The sole ostensive function of this post is to demonstrate that Adam Smith's conclusions presume a system of value, and further that this system of value is not the only reasonable one through which it is valid to make decisions with regard to one's life, education, and, as a matter of fact, economics. Really, that's all you need to know. I apologize for the length of this post and hope that your curiosity will not take you much farther than that summation I've just given you.
...though a great number of people should, by thus restoring the freedom of trade, be thrown all at once out of their ordinary employment and common method of subsistence, it would by no means follow that they would be deprived either of employment or subsistence... [they] may seek for it in another trade or in another place...
(IV.II, p. 499, 501)
Will a business be able to compete in the near future without outsourcing? In today's world, such a thing is lethal for a business; one must make the economical choice or some other business or country will make it first.
His solution here doesn't exactly seem as neat as he might have hoped. Other trades might not be available; and the brief "in another place" suggests a lack of concern for those people making the decision to leave their homes in search of a job.
I bring this modern reference up to demonstrate that Adam Smith really does have his finger on the pulse of the postmodern world. The economic choice is the only choice. We say, nobody can blame a CEO for layoffs; we say he or she had no choice in the matter. It simply had to be done.
A study of Adam Smith quickly reveals where this irresistible impetus originates. He suggests that labor is the currency of value; but why is this so? Why ought labor have value? When he speaks of education: why ought education in "utilities" be most important?
He says the following in order to compare the ancient instructional M.O. of utility and the modern educational structure:
In the ancient philosophy the perfection of virtue was represented as necessarily productive, to the person who possessed it, of the most perfect happiness in this life [emphasis added]. In the modern philosophy it was frequently represented as generally, or rather as almost always inconsistent with any degree of happiness in this life...
V.I.III.2, p. 830
The entire goal of the nation in his view is happiness; or, perhaps, subsistence; or, perhaps, defense; take your pick. They each need the others. In any case a good person is only useful for Smith insofar as they add to the common defense and happiness:
Unless those few [ingenuous barbarians], however, happen to be placed in some very particular situations, their great abilities, though honorable to themselves, may contribute very little to good government or happiness of their society.
V.I.III.2, p. 841, also cf. p. 845
It would appear as though happiness is the only thing of use in this life, and that, therefore, since philosophy, ethics, and any amount of education beyond utility do note necessarily take happiness as their aim, they can be of no purpose to anyone, anywhere, except in a monastery. It is as though the entire nobility of the human race, from the poorest starving child to the pompous aristocrat, were to consist entirely in our ability to feed and clothe and defend ourselves. It is as though the entire function of humanity could be exhausted with a purpose as dignified as the satisfaction of an itch.
To reiterate my purpose: Adam Smith quite accurately captures a system of value carried out well so as to achieve the ends of that system of value. It ought not be supposed, however, that this system of value, that is, that whose end is subsistence, defense, and/or happiness, is the only system of value by which it is reasonable for a human person to act. Beyond this my post has no purpose other than to suggest the alternative. I do not feel that anything beyond this point has any merit whatsoever for class discussion, given that it is entirely beyond the text. However, the notion that he presupposes a not rock-solid goal for humanity might be useful to keep in the back of our minds.
Certain people we have read have suggested that moral law, or, for example, The City of God, might supplant this as a system of value. There are other examples of systems of value by which one might act, and, in fact, make economic decisions. But these, as Smith notes, are not concerned with this life.
It may be possible, instead, that the function of human society ought to have something to do with the nature of humanity itself. Under Smith's system of utility, it would appear that humanity is just another animal whose capacities for thought, love, and self-awareness amount to a clever means toward survival; that is, the elements which constitute humanity are just means to an animalistic end. It seems more reasonable, to me at least, to suppose that humanity's end ought to involve, in some way, well, humanity. As opposed to Smith over there, supplying us with pins and chewing gum.
Humanity has a biological history, by which we evolved; it has a socioeconomic history, by which we became better at supplying utilities; surely it is not completely ridiculous to suppose that we might have an ethical history too, by which we might become more thoughtful, or loving, or judicious? Given that it is the entire office of our existence, couldn't we, or shouldn't we be primarily concerned with becoming better people? "But we need to eat!" Ah, right. Forget about all this then.
