Rethinking the 'Adam Smith Problem' as a Generic Contradiction between the Market Economy and Market Society
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Warwick
Department Name: Politics and International Studies
Abstract
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Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Matthew Watson (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Matthew Watson (author)
(2008)
Gordon Brown's 'Adam Smith problem
in Renewal : a journal of social democracy
Matthew Watson (author)
(1900)
Desperately seeking social approval : Adam Smith and Thorstein Veblen on the inter-personal politics of commodity fetishism
Matthew Watson (author)
(1900)
Cultural political economy in the history of economic thought : reanimating the Smithian concern for cultural critique
Matthew Watson (author)
(1900)
Headlong into the Polanyian dilemma : reaction and overreaction to banking sector distress
Matthew Watson (author)
(1900)
Socialised sympathy? : Gordon Brown on Adam Smith and the individual/state/market relationship
Matthew Watson (author)
(2009)
Desperately seeking social approval : Adam Smith and Thorstein Veblen on the inter-personal politics of commodity fetishism
Schwartz, Herman M.; Seabrooke, Leonard
(2009)
The Politics of Housing Booms and Busts
Watson M
(2009)
Planning for a Future of Asset-based Welfare? New Labour, Financialized Economic Agency and the Housing Market
in Planning Practice and Research
| Description | [Written in March 2009 as part of official end-of-project report] The project research had two distinct yet interrelated focal points. (1) It had a purely academic dimension that spoke directly to the issue which continues to divide the community of Adam Smith scholars: namely, whether Smith's two great works - The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) and The Wealth of Nations (WN) - are formulated on the basis of consistent claims about the ontological basis of market life. (2) It had a much more practical dimension organised around the issue which continues to divide the community of New Labour scholars: namely, whether the Labour Governments from 1997 have successfully established a 'fairness' agenda to go alongside their championing of economic competitiveness. The two focal points came together because of Gordon Brown's increasing assertions that he derives his primary intellectual inspiration from the work of his fellow Kirkcaldy citizen, Adam Smith. On my reading, Smith's work is suggestive of the possibility that there is a generic tension embedded within policies which seek simultaneously to ensure the expanded reproduction of the market economy and the sustainable reproduction of the society in which market economy relations are situated. The twin objectives of the research were: (1) to ascertain whether the impression of such a tension could be upheld following further textual analysis of TMS and WN coupled with in-depth archival research on his surviving correspondence; and (2) to reflect the implications of my historiographical findings onto Brown's aspiration to impose a genuinely Smithian logic on New Labour policy. The results of the research suggest very strongly that the initial impression was well founded: Smith did worry that his account of the commercial way of life was based upon incommensurable demands on the individual. Indeed, by insisting that Smith's work be read so as to preserve its chronological integrity, it is apparent that his worries increased over time. It is commonly agreed amongst Smith scholars that the Glasgow Editions of TMS and WN represent the most authoritative versions of his written work. However, the Glasgow editors delivered hybrid texts conjoining the multiple editions of TMS and WN which were published in his lifetime. By once again distinguishing one edition more clearly from its predecessor(s), it becomes possible to produce a synchronic historiography of the evolution of Smith's thinking. This reveals that the more Smith reflected on the character traits which resulted from incorporating individuals into the institutions of the market economy, the more his concerns escalated that the ensuing socialisation was prejudicial to the development of individual instincts for justice. His moral theory is based on the proposition that individuals learn how to act justly through nurturing the capacity for a fellow-feeling he called 'sympathy'. Yet, in the 1790 edition of TMS published a mere matter of months before his death, he added new sections to his existing text in which he stated very forcefully that the sympathy procedure was corrupted - and perhaps even irrevocably so - by the mass socialisation of the population to everyday life within the market economy. The original application noted that it was not my intention to extend the scope of the research into direct policy advice. The potential impacts of the research are much more on the climate of opinion out of which the overall rationale for policy is fashioned rather than on the formulation of individual policies. The impacts are therefore not measurable in a quantitative sense, but they can be expected to be long-lasting as I continue to exploit for dissemination purposes the non-academic network I developed during the project. The findings of the historiographical reconstruction of the evolution of Smith's thinking are of significance for understanding the future conduct of policy under a Brown Government. Even though Brown cites Smith as the intellectual inspiration for a style of policy-making which places equal priority on competitiveness and fairness, Smith's own work gives little encouragement for successfully adopting such an approach. It suggests that the character traits associated with individuals who drive the market economy to higher levels of dynamism are antithetical to the character traits associated with individuals who maintain the social bonds of justice. Frequently voiced concerns in modern Britain about the deteriorating 'work/life balance' and about the exhortation of materialistic culture in the face of widespread family poverty exemplify the existence of such a tension. Insofar as New Labour policy has magnified rather than ameliorated the generic Smithian tension, the individual basis of market life in modern Britain is increasingly one of fractured subjectivities. My research findings suggest that from Smith's own perspective it is much more of an 'either/or' choice between competitiveness and fairness than New Labour has thus far been willing to admit. |
