----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- Published by EH.NET (September 2002) Emma Rothschild, _Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet, and the Enlightenment_. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2001. ix + 353 pp. $50 (hardcover), ISBN: 0-674-00489-2; $18.95 (paper), ISBN: 0-674-00837-5. Reviewed for EH.NET by Glenn Hueckel, Department of Economics, Pomona College. [log in to unmask] This is a book that will itself provoke in its readers a number of "sentiments," chief of which will be, no doubt, what Smith would have described as a "sense of wonder" at the breathtaking range of the author's learning. Her exposition carries us beyond the works of the two authors in the staring roles, beyond even those of the two chief supporting actors (Hume for Smith; Turgot for Condorcet), to commentaries on Greek tragedies, studies of medieval British labor markets, comments on a modern French philosophical critique of "bourgeois society," and much more. Indeed, since few English-speaking readers will be able to measure up to Rothschild's linguistic skills, her commentary on a vast French literature, supplemented with occasional German sources, cannot fail to prompt new lines of thought. The argument is lavishly documented; her endnotes alone could provide the diligent scholar with a rich syllabus for a long and highly instructive course of reading. The text, however, is a rather different matter. That initial reaction of "wonder" will be, I fear, quickly tempered by a growing sense of aggravation and disappointment as readers contemplate the interpretative structure the author constructs from her sources, particularly as that structure concerns Smith. Frequently, the reading advanced seems to be conditioned by the needs of Rothschild's argument rather than by the content of her sources. This is, without question, a difficult book. The exposition is highly allusive, carried along by hundreds of fragmentary quotations that are more tantalizing than instructive. Not infrequently one longs for a series of simple declarative sentences where one can get one's bearings. Nevertheless, "enlightenment" eventually arrives in the last chapter, where the author finally makes explicit her organizing structure. That structure is best described as comprising three layers of varying degrees of complexity. At the simplest, most descriptive level, the author seeks to "cast light" on her notion of eighteenth-century enlightenment. For this purpose, the object of our attention is to be understood as "a universal, or potentially universal disposition; ... not a characteristic only of philosophers," but "a particular disposition of everyone." This is a disposition to "a discursive, disputatious, theorizing way of life" which infuses all areas of existence, particularly the political and commercial spheres (which, as the author is at pains to point out, are themselves interrelated) (pp. 16, 31, 39, 49). It is at this level that the argument is most instructive. The ideas of her authorities fit easily into this scheme, and the arrangement reveals a number of fascinating insights that will enrich our understanding of those authorities. It will be evident from the book's title that our attention is to be directed at those enlightenment authors who were roughly a generation younger than Quesnay and his physiocratic contemporaries. This is an important distinction since that earlier generation has been criticized for the authoritarian stance of their political views, a sort of "compulsory enlightenment" in which the state was to shape the spirit of its people in the philosophers' image of the "laws of nature." Indeed, our authors -- Condorcet and Turgot; Smith and Hume -- were among those critics. The failure to maintain this important distinction in the post-Revolutionary world led, we are told, to the false portrayal of Smith and Condorcet as expressing that same "cold, rational, and reflective calculation" associated with the previous generation of Enlightenment writers in contrast to that "warmth" of sentiment said to characterize post-Napoleonic thought (pp. 25-28; 34- 39). The author's first objective is to rescue the reputations of Condorcet and Smith from this frigid characterization. The task is accomplished for Condorcet in chapters 6 and 7, the latter of which is slightly revised from its earlier version appearing in the _Historical Journal_, 39.3 (September 1996): 677-701. These demonstrate quite satisfactorily that his "principles ... are strikingly different from the cold, unfeeling, all-summing 'mechanical philosophy' which is supposed to be characteristic of the French enlightenment" (p. 212). His world not only permitted diversity of opinion but encouraged it. Indeed that diversity is to be seen as "of central importance" to the analysis of voting procedures that led to his famous conclusion that aggregation of individual choices by majority vote will, under certain circumstances, produce intransitive outcomes. Condorcet's solution to the problem was to envision constitutional procedures to manage that "political dissonance" by encouraging "deliberation, delay, and the prospect of reversibility." His citizens would "vote interminably" on "everything from property rights in ponds to the future constitution of representative government" (pp. 188-89; 198-99; 204-05; 219-20). In Smith's case, the rescue occurs in chapter 2, which, like chapters 3 and 7, is very slightly revised from an earlier publication (in the _Economic History Review_, 1992, 45.2: 74-96). Here the problem is to explain how Smith's expansive views on "natural liberty" could come, within a decade of his death, to be compressed in the minds of his countrymen to no more than a narrow call for commercial freedom. Here the argument introduces us to the oppressive social atmosphere in Britain of the 1790s, when widespread fear that the terrors of the Revolution might be exported across the Channel made very unpopular any discussion of reform, or even expressions of anything less than wholehearted support for the war with France. We are reminded that Stewart, Smith's first biographer, read his "Account" of Smith's life to the Royal Society of Edinburgh at just the time when several of his countrymen were on trial in the same city for sedition, for which they were eventually convicted and transported. Some even appealed in their defense to the views expressed in _The Wealth of Nations_, which, no doubt, made Smith's less reckless readers very nervous. Indeed, Stewart himself fell afoul of the contemporary sensibilities a year later and was constrained to repudiate what seems to modern eyes a very mild quotation from Condorcet included in an earlier work. No wonder Stewart was at pains in his "Account" to distinguish commercial freedom alone as conducive to national wealth, assuring his hearers that the freedom of widespread political participation is not, in all cases, necessary to the "happiness of mankind" (Smith, 1980, p. 310). It is, of course, obvious that the reception and interpretation of an author's work will be influenced by the political and social environment of the time. Rothschild has here given us a fascinating picture of how that environment influenced the reception of Smith's work in the 1790s. A similar story is told in chapter 4, which contrasts Smith's criticism of apprenticeship with the argu! ments advanced in the debates leading to the 1814 repeal of the apprenticeship clauses of the Elizabethan statute of artificers. Here too we see in detail how the participants in those debates carefully chose from among Smith's broader arguments to support their own narrower purposes. These and the intervening chapter 3 may well be the best in the book. That intervening chapter (appearing in a shorter version in the _Economic Journal_, 1992, 102.414: 1197-1210), completes the effort to rescue Condorcet and Smith from that "cold" and "unfeeling" version of the Enlightenment. Here we are concerned with the teachings of our authorities regarding the grain trade because, we are told, "The political economy of food has been an emblem, at least since the 1760s, of the heartlessness of the liberal system" (p. 72; the like point is made with particular reference to Smith on p. 61). Rothschild, however, is at pains to convince her readers that Condorcet, Turgot, and Smith all "argued that free trade in corn is the best means to avoid famine" (pp. 73-74). This will come as no surprise to economists; but her brief survey of the arguments contained in Turgot's "Lettres" and Condorcet's _Réflexions_ on the grain trade (which, apart from some brief excerpts from Turgot translated by Groenewegen, are not available in English) will be of considerable help to scholars interested in understanding how societies (and economic theory) respond to subsistence crises. It should by now be evident that Rothschild's effort to describe the positions advanced by her second-generation Enlightenment authors and to trace out how the perception of those positions changed in the decades immediately following the Revolutionary period does indeed cast new and revealing light on the position of those authors in the pre- Revolutionary intellectual firmament. About midway through the book, however, the argument shifts away from this descriptive stance and turns ever greater attention to an evaluation of that "liberal economic thought" associated with those authors. By the end of the fifth chapter we are confronted with what Rothschild insists are the two "shortcoming[s] of the liberal economic order." The first is its alleged failure to acknowledge "that individuals seek, on occasion, to pursue their own (economic) interests by political means." The second is the "inconstancy" of that "liberal order." The institutions comprising the world described by Condorcet and Smith, being "the outcome of innumerable, unruly judgments, ... may or may not be good." In this respect that structure "is very unlike a divine providence ... in which individuals should have confidence." Or, as the point is expressed in the last chapter, this "more insidious shortcoming of the liberal orders ... is that they do not contain within themselves the sources of their own improved orderliness." If, in their intellectual systems, our authors deny the existence of a "divine providence" looking after things, then they can have no certainty that those "innumerable, unruly judgments" will lead to "improved orderliness" (pp. 157-58; 219-20). This uncertainty provides the third facet of Rothschild's organizational structure. As she puts it on the penultimate page of her text, she "has been concerned in this book with an economic thought in which uncertainty is the overwhelming condition of commercial society." It must be admitted that this theme of "uncertainty" appears frequently in various brief _obiter dicta_ throughout the book, but the precise nature of the "uncertainty" that is supposed to be at issue is not made explicit until the last chapter. There