----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- In reference to the posts of Peter Stillman and Edith Kuiper: Peter Stillman wrote: "Even Adam Smith on occasion could sneak in references to power, lost though they are on most later economists whose views derive from Smith." Adam Smith did touch on the power variable in his own way in many instances. He made interesting comments on the tendency to form ‘combinations’ on the part of workers and masters (WN, Book I, chapter Viii on "Of the Wages of labor"). He referred to the latter always entering into tacit, but constant and uniform combinations to depress wages, even below their natural rate. The workers, out of their desperation, retaliate by forming defensive combinations and are extravagantly clamorous in trying to frighten the masters in compliance. He writes: "The masters upon these occasions are just as clamorous upon the other side, and never cease to call aloud for assistance of the civil magistrate, and the execution of those laws which have been enacted with so much severity against the combinations of servants, labourers, and journeymen". He then concludes that the deck is sort of stacked against the workers and they derive no benefit from their actions. My sense is that although Smith had a clear understanding of the power held by the hegemonic class, he attached not enough significance to it because his solutions were always very economistic. This is his legacy that survived and not the behavioral and sociological aspects of his thinking. Edith Kuiper wrote: "The differences between women and men however, seem for Smith to go much deeper, although he addressed these differences only implicitly and then assumes them fixed." Here too we see a similar recognition of the position of women in the power hierarchy. In his discussions of marriage and family, he shows a distinct bias towards men’s rights vis-à-vis women. In his Lectures on Jurisprudence he wrote that this was the result of men making the laws which they naturally made more favorable to themselves. But then he adds that: " . . . as in almost all contracts of marriage the husband has a considerable superiority to the wife, the injury done to his honor and love will be more grievous, as all injuries done to a superior by an inferior are more sensibly felt than those which are done to an inferior by one whom they look upon as above them" (LJ, 1978, 147). Here his conclusion seems to derive from the patriarchal biases which run through Smith’s works. He knows the greater power of men in society, but accepts it as somehow natural. Lastly, I too found Hugo Cerqueira’s comments very useful. Sumitra Shah ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]