ADAM SMITH ON FEUDALISM, COMMERCE AND SLAVERY

John Salter*

IIntroduction

The influence of the materialist interpretation of Adam Smith�s treatment ofhistory, associated with Roy Pascal, Ronald Meek and Andrew Skinner,1 hasbeen weakened, if not entirely eclipsed, by writers such as Donald Winch andKnud Haakonssen who have objected strongly to the narrowing of the scopefor an independent political and jurisprudential sphere which, they argue,materialist readings of Smith imply. Thus Donald Winch writes:

if we take the �science of the legislator� seriously, materialist inter-pretations of Smith�s use of the four stages, with their more or lessmono-causal overtones, have unfortunate implications: they place severelimitations on any genuinely political vision of society. Political and legalinstitutions are treated as epiphenomenal to underlying economic forces,leaving little or no scope for a science of the legislator designed to showwhat active steps should be taken to remove injustices and adapt institu-tions to changing circumstances.2

Knud Haakonssen has taken a similar position. He emphasizes Smith�s statedpurpose of providing a normative theory of justice, and details the basis whichSmith provided for such a theory in the Theory of Moral Sentiments. AsHaakonssen points out, such a project would have little point if Smith believedthat politics and law were merely reflections of some other underlying forces.3

* For their helpful comments and criticisms, I thank Alistair Edwards, Michael Evans, HillelSteiner, Ursula Vogel, Robert Wokler and two anonymous referees.1 R. Pascal, �Property and Society: the Scottish Contribution of the Eighteenth Century�, ModernQuarterly, 1 (1938), pp. 167�79. R.L. Meek, �The Scottish Contribution to Marxist Sociology�, inDemocracy and the Labour Movement, ed. J. Saville (London, 1954). Reprinted with amendmentsin R.L. Meek, Economics and Ideology and Other Essays: Studies in the Development of EconomicThought (London, 1967). R.L. Meek, The Economics of Physiocracy: Essays and Translations,(London, 1962). R.L. Meek, �Smith, Turgot and the ��Four Stages�� Theory�, History of PoliticalEconomy, 3 (1971), pp. 9�27. R.L. Meek, Social Science and the Ignoble Savage (Cam-bridge,1976). R.L. Meek, �The Great Whole Man�, The Times Literary Supplement (3 December1976). A.S. Skinner, �Economics and History � the Scottish Enlightenment�, Scottish Journal ofPolitical Economy, 12 (1965). A.S Skinner, Adam Smith: �An Economic Interpretation of History�,in Essays on Adam Smith, ed. A.S. Skinner and T. Wilson (Oxford, 1975). A.S. Skinner, �AScottish Contribution to Marxist Sociology?�, in Classical and Marxian Political Economy, ed.I. Bradley and M. Howard (London, 1982).2 D. Winch, �Adam Smith�s ��Enduring Particular Result��: A Political and Cosmopolitan Perspec-tive�, in Wealth and Virtue, ed. I. Hont and M. Ignatieff (Cambridge, 1983), p. 258.3 K. Haakonssen, The Science of a Legislator (Cambridge, 1989).

HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT. Vol. XIII. No. 2. Summer 1992

Few authors would deny the importance of the contribution of Pascal, Meekand Skinner in drawing attention to the four stages theory and to the fact that itprovided a point of reference for Smith�s discussion of property and govern-ment. For its critics, the fundamental flaw in the materialist interpretation is thedeterminism that materialism is said to imply. Haakonssen for example, writes:�let us face squarely the central issue at stake in a discussion of a materialistconception of history, that of determinism�.4 His discussion of determinismsuggests that he is using the term in the sense of economic reductionism, a viewwhich denies causal significance to all levels other than the economic.5 Haak-onssen�s principal concern is to show how Smith allowed for human agency,especially through law and political and legal institutions; for morals andintellectual and religious beliefs; and also for chance and the influence ofexceptional individuals. The force of this line of criticism will have been feltstrongly by anyone who believes that Smith held to an extreme form ofeconomic reductionism in which economic forces, somehow transcendentallyproduce political and legal outcomes without the involvement of individualsacting as politicians, legislators, soldiers etc., or that individuals acting in thesecapacities are mere cyphers or �places� in a structure, which do no more thanreflect underlying material forces. That the materialist reading of Smith in question encouraged such a simplisticinterpretation is undeniable, less so because it identified a form of materialismconnected with the relationship between property, power and dependence, thanbecause this relationship was transposed to the plane of an over-archinghistorical theory, by linking it with Smith�s use of the four stages. The signifi-cance of the four stages for Meek was that it provided an explanation of howwealth distribution depended upon the stage of society. It was thus possible toidentify an economic �base� which developed independently of the �superstruc-ture� and which acted upon it through its characteristic patterns of distribution.In this form, the materialist thesis was open to numerous qualifications andobjections. For example, the distribution of wealth in Smith depends upon arange of factors, from the consequences of the upheaval following the collapseof the Roman empire to the contingent fact that Elizabeth I had no heirs andsold off the royal demesnes, and does not appear to be related in any systematicway to the stage of society. The agricultural stage and the commercial stage areboth consistent with a variety of institutional forms; for example England,France, Germany and Spain are all examples of societies which have arrived atthe commercial stage but which have different political characteristics.

4 Ibid., p. 185. See also H.M. Hopfl, �From Savage to Scotsman: Conjectural History in the ScottishEnlightenment�, Journal of British Studies, Vol. XVII, no. 2 (1978), who criticizes materialisticinterpretations of Smith for their supposed determinism on similar grounds to Haakonssen.5 Haakonssen is not, I think, opposed to describing Smith as a determinist where determinismmeans that events can be described as a chain of cause and effect � his �antidotes� to determinismdo not imply that Smith was not a determinist in this sense. See ibid., pp. 185�6.

