From moral to political economy: The Genesis of social sciences

Hisrory of Europeon Ideas, Vol. 9. No. 2, pp. 125-143, 1988 Printed in Great Britain.

0191-6599/88 $3.00 + 0.00 Pergamon Press plc

FROM MORAL TO POLITICAL ECONOMY: THE GENESIS OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

LEONARD BAUER* and HERBERT MATIS?

(translated by F.J. FINLAY)

The discourse which develops within a society allows later generations of observers to analyse its choice of terminology, its applied laws of association and its chosen approach, to gain insight into the way the society or elements of that society wished itself to be understood. Social opinions and beliefs are taken for granted to such an extent that they can hardly ever be articulated in a complete and systematic fashion. They are a constituent part of what can be called the

‘tacit dimension’.’ ‘It is a characteristic feature of this situation that a number of important authors.. . developed special applications or variants of the non- articulated basic theory.‘2

The central themes of modern political discourse had been laid down by the Italian authors of the Quattrocento and the Cinquecento in their discussion of the social changes of the Renaissance: they were concerned with the questions of social change and stability and of how freedom and order, as the basis upon which political communities exist, could be preserved over a period of time; of the preservation of virtus above corruprio, the common good above individual interest.

For the traditional views of the Christian Middle Ages a discussion of such problems was anathema: in a monotheistic world in which the omnipotent God could intervene at any time, events can be linked together (causally) by Providence. The causes of all things can be found in God’s wisdom but remain

hidden from human reason. The only way of understanding concrete events is to put one’s faith in God. Divine work, because it is unique and cannot be repeated, determines particular situations and thereby constitutes a non-linear concept of time. Reason cannot comprehend change. It can only be understood as a breach of order, a transitionary stage on the road to disorder. Order can only be restored by returning to the beginning of the cyclical pattern. Here we can observe both a Christian teleology and also another concept of causality which is different from our traditional cause and effect model.3

The Humanists, for their part, emphasise a variation on the theme of Providence not justified by theology; the working of fortuna, which accepts a change in order as inexplicable and unpredictable. This does, however, open up the opportunity of actively overcoming Fate: Man possesses the power to vanquish fortuna.

This forms the basis for the sphere of ‘producing’ yet the difficulty then arises of whether to attach greater value to those individual (pecuniary) interests

*Professor of Economics, TProfessor of Economic History, Wirtschaftsuniversittit Wien, Augasse 2-6, 1090 Vienna, Austria.

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126 Leonard Bauer and Herbert Matis

resulting from the division of labour than to those of ‘the common good’. For, if this is not the case, not only the community and individual groups but also the individual himself become threatened by corruptio: it is in just such a world that corruption rears its head if a positively interpreted order (form of government) becomes perverted as a part of a cyclical pattern if, for example, free citizens become unilaterally dependent from others, resulting in the loss of that very ‘virtue’ which ought to reconcile private and common good. Such a situation requires a return in the form of a ‘revolution’ to the start of the cyclical process (Machiavelli: Ritorno ai principi)” thereby restoring order in the cycle.s

The sole, appropriate form of activity for the zoon politikon. for the oiko- despot who, in private, rules over his wife, children and slaves, is the vita activa,

leaving aside leisure (ozium) which takes place in the public sphere. In the communal structure of the pofis the way of behaviour is such that each citizen contributes to the general good. Thus, the individual is only subject to the authority of a community to which he in turn personally belongs. Should authority in such a community be unfairly distributed and an individual or a group come to identify their particular sectional interest with the good of all the community (bonum commune), then the aims of the polis, of the community, will not be realised. Such asymmetry in the respublica leads to corruptio, to a loss of virtus: and because virtue covers all equal members of a society it becomes a matter not only of a singular, private loss but also of a loss for the community as a whole. A community can only survive when all its autonomous citizens combine to act virtuously together. The form of government which, in the tradition of Polybios, is considered to be of permanence, is one in which the one, the few, and the many share their power in such a way as to prevent the exclusive rule and the dependence of any one group on another. Communality, completeness and stability can only be achieved with the balance inherent in the ‘mixed’ form of

government. James Harrington’s work, ‘The Commonwealth of Oceana’ (1656) takes up

this discourse, adapts and modifies its individual elements and applies them to the situation in England. In his ‘Commonwealth of Oceana’ Harrington describes England as a classical, republican society and the English as free, land- owning and arms-bearing ‘citizens’ in the sense used by the Italian political theorists. (This view and Harrington’s political philosophy can, in no small part, be seen to have influenced the American Revolution of 1776.)

Nevertheless, a person living in such a communally orientated order and capable of political action still behaves as the owner of an oikos, the land-owning, arms-bearing ‘head of the household’. Harrington supports the landedinterests; the ‘Commonwealth of Oceana’ is not only an interpretation of the history of the sword but also of its prerequisite, land ownership. Machiavelli regarded the bearing of arms as the basis of the status of citizenship. Harrington adds to this supposition the theory that the possession of land for its part, provides the basis for bearing arms6 and he thereby justifies the idea of a republican community.’ This notion, according to which the distribution of land and the bearing of arms justifies the exercise of power, enables Harrington to provide ‘a key to understanding the entire historical development of the West’.8 If the king frees himself from the dependence of the feudal barons he finds himself facing a new dilemma: the large number of yeomen are now no longer under the control of a

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small number of aristocrats. Furthermore, the king is confronted with the fact that the arms are possessed by the majority, i.e. the people themselves. A victorious (people’s) army thus determines the form of government. Historical development offers one man (Olphaus Megaletor = Cromwell) the possibility of emerging as legislator.

Machiavelli’s approach,’ offering a solution to this problem, is to put one’s trust, in times of the corruption of the community, in the emergence of a legislator (Lykurg) or a prophet (Moses). In a state of the almost complete corruption of the community only the heroic virtuousness of the legislator or the blessed authority of the prophet are able to change the course offortuna. (During the Protectorate both roles were assigned to the rather unwilling Cromwell and demanded of him.) For Harrington the corruption of a form of government lies in the unequal distribution of power and property and he sees the solution to this in establishing a government to reflect that balanced distribution of income he found in the England of his day: a republic. In so doing Harrington circumvents Machiavelli’s distinction between expanding republics (Rome) and those which are based on the preservation of the status quo (Venice); even an expanding republic can have permanence, in so far as a balance between the nobility and the people is maintained. An ‘agrarian law’ governing inheritance and the acquisi- tion of property can protect the ‘equitable’ and rather stable endowment with wealth.

