economic Interpretation of History’. In Skinner and 

Wilson (1975), pp. 154–78. 

Skinner, A. (1982) ‘A Scottish Contribution to Marxist Sociology’, in I. Bradley and M. 

Howard (eds),  Classical and Marxian Political Economy, London: Macmillan, pp. 79–

114. 

Skinner, A. and Wilson T. (eds) (1975) Essays on Adam Smith. Oxford: Clarendon Press.  

Smith, A. (1976b)  An Inquiry into the Nature and  Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed. R. 

Campbell, A. Skinner, and W. Todd, Oxford University Press (referred to as WN). 

Smith, A. (1978a) Lectures on Jurisprudence, ed. R. Meek, D. Raphael, and P. Stein, Oxford: 

Clarendon Press (referred to as LJ). 

Smith, A. (1978b) Early Draft of Part of the Wealth of Nations, in Smith (1978a) pp. 562–81 

(referred to as ED). 

Smith, A. (1980) Essays on Philosophical Subjects, ed. W. Wightman and J. Bryce, Oxford 

University Press (referred to as EPS). 

Smith, A. (1983a)  Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, Bryce J. (ed), Oxford: Oxford 

University Press (referred to as LRBL). 

Smith, A. (1983b) ‘Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages’, Bryce J. 

(ed), in LRBL pp. 203–26 (referred to as Languages). 

Smith, B. (1998) The Emergence of Agriculture, New York: Scientific American Library. 

Stewart, D. (1980) ‘Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith, LL.D.’, in  Smith, A., 

EPS, pp. 269–352.  

Varro, M. (1973)  De Res Rusticae, in Tilly, B. (ed), Varro the Farmer, London : University 

Tutorial Press. 

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Wightman, W. (1975) ‘Adam Smith and the History of Ideas’. In Skinner and Wilson (1975), 

pp. 44–67. 

Winch, D. (1983) ‘Adam Smith’s ‘Enduring Particular Result’: a Political and 

Consmopolitan Perspective’, in I. Hont and M. Ignatieff (eds),  Wealth and Virtue: The 

Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment , Cambridge University Press, 

pp. 253–269.