it takes several forms, ranging from the trivial to the profound. At its most mundane level, it is no more than normal market risk: "The world of eighteenth-century commerce was insecure, or risky, in the sense that it was full of new investments and new economic relationships" (pp. 239-40). Yes, replies the reader, and the same could be said for any other century. To some degree, the uncertainty that is supposed to be at the heart of "liberal economic thought" arises from capricious changes in the rules of the game: "The new world of commerce was insecure, too, because it was subject to frequent and often sudden changes in laws, regulations, and the jurisprudence of property" (p. 240). But the key role in the argument is played by those sources of uncertainty that correspond to Rothschild's two "shortcomings" of the "liberal order." That enlightened disposition to "a discursive, uneasy, self-conscious way of life" that produced the "political dissonance" that so occupied Condorcet spills over into commercial life as well: "The eighteenth-century system of commerce ... was subject to continuing flux not only in events, and in rules, but also in the dispositions of the individuals ... of whom the system is composed." This "flux in the condition of men is the essential circumstance of modern commerce, in Smith's, Turgot's, and Condorcet's description" (p. 241). The individuals who populate the world envisioned by these authors are said to "have opinions about their own interests, about the interests of the society, and about the policies which are likely to promote those interests," and they recognize that they can promote their private interests through efforts to influence those policies: "They are buying and selling, buying and selling; in the end, they are buying and selling rules, and customs, and their own dispositions." Apparently this flaw in the "liberal economic system" is to be understood as a fundamental internal contradiction and is, consequently, the source of "the system's own insecurity": "The system of economic freedom is founded on the equality of all individuals, and it is at the same time subversive of equality," that subversion arising from "the endless circle in which individuals become rich, and use their money to buy power, to buy other individuals, and to influence the ways in which other individuals think" (pp. 239; 245; 251-52). Here, obviously, we have come to Rothschild's first "shortcoming." The connection to the second is obvious: without the presumption of a benevolent, divine creator, there can be no certainty that those shifting "dispositions of the individuals" in the system will lead to a socially desirable outcome. But, Rothschild insists, the system to which Smith, Hume, Condor! cet, and Turgot all subscribed "is not the sort of order which is directed, like the 'movements of nature,' by an 'all-wise Being,' or by a single, unified theory" (p. 230). Here then is the evaluative framework that Rothschild would have us adopt. It portrays the social systems envisioned by Condorcet and Smith as infused by uncertainty in various forms, all arising from the "continuing flux" in the "dispositions" of a "discursive, disputatious" populace, that perpetual social "dissonance" operating with no hope of a divine, guiding hand and, consequently, plagued by the "shortcoming" that its agents might pursue their private interest through anti-social means. But what of the supporting argument? Can such a reading be shown to be consistent with the texts under review? With respect to Condorcet, Rothschild's evidence is extensive and largely persuasive. Smith, however, simply will not permit himself to be forced into this template for it attributes to his work positions that, in several cases, are directly opposed to those which he actually advanced. At nearly every point, the argument rests on selective omissions and misrepresentations of the Smith texts. Consider, as illustration, just those bearing on Rothschild's two "shortcomings of the liberal order." If, as alleged by that first "shortcoming," we fail to acknowledge that those intelligent, "discursive," "self-conscious," agents in our enlightened world will recognize the incentives to pursue their private interests through the political system, then our only hope for future social improvement is to take refuge in the hope that those agents will grow in social awareness and form their own interests to those of society. As Rothschild puts it, the Enlightenment's "late eighteenth-century exponents" looked forward to "a universe of small proprietors, most of whom are sufficiently foresighted to understand that their own lasting self-interest, which coincides with the interest of the society, consists in competing by economic means ... and not through political influence" (p. 158). Now, this seems a fair portrayal of Condorcet's position, at least as it was near the end of his life. Quoting from her translation of one of his last texts, Rothschild observes that Condorcet put his faith in reform. With "better laws, ... 