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The question was about Smith's 'notion' of the nation. The replies have
been about (our) notion of the nation state as it relates to Smith.
One could also ask what Smith himself meant by the word 'nation'. It
certainly doesn't mean a modern nation state in his usage, because he
uses the word (e.g. in the preface to the Wealth of Nations) to include
'savage nations of hunters and fishers' as well as 'civilised and
thriving nations'. It seems at a first look to be almost
interchangeable with 'country' and with 'society', though 'country' in
the eighteenth century did not necessarily mean the same as nation
state - it could refer to a region or county. When Smith uses 'nation'
to refer to primitive peoples, the word seems to imply a wider grouping
than 'tribe', and may perhaps refer to a cultural grouping of people
who share a way of life. I suspect that the word did not have a fixed
and clear-cut meaning for Smith. There is an interesting question about
the size of the implicit unit whose wealth is discussed in the Wealth
of Nations.
Tony Brewer
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