In reality, however, the ‘virtue’ of the individual can quite easily be defeated by the temptation of the passions. The republic has a tried and tested remedy for preventing this. Harrington demonstrates the above with his examplei of two girls who want to share a cake; one of them breaks up the cake into two parts and the other chooses only to take one piece. In so doing, both receive an equal share whilst both have acted ‘virtuously’. Political decisions are, of course, more difficult than the sharing of a cake; nevertheless what does apply is the fact that one party has to make a choice whilst the other has to make a decision. The former requires the ability to discourse, the latter the ability to decide. Both, however, are to be kept strictly apart. Harrington’s ‘Oceana’ compares the concept of the community in the form of the civic tradition not only with those of the old feudal oligarchy but also with those of the abolutist superoikos. The notions of a paid and standing army, a centralised state bureaucracy with a system of money and credit, rooted in chrematistics, are alien to him. His world- view is committed to the ideas of Aristotle, Polybios and Machiavelli.” This also applies to the other ‘Classical Republicans’. The concept of a mixed government is used before the outbreak of the Civil War by the two royal advisors, Falkland and Coalpepper, in a similar, albeit surprising fashion; a government of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy in concert (‘His Majesty’s Answer to the Nineteen Propositions of Parliament’). Such a political culture would contain the advantages of all three forms of government and have none of their disadvan- tages. I2 This would, however, only be the case as long as the balance was maintained. In spite of its republican tone this document supports the interests of monarchical government without interpreting it as an expression of the divine world order. This is not, for example, true of another follower of the Stuarts, Sir Robert Filmer, whose mentor was Jean Bodin. As late as 1680 he still takes the traditional view.13 This lies outside the prevailing tradition of thought which is

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geared to ‘natural’ hierarchy, venerable tradition and a wise submission to Providence. By the same token, it can also be said that civil war, the execution of the king and the Protectorate do not fit in with tradition either. The end of the old, established order gave rise to a new set of moral, political and theoretical problems. It is no cause for wonder that out of the Christian tradition there developed the most varied possibilities of legitimising the power of the actual. Furthermore, various conceptual guidelines were also developed.

For the republicans, however, the removal of absolutist government power meant that at this point, the individual returns to the origin of his political being-hence the necessity for revolution. It is for this reason that the Machiavellian concept of a people under arms plays an important role; an English people which considers itself as spearheading the fight against papism and absolutist claims to power finds the true sovereign to be among the ‘faithful people’.‘4

This combines chiliastic and millenarian concepts of salvation with the idea of social justice and the willingness to take up the fight against the Anti-Christ. Like James Harrington, John MiltonI also upholds the right of an arms-bearing

people as a way of protecting the common good against tyrannical rule and from them the power and authority of the government is derived. The above ideas play an important role in the discussion and argumentation which now follows. The concept of the mixed form of government can be enlisted to serve the cause of king and parliament alike. Indeed, how could it be any different in a society moulded by tradition where two powers sacrosanct by tradition made war

against each other? The argumentI for a mixed form of government enables the conscience to take sides with one party whilst at the same time recognising the legitimacy of all three.

Man is, however, driven by the force of the ‘passions’ and ‘vice’, especially by ambition, by the desire to dominate and by greed; the latter constitutes the greater danger to the community because, unlike private lust for wealth, the love of fame as being of public value was regarded from the Renaissance onwards to be in the interests of the common good. There develops, therefore, the notion of a kind of invisible hand-a force which enables people who indulge their private passions to be unconsciously serving the common good-this is expressed not only in the context of the lust for money but also in the striving for fame.” In this context Montesquieu states that the striving for fame (in a monarchy, but not in a republic) (brings) ‘life to all sections of the state (and it) emerges that each man, in promoting his own interests, contributes to the common good’.‘8

From the traditional viewpoint the greatest danger to the community, however, lies in the inequitable distribution of wealth and in greed. The greater the number and variety of goods available in a society the greater the danger of corruptio. I9 Rousseau when analysing the modern civilised nations comes to the conclusion that Man Is forced to live an immoral life in order to survive. Right and reality, reason and practicality are radically separated. Legitimacy is not taken away from the state and the government but from the society itself. Modern society becomes an ‘authority without responsibility’.20 In a mood of resignation Rousseau finds a place for his contrat social far away from history and does not link it to the practical reality which has always been the concern of any ‘doctrine of natural right’. Humes’ essay ‘Luxury’21 appeared ten years

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before Du Contrat Social. For Hume, a good life is dependent on economic

advance. The times of refinement are explained by Hume as those of the greatest happiness and virtue.22 ‘The spirit of the age affects all the arts; and the minds of men, being once roused from their lethargy, turn themselves on all sides and carry improvements into every art and science.’

Trust in moral philosophy disappears in the same measure as trust in religious

precepts. As a result, a search for other ways of restraining human passions begins. Machiavelli made the distinction between ‘the real nature of things’ and ‘the way they appear in the imagination’.23 He makes it the duty of the Prince to

use this distinction in his dealings with the state and society. A repressively authoritarian solution to this problem is suggested by those who, like Thomas Hobbes, advocate the containment, when necessary, of the dangerous consequences of the passions using the power of the state and the formal categories of the law. The attempt to turn destructive human passions into constructive positive inclinations seems to be more consistent with modern psychological insights into the ‘nature’ of Man. Man, like all animals, is primarily driven by the need for self-preservation and he attempts to do what is good for him and to avoid anything potentially damaging.

In this context the Italian philosopher of history, Giambattista Vito (1668-1747) goes as far as to articulate a concept of order which seems to anticipate the ‘invisible hand’:

The three vices which lead all men astray, namely cruelty, greed and ambition, are transformed (by society) into national defence, trade, and in so doing the affluence, the wealth and the wisdom ofthe republic can be justified; in this way society makes these three main vices, which otherwise would certainly destroy mankind, serve the benefits of all. This principle proves the existence of a divine providence: by means of its rational laws human passions, entirely concerned as they are with the pursuit of private advantage, are transformed into a public order which enables mankind to live in a humane society.24

In his ‘Fable of the Bees’ Bernard de Mandeville, a contemporary of Vito, develops, in similar fashion, the idea of harnessing human passions for the benefit of all (private vice, public benefit). Hirschman is right to point to how Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations, influenced by the new linguistic ruling, is able to remove the sting from Mandeville’s paradoxes which his contemporaries continued to find shocking; he substitutes ‘passions’ and ‘vice’ with the far more anodyne terms ‘advantage’ and ‘interest’:

‘In this limited and domesticated form the harnessing idea was able to survive and to prosper both as a major tenet of nineteenth-century liberalism and as a central construct of economic theory. But retreat from the generality the harnessing idea was far from universal.‘2’

The solution to the problem, which consists in pitting individual passions against one another so that they are mutually neutralised and then using the word ‘interest’ as a generic term to refer to those passions attributed with a balancing

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function, has been put forward in political literature since Machiavelli. It is an approach also appropriated by the natural sciences of the day; equilibrium can only be achieved by a careful balancing out of forces (interests). David Hume, for whom ‘the avidity.. . of acquiring goods and possessions’ is potentially a uniquely strong passion, sees a possible solution to this problematic passion by having it ‘countervail itself. He writes: ‘There is no passion, therefore, capable of controlling the interested affection, but the very affection itself, by an alteration of its direction.‘26

It was Helvetius who made this connection even clearer: ‘As the physical world is ruled by the laws of movement so is the moral universe ruled by laws of

interest.‘*’ ‘Interests’ take on the role of a new paradigm (‘interests govern the world’)and

it becomes common to interpret human behaviour as being motivated by interests. The ‘skilful management of the dextrous politician’ lies in achieving harmony, i.e. a balance between conflicting interests; from this perspective the entire doctrine of the Social Contract which itself is deduced from the ‘nature’of Man then emerges as an ‘off-shoot’ of the strategy of balance.2’ At the beginning of the seventeenth century the idea of ‘interest’ developed in political literature starts to enter the general language and is increasingly used by moral philosophers in their treatise on the ‘nature’ of Man and the social order which they derive from it.

