Chapter Summary Of Paul Smith's State Of Society

This changed the lives and working places of urban and rural classes. European people had to move away from their homes and family to find employment, and learn new skills. There urban and working classes were forced into many changes, especially with the division of the merchant class and themselves. In An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith said, “[Every individual generally} neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it.” Smith for economic equality among the merchant and working classes. He also believed in free competition and thought government should intervene in private merchant businesses to help improve the workers living conditions. His writings ultimately led to eliminate some guilds in Europe and provide better living conditions for the lower classes. Certain families suffered shifting from the agrarian culture to the industrialized one. A certain family was dependant only on the father’s income due to the newly developed spinning machines. This rural family suffered because the domestic jobs of the wife and children in the household, such as spinning the wheel, were replaced by machines (Doc.

The pivotal second chapter of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, "Of the Principle which gives occasion to the Division of Labour," opens with the oft-cited claim that the foundation of modern political economy is the human "propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another."1 This formulation plays both an analytical and normative role. It offers an anthropological microfoundation for Smith's understanding of how modern commercial societies function as social organizations, which, in turn, provide a venue for the expression and operation of these human proclivities. Together with the equally famous concept of the invisible hand, this sentence defines the central axis of a new science of political economy

The Age of Enlightenment brought forth some of history’s greatest philosophers who introduced and provided the arguments for contemporary thought and social systems in continued use today. Although historians consider the ideas of natural rights and separation of powers in democracies of the highest order of importance, the economic theories developed by the leading thinkers of the era pervade daily life in all societies. The idea of wealth is timeless, but philosopher Voltaire and economist Adam Smith wrote opposing theories on the true value of wealth and how society should allocate its wealth and resources. Voltaire’s satire Candide, or Optimism features El Dorado, a socialist utopia where the inhabitants treat precious metals and stones as dirt and provide for the general welfare of their city, while Smith’s The Wealth of Nations discusses macroscopic economies and how these economies interact to maximize production and encourage human advancement. Both arguments make use of ethical, moral, and social ideas, but only work perfectly in a utopian setting. By comparing and contrasting the arguments presented in each of these texts, one establishes an understanding of how economies and societies operating on either capitalism or socialism alone compare to those that incorporate elements of both ideologies.

In his Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith celebrated capitalist society. The central thesis of The Wealth of Nations is that capital is best employed for the production and distribution of wealth under conditions of no governmental interference, or laissez-faire, and free trade. In Smith's view, the production and exchange of goods can be stimulated, and a consequent rise in the general standard of living attained, only through the efficient operations of private industrial and commercial entrepreneurs acting with a minimum of regulation and control by governments. To explain this concept of government maintaining a laissez-faire attitude toward commercial endeavors, Smith proclaimed the principle of the "invisible hand": Every individual in pursuing his or her own good is led, as if by an invisible hand, to achieve the best good for all. Therefore any interference with free competition by government is almost certain to be injurious. The division of labor is another crucial component of capitalist society. According to Smith, division of labor benefits society in three ways:

Smith believed that self, self-interest, and self-determination, all were mechanisms where individuals are motivated to gain wealth and power for individual gain and group gain. Smith believed that ‘self' is a matrix of reason and passion (Levine, 1998). Furthermore, Smith believed that sympathy leads to empathy, and our individual self-determination leads to accumulation of wealth that benefits others as well as us (Levine, 1998). Examples of this concept are evident in our current economic society today. We see Bill Gates and Microsoft providing technology to communicate more efficiently, Henry Ford's posterity changing the transportation market, and many others who impact man with their accumulation of wealth.

On the other hand, Smith believes that at the state of nature, man actually tends towards harmonious relationships of bartering and are willing to work together instead of apart. He utilizes individual power to give him leverage in transactions. His creation of social order is not to control this tendency, but rather to create a system in which it can flourish, which he calls the division of labor. In this, each man finds his place in the social order, produces something in particular, and a lot of the transaction costs from bartering are worked past. Unlike Hobbes, he believes that social order simply adds to the ability of man’s power towards transaction.