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Skinner himself came to doubt many aspects of the materialist interpretationand subjected it to criticism along the same lines as Winch and Haakonssen.However, Skinner continued to insist on �the importance of broadly economicforces in the interpretation of actual historical events � a proposition which isnowhere more obvious than in Smith�s analysis of the breakdown of the feudalstate and the role ascribed therein to the development of trade and manufac-tures�.6 It is this aspect of the materialist interpretation with which I will beprincipally concerned in this paper. A theme which was introduced by Pascal, and developed in detail by Skinner,was that Smith�s account of the destruction of feudalism by the rise of commerceand manufacturing could be read as an account of the transition from the thirdto the fourth economic stages. Moreover, the central institutional change in thistransition, according to Pascal and Skinner, was the abolition of serfdom andits replacement by a system of agrarian capitalism based on free tenancies. Thisinterpretation of Smith has had a significant impact outside the immediate areaof Smith scholarship. It has provided substantial scholarly textual support forthe view that Smith was interested in the question of the transition fromfeudalism to capitalism prior to Marx. It also appears to establish the Smithianroots of the particular theory of transition which was advanced by Paul Sweezyin the context of the post war debates on the transition from feudalism tocapitalism.7 As Skinner noted: �It is particularly interesting to observe . . . thatSmith would appear to side with Paul Sweezy, and against Maurice Dobb, insuggesting that the feudal state had failed as a result of exogenous rather thanendogenous pressures.�8

Independently of the work of Pascal and Skinner, Robert Brenner has arguedthat �the method of an entire line of writers in the Marxist tradition�9 can betraced to Smith. The characteristics and deficiencies of this method, accordingto Brenner, derive from the fact that it accepts Smith�s �individualistic-mechanist presuppositions� which lead to the view that �the development oftrade and the division of labour unfailingly bring about economic develop-ment�,10 and fails to appreciate that growth and the extension of the division oflabour require the prior transformation of productive relations. Sweezy�s the-ory, according to Brenner, is an �extension� of Smith�s model which retains itsinadequacies:

6 Skinner, �A Scottish Contribution�, p. 100.7 See The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism, ed. R. Hilton (London, 1976). That Smithconceived of the transition from feudalism to capitalism prior to Marx is argued by Eric Hobsbawmagainst William Letwin�s claim that it was a Marxist invention. See Times Literary Supplement (25March and 1 April 1977).8 Skinner, �A Scottish Contribution�, p. 100.9 R. Brenner, �The Origins of Capitalist Development: a Critique of Neo-Smithian Marxism�, inNew Left Review, 104 (1977), p. 27.10 Ibid.

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the fact is that such flowerings of commercial relations cum divisions oflabour have been a more or less regular feature of human history forthousands of years. Because the occurrence of such �commercial revolu-tions� has been relatively so common, the key question which must beanswered by Sweezy and Wallerstein is why the rise of trade/division oflabour should have set off the transition to capitalism in the case of feudalEurope?11

But while Brenner traced the method of this Marxist tradition to Smith, andregarded Sweezy�s theory as an extension, the interpretation of Smith proposedby Pascal and Skinner finds Sweezy�s theory already present in the pages of theWealth of Nations. Other writers have built upon this discovery and Smith hasbeen cited, along with the other members of the Scottish school, as being oneof the founders of productive force determinism.12

In Book III of the Wealth of Nations Smith was concerned to argue that thedecline of feudal power, brought about by the progress of commerce andopulence, resulted in the introduction of �order and good government, and withthem the liberty and security of individuals�. Duncan Forbes has described thisas �the great theme of European history, embracing the absolute as well as thefree governments�.13 If Skinner�s interpretation of Smith is correct and thedemise of feudalism means for Smith, as for Marx, the demise of an economicsystem which is replaced by capitalism, then liberty and justice, which aredependent on the introduction of order and good government, are inextricablybound up with the institutions of capitalism. This view of liberty and justice contrasts sharply with the anti-materialistview of Winch and Haakonssen and it detracts from what Haakonssen regardedas one of Smith�s primary purposes, that of drawing up the �parallels andcontrasts between mankind�s three great attempts to live by the laws of justicein a commercial society�.14 Haakonssen is surely correct in suggesting thatliberty and justice are not exclusively modern and not dependent upon capital-ism. Smith does refer to a modern meaning of freedom in the Wealth of Nationsin discussing the removal of the attributes of slavery and villeinage from thetown dwellers who, as a consequence Smith says, �became really free in ourpresent sense of the word Freedom�.15 But this is a particular usage of the wordfreedom which is not, as I will argue below, implied by �the liberty and securityof individuals� dependent upon �order and good government� which was the

11 Ibid., p. 40.12 See S. Rigby, Marxism and History (Manchester, 1987), Ch. 5.13 D. Forbes, �Sceptical Whiggism: Commerce and Liberty�, in Essays on Adam Smith, ed. Skinnerand Wilson, p. 193.14 Haakonssen, The Science of a Legislator, p. 188.15 A. Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed. R.H. Campbell,A.S. Skinner and W.B. Todd (Oxford, 1976), III. iii. 5.

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theme of Smith�s account of the destruction of feudal power by the progress ofcommerce and opulence. I will argue in what follows that the reading of Smith which attributes to hima theory of the transition from feudalism to capitalism, and the implicationswhich follow from it, are unfounded. There are three key aspects of theinterpretation which I will challenge. First, that Smith�s account of the destruc-tion of feudal power by the progress of commerce is related to an explanationof the transition to the commercial stage; second, that the decline in baronialpower incorporates Smith�s account of the ending of serfdom and a change inrelations of production in the Marxian sense; and third, that the rise of interna-tional commerce � the �prime-mover� in the whole process, is a force whichis external to European feudalism. While the purpose of Smith�s discussion of the effects of commercial progressin modern Europe was not, then, to explain the origins of agrarian capitalism,it was clearly designed to explain how the destruction of feudal power consti-tuted a major political revolution. The nature of this revolution and its signifi-cance for the relationship between commerce and liberty has been the object ofconsiderable dispute amongst Smith scholars. The contributions of Winch andHaakonssen, by insisting on the centrality of Smith�s political and jurispruden-tial interests and on the role of his advocacy, guard against simplistic, determi-nistic interpretations. However, I will argue that their reluctance to concede anyground at all to a materialist interpretation has led them to a position in whichthe significance of this revolution is severely restricted. This is because theyboth deny that for Smith political power was based on the economic dependenceof the poor on the rich. They argue that the power which the rich have over thepoor is a matter of sympathy and admiration and not of economic dependence.This position, as I will argue, denies them the basis for any coherent interpre-tation of Smith�s account of the decline in the power of the barons. Pascal and Skinner, in focusing attention on the relationship between prop-erty, economic dependence and political power, and in showing how commer-cial progress, by reducing economic dependence, led to the demise of feudalpower, made a lasting contribution which survives the criticisms which Winch,Haakonssen and others have made of materialist interpretations of Smith. I willargue, moreover, that materialism, when stripped of its premonitions of theMarxist theory of the transition from feudalism to capitalism, and of itsassociations with determinism, is an appropriate term to describe an importantdimension of Smith�s treatment of the relationship between commerce andliberty. I will take materialism to mean that for certain actions, laws, policiesand political and legal institutions to be possible, certain material conditionshave to be present and that these material conditions, while usually the resultof human actions are not the result of design, of purposeful human action.Materialism in this sense accurately describes Smith�s discussion of the way inwhich, on a number of occasions, but in its most fully developed form in hisaccount of the demise of feudalism, the progress of commerce and opulence