The state (society) is regarded not as a product of a divinely ordained order but one which results from human agreement. Mankind, born free and created in God’s own image is neither ruler nor ruled, neither master nor slave, rather he establishes, on the basis of mutual agreement, a covenantfD for political rule which enables him to live peacefulfy together with his fellow man. A free man is one who gives his agreement and works to establish a purposeful political community.”

Harrington’s successors after the Restoration, in particular after the Glorious Revolurion. then substitute the idea of a republic for the traditionalist balanced view of the ‘mixed form of government’; this is derived from the ~0~~0~ Laic*, particularly from the ~~~aturo~ Righf’and then applied to the social situation. As a result, it is not the role of the political (the social being) which is stressed but the role of the one, whose ‘agreement’ is regarded as the basis of a society established

by contract.32 The ‘balance’ of the three law-making authorities in a constitutional monarchy

(the king, the Lords and the Commons) leads in turn to a ‘canonisation of balance as a constitutional princip1e’.33

This Balance is not regarded in Montesquieu’s sense of a separation of powers (legislative, executive, jurisdictional), where authorities are allocated as of right, rather it is based on a balanced interaction between the one, the few and the many. The constitution is considered from now on as being the most important regulator determining social intercourse; the importance of the legislator is lost behind the constitution, sublimated in money, administration and the dispensation of justice.

If we regard this situation, however, as resulting not only from the Glorious Revolution, from political stability (Walpole is regarded as being the first Prime

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Minister) but also from religious tolerance, we can note a shift in the emphasis of interests from their previous concentration on political and religious aspects to the economic sphere. One of many changes which demonstrates this clearly is the semantic change of certain central concepts. At the end of the seventeenth century the word ‘interest’ starts to be increasingly used to refer to economic claims; similarly, from this point on, political conflict can be conceived of as an expression of the economic interests of the various classes. We need only consider, for example, the case of the landed interests, represented by the Tories, being led by Lord Bolingbroke into battle against the moneyed interests of the Whigs under Walpole. Walpole’s era effectively turned bribery into a system and the expression corruptio began increasingly to take on this meaning. It ceased to be interpreted in its previous, generally held, sense of the decay of a form of government and the loss of political ‘virtue’.34 The bitter irony of John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera shows how the new society of commercial interest has only one principle: ‘the timely and appropriate use of money will achieve all’. The concept of fortune is similarly effected; Adam Smith uses it exclusively in connection

with money, and this contrasts to the far more comprehensive meaning which fortuna had for Machiavelli and Guicciardini. 35 Even this notion of balance, however, which was an important concept both in foreign and domestic policy, starts to degenerate subsequently to mean the idea ofeconomic equilibrium. In a world guided primarily by economic interests the old concept of virtue, virtus, is obsolete and politeness as a non-commital form of social intercourse takes the place of the traditional notion of politikP which was concerned with the intercourse of free and equal men (oiko-despots). The place of active participation and involvement in the community is taken by the idea of political ‘representation’ (Michel Foucault). This reveals an unmistakable polarisation between the control and the pursuit of economic and cultural goals and it is this polarity which defines Man’s main activities. Herein can be found the reasons for the attempts to redefine ‘virtue’ or indeed to completely abandon it in its traditional sense. It also offers one of the basic reasons for the glorification of politeness, elegance and refined manners. It is the politeness of the upper classes which replaces the necessary ‘virtue’ of politikt. On the other hand, the traditional concept of virtue takes on a changed meaning primarily for the working classes to whom it is presented as a new ‘civic virtue’. i.e. a moral category to rationalise their life-style by way of diligence, perseverance, punctuality and hard work etc. (This, however, best serves the moneyed interests of the new upper class36). In a society based on contractual relations and the desire to regulate itself by means of legal norms, the idea of communal relations between the owners of individual oikoi arising from personal communication and based on mutual recognition and esteem is thus wiped away. In a world of political representation, freedom to act politically becomes the freedom to act economically. This is because personal communication is based on exchange activities. Abstract laws of money and formal justice replace the real (personal) relations of the ‘house’. Where social intercourse is reified by the ‘super-oikos’ of the centralised state, the question of the ability to communicate becomes a concern of the legal constitution. 37 Money is the central, regulatory principle of the new order. The nature of Man, social institutions, and also the real constitution become altered. The representatives of the old order still regarded

132 Leonard Bauer and Herbert Matis

money as the root of all evil, and greed as the epitome of mortal sin; under Walpole’s leadership, however, money becomes the ‘yardstick and the nervous system of the government’.38 The Neo-Harringtonian views from Shaftesbury to Bolingbroke representing the propertied position of the landed interests are thereby directed less against a decaying feudal order and more against a bureaucratic salary-paying state; they are not aimed at the past but against what was developing at the time; ‘modern capitalism’ (Werner Sombart). The essential elements of the new economic order which developed between 1690 and 1740 have both a qualitative and a quantitative significance. Of decisive importance is the rapid, indeed gigantic, growth of the new banking and commercial companies and the capital and money market which was reflected in an enormous increase in public debt.39

Shortly before his death, Bolingbroke, criticising the new circumstances, wrote: ‘the very genius of our people is changed both in the public and private life

. . the spirit of private interest prevails among US’.~O The self-interested individual is the beginning of all political and economic activity. ‘Self, in a word, governs the whole world; . . . the beginning and end of your actions.‘41 Daniel Defoe accurately describes the mysteriousness which his contemporaries felt when facing the new world of capitalism and the era of projects:

Like the soul in the body it acts as all substance, yet it is itself immaterial; it gives motion, yet it cannot be said to exist; it creates forms yet has itself no whereness, or whenness, site or habit. If I should say it is the essential shadow of something that is not, should I not puzzle the thing rather?42

Walpole’s men-the models for Defoe’s heroes-leave the old social affiliations, status and rank, behind them in their pursuit of social advancement. Defoe’s heroes continually seek, by their endeavours, to improve their social position and increase their wealth. This intensive desire for advancement clearly mirrors that of the author and his numerous readers. No wonder that Robinson Crusoe ignores his father’s advice to be content with his God-given place in society. After his years of hard work, Crusoe looks upon his island home with pleasure as ‘king and lord of all this country’. His home he calls his ‘estate’, and if he could only convey it all back to England ‘he might have it in inheritance as complete as any lord of a manor’.43

The targets of Bolingbroke’s criticism of dominating private interests are the merchants and the financial circles of the Bank of England, the South Sea Company and the East India Company: the very lobbies which caused Jonathan Swift to ask the question: ‘Must our laws from hence forward pass the Bank and East India Company or have their Royal Assent before they are in force?‘44 Still Adam Smith again: ‘The interests of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufacturers is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public.‘4S

The heated controversies in the journals and pamphlets brought the invective

to the public eye. 46 It was common to publish anonymously, thus keeping the private and public separate and allowing a person’s public sphere to be kept intact. Apart from the fact that this was in keeping with the civic tradition, it provided the disputing parties with a common basis. Of course this tradition can

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only be seen as a uniform system on an extremely abstract level. It allows considerable room for interpretation and even dissent.

