The Liberals 

49. Adam Smith 1723–1790 

‘Unintended consequences of intended action’ will be to the benefit of society at large 

Scotish philosopher of morals, politics and economics, Smith was a contemporary of Hume and is very close to him in outlook and philosophic temperament. His lectures on ethics and logic were published under the title Theory of the Moral Sentiments but he is most famous for his work of political economics, The Wealth of Nations. 

Favoured philosopher of Margaret Thatcher and darling of Conservative economists, Smith is famous for his views on private property, the free market economy and the doctrine that ‘unintended consequences of intended action’ will be to the benefit of society at large. The idea behind this most fortunate if true of principles is that in intentionally serving one’s own interests one unintentionally serves the interests of society as a whole. 

A simple example will illustrate the essence of Smith’s idea. Suppose that Jones, in seeking his own fortune, decides to set up and run his own business, manufacturing some common item of everyday need. In seeking only to provide for his own fortune, Jones’ entrepreneurial enterprise has a number of unintentional benefits to others. First, he provides a livelihood for the people in his employ, thus benefiting them directly. Second, he makes more readily available some common item which previously had been more difficult or more expensive to obtain for his customers, thus easing one, if only minor, aspect of their lives.

The forces of market economy ensure that these unintentional benefits occur, for if Jones’ workers could find more profitable employ elsewhere they would either cease to work for him or he would have to raise their salaries in order to secure a workforce. Likewise, if Jones’ product was available more readily or less expensively from some other source, Jones would either go out of business or be forced to lower his prices to a competitive rate. The model assumes the absence of a monopoly, both in the labour and economic markets. 

The belief that ‘unintended consequences of intended action’ will be of benefit to society held great imaginative power over the industrial philanthropists of the 18th and 19th centuries and provided the philosophical groundwork for the later ethical theories of Bentham and Mill. However, criticism is not hard to come by. It is surely a blinkered view, if comforting for the entrepreneurial capitalist, to suppose that pursuing one’s own self-interest constitutes a magnanimous and philanthropic act towards society at large. One has only to review the social history of industrial Britain, to witness the treacherous and exploitative working practices of the industrial age, the extreme poverty and degrading social conditions of the suffering working classes, to realise Smith’s idealistic model has far more serious ‘unintended’ consequences.

What has largely brought an end to such conditions in the industrialised West is not a triumphant adherence to Smith’s principles in Western economics, but a shifting of the poverty and exploitative working practices from one part of the world to another. In other words, the living conditions of those in the West has improved to the detriment of other countries insofar as the labour required to support Smith’s economic philosophy has been removed from Western societies and transferred to those of the Third World. 

Regardless of one’s political views on Smith, The Wealth of Nations is one of the most important and deservedly read works of economic and political philosophy in the history of Western thought. It needs to be read and understood by its detractors as much as it does by its supporters. 

50. Mary Wollstonecraft  1759–1797 

‘The neglected education of my fellow-creatures is the grand source of the misery I deplore’ 

The original feminist, Wollstonecraft, who died in childbirth at the early age of thirty-eight, was a radical thinker who campaigned both for the rights of women but also for the rights of man, in similar style to Thomas Paine. Wollstonecraft’s most important work, Vindication of the Rights of Women was preceded by a pamphlet, Vindication of the Rights of Man, in which she argued that the British people had the right to remove a bad king and that slavery and the treatment of the poor at that time were immoral. Indeed, unlike some strands of the modern feminist movement, Wollstonecraft saw the rights of both men and women as mutual and inextricably linked. 

For Wollstonecraft, the evil of her days and the means by which to put them right, lay in education. In the introduction to the Rights of Women, she observes, ‘I have turned over various books written on the subject of education, and patiently observed the conduct of parents and the management of schools; but what has been the result? A profound conviction that the neglected education of my fellow-creatures is the grand source of the misery I deplore’. 

In particular, she was concerned with the way women’s natural abilities were being suppressed through an education that emphasised the qualities required to flatter and serve men rather than enhance their natural abilities as people. She writes, ‘One cause of this barren blooming I attribute to a false system of education, gathered from the books written on this subject by men who, considering females rather as women than human creatures, have been more anxious to make them alluring mistresses than wives; and the understanding of the sex has been so bubbled by this specious homage, that the civilized women of the present century, with a few exceptions, are only anxious to inspire love, when they ought to cherish a nobler ambition, and by their abilities and virtues exact respect’. 

Although Wollstonecraft is clear that it is male-dominated society that has encouraged women to be ‘docile and attentive to their looks to the exclusion of all else’ and that marriage is merely ‘legal prostitution’, she is adamant that this is as much to the detriment of men as it is to women. ‘Let woman share the rights and she will emulate the virtues of man’, proclaims Wollstonecraft. Since the good of society proceeds from the increase of reason, knowledge and virtue, it can only be to the benefit of both sexes to maximise these qualities. To treat women as mere trifles encourages them to be cunning and sly, debases their natural talents and fosters discord in the home that can only be reflected upon and perpetuated in the children. 