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have the effect of creating strong central government, which he believed was aprecondition for liberty and justice. Materialism in this sense does not, of course, imply determinism or economicreductionism. If materialism and the kind of economic reductionism which hasbeen the target of criticism were synonymous, the question of whether Smithwas a materialist would be superseded by the question of whether materialismwas a defensible position to adopt in any circumstances. Materialism, in thesense being suggested, does not imply that there is a necessary and automaticconnection between commerce and liberty. Neither does it limit the scope foradvocacy. Smith�s advocacy was directed towards the implementation of thesystem of perfect liberty, which he regarded as the system most favourable tocommercial progress. But Smith also spoke of liberty in the more general sensewhich had been attained in most of the modern European states where a tolerabledegree of security had been introduced by the appearance of strong centralgovernments and this was the unintended result of economic progress. It istherefore the contention of this paper that it is possible to give due recognitionto the normative dimension of Smith�s treatment of liberty and justice while, atthe same time, acknowledging Smith�s materialism. The argument of this paper can be summarized as follows. The materialistinterpretation, and particularly the contributions of Pascal and Skinner, justifi-ably stressed the importance of the way in which political power was based onwealth and how economic progress acted to destroy arbitrary centres of power.However, by embedding Smith�s account of the demise of feudalism in the fourstages theory, and by interpreting it as part of a theory of the transition fromfeudalism to agrarian capitalism, the materialist interpretation deflected atten-tion away from Smith�s primary purpose of explaining how commercial pro-gress created a more favourable climate for justice and liberty by causingchanges in the structure of sovereignty. The contributions of Winch andHaakonssen have provided a valuable antidote to some of the deterministicimplications of the materialist interpretation. In particular, they have succeededin recapturing the ground on which Smith discussed liberty and justice asquestions for the legislator and have countered the view that they are automaticoutcomes of material processes. However, by equating materialism with deter-minism and by directly challenging the centrality of Smith�s treatment of therelationship between property, dependence and political power, they placeundue weight on the normative dimension of Smith�s treatment of liberty andjustice and obscure what can appropriately be described as a materialistdimension.

IIThe Marxian Interpretation

Roy Pascal�s 1938 article �Property and Society�, which deals with the ScottishHistorical School, is taken to be the first statement of this so-called Marxianinterpretation of Smith. Pascal points out that Smith regarded history as amaterial process: �The process of social development is not governed by a

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supernatural (religious) or a moral principle; nor by man�s foresight and reason. . . Smith sees social development . . . as a completely secular, materialprocess.�16 Pascal draws attention, without providing a detailed treatment, toSmith�s use of four distinct economic stages of society. He simply notes thataccording to Smith government begins with property in land and herds, that iswith the shepherding and agricultural stages, and that the basis of governmentis the defence of the property of the rich against the poor. �Smith applies thesegeneral principles in contrasting the social institutions of the various stages ofsociety, showing the evolution of civil government (monarchy, aristocracy,republic)�.17

According to Pascal, Smith�s account of the destruction of feudalism by therise of commerce and manufacturing, the fullest account of which appears inthe Wealth of Nations Book III, is an account of �the development of commerceand manufacture out of an agricultural society�.18 Central to this stadial trans-formation is the abolition of serfdom:

When exchange and industry were developed, it became possible for thebarons to acquire things. In the feudal system, their only use for theirproperty was the gaining of power; their relation to their serfs was one ofa military leader to his retainers. Now, however, they become obsessedwith the desire of turning their serfs into wealth producers. They thereforedo everything to encourage production, introduce permanent and heredi-tary lease-holding, free the serfs, etc. Acting with a view to their owninterest, the barons destroy their own power, and create the possibility ofregular government.19

Ronald Meek�s contributions to this subject were principally concerned withthe presence of a materialistic explanation of government, organized around thefour stages theory which he found in the Glasgow Lectures on Jurisprudence.In comparison with Meek, however, Andrew Skinner�s discussion of theso-called historical materialism in Smith focused attention on the more socio-logical concerns of the Wealth of Nations.20 While Skinner�s account of therelationship between the four stages and forms of government was broadlysimilar to Meek�s, there was another dimension to Skinner�s interpretationwhich appeared in his 1965 article and which played a greater role in his latercontributions. In addition to the relationship between the substructure or mode

16 Pascal, �Property and Society�, pp. 170�1.17 Ibid., pp. 171�2.18 Ibid., p. 172.19 Ibid.20 This has the advantage of focusing on one of Smith�s published works. As R.D. Cummings haspointed out, Smith chose to consign his unpublished notes to the flames. See R.D. Cummings, �TheFour Stages�, in Political Theory and Political Economy, ed. C.B. Macpherson, mimeo, Conferencefor the Study of Political Thought (Toronto, 1974).

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of subsistence and the nature of property and government, Skinner claimed thatit is also part of the Scottish argument that changes in the mode of subsistenceare brought about by �quantitative� developments in the �productive forces�.Thus, while Meek had identified two levels of analysis in the Scottish �materi-alism� � the mode of subsistence and the forms of property and government,Skinner identified three interrelated levels: the productive forces, the type ofeconomic organization and the pattern of dependence and authority.21

The major illustration of the relationship between the forces of productionand the type of economic organization given by Skinner is the emergence ofthe �exchange economy� from the agrarian economy. The growth of manufac-turing and trade, which are characterized by Skinner as the forces of production,dissolved the ties of dependence that characterized the agrarian economy andeventually caused the break up of the agrarian economy and its replacement bythe exchange economy: �Smith argues in effect that the quantitative develop-ment of manufactures based on the cities eventually produced a qualitativechange in creating the institutions of the exchange economy, that is of the fourtheconomic stage.�22

Skinner has described these qualitative changes in the following way:

since the object was now to maximize the disposable surplus, it was inthe proprietor�s interest to change the forms of leasehold in order toencourage output and increase returns. In this way, Smith traced thegradual change from the use of slave labour on the land, to the origin ofthe �metayer� system where the tenant had limited property rights, untilthe whole process finally resulted in the appearance of �farmers properlyso called who cultivated the land with their own stock, paying a rentcertain to the landlord� (WN III.ii.14).23

In �A Scottish Contribution to Marxist Sociology?� (1982) Skinner madeexplicit what was implicit in his 1965 contribution, namely the distinctionbetween the statement of the four stages and their relationship to government,and the process of transition between the stages. As the question mark in thetitle of the 1982 article suggests, Skinner came to question the materialistinterpretation: �Smith gave due weight to the importance of economic factors,but also to the role played by political considerations, quirks of character,physical elements and pure accident�.24 However, Skinner came to see Smith�saccount of the emergence of the exchange economy as the most robust andclear-cut example of �historical materialism� in Smith�s works.

21 Skinner, �Economics and History�, p. 21.22 Skinner, �Adam Smith: an Economic Interpretation of History�, p. 167.23 Ibid., p. 166.24 Skinner, �A Scottish Contribution�, p. 102.