In the civic tradition, shaped by its fundamental republican ethos, republic and commonwealth are normally considered to be the antithesis of monarchy; nevertheless we cannot close our eyes to the fact that the monarchy as a concept and an historical phenomenon played an essential, if not decisive role in Europe (Southern Europe excepted) for well over five hundred years.

The removal of the citizen from active politics can therefore be seen to be based on the one hand in the civic tradition, whilst on the other it is required of, and forced on, the monarchic principle. This holds the way open for a legal tradition (Natural law, Roman law) for which the uniformity and unity of the monarchy is an exemplary form of government. This is a powerful tradition which has influenced no small part of the development of European learning which has subsequently been handed down. Natural law, international law and civil law are essential components of a canon of accepted schools of thought, authorities, ways of behaviour and meaning which are studied at universities and applied in professional life. 47 Moreover, this legal canon includes other fields of philosophy, for example, moral, social and political philosophy and epistemology.

The starting point of all jurisprudence is ius, the law, right. As a result, it contrasts with the starting point of republican ideas, with virtus. Application of the one concept does not appear possible in the thought pattern of the other. The conceptual system of law cannot be reconciled with the world of poZitikL4* The discussion of practical morals, beginning with Addison’s journal The Spectator (1711-15)49 fits in with this contradiction. The journal focuses on the ever- expanding commercial society with its extremely complex and opaque structures and attempts to provide its readers with some sort of advice for leading a happy and virtuous life in an environment which they often find confusing. The enormously large world of goods available to the citizen places him at the mercy of temptation; the ‘secret, seductive charms’ of fashion and prejudice. fie Spectator and other gazettes of its kind give the idea that people who meet one another as equals in the coffee houses, clubs and salons, of varied social backgrounds, engaged in various activities and yet with the same interests are able to form friendships. They do this through practical discourses which can then provide the basis for the development of a social structure. The art of conversation becomes the way of expressing the value of tolerance, restraint and caution.50 Politeness:5’ It is form, finds its actual pre-condition in trade, and is expressed culturally. The extent to which ‘virtue’ is the basis of ‘natural law’ in a legal framework is not explained.

Until well into the eighteenth century the most important intellectual achievements in the area of natural law were Hugo Grotius’ ‘De iure belli ac pacis’ (1625) and Samuel Pufendorf’s ‘De iure naturae et gentium’ (1672). The attempt to treat the theory of natural law in its historical context begins with Pufendorf. These analytical and summarising works as a ‘history of morality’ play an important role in the early days of the ‘Enlightenment’.52

The notion of law dealt with by the teachers and advocates of natural right is not the positive law of a particular state or league of states which is interpreted and developed by jurisprudence, rather it is for them an absolute. It is discovered

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by interpreting the ‘nature’ of man; ‘how he really is’53 and by understanding divine will through reason.

Modern natural law is not indebted to any religion and is separate from Christian theology. It is this (relative) distance which bestows upon natural right its decisive significance. It arises in equal measure from the dwindling trust in a moralising philosophy and controversial and divergent religious laws. At the same time there is the wish to isolate oneself from a sceptical-positivist tendency, which sees right and wrong as mere norms independent of particular configura- tions of power. 54 Natural law is derived ‘empirically’ from the nature of things (self-evidence). The ‘nature of things’ refers not only to the profane world but also to its Creator and highest Lord.55 Natural law has recourse to the physical and moral world whilst, at the same time, being the law of God. Its significance arises only from this relation to the highest authority. ‘The just opinions concerning God are taught in natural Theology and metaphysics.‘56 It is, therefore, possible to derive the principles of natural law in two ways: aposteriori for which one can generally find agreement in the literary witnesses of all ages; and a priori via logical deduction from the rational and social ‘behaviour’ of Man.

Like all other forms of life, Man is driven by his desire for self preservation. He seeks to achieve what seems to be of advantage to him and to avoid the potentially harmful. This egoism runs hand in hand with the inability to exist without the help of his fellow man. Man, although in principle ever malicious, selfish and easily irritated, is willing to associate with his fellow man and to behave in such a way as to be able to rely on his cooperation.”

Grotius uses the sociability of Man to argue that the principles of right enable a society to be stable and worth living in. His description of distributive justice follows Aristotle’s doctrines, whilst his discussion of commutative justice is reminiscent of the Paris Nominalists, Pierre d’Ailly and Jean de Gerson (of around 1400).58 Grotius’s opinion that ‘natural freedom’ is nothing other than Man’s power to act according to his will underlines this fact. In so doing, he equates libertas in action (possibility of action) with dominium in material things (rights of property). ‘Natural freedom’ accords each man the subjective right to everything he can own. Property is necessary once a particular level of culture has been achieved and Grotius says that this is made possible by Man’s inter- subjective self-regulation of his freedom to make use of arbitrarily optional things: acquisition by a legal person can neither arise from dividing up common property nor via the quietly tolerated agreement of all (prima occupatio) which is the source of legal title and is applicable to all. One must remember in this context that Grotius’ view of Man is based primarily on social drive and not on the drive to maximise utility. Man thereby seeks out society for its own sake and out of natural inclination, not out of mere necessity or for the purpose of realising egoistical goals. In his earlier writings it is, therefore, clear that the Prince exists for the state and not vice versa. Grotius cannot, as a matter of principle, conceive of taking away the freedom of the people and subjecting them to their Prince. Two institutions found in his later works, up to ‘De iure belli ac pacis’, are of importance, though he does continue to make the distinction between distributive and commutative justice. He regards (subjective) rights as the object of justice and as a result, distributive justice has a claim to the same rights, i.e.

The Genesis of Social Sciences 13.5

the right to be judged according to one’s merit. In order to make the break with Aristotelean tradition complete we now need only ask the sceptical question as to whether distributive justice can exist at all when its attendant rights are so hard to realise. This is the reason why he restricts himself to a discussion of the laws of property. Rights become part of natural law. If Man has the right to own himself (freedom being one of Man’s possessions) and if he has the freedom to own property it is then basically possible for him to enslave himself. Here we see how absolutism can be provided with its legitimisation.

