Getting an icon wrong

There are intellectual giants that have left their mark on Western thought right down to the present day. When their ideas have had political implications, they have often been taken up as icons of either the left or the right. Not always with justification, not always by remaining really true to what the iconic figure’s teaching.

I’ve always loved the fact that Karl Marx said of himself that he was no Marxist. Many who claimed to follow him had, he felt, entirely deformed his thinking. But then look at Christ’s teaching and rather a lot of those who claim today to be Christian.

It’s interesting to look at some of the more insightful statements from the legendary figures of our intellectual past. For instance, here’s an interesting remark on what happens whenever a group of businessmen gets together:

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.

A conspiracy against the public? A contrivance to raise prices? Tough words, tough words indeed.

And what about this for an indictment of British businessmen (‘merchants’) and how they use their capital (‘stock’)?

Our merchants frequently complain of the high wages of British labour, as the cause of their manufactures being undersold in foreign markets; but they are silent about the high profits of stock.

And finally here’s another insight into the behaviour of business people and, above all, into what happens if we allow them to use the power their wealth gives to influence legislation governing business:

The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.

What? Business people have an interest to deceive and oppress the public? And they frequently have? 

What radical of the left is this? What Marxist? What New Age revolutionary?

Well, you may know who made these statements. Even if you don’t, you may not be surprised to discover that all three come from the same person. What may perhaps surprise you much more is that he was a man who has become something of a darling of the right, the iconic believer in the free market, unhampered by government intervention and regulation.

He was the Scottish philosopher Adam Smith. 

The quotations are from his great book, Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Usually referred to as The Wealth of Nations, it was one of three books that Maggie Thatcher said everyone should read. But I’m not sure she read it all or, if she did, whether she absorbed anything she didn’t already agree with.

The Wealth of Nations
Recommended by Maggie Thatcher.
But did she read only the bits she liked?

Politicians of the right, like Thatcher, embrace him because he was an apostle of the free market. It’s true that free markets often work effectively. Day by day, for instance, even a colossal city like London receives about the amount of goods its citizens consume. In fact, the market only breaks down when some external factor disrupts it. That could be a political change, such as the decision of Britain to get out of the European Union, leaving the country with a shortage of lorry drivers and therefore a crisis of logistics. That’s when deliveries to London, or anywhere else, begin to fail.

That’s Smith’s point. Free markets work if they’re free. That doesn’t just mean free from government intervention, it means free from corporate intervention too. Business often believes that what serves its interests, serves the general interest of society. But business likes to eliminate competition, and ideally to hold a monopoly in its sector. A monopoly, or even a reduction in numbers of suppliers, limits customers’ ability to choose a new provider freely if their current one fails. 

This type of action in markets, by corporations, distorts them just as much as government intervention ever would. But the right tends to play down its role. 

Above all, the right with its love of putting people representing corporate interests in power, ignores what Smith said about the need to be wary of guidance from that kind of person:

The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.

Representatives of corporate interests have often both “deceived and oppressed” the public? Hardly a view you’d expect from a man the right has made its darling. Though one with great relevance today, when business lobbies exercise such sway over governments, especially governments of the right.

No wonder the right prefers not to focus on this side of their master’s thought.