In the cause of female suffrage Wollstonecraft argues that whilst men reject the rights of women they can make no appeal to women’s duties, as either wife or mother. Can women not vote because they are not rational? If, so, quips Wollstonecraft, sardonically, ‘it will be expedient to open a fresh trade with Russia for whips; a present which a father should always make to his son-in-law on his wedding day, that a husband may keep his whole family in order by the same means; and without any violation of justice reign, wielding this sceptre, sole master of his house, because he is the only being in it who has reason: the divine, indefeasible earthly sovereignty breathed into man by the Master of the universe. Allowing this position, women have not any inherent rights to claim, and by the same rule, their duties vanish, for rights and duties are inseparable’. 

Wollstonecraft’s book was truly revolutionary, shocking many of her contemporaries. She was once patronisingly described as ‘a hyena in petticoats’, not just for her views on women’s rights but also for calling for the abolition of the monarchy and the dissolution of the power of the Church, both of which she saw as oppressive regimes. Had she not suffered an early death the cause of women’s rights may have advanced much quicker than it in fact did. As it is, it is significant that philosophy would have to await the arrival of Simone de Beauvoir, nearly 200 years later, before finding another female thinker of such influence. 

51. Thomas Paine  1737–1809 

The proceeds of land and property tax should be invested in a welfare system 

English born political philosopher, Paine not only invented the term ‘United States of America’, he inspired the revolutions both there and in France. He was forced to flee England when he tried to do the same thing there. Awareness of his importance in the formation of the American constitution and the American ‘way of life’ is pivotal to understanding the entity that is modern day America. 

Having emigrated to the New World in the early 1770s, Paine became editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine and published one of the first essays calling for the abolition of slavery. With the beginning of the American Revolution, Paine made himself famous by publishing his book Common Sense. In it, he argues against the notion of a ruling class, insisting that government and society must be kept distinct. Independence for the American Colonies, Paine argued, was both morally and practically justified. He continued to write and publish pamphlets throughout the War of Independence in support of the revolution. 

After the success of the war for American independence, Paine went first to France and then to England. In response to Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, Paine wrote and published The Rights of Man, his seminal treatise on democracy and republicanism. According to Paine, all men are born with equal rights. The necessity of social living can, however, bring about situations where we impinge on the rights of others.

Moreover, we may not always have the means to protect our rights from others who do not respect them. Consequently, it is necessary to develop the state and a constitution in which individual rights are encoded as civil rights, enforced by the state on behalf of the individual. The only morally acceptable constitution is that of the democratic republic in which citizens are granted the further right to vote in order to choose their own leaders. It is just this right, to choose one’s leaders, that the hereditary monarchies of France and England deny to their people, providing justification enough to abandon them as immoral constitutions. 

The British Government, in response, charged Paine with treason, causing him to flee back to France. With Paine gone, the government quashed the British revolution before it had chance to gain momentum. In France, Paine was at first welcomed and given a seat in the National Convention. However he was later imprisoned and only just escaped execution. 

Paine developed his ideas on civil rights and justice in his Agrarian Justice. He argues that a state is predicated on the basis that it makes its citizens better off than they otherwise would be without its constitution. But, he finds, many of the poorest people in the civilized societies of Europe are in a worse state than the so-called ‘uncivilized’ native American Indians. The inequity has much to do with land and property ownership, a privilege Paine suggests should be taxed since the generation of wealth that makes it possible requires the support of society. The proceeds of land and property taxes should be invested in a welfare system, access to which is a right of every citizen. 

In 1802 Paine returned to America, but it was not to be a happy homecoming. In The Age of Reason, Paine had argued against both atheism and Christianity in favour of a deism which rejects any appeal to divine revelation. Rather, the belief in God is claimed to be intrinsically reasonable, a logical conclusion to the question of why anything exists at all. Paine rejects both organized religion and the Bible’s portrayal of a vindictive, vengeful God. Unfortunately for Paine, America was deeply Christian and frowned upon his religious writings, despite his previous service to her. Though he remained in the United States for the rest of his life, he died in obscurity. 

Paine’s work is characterized by a rare integrity that rails against political oppression, organized religion and poverty. Despite the massive influence of his early writings he remains a philosopher who, curiously, is rarely mentioned. 

52. Jeremy Bentham  1748–1832 

What one ought to do is to maximise pleasure and minimise pain 

Born in London, Bentham was trained to become a lawyer but became dissatisfied with its over-complex language and conflicting principles. He undertook instead an inquiry into the very nature and basis of law, morals and politics, which he found could be united by a single principle. This principle, which insists that the good for man is the attainment of pleasure and the absence of pain, is a reflection of the simple hedonistic psychology known and promoted since the time of Epicurus. However, Bentham wove the principle – which he called the principle of utility – into the very fabric of philosophy, society and culture, popularising a system of ethics, known as ‘utilitarianism’, that is still of major importance today.