This week I have been catching up on a six-part discussion of Adam Smith's book The Theory of Moral Sentiments, recorded in 2009 for the Library of Economics and Liberty. In this series of podcasts, George Mason University economics professors Dan Klein and Russ Roberts dig into issues raised by Smith on economy, moral philosophy, and virtue. Adam Smith, for those who do not know, was an important figure of the Scottish enlightenment and considered by many as the father of modern economics. His dates are 1723-1790.

Over the past year, we have witnessed a massive expansion of government power, coupled with an unprecedented level of deficit spending. With the new stimulus and health reform laws, legislators have appropriated hundreds of billions of dollars to government programs and regulatory agencies.

Consider the $115 billion in discretionary healthcare spending, the $36 billion to encourage physicians to use computers, or the $15 billion to be used to improve "public health." Hardly prudent. And those are just the supplementals.

In light of this all, I simply want to share the following two passages from Smith:¹

VI.I.14 The prudent man is not willing to subject himself to any responsibility which his duty does not impose upon him. He is not a bustler in business where he has no concern; is not a meddler in other people's affairs; is not a professed counsellor or adviser, who obtrudes his advice where nobody is asking it. He confines himself, as much as his duty will permit, to his own affairs, and has no taste for that foolish importance which many people wish to derive from appearing to have some influence in the management of those of other people. He is averse to enter into any party disputes, hates faction, and is not always very forward to listen to the voice even of noble and great ambition. When distinctly called upon, he will not decline the service of his country, but he will not cabal in order to force himself into it; and would be much better pleased that the public business were well managed by some other person, than that he himself should have the trouble, and incur the responsibility, of managing it.

In the bottom of his heart he would prefer the undisturbed enjoyment of secure tranquillity, not only to all the vain splendour of successful ambition, but to the real and solid glory of performing the greatest and most magnanimous actions.

Note that by "duty," Smith means a rational and justified commitment to self-preservation. Also, by "the undisturbed enjoyment of secure tranquility" he means a life of independence, in which men seek neither to rule nor allow themselves to be ruled by others.

VI.II.42 The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might chuse to impress upon it.

If those two principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful. If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably, and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder.

Unfortunately, one type of man is rare in Washington, and the other is abundant.

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¹ Needless to say, quotations are not arguments. A dishonest statist could quite easily cherry-pick Smith's words from, say, VI.II.46, in which he states "The wise and virtuous man is at all times willing that his own private interest should be sacrificed to the public interest of his own particular order or society." Context, however, ultimately vindicates the author.

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