Commercial Policy

Abstract

Adam Smith considered the current commercial policies of Great Britain abhorrent largely because they promoted and sustained grave injustices. He considered his Wealth of Nations a very violent attack upon the entire system of commerce supported by those policies (Letter to A. Holt, October, 1790. Scott 1937, p. 283). His intent, however, was not merely to condemn. In the Wealth of Nations Smith set out to persuade Parliament to not only reject those policies but to adopt others in their stead, policies which would allow the legitimacy of commerce to be maintained directly by those whose sense of justice had not yet been subverted by institutional responsibilities — the middle ranks of men. In order to establish the preferability of his policy recommendations over those which had long been supported by the mercantile lobby he argued, as was shown in the preceding chapter, that the outlook upon which his recommendations were based was superior to theirs not only on aesthetic grounds but also on moral grounds. Throughout the Wealth of Nations he stressed the former attributes and de-emphasized the latter in order to strengthen the persuasive impact of his case upon the “men of system” in the Parliament. Notwithstanding this rhetorical strategy, however, it was the consideration of justice which he considered to be the most compelling recommendation for the outlook which he set forth. On the basis of that outlook on commercial affairs Smith proposed an alternative definition of the nature of national wealth, indicated the factors which had contributed to the augmentation of national wealth and deduced the public policy implications of his entire analysis. The purpose of this chapter is to explore these steps thus completing the account of the central project of the Wealth of Nations begun in the preceding chapter.