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IIIA Critique

The Four Economic StagesIt is clear from the way Smith first introduces the stages in the Lectures onJurisprudence, and from the way he subsequently discusses them, that they arenot totally distinct and mutually exclusive. In particular, the age of commerceis not a post-agricultural society. All that Smith has to say about the age ofcommerce at this point is that it arrives when exchange between societiesfollows on from the development of exchange within societies. From theexamples he gives it is clear that agriculture has not been superseded but thatcommerce is a development of the agricultural economy.25 Ronald Meek,however, claimed that by the commercial stage Smith meant �the use ofcapitalist methods of production, the accumulation of capital, the improvementof the useful arts, the extension of the division of labour, and commerce�.26

Meek�s definition has to be seen in relation to his view that �Smith propoundsthe four stages theory in his Glasgow lectures on Jurisprudence and lateranalyses a ��commercial society�� in detail in his Wealth of Nations�.27 It is clearthat the society analysed in the Wealth of Nations is a commercial society; Smithdoes not say, however, that all commercial societies have all the characteristicswhich are to be found in the contemporary society he analyses in the Wealth ofNations. The fact that the sequence of stages up to and including commercialsociety was attained prior to the downfall of Rome emphasizes this point. Whilethe full development of commerce may not have been reached until much later,it clearly existed in the ancient period and the only distinction that Smith makesis that in Rome commerce was not �particularly studied and a theory laiddown�.28

Andrew Skinner�s introduction of the term �exchange economy� distin-guishes the �modern, as distinct from classical, form�29 of the fourth economicstage. Skinner claims the analysis of the Wealth of Nations is concerned withthe transition to the fourth economic phase in its modern form. What issignificant in Skinner�s treatment is that the Exchange Economy is defined interms of the productive relations of agrarian capitalism. The transition is thusthe substitution of one set of productive relations (agrarian capitalism) foranother (serfdom or feudalism defined in the Marxist sense). Thus while thethird and the fourth economic stages, as they are discussed by Smith, are not

25 See A. Smith, Lectures on Jurisprudence [A] (1762), ed. R.L. Meek, D.D. Raphael andP.G. Stein (Oxford, 1978), i. 31.26 R.L. Meek, �Political Theory and Political Economy, 1750�1800�, in C.B. Macpherson, Politi-cal Theory and Political Economy, p. 7. 27 Ibid., p. 8.28 Smith, Lectures on Jurisprudence [A], iv. 93.29 Skinner, �A System of Social Science�, p. 88.

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mutually exclusive, the agrarian/feudal stage as defined by Skinner and Skin-ner�s exchange economy are. It is thus possible to see the significance of Skinner�s distinction between thequantitative development of commerce and manufacture, for which he uses theterm productive forces, and the commercial stage defined as an economicsystem. Such a distinction is clearly necessary if �commerce� is to stand for bothcause and effect: for the instrument which brings about the new economicsystem and the new economic system itself. This, however, is an unnecessaryelaboration of Smith�s views and amounts to redefining Smith�s categories interms of Marxian ones. While Smith identified four ages of society which are referred to in thisliterature as modes of subsistence, he does not make use of a concept whichcorresponds to what Marx meant by mode of production. This is illustrated mostclearly by Smith�s treatment of slavery. Slavery does not correspond to any ofthe four ages but can exist in any of them, and in Smith�s opinion wouldprobably exist in all of them because of man�s natural desire to dominateothers.30 Slavery has only been abolished in a small corner of Europe for specialreasons. Since Smith did not believe that commercial society was restricted tothe same small corner of Europe, we must conclude that the commercial age ofsociety does not preclude the existence of slavery. Furthermore, Smith�s treat-ment of feudalism was quite unlike that of Marx and Marxist historians. ForSmith serfdom was not the same as, and bore no special relationship to,feudalism. Feudalism was for Smith a particular form of government which isto be distinguished from the other forms of government with which Smith deals,namely democratic, republic, military, allodial and absolute monarchy. The claim, therefore, that Smith provided an account of the transition fromfeudalism to the fourth economic stage (whether this is defined as the commer-cial stage as in Smith or the exchange economy as in Skinner) simply does notmake sense in terms of the categories employed by Smith. One may expect tofind in Smith a discussion of transitions between different forms of government,for example from allodial to feudal to absolutism, or of transitions betweeneconomic stages, for example the transition from agriculture to commerce, butidentifying feudalism with the agrarian stage and identifying a transition fromfeudalism to the commercial stage as Skinner does involves a confusion of thecategories employed by Smith. In view of this, it can be doubted whether, as Skinner claims, Smith�s accountof the development of modern Europe from the collapse of the Roman empirecomplements the account of the progress of the four stages by providing amechanism of how the transition took place between the third and the fourthstage.31 To the extent that Smith provided an explanation for the process oftransition between stages, it was the pressure of population.32 The account of30 Smith, Lectures on Jurisprudence [A], iii. 114�16.31 Skinner, �A Scottish Contribution�, p. 99.32 Smith, Lectures on Jurisprudence [A], i. 27�32.

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the emergence of modern Europe deals with a series of political changes andthe corresponding developments in the progress of opulence.

The Prime MoverThe original debate on the transition from feudalism to capitalism betweenDobb and Sweezy in the early 1950s focused on whether the prime mover inthe process of transition was internal or external to European feudalism.33 Inarguing that the prime mover was an externally located foreign trade, Sweezywas drawing heavily on the work of Henri Pirenne who had argued thatcommerce, located in the Middle-Eastern�Mediterranean area, was the externalforce which revived the Western European economy.34 The similarities betweenSmith�s and Pirenne�s accounts of the origins of European towns and the roleplayed by foreign trade has been noted by Louis Dow and Gene Mumy.35 Inview of these similarities and of Smith�s description of the way in which thepolitical and institutional features of the allodial and feudal periods impedes theprogress of commercial activity,36 it is not surprising that some readers haveconcluded that an external stimulus was required and found the evidence forthis in the role Smith ascribes to foreign trade. That political interventionsplayed an important role in the establishment and growth of towns as centresof commerce is generally acknowledged.37 But Smith�s discussion shows howthis development reached a point, because of the backward nature of agriculture,beyond which further development was impossible. It is ultimately only be-cause an external market appears that continued progress is possible and it isfor this reason that some interpreters of Smith have found the �prime mover� inthe events to be foreign commerce originating outside European feudalism. It follows from this reading that the process of European development whichSmith is describing is dependent upon non-European development, openinghim to the charge which was made against Sweezy by Kohachiro Takahashi:

If we say that historical development takes place according to externalforces, the question remains, however, how those external forces arose,and where they came from. In the last analysis these forces which manifestthemselves externally must be explained internally to history.38

33 See Hilton, The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism.34 H. Pirenne, Economic and Social History of Medieval Europe (London, 1936).35 G.E. Mumy, �Town and Country in Adam Smith�s The Wealth of Nations�, in Science andSociety, XLII, 4 (Winter 1978�9); and L.A. Dow, �The Rise of the City: Adam Smith Versus HenriPirenne�, Review of Social Economy, 32 (October 1974), pp. 170�85.36 Smith, Wealth of Nations, III. ii.37 For example, D. Winch, Adam Smith�s Politics (Cambridge, 1978); Skinner, �A ScottishContribution�, and Mumy, �Town and Country�.38 K. Takahashi, �A Contribution to the Discussion�, in Hilton, The Transition from Feudalism toCapitalism.