'the interest in acquiring things by illegitimate means will present itself less often, to a smaller number of individuals, and in less diverse and less seductive forms'" (p. 166). Here, no doubt, is the source of Rothschild's claim of "uncertainty." There is nothing in this rendition of Condorcet's vision to inspire confidence in future improvement. It is, as Rothschild puts it, no more than "a probabilistic judgment," an "expression of confidence in the disposition of individuals to discuss and to live by principles of morality; to be mild and moderate, and to feel an increase of humanity, from the very habit of conversing together" (p. 232). "The only source of certainty in such a society," we are told, "is to be found ... in domestic virtues and domestic conversations .... Condorcet ... is prepared to defend the softness or sweetness of modern life; to look forward to the 'easy virtues' of a world in which improvements in education and laws would have made 'the courage of virtue alm! ost useless.'" But, and here we see evidence of that second "shortcoming," Condorcet "also recognizes the frightening insecurity of such a world, in which there is no foundation of political order, either in reverence for divine right, or in fear, or in political virtue" (p. 235). Now, to make her case, Rothschild must demonstrate the existence of Smithian parallels to this rather bland, but insecure, Condorcevian society. Hence we are told that Smith "was confident that there would be very little opportunity for violence in a free, civilized, commercial society, and little advantage to be derived from fraud" (p. 244). We are to take it that Condorcet's "mild and moderate" agents populate Smith's world too. At any rate, we read that "Smith's political philosophy ... is a description of a world without violent conflicts over political principles, without revolutions, and without certainty" (p. 232). Presumably to echo Condorcet's praise of the "softness or sweetness of modern life," we are assured that, for Smith, the "political virtues are the virtues of humanity, and they are even, in some circumstances, the virtues of women"; and we are offered a brief quotation in support: "'Humanity is the virtue of a woman,' Smith wrote in the _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, and it ... requires 'no self- denial, no self-command, no great exertion of the sense of propriety'" (p. 234). By now, those familiar with Smith's thought will be writhing in agony. Anyone who is aware of Smith's praise for the virtue of self-command (that from which "all the other virtues seem to derive their principal luster") will be suspicious of any suggestion that it can be excluded from the "political virtues." The suspicion is confirmed when we take the trouble to check the citation. Rothschild fails to warn us that the fragment concerning "humanity" as "the virtue of a woman," appears as the other half of a contrast with the character of "generosity." The meaning of the passage changes dramatically when we return the fragment to its context: "Generosity is different from humanity. ... Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity of a man." While it is true that "[t]he most humane actions require no self-denial, no self-command, no great exertion of the sense of propriety, ... it is otherwise with generosity." This "masculine" virtue requires the "sacrifice [of] some great and important interest of our own to an equal interest of a friend or of a superior." It is, in other words, the opposite of "humanity" in that it does require "self-denial." Now, perhaps Rothschild's selective omission of the other half of Smith's rhetorical contrast could be excused if the omitted concept was, in Smith's system, excluded from the "political virtues," but no such defense is possible here. In the very next sentence, Smith takes his illustrations from the fields of political and military conflict: "The man who gives up his pretensions to an office that was the great object of his ambition because he imagines that the services of another are better entitled to it; the man who exposes his life to defend that of his friend, which he judges to be of more importance; neither of them act from humanity;" rather, they both exhibit the "self-denial" of "generosity" (Smith 1976b, p. 190-91). Apparently Smith's vision does include "conflicts over political principles" and even battlefield sacrifice. His system contemplates revolution too, but here that "divine order" supposedly missing from that system interposes impediments to such violent disruption. As we will see shortly, Rothschild's peculiar refusal to acknowledge the role of a divine creator in Smith's system is the most puzzling aspect of her argument. The benevolent care of that deity pervades his _Theory of Moral Sentiments_. "[T]o raise and support ... the great, the immense fabric of human society," Smith wrote there, "seems in this world, if I may say so, to have been the peculiar and darling care of Nature." To preserve that social fabric, "Nature" implants in us a disposition to acquiesce in our rulers even when reason would have it otherwise: "That kings are the servants of the people, to be obeyed, resisted, deposed, or punished, as the public conveniency may require, is the doctrine of reason and philosophy; but it is not the doctrine of Nature." On the contrary, "Nature would teach us to submit to them for their own sake." This disposition to submit to unjust rulers can apply even in the case "of the most brutal and savage barbarians, of an Attila, a Gengis, or a Tamerlane." This is not a particularly noble characteristic. It arises from our disposition to admire success and to despise failure even when those outcomes are the product of chance or force. Nevertheless, even this "great disorder in our moral sentiments" serves to preserve human society, particularly in the worst of times. Consequently, "we may on this, as well as on many other occasions, admire the wisdom