Publication

This essay looks at ideas of social development — including the social security and social integration of the poor — in the political economy of the late 18th century. The author argues that the cruel reputation of political economy is undeserved in relation to Adam Smith and his followers in the period before the French Revolution. According to the author, social development, as reflected in the writings of Smith, was not inimical to, but rather a condition for the development of commerce. The paper further suggests that the flint-hearted view of society, in which men and women are surrounded only by incentives and inspired only by fear, was an innovation of the decade after Smith’s death in 1790, and of the period of intense fright that followed the French Revolution.