“Nature is rich; but everywhere man, the heir of nature, is poor.” Lloyd begins his work by complaining about how the rich remain rich and the poor remain poor; however, as the essay progresses, one can see the accuracy of his views. He references the creation of Adam and Eve, stating that, “Never since time began have all the sons and daughters of men been all warm, and filled, and all shod and roofed.” It’s been true throughout history that because of monopolies that a very small percentage of men control a majority of land and resources. Lloyd states that individuals holding a majority of resources and land believe that that there is a scarcity; that there is not enough. And in order to survive, in order to be happy, in order to be prosperous, they must contain and constrain. Men must hold on to any and everything they can get their hands on. The minority has an opposing viewpoint. It feels that there is an abundance of resources, but because of unequal distribution, there is never enough to go around: “There is too much iron, too much lumber, too much flour―for this or that syndicate. The majority have never been able to buy enough of anything; but this minority have too much of everything to sell.” Lloyd concludes by expressing that we have become a “mutual deglutition.” He states that we have advanced too quickly and implicates that we are beginning to reverse

Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Edwin Cannan, ed. 1904. Library of Economics and Liberty. Retrieved October 26, 2014 from the World Wide Web: http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN.html

Government throughout history and throughout different cultures has changed from one system to another. People fight for power, and a steady government means usually means more prosperous times. When bad times come, power levels may increase, overthrows are enacted, and sometimes the system itself changes. Societies often go about this differently, and patters may be hard to find. However, one thing that history seems to show is that rich people dominant the government. Social classes have always been a part of society, and those who already have more money, education, and resources tend to be the one’s ruling over those who have less. Most people who rule are given extra resources and valuable because they rule. But the pattern that is seen throughout history shows people who already had much, getting power, instead of an average person getting to power, then becoming rich.

Political philosopher John Locke ideas and theories serve as a foundation in our democratic world. In the Second Treatise of Government sovereignty is placed in the hands of the people. Locke argues that everyone is born equal and has natural rights in the state of nature. He also argues that men have inalienable rights to life, liberty and property. The central argument around the creation of a civil society was with the protection of property. In this essay I will explain Locke's theory of property and how it is not anything other than a "thinly disguised defense of bourgeois commercial capitalism." This statement is defended through Locke's personal background and his justifications for the inequalities of wealth.

In regards to wealth, Smith notes man’s drive for such aspects. “The jurisdiction of man within is in the desire of praise-worthiness and in the aversion to blame-worthiness. We are driven by possessing the qualities and actions that we love and admire in others. Further, we are driven by the dread of possessing undesirable qualities and actions that we see in others” (Smith, Excerpts Theory of Moral Sentiments) Guided by the division of labor, we are driven towards notions of accumulating wealth based on admiration of others with this trait and fear of others that lack this trait. In the text, Smith discusses the example of how a person cares more about “his little finger” than “the ruin of a hundred millions of his brethren” (Smith, Excerpts Theory of Moral Sentiments). As a result, this reflects the notions of wealth and utility based on market values in the division of labor. While not using the term, Smith incorporates the concept of alienation as a result of man’s drive for wealth, as an expense of workers in the division of labor.

In the article named “wealth” written in 1889,the author, Andrew Carnegie stated his opinion on the widening gap between the poor and the rich. In the late 19th century, the conflict between different social classes is getting worsen. “The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship. ” 1. People consider this difference as unfair and should be criticised. However, Mr Carnegie believe this difference is highly beneficial. “This change, however, is not to be deplored, but welcomed as highly beneficial.”2.The author believed that the difference is essential to the progress of society “It is well, nay, essential for the progress of the race, that the houses of some should be homes for all that is highest and best in literature and the arts, and for all the refinements of civilization, rather than that none should be so. Much better this great irregularity than universal squalor. Without wealth there can be no Maecenas.”

Protection of private property also creates incentives for investment, which necessitates the need for a state. As illustrated by the evolution of the parliamentary state, political and economic transformations often go hand-in-hand. The monarch had to promise to not confiscate property, incentivizing the creation of a set of institutions that curbed its own power. This came through the development of parliamentary governments, providing the political foundations for development to happen (Bates, 56). When the state enforces property rights, more equal opportunity, and constraints on elites and itself, the conditions for investment and development are positive (Acemoglu, 156).

A core aspect of the modern state concerns the concept of property. Whether property encompasses objects, land, or even ideas, we have laws to define the process by which we can justly gain ownership of certain things and to give us security once we hold this property, and a judicial system to punish those who don’t abide by the rules. But to what extent do we have a right to property, and how do we justly obtain it? The British philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) argues that the origins of private property are to be found in how we use our labour to appropriate things to ourselves. Private property, for Locke, is pre-political in the sense that it exist prior to the creation of the state – it is a natural right, not by convention. However,

Every man 's interest would prompt him to seek the advantageous, and to shun the disadvantageous employment.” (p.99, Wealth of Nations) Without the state’s meddling, Smith contends prices would self-adjust themselves and the nation would enter a stage of natural liberty and prosperity. He details, “All systems either of preference or of restraint, therefore, being thus completely taken away, the obvious and simple system of natural liberty establishes itself of its own accord. Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man, or order of men.” (p. 749, Wealth of Nations)