Like Grotius, Pufendorf derives the origin of property from God. Moreover, Man has the right to do anything which is not explicitly forbidden by law.59 From Selden and Hobbes he takes his supposition that a sanctioning authority (God, the state) must exist because of Man’s negative nature for him to be able to honour his duties to his fellow man. Pufendorf, unlike Grotius, requires the contract to have been concluded (‘legitimate power’, ‘correlation’) and the state to have come into being before he can conceive of the notion ofproperty. It is no wonder, therefore, that the social philosophers and legal theorists follow Grotius’ model, in which the necessary condition of property is the existence of the state.

The individualisation of society leads to the loss of the security of the community which ought (at least intentionally) to guarantee a life appropriate to social rank. As a result, the modern exchange society has to confer property rights on the individual. Hume avoids the danger of the kind of exaggerated rationalism which befalls Hobbes, for example, by finding the origin of right in very general human passions (an egoism restricted by the external world and limited benevolence); in actions (wisely keeping one’s distance from the property of another) and social intercourse (mutual reserve and imitation). In so doing, he is in keeping with his empirical tendencies and the Newtonian rules of philosophising, which he adopts. He views right as the unintentional con- sequence of man’s individual actions. One of Man’s central notions, one of his ‘most sacred’ possessions, namely his ‘concept of justice’, is the product of social processes. In spite of the fact that right is bound to the ‘nature’ of Man it is seen to be rooted beyond Man’s rational considerations and outside of present society in a way not unlike that found in the traditional doctrine of natural law.60

Generally, the derivation of the legitimacy of private property precedes the foundation of the state. Indeed, the state, to a greater or lesser extent, owes its existence to the legal and factual necessity of protecting such property, The assumption is always one of the free and equal (legal) subject who at least has the born right to his own body. If we leave aside Pufendorf’s correlation-hypothesis we find that Man has two principal ways of appropriating nature’s bounty: the

first way (see above) corresponds to the deliberations of Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) whilst the second was first put forward by John Locke (1623-1704).

For Locke, property comes into being because of Man’s extension of his ownership from his own body to things which belong to nature. This extension occurs when Man gives up a part of his self, his work, to things, thus imbuing them with that same inviolability which his body has in its natural state.6’ Only on the condition, however, that the goods appropriated are not allowed to go to ruin and that it does not infringe on the property rights of a third party and that he performs the work himself.62

136 Leonard Bauer and Herbert Matis

Locke’s interpretation makes us appreciate the instrumental significance of the system of the rights of property in view of the changed situation of reality. He considers the fact that Man’s needs turn away from their orientation toward something other-worldly, complete and universal, once a particular stage in the development of culture has been reached. Their goal is no longer the bonum commune. The satisfaction of human needs now knows neither aim nor limit.63 Hobbes argues that the lust for power knows no bounds and that the compulsion to accumulate can now also be applied to the acquisition drive. The individual, however, has a right to particular things of his own creation, in the same way that God, as Creator, has a right to Man and to all things of this world. ‘The conditions of human life, which are a need of labour and material, , lead to

private property.‘64 Moreover, this principle of production which is simul- taneously regarded as the reason for the structuring of property, fits the aims of the Royal Society. The realisation of its programme is aimed at not letting human knowledge indulge itself in speculation. Its concepts should be applied to mould nature and to improve the material conditions of living through productive activity. Modern society’s appropriation of ‘Nature’ thus finds its allies in Lockes’s hypothesis for the development of private rights of property and in the programmatics of modern science.

Property, according to Locke, is initiated by quantifiable physical actions; from a principle of common reason (in the form of rational or natural law) he deduces that everyone will realise that these physical actions which legally (or ‘morally’) compel a reduction of everyone else’s freedom constitute acts of law. In so doing, each individual makes the claim vis-&vis everyone else that his subjective will has objective character. Without the state’s involvement as an authority of arbitration and security to protect property this would lead to a ‘battle of all against all’. In a modified way this battle can be found in the works of almost all authors.65

For Pufendorf, Cumberland and Hobbes everything else follows on a rational and historical basis, the hypothetical premise of the status natura/is.66 Hume demonstrates, in a reconstruction of historical development, that the concept of right is a product of the actual circumstances of life: accordingly, private property is not deduced apriori from the principle of reason, rather it arises from the interests of Man in his concrete environment6’ Having dropped ‘virtue”* as the traditional causalist factor which regulates the balance between the individual and the common good, riches are taken from the public and placed in the private sphere.6y Individual and common interests are officially set against each other in this new context and the old question arises as to how se/f-interest is supposed to lead to a common wealthfin other words, a new basis for determining social intercourse is also sought in economic life.

Two interlinking control mechanisms thus develop: both find their orientation in the mechanistic model of a clock (the difference being in the status of the clockmaker as sovereign). The first solution attempts to find room for distributive justice.” The state police takes over the ‘equitable management of scarcity’.” The attempt is made to achieve equitable prices of basic foodstuffs by way of priority right of purchase for the poor, export and import regulations, a policy governing the provision of stocks etc. Otherwise, unchecked and uncontrolled egoistic desires would lead to the downfall of the community. This

The Genesis of Social Sciences 137

is still based on the notion of the moral economy and at least permits the people living in such a community the expectation of a subsistence income. The second variation strives to find a solution to the problem of the power of market forces in a commutative (or allocative) justice. The clockmaker no longer needs to interfere in such an order, except discretely to remove obstacles and so guarantee the smooth and unhindered working of this mechanical wonder-machine.

The ‘system of natural freedom’ developed by Adam Smith (1723-90) in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, in the rediscovered lecture notes, ‘Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenues and Arms’ (1752-63) and in his An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) is guided, in his own words, by the application of the Newtonian method. This is not least the result of the fact that Smith and many of his contemporaries have a special conception of the patterns of thought: the central notion behind these deliberations (imaginations) is that the human mind strives to make connections between things and to bring them into order (theory of association).73 This has a temporal dimension as Smith develops an historical four-phase model, i.e. a sequence of four cultural steps or stages of Mankind. In so doing, he assumes the idea of progress;74 the improvement of the world is projected into time as a process. What is new in this notion is that it rests on a linear concept of time which is a departure from accepted historiography (Historia Magistra Vitae).75 Society is, in turn, moulded by the four stages of development: hunter-gatherers, nomads, agriculture, and trade and industry. In the most advanced stage of development, the commercial society, it is the Newtonian Method which corresponds to imagination; to the need to order things. Each of these stages of development has its own forms of human organisation and incorporation, and patterns of thought and behaviour (this is reminiscent of the later Marxian idea of relations of production). The various theories of different stages of development point to the structuring of historical science around the idea of progress (Montesquieu lays emphasis on the role of climate and the geographic environment; Turgot develops a three-stage model and finally there is Smith’s four-stage model which, unlike Turgot’s, also takes into consideration the commercial society).76 In his Theory of Moral Sentiments Smith moves from moral philosophy to a theory of social behaviour which takes the form of a sociology and psychology of the formulation of value judgments.” As such it accords with the ideas of Scottish Enlightenment

philosophy. ‘* We can also recognise a proximity to the notions of the stoics and to a theodicy:

The ancient stoics were of the opinion, that as the world was governed by the all- ruling providence of a wise, powerful, and good God, every single event ought to be regarded as making a necessary part of the plan of the universe, and as tending to promote the general order and happiness of the whole: that the vices and follies of mankind, therefore, made as necessary a part of this plan as their wisdom or their virtue; and by that eternal art which educes good from ill, were made to tend equally to the prosperity and perfection of the great system of nature.79

Smith mentions that in nature and society everything is ‘calculated to promote the same great end, the order of the world, and the perfection and happiness of human nature’.80 This is more a matter of principle of design than of teleology in the traditional sense.8L Teleological ways of thinking now merely serve the

138 Leonard Bauer and Herbert Matis

function of providing a theoretical justification. It is not, however, a guideline for the way to act. This enlightenment philosophy undertakes, in a procedural resolution of theodicy, to place ‘evil’ in a means-ends relationship with ‘good’ as a motivating force of progress. In so doing, it also endeavours to remove the possibility of an evaluation of ‘good’ and ‘evil’. The traditional theistic- teleological interpretation is replaced by an anthropologic-psychological justification; the drives and feelings, passions and interests which manifest themselves for example, in the propensity to exchange as a form of communication, are all found a place in the ‘nature’ of Man.82 ‘Nature’, however, employs a cunning deception by making use of the structure of feelings to realise its true aims in a compensatory manner, found, to a certain extent, in the plan of Creation. In this way vices and passions such as the lust for power, greed, avarice can, in the passage of time, become the basis for the development of the human species to a state of culture. This motif not only runs through Smith’s Theory qf Moral Sentiments, it is also taken up again at the beginning of his Wealth cf Nations. Nevertheless, the passions and vices are in turn buried beneath interests which are aimed at gaining advantage and leading to the compulsion to acquire. These, therefore, have to be conceived of as being a ‘personalisation of economic categories’ and no longer as being human attributes and components of Man’s basic psychological equipment. ” This corresponds to Marx’s concept of the ‘fetish-character of goods’. That is to say, that in the conditions of an increasingly assertive market society, social relationships can be observed in the relations of individuals (legal subjects) to goods (things).

In his Theory qf Moral Sentiment Smith develops an alternative to the rationalist, natural right ‘contractual theory’ of the seventeenth century. Starting with the constitution of Man’s emotions he develops a psychological way of arriving at agreement or harmonisation of both individual and general interests. Smith attempts to develop his economic theory with moral philosophical intent and in so doing, he assumes that as long as Man has existed he has striven for social recognition and acceptance without being able to satisfy this socially motivated and restless drive. ‘They more effectually grafity that love of distinctions so natural to man.lg4 In the final analysis, this desired drive- satisfaction remains on the level of providing means to an end (because of its limits). However, another purpose is thus achieved (deception), which lies beyond Man’s awareness of his action. ‘And it is well that nature imposes upon us in this manner. It is this deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind.‘85 According to his original condition, Man is a social being. The ‘political’ being develops into the ‘social’being, Man, from whom the outlines of the ‘rational’ individual as the ultimate yardstick and end slowly emerge. This social development, which is supported by the idea of Man’s natural state predating any social institution and which is influenced by the ‘civic tradition’ founded on the idea of social intercourse of the free, gives rise to the growth of ‘society’, working on the one hand against, and on the other in harmony with the central state. It is Adam Smith’s works which give, for the first time, a coherent intellectual structure to that process which up until then had only been adumbrated in the works of Mayerne Turquet (1611) and Antoine de Monchretien (1615)” viz. a quasi-autonomous sub-system which we today call the economy.

The Genesis of Social Sciences 139

NOTES

1. M. Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension (New York, 1966). A.O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain ofBeing (New York, 1960), p. 7.

2. A.O. Hirschman, l7re Passions and the Interests. Political Arguments for Capitalism before its Triumph (Princeton University Press, 1977), p. 69.

3. According to Aristotle there are four causes ofchange: material, effective, formal and final. These were the only possible ways to account for change. For example the effective cause is the force applied by the sculptor’s tools on the marble; the formal cause is the ideal form of the completed object which was in the consciousness of the sculptor from the very beginning: the final cause is the increase in beautiful objects for the Greeks.

4. In Machiavelli’s The Prince this does indeed take on the form of a Ritorno al Principe. This also characterises the political world of rising and self-asserting absolutism.

5. This is the basis of the original meaning of ‘revolution’. This concept took on a new dimension, referring to historical progress, after the French Revolution.

6. AS already mentioned, this tradition plays an important part in the United States both in the structuring of the state and also in its self-image(even today, theNational Rifle Association is still one of the most important lobbies in the United States).

7. The idea of an army of servants is considered highly undesirable; it is alien to Harrington’s way of thinking: an independent bearer of arms, because he is so specialised, contradicts the concept of the universal man. Although Harrington, writing in the middle of the seventeenth century and thinking on pre-capitalistic lines, cannot avoid the fact that people do exist whose fortunes lie in something other than land ownership. Although he accepts them as citizens, the fact that this fortune is a mobile one makes it seem somewhat questionable by comparison with landowner- ship (for: ‘lightly come, lightly go’), cf. J. Harrington, ‘The Commonwealth of Oceana’, in The Political Works of James Harrington, ed. J.G.A. Pocock (Cambridge, 1977), p. 405.

8. J.G.A. Pocock, The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law, A Study of English Historical Thought in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, 1957) p. 144.

9. J.G.A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment, Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, 1975).

10. Harrington, ‘Oceana’, p. 172. 11. Cf. J. Selden, De jure naturali et gentium iuxta disciplinam Ebraeorum (1640). 12. The king, it is probable, did not much like the Answer to the Nineteen Propositions;

certainly he died affirming other principles! 13. According to this view, God originally transferred regal power to the progenitor,

Adam; the monarchs, as his natural successors, are to be regarded as the natural fathers of the whole community. However, in this patriarchal tradition, Adam’s subjects (dependent on their rights as householders) are the ancestors of the subjects of the monarch. The demand for liberty is the real cause of the Fall of Man, (R. Filmer, Patriarcha and Other Political Works, ed. P. Laslett Oxford, 1949).

14. K. Pennington-Thomas, Puritans andRevolutionaries, Essays in Seventeenth-century History presented to Christopher Hill, (Oxford, 1982).

15. J. Milton, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (London 1969). 16. There is an obvious parallel to the countervailing passions. 17. Hirschman, Passions, p. 21. 18. C. de Montesquieu, L’esprit de Iois, Oeuvres Completes, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1950), Bk III,

chap. VII, p. 34. 19. E. Rawson, The Spartan Tradition in European Thought (Oxford, 1969), pp. 131ff. 20. R. Brandt, Eigentumstheorien von Grotius bis Kant (Stuttgart, 1974), p.20. 21. From 1760 on ‘Of Refinement in the Arts’.

140 Leonard Bauer and Herbert Matis

22. D. Hume, ‘Of Refinements in the Arts’, in The Philosophical Works, vol. 3, ed. T.H. Green and T.H. Grose (reprint of the new edition London, 1882; Aalen, 1964) pp. 3OOff.

