I think it is more helpful to try and understand words as their speakers 
mean them.  Adam Smith was writing in English.  Even though he could 
read French and other languages, I think it is the English meaning of 
wealth and prosperity we should use to interpret his arguments in the 
_Wealth of Nations_.  Surely, Smith could not have been referring to 
"happiness" when he argues, "It is now more than two hundred years since 
the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, a period as long as the course 
of human prosperity usually endures" (_WN_, 1: 443).  No human 
experiences happiness for two hundred years.

I might underscore my arguing the need for interpreting words as their 
authors use/mean them by pointing to the difficulties "Austrians" 
(German writers) have had with term "capital." Instead of interpreting 
that word as Smith and other English writers used it to mean "funds" 
from which savers earn interest or dividends (share of profits), they 
insisted on interpreting "capital" always to mean physical goods.  
Bohm-Bawerk then went on to write a three volume book disputing Smith's 
and other (English) classical writers' "capital" (funds) supply and 
demand theory of interest.  F.A. Hayek (1941, p. 9) subsequently writes, 
"The ... ambiguity of the term capital has been the source of unending 
confusion, and the suggestion has often been made ... that the term 
should be banned entirely from scientific usage."  See also what 
happened to John Maynard Keynes (GT, pp. 186-88) because he wouldn't 
interpret "capital" in the theory of interest he read from Alfred 
Marshall's _Principles_ correctly to mean funds or savings.

