Adam Smith: So what if the sovereign shares in ignorance?
| DOI | 10.1177/1755088217705893 |
| Date | 01 February 2018 |
| Published date | 01 February 2018 |
| Author | Lev Marder |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1755088217705893
Journal of International Political Theory
2018, Vol. 14(1) 20 –40
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1755088217705893
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Adam Smith: So what if
the sovereign shares in
ignorance?
Lev Marder
Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada
Abstract
Unfortunately, Adam Smith’s undeserved legacy as a proponent of laissez-faire and
liberal institutions at the international scope inhibits profiting from his refined analysis
of international affairs. I argue that the Wealth of Nations’ chapter on colonies contains
Smith’s discussion of the sovereign’s adaptation to ignorance in global politics. I examine
the sense in which the sovereign is ignorant according to Smith and how sovereigns adapt
to ignorance with varying success. His comparative analysis suggests that reduction of
one’s share in ignorance is not always desirable, and a priori rejection of ignorance is
impractical because it deprives of a potentially advantageous resource. A careful reading
of his work enables learning from his approach to global politics, without filtering it
through his ideas on the free market.
Keywords
Adam Smith, ignorance, information overload, institutions, sovereign
Introduction
In a certain passage in chapter IX of Book IV of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (WN),
Michel Foucault (2008: 281) along with many other scholars (Alt and Chrystal, 1983:
15; Brown, 2002: 140; Buchanan, 1991: 19; Courtemanche, 2005: 73; Endres, 2002;
Fleischacker, 2009: 99; Roth, 2007: 55; Ver Eecke, 1999) recognize Smith’s announce-
ment that the sovereign, in the ordinary sense of a sovereign actor, must be ignorant. Part
of the passage they reference reads, “the Sovereign is completely discharged from a duty
… for the proper performance of which no human wisdom or knowledge could ever be
sufficient” (IV.ix. 51).1 This supposed announcement of ignorance garners plenty of
interest in economics (cf. Buchanan, 1991; Minowitz, 2004; Ver Eecke, 1999). The
Corresponding author:
Lev Marder, Wilfrid Laurier University, 54 Bond Street, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, N2H 4S5.
Email: lmarder@uci.edu
705893IPT0010.1177/1755088217705893Journal of International Political TheoryMarder
research-article2017
Article
Marder 21
widely accepted interpretation that this is the announcement of the market’s wisdom sup-
ports various belief systems in domestic and international politics. On the domestic front,
for instance, it bolsters the advocacy of laissez-faire or governmental non-intervention in
the market. Similarly, at the international level, it serves free-trade advocacy among
other purposes. However, what if the sovereign’s ignorance does not necessarily mean
that the market knows best?
In this article, I closely attend to Smith’s announcement—the sense in which the sov-
ereign is ignorant according to Smith, what the metaphorical announcement references
historically, and how sovereigns adapt to ignorance with varying success to achieve their
objectives. The examination serves two main purposes. First, it corrects the reductive
reading of Smith’s announcement that turns a statement about ignorance into one about
the market’s wisdom or a dictum that the sovereign must cease meddling in economic
affairs. Second, the realization that for Smith the sovereign must be ignorant furnishes
better understanding of his approach to global strategies, colonial projects, and his place
in International Relations (IR) scholarship.
Until the last few decades, Smith enjoyed a reputation in the study of global politics as
the godfather of liberal internationalism—the promotion beyond national borders of lib-
eral values such as cooperation and economic decision-making based on forces of supply
and demand (cf. Doyle and Recchia, 2011; Sally, 2002). He was seen as a proponent of the
idea that market mechanisms are better suited than governmental decisions for correcting
economic inequality and reducing conflict (cf. Doyle, 1997). He was best known for his
criticism of the devastating monopolies of intercontinental merchant companies. Recent
close analysis of his work challenges or at least complicates this legacy (Wyatt-Walter,
1996: 4; cf. Hall and Hobson, 2010; Milgate and Stimson, 2011; Muthu, 2008; Van de
Haar, 2009; Williams, 2014). My inquiry is aligned with this general current of scholar-
ship, which insists on appreciating the nuances of Smith’s thought on global politics,
rather than depicting him as a staunch advocate of a few influential economic ideas.
Smith did not open his analysis with principles such as “free-trade leads to peace” in
order to confirm his beliefs.2 He worked through careful comparative analysis encourag-
ing dogma-eschewing pragmatic thought. The political theory approach I offer exposes
Smith’s concern for the rich wide territory between the announcement of the sovereign’s
ignorance and the exaltation of the market’s wisdom. I begin to chart this wide territory
by focusing on the announcement of the sovereign’s ignorance, its meaning, and implica-
tions based on Smith’s analysis, instead of taking as the cornerstone of economic and
political thought the assumption that the market knows best.
In the first section of the article, I try to clear away some of the secondary literature
debris that weighs down on Smith’s announcement. I locate Smith’s proclamation of the
sovereign’s ignorance and against overly broad readings side with scholars who reserv-
edly interpret it by focusing on ignorance without turning it into a statement about the
truth of the market. In the second section, I show that for Smith the historical reference
of the metaphorical announcement in global politics is the sovereign’s distance-induced
ignorance in the context of European imperialism. My interpretation of his comparative
analysis of the imperial projects in North America in the article’s third section suggests
that his text grapples with how the British adapt to ignorance better than others by accept-
ing ignorance and the consequences of succeeding or failing at adapting to ignorance.
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