of God even in the weakness and folly of man." It may be a "foolish admiration," but by this tendency to admire those who, whether by chance, by force, or by merit, succeed in achieving positions of political leadership, the populace "are taught to acquiesce with less reluctance under that government which an irresistible force imposes upon them, and f! rom which no reluctance could deliver them." Where in passages such as these are we to find any hint of Rothschild's reading of Smith as envisioning "a world without violent conflicts over political principles, without revolutions"? At best, Smith's world is one in which, by virtue of "the wisdom of God," only "the most furious passions, fear, hatred, and resentment ... excited [to] the highest degree" can rouse "the bulk of the people ... to oppose [their leaders] with violence" (Smith 1976b, pp. 53, 86, 252-53). Nor does Smith's vision of social order rest on a naïve "confidence in the disposition of individuals to live by principles of morality." The agents who populate Smith's world exhibit all the faults we have come to know in fallible humans. It is true that Smith's ethics -- his "theory of moral sentiments" -- rest on a presumed human capacity and desire to, through our imaginations, "enter into" the situation of our fellows and to experience to a muted degree their emotions. But it is also true that Smith was ready to acknowledge that "self-deceit" -- that "fatal weakness of mankind" -- that too often prevents us from checking and condemning behavior in ourselves that we would condemn in others. Yet the "fabric of human society" requires that we all meet certain accepted standards of decorum. Once again "Nature ... has not left this weakness ... altogether without a remedy; nor has she abandoned us entirely to the delusions of self-love." Through our normal social interactions, we form "certain general rules concerning what is fit and proper either to be done or to be avoided." These "general rules of conduct" become "fixed in our mind" by training and "habitual reflection." Although "ultimately founded upon experience of what ... our moral faculties ... approve, or disapprove of," their application does not require that all agents exhibit a finely-tuned capacity for sympathy in all circumstances. A good thing too since "[t]he coarse clay of which the bulk of mankind are formed, cannot be wrought up to such perfection." It is these general rules or duties that are the proximate foundation of social order: "upon the tolerable observance of these duties depends the very existence of human society, which would crumble into nothing if mankind were not generally impressed with a reverence for those important rules of conduct." Finally, lest there be any remaining doubts as to the role of a benevolent deity in Smith's system, we are told in the next sentence, "This reverence is still further enhanced by a! n opinion which is first impressed by nature, and afterwards confirmed by reasoning and philosophy, that those important rules of morality are the commands and laws of the Deity," a position which is elaborated on the subsequent pages (Smith, 1976b, pp. 158-63). We find in chapter 5 Rothschild's defense of her claim that Smith's system exhibits those two "shortcomings" that she perceives in "liberal economic thought." The chapter advances the remarkable position that Smith's "image of the invisible hand is best interpreted as a mildly ironic joke" (p. 116; a very brief summary of the argument appeared earlier in the _American Economic Review_, 1994, 84.2: 319-22). This must be the case because "if it were taken seriously," the concept expressed by that metaphor "would have been in conflict with several of Smith's most profound convictions" (p. 136). What is at issue here is not simply the metaphor itself but the concept which it is taken to convey, that concept being, for Rothschild, that the individual pursuit of private interest can produce an orderly aggregate outcome which can, under some identifiable circumstances, be socially desirable (p. 121). It is Smith's expression of this concept that we are to take as intended as "an ironic joke ... on himself ... [and] on his immense posterity as well" (p. 138). Among those of "Smith's most profound convictions" with which this concept is supposed to conflict is his well-known principle that merchants often pursue their interest through political influence. By Rothschild's argument, we may take it that the notion of a spontaneous order conveyed by the invisible hand metaphor was "un-Smithian and unimportant to his theory" because "Smith's criticisms of government and of established institutions are essential to his economic thought; it is most unlikely that he would simply forget them in a grand theory of the social good" (p. 128). But this bespeaks a remarkably narrow reading. Smith did not "forget" his "criticisms" of public and private institutions in his "grand theory"; they were part of his theory. Rosenberg (1960) pointed out long ago that those "criticisms" were in fact original and perceptive investigations of the incentive structures embedded in those institutions, and the point has only been elaborated since. Rothschild is quite right (p. 244) that Smith suggested in his jurisprudence lectures that commercial relationships could improve the character of the participants, at least with respect to their "probity and punctuality." But as Rosenberg again has elsewhere (1990) reminded us, Smith did not stop there. In his vision, commercial