| Exploitation Route | [Written in March 2009 as part of official end-of-project report] The nature of the research dictates that its direct impact on user communities beyond the academic sphere is likely to be limited, as the results of the research do not translate simply into direct policy prescriptions. However, they do have implications for the climate of opinion informing the underlying policy stance in Britain today and how that stance might be transposed into particular policy priorities. My results suggest that the orientation towards economic competitiveness and the orientation towards social justice require different behavioural subjectivities on the part of individual members of society. New Labour's primary economic task of incorporating individuals into strategies for economic competitiveness has required the creation of subjectivities which downplay the role of the state in ensuring the conditions for social justice (e.g., Hay 1999; Coates 2005). This has involved reconfiguring the relationship between the state and welfare provision to one in which the state incentivises saver-investor mentalities designed to help people cater for their own future welfare demands (e.g., Martin 2002; Langley 2008). The significance of these reforms is that they encompass a politically coercive pressure preventing individuals from relating directly to each other's needs in response to the Smithian tension between the market economy and market society. In other words, they are a distinctively anti-Smithian response to that tension, even as Gordon Brown appeals to the Smithian legacy he assumes that he embodies. [Written in October 2014 for migration onto Researchfish account] In the six years since the official termination of my project much, of course, has changed. There has been a change of government, a change in Labour party leadership and a change in the willingness of the party to think of itself as New Labour. The research on New Labour that was contemporary as it was being undertaken now therefore has a distinctively historical appeal to it. This means that it is likely to be put to use only in retrospective analyses of what the Blair and Brown Government stood for and the social change that they set in motion in the UK. It is therefore now likely to be of more help to the academic community (where such questions are still live as a means of trying to locate the Miliband leadership historically) than to the campaigning community (who, for perfectly understandable reasons, are much more interested in the here and now). |
| Sectors | Education,Government, Democracy and Justice |
| Description | This project was applied for and, indeed, completed before all the new requirements concerning impact were introduced. Nonetheless, I was invited to write a 6,500-word piece on Brown's anti-Smithian reconstitution of the model welfare citizen in Britain published for the campaign journal, Renewal. This led to a discussion within the journal and within the campaign group, Compass. The latter was running a campaign at the time on the future of welfare and, in its public meetings at least, some of my ideas were used as framing devices. In addition, the end-of-project workshop on the socio-economic (i.e., Smithian) tensions caused by the subprime crisis and the ensuing credit crunch was attended by Will Hutton, then the Managing Director of the Work Foundation. At that time, September 2008, he played a crucial role in helping to shape the Government's policy response as one of Gordon Brown's expert advisors. The exposure provided for the end-of-project workshop by the University of Warwick's Media Office led to many media performances by participants at the workshop, notably but not exclusively by Will Hutton. It also snowballed into numerous requests for my time, enabling me to further publicise potential impacts arising from my research. I appeared on two Sky News television programmes in the first week of October 2008, when concerns about the immediate effects of the credit crunch were at their height. I provided analytical commentary on reports assessing the social effects of falling house prices and the more general social contradictions which result when the growth of the economy becomes increasingly dependent on sustaining house price bubbles. Similar themes were explored in an open-access podcast recorded with the University of Warwick's Media Office and now linked to my personal webpage. Interviews were given to journalists working for a variety of newspapers, some of whom requested on-the-record and some of whom requested off-the-record comments. I have been cited discussing project research, either directly by name or indirectly, in the following outlets: Financial Times, Independent, Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal Europe and Birmingham Post. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2008 |
| Sector | Government, Democracy and Justice |
| Impact Types | Societal |
| Description | Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble : the political economy of Brown's Britain |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | This is the powerpoint presentation to a paper I delivered in December 2007 to the Joint Regeneration Institute/School of Social Sciences Seminar Series at Cardiff University. It focuses on the political economy of the Brown Government and, in particular, on its attempts to manage an economic model which increasingly revolves around the incorporation of individuals into asset bubbles. I conceptualise such bubbles as evidence of the Smithian tension between market economy and market society. Academics have subsequently told me in person that it changed their views on how some of the socio-economic - or what I describe as Smithian - contradictions in New Labour economic policy have come to the fore. Non-academics reported that my ideas will subsequently alter the background thinking that underpins how they position their professional organisations in policy debates. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2007 |
| Description | Unbridled confidence that the end of the financial instability is in sight is almost certainly misplaced |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | I contributed an opinion-editorial piece to the Birmingham Post newspaper in September 2008 on the politics of the subprime crisis and the bank bailout package. Birmingham Post |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2009 |
| Description | Understanding the Adam Smith problem |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | This is the powerpoint presentation accompanying a paper I delivered to the PPE Society at the University of Warwick. In line with the central aspirations of the project, the paper contained a critical reworking of the Adam Smith Problem and an associated attempt to transcend existing scholarship on this subject. Members of the group reported back that they took the ideas into their future campaigning activities. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2009 |