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However, this interpretation is in need of substantial qualification for tworeasons. First, Smith�s view that bad laws and institutions can interrupt theprogress of commerce39 is mitigated somewhat by the following comment,suggesting that human intervention slowed down commercial progress consid-erably but did not halt it altogether:

frugality and good conduct, however, is upon most occasions, it appearsfrom experience, sufficient to compensate, not only the private prodigal-ity and misconduct of individuals, but the publick extravagance of gov-ernment. The uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of every man tobetter his condition, the principle from which publick and national, aswell as private opulence is originally derived, is frequently powerfulenough to maintain the natural progress of things towards improvement,in spite both of the extravagance of government, and of the greatest errorsof administration.40

The second qualification to the view that Smith treated commerce as anexternal prime mover is that, while commerce can be regarded as external to aparticular region or country, it is not external to European feudalism as a whole.In Europe, the commercial towns did not develop on the basis of the agriculturalsector in the same regions, but these towns acted as focal points at which thelimited surpluses of a number of regions could be concentrated:

Each of those countries, perhaps, taken singly, could not afford it [a cityJS] but a small part, either of its subsistence, or of its employment; butall of them taken together could afford it but a great subsistence and agreat employment.41

When Smith says:

The inhabitants of trading cities, by importing the improved manufacturesand expensive luxuries of richer countries, afforded some food to thevanity of the great proprietors, who eagerly purchased them with greatquantities of the rude produce of their own lands

and:

The commerce of a great part of Europe in those times consisted of theirown rude, for the manufactured products of more civilized nations42

he gives examples of intra-European trade to illustrate his point.43 The fact thatSmith says that finer manufactures in Europe were originally introduced by

39 For example, Smith, Wealth of Nations, II. iii. 36 and IV. v. b. 43.40 Ibid., II. iii. 31.41 Ibid., III. iii. 13.42 Ibid., III. iii. 15.43 Ibid.

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imitation, and that in some cases that meant imitation of the manufactures ofnon-European countries, does not detract from the fact that the logic of hisargument does not require that foreign commerce be other than exclusivelyEuropean.

The Abolition of SlaveryThe crucial feature of Skinner�s interpretation, however, is that Smith�s accountof the abolition of slavery is incorporated into the sequence of events in whichthe progress of commerce leads to the destruction of the power of the feudalbarons. In discussing the effects of the progress of commerce on agriculturaltenancy in the Wealth of Nations III. iv., however, Smith does not say, asSkinner claims he does, that the progress of commerce leads to the ending ofslavery. Nor is such a view consistent with the explanations Smith does givefor the ending of slavery. Smith�s account of the transition from the use of slavery to the metayer andsteel bow systems, and then to the system of farmers properly so-called, appearsin the Wealth of Nations III. ii. and is not related to the progress of commerceand manufacturing towns which is discussed in the Wealth of Nations III. iv. Inspite of the economic disadvantages of slavery, Smith argued that �it is not likelythat slavery should be ever abolished, and it was owing to some peculiarcircumstances that it has been abolished in the small corner of the world inwhich it now is�.44 He goes on to say that in a democratic government it is highlyunlikely that slavery would ever be abolished, because of the vested interest ofthe legislators who would themselves own slaves: �the love of domination andauthority and the pleasure that men take in having everything done by theirexpress orders . . . will make it impossible for the slaves in a free country everto recover their liberty�.45

In the Lectures, Smith accounts for the abolition of slavery in the followingway. First, the effect of the clergy who �saw then or thought they did that itwould tend greatly to aggrandize the power of [th]e church, that these peopleover whom they had the greatest influence were set at liberty and renderedindependent of their masters�.46 Second, it was also in the interest of the kingsto abolish slavery �to lessen the authority of the nobles and their vassals overtheir villains�.47 Smith adds that it was also in the economic interest of the clergyto encourage the abolition of slavery as they �saw too perhaps that their landswere but very ill cultivated when under the management of these villains�.48

44 Smith, Lectures on Jurisprudence [A], iii. 114.45 Ibid.46 Ibid., iii. 118.47 Ibid., iii. 119.48 Ibid., iii. 121.

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The account given in the Wealth of Nations is somewhat different. Afterdiscussing the inefficiency of slavery in Book III. ii., Smith says:

It is probable that it was partly on account of this advantage, and partlyon account of the encroachments which the sovereign, always jealous ofthe great lords, gradually encouraged their villains to make upon theirauthority, and which seem at last to have been such as rendered thisspecies of servitude altogether inconvenient, that tenure in villanagegradually wore out through the greater part of Europe. The time andmanner, however, in which so important a revolution was brought about,is one of the most obscure points in history.49

Thus, while Smith, in the Wealth of Nations, gives more weight to economicfactors, his statement that the time and manner of the ending of slavery wasobscure suggests that he did not intend it to be the subject of the very prominenttheme of Book III.iv. about the effects of the progress of commerce. The principal effect of the improvements in commerce and manufacturing,as Smith makes clear in Book III. iv., is the recovery of agriculture followingfrom changes in government and in the form of leases. In this famous story,Smith identifies three ways in which the towns improved the countryside: as amarket for agricultural produce; as a result of wealthy townspeople purchasingand improving land; and last and most important, �commerce and manufacturesgradually introduced order and good government, and with them, the libertyand security of individuals, among the inhabitants of the country�.50 The greatlandlords dismissed their retainers in order to dispose of their surpluses on newforms of consumption and thereby forfeited their power. Changes in tenancy also resulted. Tenants, Smith explains, were at this timeall tenants at will and �[a] tenant at will, who possesses land sufficient tomaintain his family for little more than a quit rent, is as dependent as any servantor retainer whatever, and must obey him with as little reserve�.51 As a result ofthe economic changes, the number of tenants was reduced, and the landlordsincreased the rents of the remaining ones to an economic level which the tenantswould only agree to in return for security of tenure. The reading of Smith which ascribes to him the theory that the progress ofcommerce led to the abolition of serfdom seems to arise from the belief that�tenants at will� refers to serfs or slaves. However, in the Lectures on Jurispru-dence Smith describes tenants at will as friends or relations of the proprietorwho had very advantageous leases.52 Also, in the Wealth of Nations Smith saysthat the authority of the lord over his retainers and tenants stems from the factthat they are �fed entirely by his bounty�. It is thus by sharing his surpluses, in

49 Smith, Wealth of Nations, III. ii. 12 (emphasis added).50 Ibid., III. iv. 4.51 Ibid., III. iv. 6.52 Smith, Lectures on Jurisprudence [A], iv. 155.