James Ahiakpor

Alain Alcouffe wrote:
>
> Dear all
>
> I am thankful for answers, suggestions and comments.
>
> Among them, I appreciated James's developments - I was not surprised 
> that we are at odds about the links between happiness and equality but 
> it would take some space to develop that point and I would like only 
> to focus on the semantic side of his comments.
>
> 1) my question was of course lapidary and therefore could be 
> misleading, but I did not equate /plain and simple/ "national 
> prosperity" and 'national happiness" - I wrote the one could "compare" 
> the two, I should have said that the opposition "wealth versus 
> prosperity" made by the obituary's author /made me think/ /of/ the 
> contemporary one between wealth and happiness.
>
> 2) James argues that "national wealth"  means the same thing as 
> "national prosperity."  That is what many Smith's scholars admit when 
> they comment Smith's obituary. Let me disagree with that or at least 
> question this assertion. If it were true, the conclusion of the 
> obituary was nonsensical but I don't partake this interpretation.
>
> In my opinion, we should consider the meaning of prosperity /at the 
> end of the 18th century/ before equating it with wealth.
>
> as there is only a slight difference between /prosperity/ in English 
> and /prosperité/ in French, let us open the Trésor de la Langue 
> Française informatisé (Computerized Treasure of the French Language at 
> : 
> http://stella.atilf.fr/Dendien/scripts/tlfiv5/affart.exe?19;s=1738051695;?b=0;
>
> there we can find the meaning B of "prosperité":
>
>> *B. 1. */Vieilli/ ou /littér. /Situation favorable, bonne fortune, 
>> état heureux d'une personne au physique comme au moral.
> (older or literary : Favourable situation, good fortune, happy state 
> of a person both physically and morally.)
>
> I considered also the OED and found that "prosperity" derived from 
> "prosperity" and it "compares" "prosperity" with "felicity" (that 
> means clearly "happiness") and it opposes also "prosperity" with 
> "adversity" .
>
> I hope you will forgive to have developed this point - in this time of 
> confinement, it can be help passing time.
> Best
>
> AA
>
>
> Le 29/03/2020 à 20:50, James Ahiakpor a écrit :
>> Dear Alain,
>>
>> It is clear to me that the criticism you quote must have come from 
>> the Benthamite community -- followers of Jeremy Bentham's 
>> Utilitarianism, among whom were some early socialists.  I'm however 
>> puzzled by your willingness to accept as valid (correct) the 
>> transference of "national prosperity" to being "national happiness."  
>> In the _Webster's Dictionary_, "prosperity" is defined as "the 
>> condition of being successful or thriving; esp: economic well-being" 
>> (1980, p. 918).  Thus, "national wealth" must mean the same thing as 
>> "national prosperity."  As for those utilitarians or socialists 
>> harping upon income inequality and denying the equivalence of the 
>> terms, because lower income people harbor some unhappiness at the 
>> site of the affluence of the higher income people, they just have to 
>> remember another of Smith's important observations about human 
>> nature: "The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the 
>> poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy, to 
>> invade his property. ... He is at all times surrounded by unknown 
>> enemies, whom, though he never provoked, he can never appease, and 
>> from whose injustice he can be protected only by the powerful arm of 
>> the civil magistrate continually held up to chastise it.  The 
>> acquisition of valuable and extensive property, therefore, 
>> necessarily requires the establishment of civil government" (_WN_, 2: 
>> 232).
>>
>> Happiness is a state of mine.  To equate that with material wealth is 
>> to make a grave mistake.  Any wonder that in those countries where 
>> their governments strive so hard forcibly to eliminate income 
>> inequality, more people find themselves unhappy (longing to escape) 
>> than in those where economic liberty and income inequality exit?  
>> Think about Maoist China and life after Deng Xiaping's economic 
>> policy changes, former East versus West Germany, Cuba versus Jamaica, 
>> North versus South Korea, Venezuela before and after the socialist 
>> transformation, beginning with Hugo Chavez and now Nicholas Maduro, 
>> etc. Attempting to maximize Gross National Happiness, other than 
>> through civil and economic liberties, is an illusion. Historians of 
>> economic thought can help dissuade governments from that enterprise.
>>
>> James Ahiakpor
>>
>> Alain Alcouffe wrote:
>>>
>>>  Dear all
>>>
>>> The enigmatic last sentence of Adam Smith's obituary published by 
>>> the Times (Saturday, 24 July 1790) stressed a distinction between 
>>> "national wealth" on the one hand and "national prosperity" on the 
>>> other hand  which can be compared with the contemporary contrast 
>>> between the GDP and the Gross National Happiness.
>>>
>>> "he [A. Smith] deserves the chief praise, or the chief blame, of 
>>> propagating a system which tends to confound National Wealth with 
>>> national Prosperity. "
>>>
>>> I tried to trace the history of this distinction and found an 
>>> anonymous article in the Tate's magazine about 'The law of 
>>> primogeniture', in the Tait's Edinburgh Magazine edited by William 
>>> Tait, Christian Isobel Johnstone (December 1846, pp. 797-801 (I have 
>>> taken it from a google book easy to download). It includes some 
>>> developments about national prosperity versus national happiness.
>>>
>>>>   * It is a great and vulgar error to confound national prosperity
>>>>     and national happiness. The distribution rather than the amount
>>>>     of wealth among a people, contributes principally to general
>>>>     happiness. There can be no doubt that our country has added to
>>>>     its riches during the present century; but it is very clear that
>>>>     the well-being of the bulk of the community has not increased in
>>>>     a corresponding ratio. Between capital and labour there is a
>>>>     great gulf fixed, and while the one ascends in the social scale,
>>>>     the course of the other is one continued descent. To obtain the
>>>>     greatest happiness for the greatest number ought to be the object
>>>>     of political economy: but while the interests of the many are
>>>>     thus sacrificed to the few, we can hardly expect that the
>>>>     arrangements of society and the distribution of property should
>>>>     be in unison with the spirit of the age, and the march of 
>>>> intellect.
>>>>
>>> No name of author is given and I wonder if anybody has an idea about 
>>> this author.  I just cannot find who was this opponent to the law of 
>>> primogeniture and proponent of  the "national happiness" through 
>>> equality.
>>>
>>> Thanks for any hint or simply guess
>>>
>>> Best
>>>
>>> AA
>>>
>>
>>


-- 
James C.W. Ahiakpor, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus
Department of Economics
California State University, East Bay
Hayward, CA 94542
510-885-3137
510-885-7175 (Fax; Not Private)