Jason S. Canon

@uncanonical.net

939 Followers 587 Following

Peripatetic American in Cambridge. PhD research on empathy, democracy, and liberation. Experientia supra decreta.

mid wit meme promoting moral sentiments
In my view Smith is the first major social theorist to see the modern state in full. Book V of WN shows a deep understanding, in a way that Locke or even Montesquieu does not, of the political forms then coming into being. That understanding includes a realistic vision of particular political actors— judges, kings, priests, parliamentarians— as well as of organizations like armies, churches, parties, and bureaucracies. The political lessons he draws from that understanding are never simple ones. The vision of a free society he offers might seem like one characterized by inaction: don’t interfere with trade, don’t interfere with religion. But inaction, on his account, will never get us there. Executive domination, corruption of justice, the fusion of military and political power, imperialism and mercantilism motivated by nationalist pride, and religious state persecution of dissidents and nonbelievers: these are what he shows to be the normal course of things. Governments that are “oppressive and tyrannical” are the rule, and he maps out the challenges of finding our way to the occasional exception.