society served to improve not only the character of the people but also the legal structures that guide their actions and establish their security of property right. The same philosopher who took account in his ethics of the "coarse clay of which the bulk of mankind are formed" could not fail to recognize in his investigation of market behavior that "such, it seems, is the natural insolence of man, that he almost always disdains to use the good instrument, except when he cannot or dare not use the bad one" (Smith, 1976a, p. 799). He was quite aware that the individual pursuit of private interest must be channeled by properly constructed incentive structures (which include, of course, not only legal restraints but c! ompetitive markets as well) to prevent recourse to the "bad instrument." Only when operating within such structures can we speak of an "invisible hand" directing individual actions to a socially desirable outcome. Yet Rothschild insists that there is "something oddly ingenuous in Smith's sudden invocation of the timid, virtuous merchant, led by the invisible hand to pursue only harmonious interests" (p. 128). In violation of her own injunction to understand the invisible hand reference in its broad, conceptual sense, she here limits attention to "the invisible hand passage" in _The Wealth of Nations_, where the merchant "does not, for example, seek to collect together with other merchants to obtain special privileges for home production." No, not in this passage; but Smith was, no doubt, writing under the reasonable presumption that his readers can be expected to recall the countless other passages that warn of such collusion and propose incentive structures designed to impede it. Adding further to her portrayal of Smith as playing a sly joke on posterity with his invisible hand metaphor, Rothschild would have us find it "interesting ... that in a chapter mainly concerned with British restrictions on imports, Smith's ingenuous merchant is described as a resident of Amsterdam, trading in corn from Königsberg and fruit from Lisbon; he is a cosmopolitan figure, far less tempted than any English merchant to pursue his own advantage through political influence" (p. 128; the point recurs on p. 144). Now, any reader who takes the trouble to review the reference in its context will find this to be a particularly egregious mischaracterization. While it is not commonly mentioned, the particular social benefit supposed to be achieved by the _Wealth of Nations_ appearance of the invisible hand is a preference for home over foreign investment, a principle that will seem peculiar to modern readers accustomed to decisionmaking at the margin. Nevertheless, the principle arises from Smith's eighteenth-century view of capital as "setting to work productive labor." Capital employed domestically "in purchasing in one part of the country in order to sell in another ... generally replaces by every such operation two distinct capitals." But in foreign trade, where one of the transactions occurs abroad, "the capital employed ... will give but one-half the encouragement to the industry or productive labour of the country." Hence, that famous invisible hand, which Rothschild would have us believe is slyly applied by Smith to an Amsterdam merchant "far less tempted" to pursue his interest through influence in the British political arena, applies in fact to the domestic merchant who, in "preferring the support of domestick to that of foreign industry, ... intends only his own security," and is "in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention," that end being, in this case, the support of more domestic labor than would have been accomplished ha! d he traded abroad. That Amsterdam merchant trading between Prussia and Portugal enters Smith's story only as illustration of the lower risk associated with domestic trade by providing the contrast of the greater "unease" felt by the merchant engaged in foreign trade, where he is "separated so far from his capital" (Smith, 1976a, pp. 368; 454-56). This alleged "ingenuous" character of Smith's invisible hand expression recurs throughout the rest of the argument and is central to Rothschild's case for her first "shortcoming." Upon its introduction, that "first conflict or shortcoming of economic thought" is described as having to do with "the transformation of money into political power" and is illustrated by the claim that "[i]n Smith's description of the invisible hand in the _Wealth of Nations_, the circumstance that individuals pursue their economic objectives by political means is largely ignored" (p. 154). It also provides a spurious point of contrast between Smith and Condorcet, who is described as "admirably explicit in addressing one shortcoming of liberal economic orders, to do with the transformation of money into political power, and of political power into the power to influence markets" (p. 166). All this is no more than a figment of Rothschild's misreading of Smith. The foundation of Rothschild's second "shortcoming" of "liberal economic thought" is also to be found in chapter five. There is no denying the "conception of providential order" long associated with Smith's invisible hand metaphor. That association provides Rothschild with one more reason to dismiss that metaphor as "un-Smithian" -- namely the conviction that Smith would have found "very serious problems" in such a "theology of the invisible hand" (p. 129). However, her argument on this point, for all its lavish citations, is