VII

THE RELATION OF ECONOMIC TECHNOLOGY TO OTHER SOCIAL TECHNOLOGIES, AND TO SOCIOLOGY

The fifth book of The Wealth of Nations treats of "The Revenue of the Sovereign or Commonwealth." It is not worth our while to inquire how advisedly Smith used these terms; i. e., whether he was entirely free from use of the term "sovereign" in a shifting sense. If it were, it would be necessary to show, from such passages as the opening paragraphs of Book V, Chapter I, Part IV,1 that Smith meant by "the sovereign" sometimes the commonwealth, sometimes the monarch, and perhaps sometimes an undefined third something, apparently corresponding with one of the German concepts of "the state" as distinguished from the other alternatives. Our question is, however: To what extent did Smith recognize separate spheres of activity for various social technologies, and to what extent did he provide for the subordination of fiscal technique to a larger range of moral requirements? Was his treatment of public

1 II, p. 339.

revenue merely political technology, or was it, beyond that, an inquiry in ethics? 2

Apparently Smith conceives of the fiscal problem, not merely as technical, but as broadly moral. This is certainly true if the last paragraph in the fourth book is to be taken at face value. It reads:

The proper performance of those several duties of the sovereign necessarily requires a certain expence; and this expence again necessarily requires a certain revenue to support it. In the following book therefore, I shall endeavour to explain: first, what are the necessary expences of the sovereign or commonwealth; and which of those expences ought [sic] to be defrayed by the general contribution of the whole society; and which of them, by that of some part only, or of some particular members of the society; secondly, what are the different methods in which the whole society may be made to contribute towards defraying the expences incumbent on the whole society and what are the principal advantages and inconveniences of each of those methods; and thirdly, what are the reasons and causes which have induced almost all modern governments to mortgage some part of this revenue, or to contract debts, and what have been the effects of those debts upon the real wealth, the annual produce of the land, and labour of society. The

2 In either case, it is to be noted that Book V exhibits a radically different conception of the relation of political economy to political science from that of Von Mohl. Cf. above, p. 189.

following book, therefore, will naturally be divided into three chapters.3

Taken literally, this paragraph is a requisition upon the total resources of moral philosophy. The word "ought" occupies a place in the first division of the subject which might have delighted the soul of Kant. The terms "advantages" and "inconveniences" might be adopted as blanket phrases for all the criteria which could be insisted on by the most exacting telic philosophy. The third inquiry points directly toward radical problems in social psychology, but the last clause seems to put the ban on these larger interpretations. It seems to indicate that, after all, in Smith's reckoning, all the oughtness and the convenience were merely utility with reference to wealth alone, and that no account was to be taken of utilities in which wealth was simply a mediate term. Some close scrutiny of Book V is necessary, therefore, in order to make out how far either of these appearances is to be credited.

On any theory of political society whatsoever, so long as men remain in a state which makes resort to war tolerable, the costs of war must be defrayed. Civil society must, therefore, find ways of paying the bills of war. This is the first item on the debit side of Smith's discussion

3 II, p. 207.

of national revenue. Neither the morality of war, nor the economics of war in the wider sense, is here brought into account. The points are, first, that wars occur; second, that they must be paid for somehow. With not a little of the spirit of Herbert Spencer,5 Smith shows that, with the development of institutions, in general, and of the art of war in particular, the expense of war is shifted largely from the individual fighters, and becomes a charge upon the fiscus. While the abundance of the material betrays Smith into diffuseness upon what might be called, in a very loose sense, the sociology of war, all that it amounts to is amplification of the proposition that every civilized nation must have a military budget.

Part II of the same chapter expands the proposition that the administration of justice is costly, and that the cost must be covered by national revenues. Again, the discussion takes a wide range, in securing historical evidence for the platitude. Incidentally the discussion asserts, in the most unrestricted fashion, that property is privilege, and that it is the creature of social volition. This perception, of course, makes any

* II, pp. 208 ff.

5 Principles of Sociology, Part V, Chap. XII, "Military Systems."

selected property system, according to Smith's general philosophy, liable to answer for its justification before the ultimate tribunal of social appeal. This corollary is merely latent in Smith's argument. The main point is that property questions demand an administration of justice, and this is also a charge on the national budget." Other variants of disturbed relations, more or less involved with property, and all reinforcing the demand for a legal system, are the different kinds of subordination that grow up in society; e. g., from variations of personal qualifications, from differences in age, from differences in wealth, and from differences in the prestige of birth.

Here again Smith is on the borderland of analytical sociology; but, while his observations are pertinent, they merely furnish padding for the essential proposition. In the whole of Book V Smith indulges in wider detours from the direct path of his argument than in the earlier parts of the work. To change the figure, he does not hew close to the economic line, but cuts into the material of political science. For example, at the close of Chapter I, Part II:7

When the judicial is united to the executive power, it is scarce possible that justice should not frequently be 6 II, pp. 227, 228. 7II, pp. 240, 241.