23. N. Machiavelli, Der Fiirst, II Principe, ed. R. Zorn (Stuttgart, 1978), chap. XV, p. 63. 24. G. Vito, ‘Scienza Nuova’, in Opere, ed. F. Nicolini (Milan, 1953), #131f. 25. Hirschman, Passions, p. 19. 26. Ibid., p. 25. 27. Ibid., p. 43. 28. B. Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees (London, 1705). 29. F. Raab, The Enghsh Face of Machiavelli; A Changing Interpretation 1500-1700

(London, 1964) pp. 236f. 30. Here we can find the modern contractual way of thinking being expressed. This sees

the state coming into existence on the basis of human agreement. 31. K. Kluxen, Die Geschichte Englands (Stuttgart, 1968), p. 326. 32. For the Neo-Harringtons, the danger to freedom and property was no longer the

threat of a feudal oligarchy and the existence of a revolutionary, radicalised army of people. They saw it as lying much more in the executive power of the king, that is to say in the developing centralised state, with its bureacracy and standing army. Unlike their spiritual mentor, Harrington, who turned against the past, their argument was directed against the present and the possible future.

33. In so doing the position of the king is acknowledged simply as an empirical fact: the argumentation is surprisingly very similar to the empiricism of a Bacon or a Hume which is at the same time the ideology of the RoyalSociety. Boyle’s famous lectures on the propagation of Newtonian ideas came under this influence; cf. M.C. Jacob, The Newtonians and the EngIish Revolution 1689-1720 (New York, 1976).

34. I. Kramnick, Bolingbroke and his Circle, The Politics of Nostalgia in the Age of Walpole (Cambridge, Mass., 1968).

35. Pocock, Machiavellian p. 504; Hirschman. Passions, p. 40. 36. This stemmed from the rich, former feudal masters, and the nouveau riche of the

financial world. 37. This aspect helps us to understand the Marxist concept of emancipation. In an early

work he writes: ‘Erst wenn der wirkliche individuelle Mensch den abstrakten Staatsbtirger in sich zurticknimmt und als individueller Mensch in seinem empirischen Leben, in seiner individuellen Arbeit, in seinen individuellen Verhaltnissen, Gattungswesen geworden ist, erst wenn der Mensch seine “forces propres” als geseflschaftliche Krlfte erkannt und organisiert hat und daher die gesellschaftliche Kraft nicht mehr in der Gestalt derpolitischen Kraft von sich trennt, erst dann ist die menschliche Emanzipation vollbracht.’ K. Marx and F. Engels Werke MEW, Berlin, 1983, Vol. 1, p. 370.

38. The Craftsman, No. 27, 21, 21, 46, in Kramnick, Bolingbroke, p. 73. 39. Sir John Barnard, Member of Parliament for the City of London and representative

of merchants and artisans, draws Bolingbroke’s attention to the fact that, in England, two nations were created by Walpole’s financial policies; it ‘divided the nation into two estates of people; the creditors are the one and the debtors the others. The creditors are the three great corporations and others, made up of natives and foreigners, the debtors are the land holders, the merchants, the shopkeepers, and all ranks and degrees of man throughout the Kingdom’: J. Barnard, ‘Reasons for the Representatives of the people of Great Britain to take advantage of the present rate of interest for the more speedily lessening of the National Debt’ (London, 1737), p. 3, in Kramnick, Bolingbroke, p. 51.

40. Kramnick, Bolingbroke, p. 73. 41. D. Defoe, Juro Divino, Bk IV, (London, 1706) in Kramnick, Bolingbroke, p. 190.

The Genesis of Social Sciences 141

42. D. Defoe, An Essay Upon the Public Credit (London 1710), in Kramnick, Bolingbroke, p. 40.

43. Cf. Kramnick, Bolingbroke, p. 196. 44. J. Swift, The Examiner (1711), in Kramnick, Bolingbroke, p. 65. 45. A. Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (WN),

Glasgow ed. (Oxford, 1976), I.xi. p. 9, WN 10. 46. Cf. R. Sennet, Verfall und Ende des offentlichen Lebens, Die Tyrannei der Intimitat

(Frankfurt/Main, 1983). 47. Cf. This played a more significant role in the Scottish legal tradition and in mainland

Europe than was the case in England where the common law was the decisive factor. J.G.A. Pocock, CambridgeparadigmsandScotchphiIosophers, a study of the relations between the civic humanist and the civil jurisprudentid of eighteenth-century social thought’, in Wealth and Virtue, The Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish

Enlightenment eds I. Hont and M. Ignatieff (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 246ff. D. Lieberman, ‘The legal needs of commercial society’, the jurisprudence of Lord Kames, Wealth and Virtue, ed. Hont and Ignatieff, pp. 203ff.

48. Pocock, ‘Cambridge paradigms’, p. 248. R. Tuck, Natural Rights Theories, Their Origin and Development, (Cambridge, 1977) pp. 14lf.

49. D.F. Bond, ed. Spectator, 5, ~01s. (reprint, Oxford, 1965). 50. W. Phillipson, ‘Adam Smith as a civic moralist’, in Wealth and Virtue, eds Hont and

Ignatieff, p. 189. 5 1. These clubs became increasingly important in Scotland after the union with England

(1707) after which Scotland lost its independent form of government. As a result, the clubs functioned as the locus of intellectual life and discourse. Scotland’s independence was manifested in social relations and not political structures. These were characterised by a discourse based on economic theory and morality. The economic backwardness of the country was supposed to be offset by unrestricted access to the English market, cf. T. Hont, ‘The “rich country-poor country” in Scottish classical political economy’, in Wealth and Virtue, eds Hont and Ignatieff, pp. 271ff. In a civilised society it ought to be possible to achieve the virtuousness of a patriot without the support of a constitution, cf. Phillipson, ‘Adam Smith’, Cf. p. 201.

52. Cf. R. Porter and M. Teich, eds. fie Enlightenment in National Context (Cambridge, 1981).

53. Cf. p. 7 (Machiavelli); in his ‘Tractatus politicus’ Baruch Spinoza also criticises the philosophers who ‘do not present Man as he is, rather as how they would like him to be’. This postulate of a scientific, positive method is then later applied to the ‘nature of Man’.

54. ‘The individual laws would have been set up by people because they needed them, they would be different according to customs and would have changed frequently in the course of time. There would be no natural law because like the other living creatures Man would only have the desire for things which were of use to him. There would therefore, be no justice because in taking the benefits to others into consideration one would only damage one’s self. Grotius, ‘De iure belli ac pacis’, in Brandt, Eigentumstheorien, p. 32.

