Читать книгу The Doctrine of Laissez Faire - Стивен Ликок - Страница 5

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It has been shown in the preceding chapters that it is incorrect to accept the maxim laissez faire as representing the sum and substance of the Physiocratic doctrine. Still less is it possible to consider it as adequately expressing the position taken by Adam Smith.

Adam Smith never used the term laissez faire. Distrustful as he was both by temperament and by nationality of the efficacy of governmental management, it yet never occurred to him to lay down protection,—the ‘production of security,’—as the sole function of the state. Profoundly observant of economic phenomena, Smith added to his constitutional cautiousness a marked tendency to empiricism. He had no love for universal propositions. Even his free trade doctrine is qualified, as will be seen later, by one or two salient exceptions.

In despite of this, however, the fact remains that Smith’s teaching is strongly individualistic. The basis of his system, his assumption of a natural order of things, is essentially an individualist doctrine. It is in this that he connects directly with the Physiocrats. He, like they, assumes that there is in economic life a natural standard to which positive institutions must, or ought to, conform. With him as with them, this forms the true basis of the system. Yet Smith himself seems unaware of this coincidence of opinion between himself and the French School. In his critique of their system in which he praises their idea of liberty of commerce and destroys their dogma of the sterility of manufactures and trade,^[4] he has nothing to say about their assumption of natural law in the economic field. Very probably he found this natural law so very ‘natural’ that it could not appear to him as a controversial point. He unconsciously took it for granted. Very probably also was his declaration that the Physiocratic system is ‘the nearest approximation to truth that has yet been published upon the subject of political economy,’ is partly founded on his unconscious endorsement of their assumption of a natural order.

It is not, however, only in this fundamental basis of his teaching that Smith is an individualist. He is so also in the details of his economic discussion by reason, as already hinted, of the natural bent of his mind. Sprung of a race whose leading characteristic is sturdy self dependence and having nothing to thank but his own exertions for his success in life, it might be expected that he would be a firm believer in the principle of self-help and would show a corresponding distrust of external aid. Hence it is characteristic with him to speak doubtfully of the efficiency of government enterprise. He shews a north country canniness in looking askance at those who draw government pay. Witness, for example, his remarks in Book V on the renting of Crown lands: ‘The revenue which, in any civilized monarchy the Crown derives from crown lands though it appears to cost nothing to individuals, in reality costs more to the society than perhaps any other equal revenue which the Crown enjoys ... The crown lands of Great Britain do not at present afford a fourth part of the rent which could probably be drawn from them if they were the property of private persons.’^[5] A vein of even stronger distrust appears in the same Book (Chapter I, Art. II) in Smith’s remarks on higher education. Here he adopts the somewhat naïve view that any teacher employed on a fixed salary will of necessity be slothful and inefficient in his work: the more so if he is employed by some public institution. ‘In every profession,’ says Smith ‘the exertion of the greater part of those who exercise it, is always in proportion to the necessity they are under of making that exertion ... The endowments of schools and colleges have necessarily diminished more or less the necessity of application in the teachers ... The teacher’s interest is set as directly in opposition to his duty as it is possible to get it ...’ A little later in the same chapter he observes that ‘those parts of education for the teaching of which there are no public institutions are generally the best taught.’

It is important, however, to appreciate the fact that Smith differs from later individualists of the extreme type in that he does not seek to reduce this prejudice against salaried officials into a hard and fast theory of governmental non-interference. There is a great gulf between this business-like caution and the postulation of a scientific law.

Such is, then, Smith’s general attitude towards Government, a system based on natural liberty and a strong personal bias against the intrusion of government into the sphere of economic contract. So far it would seem to warrant a conception of the state almost corresponding to the German Rechtstaat, a state whose sole business is protection and the enforcement of contract. But if one turns to gather from the details of Smith’s work his practical application of his views, one finds this general idea greatly modified. This may best be done by discussing one by one the functions which Smith in various portions of his work assigns or prohibits to the government.

First may be considered the things which Smith expressly denies to the government. It is in this connection that the best known part of his work comes under discussion, namely his advocacy of free trade. Though this was not the sole aim of Smith in writing his Wealth of Nations it was nevertheless the portion of his work which made the most profound impression upon the economic thought of his day and upon the legislative policy of the succeeding generation. His argument for free trade, resting upon the idea of international division of labor, is too familiar to need recapitulation. From it he deduces the duty of government to abstain from all imposition of protective duties, bounties, and drawbacks. Commerce, if left free, will flourish best. The policy prescribed, freedom of foreign trade and domestic manufacture, coincides with the recommendations of the French School. The attitude towards Commerce and Industry, both of which Smith regards as wealth producing, displays an altered point of view.

Yet even here Smith admits serious qualifications to this general proposition. The most familiar is that in favor of the Navigation Acts.^[6] In this connection (Book IV, Chapter II) he cites the chief provisions of the acts, and while stating that ‘the act^[7] of navigation is not favorable to foreign commerce or to the growth of that opulence which can arise from it,’ he nevertheless defends the legislative policy involved. ‘The defence of Great Britain depends very much upon the number of its sailors and shipping. The Act of Navigation, therefore, very properly endeavors to give the sailors and shipping of Great Britain the monopoly of the trade of their own country, in some cases by absolute prohibitions, in others by heavy burdens upon the shipping of foreign countries.... As defence is of much more importance than opulence, the Act of Navigation is, perhaps, the wisest of all the commercial regulations of England.’

