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{"id":18849,"date":"2017-05-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-05-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=572"},"modified":"2017-05-05T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-05-05T00:00:00","slug":"inequality-and-inequality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2017\/05\/inequality-and-inequality\/","title":{"rendered":"Inequality and Inequality"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I<\/span>n Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue<\/a><\/em>, Ryan Patrick\u00a0Hanley explains why Smith considered the \u201cinequality of precommercial societies [to be] infinitely more pernicious than the inequality to be found in commercial society.\u201d\u00a0He does this by demonstrating \u201chow the conditions that afford the powerful with maximal opportunities to gratify their selfishness are at once the conditions that afford the weak with maximal freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Feudal, pre-commercial societies offer \u201cminimal opportunities for indulgence,\u201d and so \u201cit is impossible for even the most selfish and unjust man \u2018to lay out his whole fortune on himself; the only way he had to dispose of it was to give it out to others.\u2019 But such gifts came with strings attached, as they had the devastating consequence of having \u2018rendered the whole of these people dependent on him,\u2019 which gave the lords \u2018vast authority\u2019 and enabled them to \u2018attain such influence\u2019 over their dependents as to \u2018make them in a manner their slaves.\u2019\u201d In this setting \u201crent came to signify not the value of land but the \u2018acknowledgment of their dependence\u2019 . . . . Rent itself, largely paid in food, was then consumed by the rent-payers, leading to a dependence on the landowner \u2018for maintenance and every thing they enjoyed,\u2019 with the natural effect of leading to the system of vassalage in war.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pre-commercial inequality was the inequality between benefactor and dependent client. That \u201cuncivilized\u201d inequality was dehumanizing to dependents.<\/p>\n

Modern men are as selfish as they ever were, but commercial institutions turn selfishness and inequality to the advantage of the whole: \u201cwhile selfishness may be constant, by bringing more opportunities for the gratification of such selfishness, commercial society renders selfishness advantageous. Smith\u2019s claim is that, in commercial society, \u2018the arts which are now cultivated give him an opportunity of expending his whole stock on himself,\u2019 in turn stimulating the many tradesmen dedicated to the gratification of such desires\u2014tradesmen he calls the \u2018ministers of luxury.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Precisely because of the rich man\u2019s fascination with \u201ctrinkets and baubles,\u201d and new technologies that broke down \u201cbounds to his vanity or to his affection for his own person,\u201d he facilitates a \u201crevolution of the greatest importance to the public happiness.\u201d Commercial society is more equitable, and the inequalities that inevitably continue to exist are inequalities among free men, rather than the inequities of master and slave.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"