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the form of lenient rents in the case of the tenants, that the lord gains loyalty inpolitics and war. This does not describe either the economic or the politicalrelationship between the lord and his serfs. Serfs can hardly be said to share thesurpluses of the landlords. Coercion, not bribery, is the basis of the landlord�sauthority over the serf. Furthermore, since the serf does not play any role inpolitics or war he is not the object of the landlord�s largesse. In the Lectures onJurisprudence Smith makes it clear that his argument about economic depend-ence being the basis of authority does not apply to servile labour: �in Rome,where all the luxury was supported by slaves who had no weight in the state,the luxury of the nobility destroyed all their power�.53 Smith contrasted thiswith a situation without slavery where tradesmen, who would be dependent fortheir custom on the rich, would thus have to support the rich in elections.54

The important development in agricultural relations which Smith is describ-ing in Book III of the Wealth of Nations, therefore, is the origin of long termand secure leases and not the demise of serfdom. The effect of long term leasesin addition to productivity gains, was that landlords no longer exercised theinfluence over their tenants which lenient rents gave them:

Even a tenant at will, who pays the full value of the land, is not altogetherdependent upon the landlord. The pecuniary advantages which theyreceive from one another, are mutual and equal, and such a tenant willexpose neither his life or his fortune in the service of the proprietor. Butif he has a lease for a long term of years, he is altogether independent;. . .55

Landlords thus lose political influence over their tenants as they do over theirretainers.

IVCommerce and Liberty

The result of the decline in the power of the feudal barons throughout a largepart of Europe, brought about by the progress of commerce, was absolutistgovernment. This was a development which was favourable to liberty becauseregular government was no longer interrupted by the barons. In the above-quoted passage where Smith says �commerce and manufactures graduallyintroduced order and good government, and with them, the liberty and securityof individuals, among the inhabitants of the country�,56 he is referring to thecommon developments in a large part of Europe, and liberty and security, inthe sense that he is using the terms here, do not depend upon particular, national

53 Ibid., iv. 73.54 See also A. Smith, Lectures on Jurisprudence [B] (1766), ed. R.L. Meek, D.D. Raphael andP.G. Stein (Oxford, 1978), p. 410.55 Smith, Wealth of Nations, III. iv. 14.56 Ibid., III. iv. 4.

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institutional developments. The separation of the judiciary from the executive,which a number of writers have seen as a theme central to the question of liberty,is also a European phenomenon and, on this question at least, Winch does notsee any conflict between a development which has definite causes and whichis also an object of Smith�s advocacy: �Smith is clearly engaging in directadvocacy, even though he attributes the origin of the separation of powers tothe impersonal processes of progress and historical accident�.57 Absolute gov-ernments could become despotic and this was true to some extent in France.Duncan Forbes has argued, however, that Smith agreed with Hume who�insisted that the purpose of government was for practical purposes realized inall the civilized states, free or absolute . . . They had a high degree of liberty,as well as all the other marks of a civilized society: an established order of ranks,a highly developed division of labour, opulence and so on�.58 Commerce is thusfavourable to liberty because it resulted in the establishment of governments�which afforded to industry, the only encouragement it requires, some tolerablesecurity that it shall enjoy the fruits of its own labour�.59 and this was theconsequence of the political revolution which was �brought about by twodifferent orders of people who had not the least intention to serve the publick. . . Neither of them had either the knowledge or foresight of that great revolutionwhich the folly of the one, and the industry of the other, was gradually bringingabout�.60

But while liberty in this sense, which provides a minimum degree of securityunder the rule of law, is the unintended outcome of economic progress and doesnot depend upon knowledge or foresight, the same is not, of course, true of thesystem of laws and police which, in Smith�s view, is the most favourable tocommercial progress. It is in this context that Smith�s advocacy in favour ofcertain kinds of laws and regulations have received a great deal of attentionfrom Winch and Haakonssen. Smith�s attention to the tasks of the legislatorshows that commercial societies are not perfect, that oppression and injusticesremain and that the effects of commerce, particularly in relation to the corrup-tion of morals, can threaten the safety of governments. Haakonssen has shownhow the progress of commerce can mitigate many of these problems, but notwithout the legislator providing the legal framework for commerce to flourish.61

However, in the course of criticizing materialist readings of Smith in orderto draw attention to Smith�s normative purposes, Haakonssen has restricted thesignificance of the relationship between property and political power to thepoint where Smith�s account of the unintended revolution brought about by theprogress of commerce becomes incomprehensible. The ability of the feudal

57 Winch, Adam Smith�s Politics, p. 96. See also Haakonssen, The Science of a Legislator, p. 270.58 Forbes, �Sceptical Whiggism�, p. 192.59 Smith, Wealth of Nations, I. xi. n. 1.60 Ibid., III. iv. 17.61 Haakonssen, The Science of a Legislator, pp. 179�81.

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barons to interrupt regular government was based upon the political and militarysupport which their wealth gave them. The connection between wealth andpolitical power hinges, at least partly, on the economic dependence of the pooron the rich. When those without property depend for their livelihood on thegenerosity of the rich, political authority is created and the poor must obey thewishes of the rich to secure their livelihood. Haakonssen, however, has ques-tioned the economic connection between property and power. He argues thatfor Smith it is taste and vanity, rather than the procurement of the necessitiesof subsistence, which are the principal motivation of mankind, and that eco-nomic motivation is rarely the basis for the important relationship betweendependence and authority. It is rather �men�s aestheticizing participation in thelives of the rich through sympathy, whereas hopes of personal gain play littleor no role�.62 For Haakonssen, the strength of government is less a question ofwealth than of opinion63 and the sequence in which the progress of commerceleads to the decline in the powers of the feudal barons would not appear toillustrate a process of any great general significance. In fact, if the psychologicalbasis for the relationship between property and power is all that matters, thereis no reason why commercial progress should alter the structure of sovereigntyat all: the barons do not lose their wealth, they use it for different purposes. Whytherefore do they not continue to command the obedience of those who admireand respect them for their riches? Winch�s approach, which recognizes that there is both a psychological andan economic basis for the connection between property and power64 leads himto distinguish between commercial and pre-commercial societies:

One of the benefits which modern societies derived from the decline offeudalism was that power and property were no longer connected. Thiswas true of all forms of government but it was especially true of �freecountries� where, as Smith said �the safety of governments depends verymuch upon the favourable judgement which the people may form of itsconduct�.65

62 Ibid., p. 184.63 Ibid., p. 131.64 In support of his case Haakonssen quotes Smith in Lectures on Jurisprudence [B]: �in generalthe poor are independent, and support themselves by their labour, yet tho� they expect no benefitfrom them [the rich] they have a strong propensity to pay them respect.� (Smith, Lectures onJurisprudence [B], 12.) However, this has to be seen against Smith�s account of the progress ofgovernment where, for example, he says in relation to the age of shepherds: �This inequality offortune, making a distinction between the rich and the poor, gave the former much influence overthe latter, for they who had no flocks or herds must have depended on those who had them, becausethey could not now gain a subsistence from hunting as the rich had made the game, now becometame, their own property.� (Ibid., 20.) See also Smith, Lectures on Jurisprudence [A], iv. 7�8.65 Winch, Adam Smith�s Politics, p. 169.

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The problem with this formulation is that if property and power are unconnectedin all societies, in what sense are commercial societies different from non-commercial societies? What does it mean to say that property and power are�especially� unconnected in commercial societies? Political power is not theresult of property but of property which yields a surplus in excess of theconsumption and investment requirements of the owners. In this respect,commercial societies are no different from any others. The distinction is that incommercial societies the number of property holders who posses such a degreeof wealth is reduced, not because of the reduction of wealth holdings but becauseof the increase in consumption and investment opportunities.66 This allowedSmith to distinguish between different modern European states: in the case ofGermany, for example, where wealth holdings tended to be larger than else-where, the progress of commerce failed to restrict the number of power basessufficiently for strong central government to emerge.67 In other places themonarch was the only property holder whose wealth was not entirely consumedby personal expenditure. But in all cases, political power resided in those whopossessed the superior wealth. It is only by recognizing the connection between property and power in allsocieties that the full implications of the political revolution can be grasped.Moreover, this is more than an isolated event. It illustrates a theme of generalsignificance. As Winch has noted: �commerce is more than a stage of society;it is a constant cause producing the same effects at all stages�;68 the effects beingto reduce the number of power bases thereby altering the structure of sover-eignty in a way that is generally favourable to liberty and justice. The problemwith the four stages interpretation was that liberty and justice were associatedwith particular institutional forms and patterns of wealth distribution, which inturn depended upon the transition from feudalism to the stage of commerce.Skinner, for instance, writes: �Smith observed that the new sources of wealth,arising from commerce, manufacturing, agriculture, etc., were likely to be moreequally distributed�,69 leading to a more equal distribution of political power.In support of this argument, however, it is John Millar and not Smith whomSkinner quotes. Millar did indeed believe that commercial activity would leadto the redistribution of wealth, and that the monarchy and the feudal lords wouldthereby lose some of their political power.70 Millar also believed that theopposite tendency was at work since the progress of opulence would createstanding armies, thus increasing the power of the sovereign.71 Smith�s

66 Smith, Lectures on Jurisprudence [A], iv. 161�2.67 Ibid., iv. 162�3.68 Winch, Adam Smith�s Politics, p. 64.69 Skinner, �A Scottish Contribution�, p. 90.70 J. Millar, The Origin and Distinction of Ranks (1779), in W.C. Lehman, John Millar of Glasgow1735�1801 (Cambridge, 1960), p. 292.71 Ibid., p. 284.

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argument, however, is not that inequalities would diminish, but that they wouldcease to create dependence between the nobility and the populace. Whether themonarchy or the populace, or indeed the great nobility and princes, would bethe beneficiaries depended upon the existing distribution of wealth. If libertyand justice are exclusively modern, as Skinner�s reading implies, not leastbecause the revolution involves the ending of slavery, then �[t]he obviousparallels between the three great attempts by mankind to live in commercialsocieties, in Greece, in Rome, and in modern Europe,�72 recede, and therelationship between commerce and liberty is restricted to the context of a singleEuropean political revolution. The interconnections between patterns of distribution and the degree ofcommerce are thus closely related to the strength and autonomy of governments,and it is in this sense that Smith can be described as a materialist. The presenceor absence of slavery is also a factor. In the Lectures on Jurisprudence Smithargues that without the institution of slavery the economic power of the richcan sometimes continue to be translated into political power, even with theprogress of commerce and luxury.73 Without slavery, Smith argues, the rich canstill exert considerable influence over tradesmen who want their custom. It isalso possible to see, in connection with Haakonsen�s principal objections to amaterialist interpretation, that there is no conflict between a materialist accountof sovereignty in this restricted sense and Smith�s normative theory of justicefounded upon the principles of sympathy and the impartial spectator. AsHaakonssen emphasizes, advocacy on the basis of Smith�s theory of justice isunlikely to be very effective unless governments have attained the requisitedegree of autonomy for justice to be a possibility.

Liberty and SlaveryA final issue concerns the relationship between liberty and slavery which arisesbecause of a highly influential contribution by Duncan Forbes.74 Forbes hasargued that in view of Smith�s discussion of slavery in relation to man�s loveof domination and authority, which he regards as natural to man, and becauseSmith concluded from this that slavery would be more or less universal, itsabolition in Europe must be viewed as a special case. Since slavery wouldappear to be inconsistent with freedom, in the sense of liberty and security underthe law, liberty also must be viewed as an exception which appears only in asmall part of modern Europe. Forbes makes this observation in the context ofa discussion of the relationship between commerce and liberty, in the sense offreedom under the rule of law. He says that the abolition of slavery �in Europewas a unique event, due to the very special and exceptional circumstances, . . .

72 Haakonssen, The Science of a Legislator, p. 178.73 Smith, Lectures on Jurisprudence [A], iv. 73.74 D. Forbes, �Sceptical Whiggism�.