The case of the Navigation Acts is often quoted and is familiar to all. A much less known instance of Smith’s qualification of his free trade doctrine occurs in his lengthy historical discussion of trading companies (Book V, Chapter I). In examining the general question of public charges incurred to facilitate special branches of commerce, he would permit the state to grant a trading company a certain initial support. ‘When a company of merchants undertake at their own risk and expense, to establish a new trade with some remote and barbarous nation, it may not be unreasonable to incorporate them into a joint stock company, and to grant them in case of their success, a monopoly of the trade for a certain number of years. It is the easiest and the most natural way in which the state can recompense them for hazarding a dangerous and expensive experiment, of which the public is afterwards to reap the benefit.’

Smith’s views on the positive functions of government are chiefly to be found in his fifth book. They may be tabulated thus:—

(a)

National defence. He recognizes the protection of the citizen as the first and most essential test of the state (Book V, Chapter I, Part I).

(b)

The maintenance of a system of courts. This also is a function of the protective character. Smith here shews his individualistic bias in that he favors the system of defraying the expenses of justice by special fees. He admits, however, that general appropriations are allowable (Book V, Chapter I, Part II).

(c)

Public works. Under this head Smith sanctions ‘the erecting and maintaining of those public works, which though they may be in the highest degree advantageous to a great society, are, however, of such a nature, that the profit could never repay the expense of any individual or small member of individuals, and which it can therefore cannot be expected that any individual or small number of individuals can erect or maintain.’ (Book V, Chapter I, Part III). Roads, bridges, canals and harbours are specifically mentioned in this category. Here again the author shews his usual individualistic leaning in that he would limit as far as possible the fiscal scope of the general government in connection with these institutions. Though originally constructed by the government, the greater part ‘may easily be so managed as to afford a particular revenue sufficient for defraying their own expense.’ This leads Smith to the discussion of the advisability of the government taking the management of the highways out of the hands of the Turnpike Trusts of his day, in order to draw a revenue from them. His opinions here are admirably illustrative of his general attitude towards government. He objects, in the first place, that the government would raise the rates as often as it needed money and, secondly, that the government might neglect the roads, in which case corrective compulsion would be a difficult matter.

(d)

Public education. In Book V, Chapter I, Part III, Art. 2.3 are found Smith’s views on government support of education. His naïve distrust of the teacher who is not paid on the commercial basis of immediate results has already been commented upon. This leads him to disapprove of higher education by the state. In the matter of public elementary education he is at one with the Physiocrats. His views on this subject are given at some length in the concluding part of Art. §3. ‘For a very small expense,’ he says, ‘the public can facilitate, can encourage and can even impose upon almost the whole body of the people the necessity of acquiring the most essential parts of education.’ He thinks it preferable, however, that the public should only pay a portion of the salaries of the teacher because the latter, ‘if wholly paid by the public, would soon learn to neglect his business.’ Smith’s ideas on the public education of women are, to say the least, unfortunate: ‘There are no public institutions for the education of women, and there is accordingly (sic) nothing useless, absurd or fantastical in the common cause of their education. They are taught what their parents or guardians judge it necessary for them to learn and they are taught nothing else.’ The chapter closes with a notable paragraph on the value to the community of the education and enlightenment of all its members. ‘The state derives no inconsiderable advantage from their instruction. The more they are instructed the less liable are they to the delusions of enthusiasm and superstition.... They are upon that account less apt to be led into any wanton or unnecessary opposition to the measures of government.’

(e)

State regulations of trades and professions. In this same chapter it is suggested that in the interests of public education the state should impose an education test on the entry to all trades. Smith also would sanction the state regulation of professions to the extent of a test examination as entrance qualification.

(f)

State regulation of Banking. In the long chapter dealing with banks (Book II, Chapter II) there are indicated certain departures from unrestricted individual liberty. Smith is in favor of restricting note issue to such large denominations as to prevent the use of notes in current retail business, and also to force redemption in gold and silver. In connection with these restrictions he has a notable passage in illustration of his views on governmental action. ‘To restrain private people, it may be said, from receiving in payment the promissory notes of a banker, for any sum whether great or small, when they themselves are willing to receive them: or to restrain a banker from issuing such notes, when all his neighbours are willing to accept them, is a manifest violation of that natural liberty which it is the proper business of law not to infringe, but to support. Such regulations must be considered, no doubt, as in some respects a violation of natural liberty. But those exertions of the natural liberty of a few individuals which might endanger the security of the whole society are and, ought to be, restrained by the laws of all governments: of the most free, as well as of the most despotical.’

Enough has been perhaps said to shew that this ‘natural liberty’ of Smith proves in its application to be no absolute, universal dogma. His view of government in its relation to economic activity is after all a decidedly qualified one. It is evident from his numerous instances and inductive cases that he would have been inclined to give more consideration to the special circumstances of a particular case than to the validity of a universal law. There is probably, among the numerous extensions of the functions of government since his day, none which might not, under proper circumstances, have received his sanction.