The Invention of Capitalism by Michael Perelman

Author:Michael Perelman [Perelman, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2011-09-15T20:46:43+00:00

revisionist history of professor smith

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In the very same paragraph in The Theory of Moral Sentiments in which Smith repeated his words about changing rude forests, he proposed his previously cited theory that the invisible hand would miraculously eliminate inequality. Again, we arrive at the conclusion that Smith’s concern with workers’ welfare had nothing to do with their material circumstances. For Smith, what counted was their mental state, which he hoped would eventually conform to that of the petit bourgeoisie.

How Fast Does the Social Division of Labor Evolve?

Smith (1978, 88) acknowledged to his students that the exclusive privileges of corporations had been able ‘‘to bring about . . . the separation of trades sooner than the progress of society would naturally effect.’’ This last point may be interpreted as an aside noted down by a diligent student.

Certainly, we find nothing of the sort in The Wealth of Nations for it would have conceded much ground to the theory of Steuart.

Smith did observe in The Wealth of Nations that a ‘‘particular manufacture . . . may sometimes be acquired sooner’’ by virtue of encouragement (Smith 1976, IV.ii.13, 458); but he alleged that such actions slow down the overall process of accumulation, thereby hindering the ‘‘natural evolution’’ of the social division of labor. Even if we grant that market forces alone could have gradually worn away traditional society, Smith provides no information about the pace of this transition in the absence of primitive accumulation. We might infer, however, that since the division of labor precedes agriculture, the social division of labor evolves at gla-cial speeds.

In addition, by implying that (1) the contemporary social division of labor was the result of mutually advantageous adjustments and (2) that this process is a continuation of social behavior that stretches back into prehistoric times, Smith presented the misleading inference that the creation of the social division of labor was a natural process, devoid of conflict. We are left with his fable about hunters and artificers of bows and arrows specializing according to their particular skills.

Indeed, a social division of labor may be seen in preagricultural societies.

Harmonious cooperation can even be found among the flora and fauna (Engels 1954, 402–5; see also Wynne-Edwards 1962); however, merely to analyze the social division of labor as a natural history is to sacrifice all hope of understanding the mechanism that governs its evolution in human society.

Clearer thinkers such as Marx (1977, 335) and Edward Gibbon Wakefield agreed that we should more properly seek the origins of the differ-218

entiation among employments in slavery rather than purely technical explanations. One can even find such a suggestion in Smith’s (1978, 196) own work.

True, market forces could eventually lead to a more elaborate social division of labor. A decline in self-sufficiency could create a home market for mass-consumption goods; yet such a home market begins from a very small base and could not reach a substantial size overnight. Are we to believe that those who stood to profit from the growth of capitalism would stand

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