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According to Prof. Brewer, > 
 
The 
>driving force, in [the Hume-Smith story] , is a growing range of (market) 
>opportunities which (slowly) undermined obstacles and remade 
>institutions. Smith, particularly, emphasized the way institutions 
>clung on and obstructed change - guilds, primogeniture, etc. 
> 
>What I am suggesting is that although conscious transformation of 
>institutions had a role, it was, and had to be, largely derivative. 
>No-one could conceive of a market-based system before they had seen it 
>coming into existence. 
>-------- 
 
To which I add : 
 
that institutions are transformed sometimes by the semi-conscious or 
mistaken 
choices  men and women make.  Consider the Third Book of the Wealth of 
Nations:  Smith tells how the normal or natural process of economic 
development came to be subverted by the Mongul invaders.  Europe went 
feudal 
for good reasons of protection and defense.  Unfortunately, feudalism 
remained in tact long after the threat of military predation subsided and 
eventually by the 14th or 15th century the economic development of Europe 
was 
blocked by the large proprietors and their legions of fully employed but 
(alas!) unproductive service labor. 
 
Then things changed.  Merchant adventurers brought in luxury goods such as 
silver plate and tapestries. The large proprietors anxious to practice 
conspicuous consumption trade off pieces and parts of their great estates. 
 These are the copyholders,etc.--forms of land tenure that subvert feudalism. 
 Feudalism dies not because someone rallies the troops and the institutions 
presto change, the institutions change partly because of the folly of men. 
 For a few shekels the great proprietors trade off their birthrights! 
 
This is ironic!  This is also a benevolent but unitended consequence of 
human 
action.  There are other primarily subjective changes in consumption 
expenditure that lead by a n otherwise invisible process to surprising 
results.  I do not think historians give as much credit to Smith for his 
"Unintended consequences" views about the way stages of history when out of 
sequence can get redirected back to their natural course. 
 
Unlike the Chicago view of having the constraints somehow alter while 
tastes 
remain constant, Smith had more interest (or at least he did in Book III of 
the WN) with the tastes changing while the constraints were (at least 
initially) more or less constant. 
 
Professor Brewer is welcomed to speak in generalities about Smith (and 
Hume) 
but I much prefer (perhaps this is a business school trait I picked up at 
Babson) of pointing to specific textual support for such generalizations.  
I 
am certain Prof. Brewer can counter with some examples in support of his 
claims and that is why I offer these remarks.  My argument about Book III 
and 
unintended consequences, first appeared in an edited book by G. O'Driscoll 
and if anyone were interested I can be privately contacted about sending a 
copy of my article. 
 
L. Moss 
 
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