55. R. Cumberland, A Treatise of the Law of Nature (London, 1727), p. 191. 56. F. Hutcheson, A Short Introduction toMoraIPhiIosophy(Hildesheim, 1969; Facsimile

Editions Glasgow, 1747), Vol. 4, p. 72. 57. S. Pufendorf, ‘De jure naturae et gentium’, 11/3/15 in P. Stein, Legal Evolution, The

Story of an Idea (Cambridge, 1980), p. 5. 58. They had first of all conceived of ius as a potentiality, as an ability. Thus, all forms of

life were accorded a type of right. In this context, they developed the notion that

142 Leonard Bauer and Herbert Matis

freedom (libertas) is a law (ius). This was something alien to the lawyers of the early Middle Ages as we11 as to the Roman lawyers: the Romans placed freedom (Iiberras) against right (ius) by stressing the non-moral character of iibertas: freedom is the possibility to do what one wants so long as one is not prevented from doing it by force or right (ius). By postulating that ius is a facultas, it was possible to regard these former opposites, ius and libertas, as being one, whereby dominum was more or less subsumed beneath ius. This tended to be the case in the approach of the lawyers of the early and high Middle Ages but nevertheless always gave rise to the most difficult investigations and analyses. Both in Ancient Rome and the Renaissance, dominum could not be brought into harmony with jus:dom~num is not formed by agreement, it is

a reality. It arises from the sober and unmistakeable rule of the master of the house over the house (his world): land, slaves, money. Such total and independent possession and mastery no longer seems appropriate to the later stages of the empire. The emperor has relations to his subjects and expects to intervene in communal (social) life as well as in their economicactivity. Thusdominium becomesanother type of ius, a variety of it. It is quite easy to understand why lawyers in a time of increasingly strong assertion of imperial power regard all the things we address as the right of property as a ius. Nothing now stands in the way of interpreting property as a relationship between an emperor and his subjects, cf. Tuck, NaturalRights, pp. IOff.

59. Tuck, Natural Rights, p. 157. 60. K. Haakonsen, The Science of a Legtslator, The Natural Jurisprudence of David

Hume and Adam Smith (Cambridge, 1981), p. 21. 61, Brandt, Eigen~umstheorjen, pp. 21ff. 62. These limits to acquisition stand in the way of an explanation of a commercialsociety

which is why Locke’s argumentation restricts itself to dealing with the natural state. Introducing money removes the limiting factor of ruin and the restriction which occurs when the property rights and others are taken into consideration is applied to the natural state: from this it follows that the givendistribution ofproperty in the cultural state must be accepted. The third factor limiting aqujsition, one’s own labour, becomes irrelevant because of the fact that Man owns himself and can thereby externalise his labour(by submission within the framework of the ‘house’ or by selling

it). 63. Cf. J.O. Appleby, Economic llought and Ideology in Seventeenth-Century England

(Princeton, 1980), p. 98. 64. J. Locke, ober die~egjerung(The Second Treatise of Government) (Leck/Schleswig,

1966), p. 32 (5 35). 65. An exception is J.J. Rousseau for whom this is a result of the process of civilisation. 66. Brandt, pp. 23ff. 67. Ibid., pp. 25ff. Kant’s doctrine of right, on the other hand, falls back on the

naturalistic components of seventeenth-century theories and is diametrically opposed to this approach. He attempts to develop a theory which can be justified a priori and which does not have recourse to Man’s own empirical world. The Iaws of behaviour cannot, however, be extrapolated from this putative environment, rather they have their foundation in the apriori knowledge of both theoretical and practical reason. This has as its consequence the possibility of, and necessity for, the foundation of concepts of right (Hume), cf. Brandt, Eigentumstheorien p. 27.

68 ‘Causuistics’ is described as the explanation of the appiication of ethical-religious norms to individual cases.

69 A. Fletcher, amongst others, attacks this view: Discours of Government (1698). He even wanted a return to the traditions of antiquity and the construction of public buildings etc.

70. B. Laum, Schenkende Wirtschafi, Nichtmarktmal3iger Gtiterverkehr und seine

The Genesis of Social Sciences 143

soziale Funktion (Frankfurt, 1960). 71. E.P. Thompson, Plebejische Kuitur und Moralische d’konomie, Aufsatze zur

englischen Sozialgeschichte des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt, 1980). 72. The problem of interpreting Adam Smith usually arises because his individual works

cannot be regarded as constituting a unity rather they contrast with each other. His contemporaries, however, were very much aware that there is a connection between them and what was the general intention of Smith, who had sixteen volumes of collected works destroyed shortly before he died.

73. According to D. Winch, ‘Das Aujkommen der Volkswirtschaftslehre ais Wissenschaft’ in Cipolla and Borchardt, eds, Europaische Wirtschaftsgeschichte (Stuttgart, 1958), Vol. 3, pp. 344ff., it is a summary of partial knowledge which was already available, concerning social facts in a system of interrelated principles. The foundation of human co-existence should be methodically ordered and linked together by a few fundamental principles, as is the case with natural phenomena.

74. W.R. Scott, Adam Smith as Student and Professor (Glasgow, 1937), pp. 55ff. H. Medick, Naturzustand und Naturgeschichte der biirgerlichen Gesellschaft (Giittingen, 1981), pp. 151ff.

75. H.D. Kittsteiner, ‘Ethik und Teleologie: Das Problem der unsichtbaren Hand bei Smith’, in Markt und Staat bei Adam Smith ed. F.X. Kaufmann and H.G. Krtisselberg (Frankfurt, 1984), p. 50.

76. D. Winch, Adam Smith alspolitischer Theoretiker, inMarkt undStaat, Kaufmann and Krtisselberg, pp. 95ff.; Stein, LegalEconomy, pp. 17ff., cf. R.L. Meek, SocialScience and the Ignoble Savage (Cambridge, 1976).

77. Medick, Naturzustand, p. 180. 78. Lord Kames, John Millar, Adam Ferguson, Dugald Stewart, William Robertson,

David Hume, Adam Smith. 79. A. Smith, The Theory of MoraZSentiments(TMS), Glasgow edn (Oxford, 1976), p. 36,

TMS, I.ii,3.4. 80. TMS, III, 5.9. 8 1. Smith is bound to ordered thinking(Foucault) and the notion of theprinciple ofdesign

(Shaftesbury, Butler, Cumberland). This does not only refer to that thinking which establishes order by means of imagination, rather it also refers to real phenomena.

82. What is of importance in this context is that Man is no longer conceived of as a zoon pohtikon, the necessary condition of which being the archaic structure of the oikos. He

is an individual being, conceived of through his economic action. Smith’s connection with the old conceptual world can be seen when he speaks of the propensity to exchange being rooted in the drive to impress one’s fellow Man.

83. Kittsteiner, p. 67. 84. TMS, IV.1.8. 83. Kittsteiner, Ethik, p. 67. 84. TMS, IV.1.8. 85. TMS, IV, 1.10. 86. TMS, II.ii.3.1. 87. Cf. A. Burgin, ‘Merkantilismus: Eine neue Lehre von der Wirtschaft und der Anfang

der politischen okonomie’, in Studien zur Entwicklung ijkonomischer Theorie, ed. H.C. Binswanger et al., Schriften des Vereins fur Sozialpolitik, Neue Folge Bd. 115/11 (Berlin, 1982), pp. 19ff.