Speaking of Smith Archives

Read With Me: Friedrich Engels' The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State - Part 2

Erik Rostad for AdamSmithWorks


This also points to a key difference between men like Friedrich Engels and Adam Smith. Engels took humankind as he wished them to be (without jealousy) in order for his proposed worldview to work. Adam Smith, in his Wealth of Nations, takes men as they are. In the famous “benevolence of the butcher” quote, Smith acknowledged that humankind acts in their own self-interest. Capitalism harnesses this self-interest instead of punishing it. Engels seeks to punish those acting out of self-interest.

What Adam Smith Ate: In Which We Finally Discuss Herring

Renee Wilmeth for AdamSmithWorks

Adam Smith, whose father was a customs agent, had practically grown up on the wharf in Kirkaldy, Scotland, By the 1770s, he could see first-hand the how hard it was for small Scottish fisherman to stay afloat.  They were left out of the subsidies and their costs were high. Salt—required for curing and packing herring—was expensive due to its own duties and barrels had doubled in cost due to the American war. To add insult to injury, large fishing companies taking advantage of the tonnage bounties were fishing off the Scottish coasts chasing herring into “sea lochs” previously fished by locals. The price of herring was driven too high for locals, used to a plentiful and varied diet, to afford. 

Read With Me: Friedrich Engels' The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State - Part 1

Erik Rostad for AdamSmithWorks

Friedrich Engels makes an abrupt shift with the following statement: “The modern individual family is founded on the open or concealed domestic slavery of the wife, and modern society is a mass composed of these individual families as its molecules.”In the pages that follow, Engels calls for a social revolution as well as the abolishment of monogamy, private property, and the state. It’s a startling shift in the book. Engels’ thesis is that monogamy and its enforcement mechanism, the state, have created irreconcilable class differences that must be eliminated. His ultimate goal is a return to the communistic life and group marriage, which he believes will result in equality between the sexes.

When Can Superiors Act Superior?

Jon Murphy for AdamSmithWorks

Smith sees the need for such a dual-world given there are times when beneficence may need to be forced to “promot[e] the prosperity of the commonwealth, establish good discipline, and…discourage[e] every sort of vice and impropriety” (pg. 81).  Things like requiring parents to care for their children, children to care for elderly parents, or building party walls to avoid spreading fire (TMS 81, WN 324) should be compelled through force.