On Wed, 18 Aug 2010, Doug Henwood wrote:
>> But the first irony is that Smith is doing it in this chapter in favor
>> of the land-owning class.
>
> Up to a point:
>
>> When the public deliberates concerning any regulation of commerce or
>> police, the proprietors of land never can mislead it, with a view to
>> promote the interest of their own particular order; at least, if they
>> have any tolerable knowledge of that interest. They are, indeed, too
>> often defective in this tolerable knowledge. They are the only one of
>> the three orders whose revenue costs them neither labour nor care, but
>> comes to them, as it were, of its own accord, and independent of any
>> plan or project of their own. That indolence, which is the natural
>> effect of the ease and security of their situation, renders them too
>> often, not only ignorant, but incapable of that application of mind
>> which is necessary in order to foresee and understand the consequences
>> of any public regulation.
Yep. It's only the active and "improving" landlords who are the natural governors. But Smith can easily argue that they will probably dominate the type described above in government debate.
I tell you, every time someone cites another passage it brings out for me just how wonderful a writer Smith was. He was one of the greatest non-fiction stylists the English language has ever produced. It's a mountain of a book on the driest of topics and yet almost every paragraph is a physical pleasure to read.
Michael