Abstract
In this chapter Laurie Bréban and Jean Dellemotte explain how Adam Smith understood the differences and relations between indigenous peoples and Westerners. The authors demonstrate the unity and the ambiguities in Smith’s views of natives and Westerners as presented in his international thought. In doing so, they investigate Smith’s economic thought and moral philosophy and bring new light to his relation to colonialism.
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Notes
- 1.
WN henceforth.
- 2.
- 3.
See Corr, Letter 149, 185–186.
- 4.
According to Mizuta (1996, 57).
- 5.
See Corr, Letter 208, 251.
- 6.
- 7.
- 8.
- 9.
“The New World was (…) something difficult to locate within the received worldview”, Cremaschi (2017, 15).
- 10.
- 11.
TMS henceforth.
- 12.
LJ (Lectures on Jurisprudence) or LRBL (Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres) henceforth.
- 13.
See, for example, Montesquieu’s De l’esprit des lois (1748), Hume’s essay Of National Characters (1753), Voltaire’s Essai sur les mœurs et l'esprit des nations (1756), Ferguson’s Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767) or Roberston’s History of America (1777). For a broader discussion of the different depictions of the Natives that emerges from these works, see Dellemotte (2021).
- 14.
WN, I.i.11, 24.
- 15.
See Montesquieu (1748, XX, 1–2).
- 16.
WN, II.iv.4, 412.
- 17.
LRBL, ii.115, 137.
- 18.
- 19.
“Nature and the climate rule almost alone over the savages” (Montesquieu 1748, XIX.4). Among the disseminators of the climate theory in the eighteenth century, see, apart from Montesquieu, Jean-Baptiste Dubos’ Réflexions critiques sur la poésie et sur la peinture (1712) and John Arbuthnot’s Essay Concerning the Effects of Air on Human Bodies (1733). Buffon also transposes the climate theory into the field of his Natural History (1749–1804) to explain the variety of human phenotypes.
- 20.
WN, introduction, 11.
- 21.
WN, I.iii, 31.
- 22.
See “Early Draft of the WN”, LJ, 583.
- 23.
See the example of rural dwellers (WN, I.i, 18–19).
- 24.
EPS, 48. This essay was published posthumously, but in all likelihood written before the TMS. See Wightman (1980, 5–11).
- 25.
- 26.
Hunting, pasturage, agriculture and commerce. On the four stages theory, see Meek (1976)’s classical study.
- 27.
About this paradox, see Marouby (2004, 154–159).
- 28.
See Pitts (2005, 29, 34).
- 29.
- 30.
- 31.
WN, V.i.f, 781–782.
- 32.
Forman-Barzilai (2006, 111) considers Smith’s view to be “pluralist” rather than relativist.
- 33.
“Early Draft of part of WN”, LJ, 563–564.
- 34.
Ibid., 564.
- 35.
LJ(B), 326–330, 538–540.
- 36.
See Smith’s diatribe on the deleterious effects of the technical division of labour in WN (V.i.f.50, 781–782).
- 37.
“Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity of a man”, TMS, VI.2.10, 190.
- 38.
TMS, V.2.9, 204–205.
- 39.
See Cremaschi (2017, 20–21, 25).
- 40.
- 41.
As Pitts (2005, 36) and Cremaschi (2017, 23–24, 32) judiciously point out, Smith’s distinction between both set of virtues does not amount to saying that savages are altogether incapable of sympathy and of the desire to get other people’s approval, but rather that virtues and characters expressing self-command are more valued in a savage society than virtues and characters expressing sensitivity.
- 42.
WN, V.i.f.59, 786–787; LJ(B), 331–333, 540–541 (“Another bad effect of commerce is that it sinks the courage of mankind, and tends to extinguish martial spirit”, 540).
- 43.
LJ, 339, 540 & 563.
- 44.
- 45.
According to Pitts (2005, 25), Smith has a “respectful posture toward non-European societies he regarded as being in earlier stages of development” and his moral theory “encourages open-mindedness toward unfamiliar values and practices” (43); “Smith is less ethnocentric than most contemporaries”, Cremaschi (2017, 24).
- 46.
Montesquieu (1748, XIV.2).
- 47.
