Adam Smith: Commerce, Liberty and Modernity

Abstract

Using Rousseau as a foil, Smith’s coupling of opulence and freedom functions as a vindication of the modern world of commerce. Smith executes this via a historical analysis of the collapse of feudalism, a moral theory that pivots on the process of moralisation as a socialisation together with a political account of the centrality of justice. Despite his awareness of drawbacks in a commercial society, Smith judges that it remains superior to earlier forms of social life.