nearly devoid of textual evidence from Smith himself, apart from the remark that he frequently made known "his differences with Christian doctrines." This, of course, is no more than a red herring. That Smith had little patience with the positions and practices of the established Christian denominations of his time is obvious. But it is equally obvious that a deistic faith in a benevolent creator does not rest on Christian doctrine. In support of her claim, Rothschild can offer us little more than the statement of her "own view ... that ... Smith's and Hume's religious opinions were indeed quite close," a view that no doubt explains why her case so frequently rests on appeals to Hume rather than to Smith (e.g. pp. 120, 130, 134-35, 139). One could, of course, argue (and Rothschild does, in passing) that Smith's frequent references to the "all-wise Author of Nature" (some of which we have already noticed) were no more than a smokescreen intended to avoid the kind of conflict with contemporary sensibilities that so dogged his friend. But the frequency and apparent sincerity of those references are far greater than the minimum necessary to satisfy the local keepers of the public morals. Certainly Rothschild's claim that Smith denied "the conception of providential order," or employed it as no more than "an ironic joke," is directly opposed to recent scholarship on the matter. One wishes that in all her footnotes, she had taken notice of those studies that, with a good deal more relevan! t documentation, manage to advance an opposing view (e.g. Evensky 1998; although it appeared too late to help Rothschild, interested readers will want to consult Hill 2001 as well). To be sure, Rothschild does acknowledge the common view that Smith professed the existence of a benevolent creator and that his position on this matter derived from the natural theology of Stoic philosophy. But she offers little in rebuttal beyond the unsupported declaration that he "was influenced by different Stoic doctrines"; that "[w]ithin the overall Stoic system, ... it was the idea of a providential order ... to which Smith was most opposed" (p. 132) As to that, I will simply leave it to those interested to read for themselves Smith's own assessment of that "Stoical" system, where he assures us that, even in our greatest extremity, when, in spite of our best efforts, events "turn out the most unfortunate and disastrous, Nature has by no means left us without consolation," that consolation being drawn "from a firm reliance upon, and reverential submission to, that benevolent wisdom which directs all the events of human life, and which, we may be assured, would never have suffered those misfortunes to happen had they not been indispensably necessary for the good of the whole" (Smith 1976b, p. 292). Is this an author who opposed the idea of a providential order? In spite of its flaws, we can learn a great deal from Rothschild's work here. Her command of a vast and complex literature is awesome. She has been scrupulous in identifying her authorities, and she has opened a number of new and promising lines for further work. She has reminded us that the forces unleashed by the French Revolution left their mark not only on the political and social structures of the period but also on the intellectual structures that conditioned the discourse of the nineteenth century and, at a remove, of our own time. She has prompted us to look again at the intellectual influences running in both directions across the Channel in the immediate pre-Revolutionary period, and she has identified the sources to do so. No doubt it is that great promise that heightens the disappointment we feel when we encounter her efforts to turn those sources to purposes which they simply will not support. References Evensky, Jerry. 1998. "Adam Smith's Moral Philosophy: The Role of Religion and Its Relationship to Philosophy and Ethics in the Evolution of Society." _History of Political Economy_ 30.1: 17-42. Hill, Lisa. 2001. "The Hidden Theology of Adam Smith." _European Journal of the History of Economic Thought_ 8.1:1-29. Rosenberg, Nathan. 1960. "Some Institutional Aspects of the Wealth of Nations." _Journal of Political Economy_ 68.6: 557-70. _______. 1990. "Adam Smith and the Stock of Moral Capital." _History of Political Economy_ 22.1: 1-18. Smith, Adam. 1976a. _An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations_. Edited by R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner. Oxford: Oxford University Press. _______. 1976b. _The Theory of Moral Sentiments_. Edited by D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie. Oxford: Oxford University Press. _______. 1980. _Essays on Philosophical Subjects_. Edited by W. P. D. Wightman and J. C. Bryce. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Emma Rothschild is a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge and Director of the Center for History and Economics, King's College. Glenn Hueckel is the author of various articles on the history of economic thought in the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. Copyright (c) 2002 by EH.Net. All rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit educational uses if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact the EH.Net Administrator ([log in to unmask]; Telephone: 513- 529-2850; Fax: 513-529-3308). Published by EH.Net (September 2002). All EH.Net reviews are archived at http://www.eh.net/BookReview ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]