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And this famous story of the destruction of baronial and ecclesiastical powerneeds to be looked at more closely before one generalizes about it�.75 Heconcludes:

Surely no �law� of commerce giving rise to liberty could be drawn fromsuch peculiar conditions? . . . One cannot have freedom without com-merce and manufactures, but opulence without freedom is the norm ratherthan the exception.76

However, if what I have said above about the ending of slavery in Europe iscorrect, then Forbes�s argument would appear to be even more forceful. Thedestruction of baronial and ecclesiastical power was not coincident with theabolition of slavery or serfdom, but continued as long as the relationshipbetween landlords and the direct producers was not based on clearly definedeconomic contracts. Liberty, as defined by Forbes, is not the product ofcommerce even in the restricted context of European history. However, if we are prepared to regard liberty, even in the sense of securityunder the law, as a matter of degree rather than a perfected state, the force ofForbes�s argument can be mitigated somewhat. As Haakonssen has pointed out,Smith�s treatment of slavery is not incorporated into his discussion of naturallaw.77 Smith�s discussion of justice in relation to slavery focused on the rightsand treatment of slaves rather than its abolition, and he argued that slaves wereworse off in free and prosperous countries.78 Smith could still talk of freedomin situations where slavery existed, and emphasized that what mattered for therights and treatment of slaves was strong government � although even stronggovernments could not be expected to abolish slavery.79 Moreover, Forbesprovides an excellent discussion of the different senses in which Smith used thewords �freedom� and �liberty� and, as argued above, when Smith does refer tofreedom �in our present sense of the word� in relation to the removal of theattributes of villeinage and slavery from the inhabitants of the towns, he is usingthe term in a different way from the freedom which comes from the ending offeudal dependence which was brought about by the progress of commerce. If, on the other hand, slavery is to be regarded as incompatible with any degreeof liberty and, as a consequence, liberty is to be regarded as an exceptionalcondition for mankind, then it is not just the connection between commerce andliberty which is called into question. We are once again confronted by thequestion posed by Haakonsen, for entirely different reasons: what was thepractical significance of Smith�s extended consideration of liberty and justice

75 Ibid., p. 200.76 Ibid., pp. 200�1.77 Haakonssen, The Science of a Legislator, p. 72.78 Smith, Lectures on Jurisprudence [B], 136�7.79 Ibid., 135; also Smith, Lectures on Jurisprudence [A], iii. 104; and ibid., 89�101, where Smithdiscusses the treatment and rights of slaves.

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as normative questions for the legislator if liberty is a virtually unattainablestate? By viewing liberty as a matter of degree, both Smith�s normative interestsin liberty and justice and the materialistic dimension to his treatment ofcommerce and liberty, defended in this paper, become comprehensible. Thiscertainly does not lead to anything as deterministic as a �law� of commercegiving rise to liberty, but it would expand the significance of the destruction ofbaronial and ecclesiastical power beyond the events in modern Europe byallowing it to be seen in parallel with the other occasions when Smith explainedthe decline in aristocratic power by the progress of opulence.

VConclusion

The materialist interpretation of Smith, from its beginnings in the contributionof Pascal, interpreted the account of the destruction of feudal power in thecontext of the transition from the third to the fourth economic stage, a transitionwhich incorporated the demise of slavery and serfdom. This has had twounfortunate implications. The relationship between commerce and liberty andjustice is restricted to the developments in modern Europe. The progress ofcommerce is favourable to liberty and justice, on this reading, because it ushersin a new economic system � the exchange economy � in which servile labourhas been replaced by commercial rents and wage labour. This has exaggeratedthe extent to which Smith regarded liberty and justice as modern, dependent onthe institutions and wealth distribution of the commercial society of his ownday, and has detracted from the normative dimensions of Smith�s interest inliberty and justice which Winch and Haakonssen have brought to the fore.However, the recognition of Smith�s normative purposes should not precludethe recognition that he was also concerned to demonstrate that the progress ofcommerce and opulence tended to produce strong central government, whichhe saw as a precondition of liberty and justice, a theme which can justifiablybe called materialistic. The second consequence is that it has led to exaggerated claims regarding thesimilarity between Smith�s account of the decline of feudalism and certainMarxist explanations of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Anticipa-tory readings of Smith have been the subject of a great deal of critical commentin the literature.80 Such an approach is particularly inappropriate in the presentcontext since, as is well known, Marx read Smith and was influenced by him.A more promising approach might have been to have traced these influenceswith the same care and rigour with which Meek discussed the origins of thefour stages theory.81 This is not, of course, the place to undertake such a task;but I will conclude by noting that Marx provided an accurate summary of

80 For example see Winch, Adam Smith�s Politics.81 See Meek, Social Science and the Ignoble Savage.

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Smith�s discussion of the effects of commerce on feudalism, and certainly didnot take him to be saying that the result was capitalist relations of production:

Monetary wealth � as merchant wealth � had admittedly helped tospeed up and to dissolve the old relations of production, and made itpossible for the proprietor of land for example, as A. Smith already nicelydevelops, to exchange his grain and cattle etc. for use values brought fromafar, instead of squandering the use values he himself produced, alongwith his retainers, and to locate his wealth in great part in the mass of hisco-consuming retainers. It gave the exchange value of his revenue ahigher significance for him. The same thing took place in regard to histenants, who were already semi-capitalists, but very hemmed-in ones.82

Marx�s general point is that merchant wealth cannot by itself lead to capital-ism: �Or else ancient Rome, Byzantium etc. would have ended their history withfree labour and capital�.83 But this is not an implied criticism of Smith: Marxdoes not take Smith to be offering an explanation of the demise of serfdom, ashis reference to Smith�s tenants as �semi-capitalists� shows. Smith�s argumentthat commerce helped to dissolve the power of the feudal barons is one of whichMarx approves and which is repeated in Volume I of Capital, where he explainsthe dissolution of the bands of feudal retainers and the evictions of the peasantsfrom their lands by the rapid rise of the Flemish wool manufactures.84 For Marx,however, the nobility by this time were already commercially minded, and theprogress of commerce does not involve the fundamental change in their behav-iour which is described with such scepticism by Smith. Marx says: �The oldnobility had been devoured by the great feudal wars. The new nobility was thechild of its time, for which money was the power of all powers.�85 As Smithdescribes the process, however, it is the introduction of commerce whichtransforms the nobility from warriors into merchants.86

The main point to emphasize, however, is that the significance of thedissolution of feudalism for Smith and Marx differed according to their differentdefinitions of feudalism and to the different processes they were attempting toillustrate. Marx gave the central place in his analysis of different societies totheir relations of production and, in particular, to the way in which the economicsurplus was generated from the labourer: the progress of commerce contributedto the transformation of relations of production in that �[a] mass of free

82 K. Marx, Grundrisse (Harmondsworth, 1973), p. 508 (emphasis added).83 Ibid., p. 506.84 K. Marx, Capital (London, 1974), Vol. 1, p. 672.85 Ibid.86 Smith�s argument is open to serious criticism which arises because the condition for theprolonged existence of allodial and feudal violence is the absence of outlets for the surplus otherthan expenditure on retainers. This leads to an unconvincing explanation of the way in which feudalpower is ultimately destroyed as G.E. Mumy has argued. See Mumy, �Town and Country�.

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proletarians was hurled on the labour market�.87 Smith by contrast, focused hisattention not on the way the economic surplus was generated but on the way inwhich the surplus was consumed. By sharing his surplus the landlord gainedauthority by the dependence thus created. It was this form of authority that wasswept away by the progress of commerce.

John Salter UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER

87 Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, p. 672.

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