Ibid., XVIII.9.
- 48.
See the famous episode of the slave of Surinam in chapter 19 of Candide (1759).
- 49.
Smith's close friend Hume (1753, 214) also tended to blame African people for the slave trade.
- 50.
TMS, V.2.13, 209.
- 51.
See Pitts (2005, 48–49).
- 52.
WN, V.i.a, 689–708.
- 53.
WN, IV.vii.b.7, 568.
- 54.
WN, V.i.a.9, 694–695; V.i.a.15, 697.
- 55.
See, for instance, WN, V.i.a.19, 698.
- 56.
While Smith considers that specialization in most occupations “is not originally the effect of any human wisdom” (WN, I.ii.1, 25), he believes that the state must intentionally make soldiering a specific occupation (WN, V.i.a.14, 697).
- 57.
WN, V.i.a.39, 705–706.
- 58.
We think particularly of works supposing that a “failure” of the system of sympathy to account for an ideal moral society would have gradually led Smith to an economic treatment of the social question—most notably in France, Dumont (1977, 83–93) and Diatkine (1991) who later changed his mind on the subject. Conversely, we consider that Smith’s moral philosophy is essentially positive, and that the principle of sympathy allows him to account for the genealogy of the moral world as well as its imperfection and corruption.
- 59.
We endorse T.D. Campbell's (1971) classic study on the subject. See Smith’s clarification (TMS, II.i.5.9, 77).
- 60.
- 61.
- 62.
See TMS, V.2.1, 200.
- 63.
See Fleischacker (2011, 40).
- 64.
See Diatkine (2019, 123–137).
- 65.
WN, IV.vii.a.1–4, 556–558.
- 66.
WN, IV.vii.a.4, 558.
- 67.
Ibid., 562.
- 68.
It seems to have been the case in France, since chapter IV, vii. was translated by Elie-Salomon-François Reverdil and published separately in 1778 under the title “Fragment sur les colonies”, before any complete French translation of the book was available. Regarding Britain, Rothschild (2012, 193–194) recalls that “the earliest publications that were actually about Smith were concerned, in general, with his writings on empire”.
- 69.
Williams (2014, 288). Rothschild (2012, 188) conversely highlights “Smith’s diatribes against colonial oppression” and sees them “at the very center of his concerns”. As summarized by Hill (2010, 454), “Smith did not neglect the moral aspects and there are many references to the injustices of empire”.
- 70.
LRBL, ii. 133, 146.
- 71.
WN, IV.vii.a.9, 560.
- 72.
WN, IV.vii.a.14, 561.
- 73.
WN, IV.vii.b.2, 564.
- 74.
Among these, Smith highlights moderate taxes and two arrangements likely to promote an efficient distribution of land: a low prevalence of primogeniture and the obligation for each landowner to improve and cultivate a certain proportion of his land, in order to limit the grabbing of uncultivated land.
- 75.
WN.IV.vii.c.79, 625–626.
- 76.
“According to the natural course of things (…) the greater part of the capital of every growing society is, first, directed to agriculture, afterwards to manufactures, and last of all to foreign commerce”, a natural order of investments which was subverted in Europe (WN, III.i.8–9, 380).
- 77.
See Ince (2021, 1080, 1088, 1091).
- 78.
Ibid., 1088–1092. Ince also puts forward the Lockean argument according to which the occupation of land in a country where it was abundantly available did not infringe the Native’s natural rights.
- 79.
WN, IV.vii.b.7, 568.
- 80.
Given that, for reasons seen above, savage nations are less populated than nations of higher historical stages.
- 81.
History has shown that this was indeed the case, as the slaughter of bison was deliberately used in the nineteenth century as a means of depriving Indians of their main source of food and forcing them onto reservations. In an abundant literature, see for example Smits (1994) and Scott Taylor (2011).
- 82.
“In North America, again, where the age of hunters subsists (…) as there is almost no property amongst them, the only injury that can be done is the depriving them of their game”, LJ(A), i.33, 16.
- 83.
See TMS, II.i.5, 74–78.
- 84.
WN, IV.vii.b.60, 589, our italics.
- 85.
Ibid., IV.vii.b.61.
- 86.
- 87.
As editors of the LJ recall, Smith’s explanation of the right to property by occupation is intended as an alternative to Locke’s argument (Meek et al. 1978, 33). See LJ(A), i.35–44, 16–20.
- 88.
WN, IV.vii.c.80, 626. As noted by Rothschild (2012, 195–196), Smith here seriously tempers the enthusiasm displayed by Raynal in his Histoire des deux Indes.
- 89.
See Pitts (2005, 55–56).
- 90.
WN, V.vii.c.101, 636.
- 91.
WN, IV.v.b.6, 527. On this subject, see Bouillot and Diatkine (2017, 111–114).
- 92.
It is noteworthy to observe that this condemnation of the deleterious effects of colonization does not begin with the writing of the WN. In the first and subsequent editions of the TMS, Smith already denounced the Westerners’ attitude towards Africa and their commitment in the slave trade (see TMS, V.2.9, 206–207).
- 93.
- 94.
WN, IV.i.32, 448.
- 95.
WN, V.i.a.5, 691–692.
- 96.
WN, IV.vii.c.100, 634.
- 97.
As historian Eric Williams (1944, 10) summarized, “slavery was not born of racism: rather, racism was the consequence of slavery”. As far as philosophers and scholars are concerned, besides Smith, Ferguson (1767) or Rousseau’s (1755) comprehensive discourses, prominent figures of eighteenth-century intellectual life regrettably committed in degrading comparisons and suppositions. Hence Hume (1753, 208) comparing Francis Williams (c. 1700–1770)—a Jamaican born scholar of his time—to a parrot, or Voltaire (1756, introd., sect. 2) assuming sexual intercourse between tropical inhabitants and apes.
- 98.
- 99.
TMS, i.i.4.9, 23.
- 100.
This is the reason why Smith rejected Stoic cosmopolitanism as being « altogether different» from « the plan and system which Nature has sketched out for our conduct» (TMS, VI I.ii.1.43, 292). See Forman-Barzilai (2000, 393–400), who goes as far as to conclude that Smith theorized “a world without sympathy” (ibid., 392–393).
- 101.
LJ(A), iii. 105–111, 182–185.
- 102.
Smith explains this difference by the greater profitability of the West Indian sugar trade compared to the cultivation of corn in which American planters are chiefly involved. On the relationship between profitability and the treatment of slaves in Smith, see Lapidus (2002, 62–65).
- 103.
Ibid., 183.
- 104.
“They will eat at the same table, work together, and be cloathed in the same manner, and will be alike in every other particular”, ibid., 184.
- 105.
LJ(A), iii. 110, 184–185.
- 106.
LJ(A), iii.108–109, 184 (“Those persons most excite our compassion and are most apt to affect our sympathy who most resemble ourselves, and the greater the difference the less we are affected by them”).
- 107.
See Forman-Barzilai (2006, 100).
- 108.
See LJ(A), iii.114, 186; iii.130, 192; WN, III.ii.10, 388. Smith also speaks of love of “authority” (LJ(A), iii.114, 186; iii.130, 192) or “tyrannizing” (LJ(A), iii.114, 186).
- 109.
See LJ(A), iii.116–117, 187. On the conditions for the abolition of slavery according to Smith, see Lapidus (2002).
- 110.
See LJ(A), vi. 56–57, 352; LJ(B), 222, 494.
- 111.
On how this fits into Smith's critique of the colonies, see Pitts (2005, 54–55).
- 112.
Strictly speaking, Smith does not use the term “pride” in this context, but “love of our nation” (TMS, VI.ii.2.3, 228), which is not a reprehensible sentiment in itself but whose excess can lead to “savage patriotism” or to “national prejudices and hatreds” (TMS, VI.ii.2.3–5, 228–229). On patriotism in Smith, see Forman-Barzilai (2000, 407–410) and Hill (2010, 460–461).
- 113.
WN, IV.vii.c.79, 625–626.
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Bréban, L., Dellemotte, J. (2024). Remote Encounters of a Distant Kind: Natives and Westerners in Adam Smith’s International Thought. In: Bourcier, B., Jakonen, M. (eds) British Modern International Thought in the Making. International Political Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-45713-5_8
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