histofthought1

The celebrated Adam Smith 471the wealthy could far more afford to pay for private provision of theseservices, and therefore the rich benefit less than the middle class or certainlythan the poor from such expenditures.Neither would it save the theory to say that since A, for example, makesfive times as much money as B, that A therefore benefits five times as muchfrom 'society' and therefore should pay five times the taxes. The fact that Amakes five times as much as B shows that A's services are individually worthfive times as much as B to his fellows on the market. Therefore, since A and Bin truth benefit similarly from the existence of society, the reverse argumentwould be far more plausible: that the differential between A's and B's incomesis due to A's superior productivity, and that 'society', if indeed it canbe held to be responsible for anything specific at all, can be held responsiblefor their equal core incomes, below that differential. The implication of thatpoint would be that both persons, and therefore all persons, should pay anequal tax, that is, a tax equal in absolute numbers.Finally, whatever society's claim to part of people's incomes may be,society - the division of labour, the body of knowledge and culture, etc. - isin no sense the state. The state contributes no division of labour to theproduction process, and does not transmit knowledge or carry civilizationforward. Therefore, whatever each of us may owe to 'society', the state canhardly claim, any more than any other group in society, to be surrogate for allsocial relations in the country.16.10 NotesI. Das AdamSmithProblem referred to only one of the numerous contradictions and puzzlesin the Adam Smith saga: the big gap between the natural rights-laissez~faire views of hisTheory (~t Moral Sentiments, and the much more qualified views of his later and decisivelyinfluential Wealth (~tNations.2. In an illuminating article on 'Adam Smith's Acknowledgements', Professor Salim Rashidwrites: 'It is stated by Schumpeter that this [not acknowledging one's sources] was thepractice of the age. This is incorrect. Ifwe turn to some of the works quoted in the Wealth(~fNations, such as Charles Smith's Tracts on the Com-Trade or John Smith's Memoirs onWool, we shall find them scrupulous in acknowledging their intellectual debts. AmongSmith's contemporaries, Gibbon is well-known for the care with which he providedreferences and the same is true of the best-known agricultural writer of Smith's day,Arthur Young'. Salim Rashid. 'Adam Smith's Acknowledgements: Neo-Plagiarism andthe Wealth of Nations', Journal ofLibertarian Studies, 9 (Autumn 1990), p. 11.3. The first and most consistent piece of modern Smith revisionism came a year earlier intwo excellent and illuminating articles by Emil Kauder: 'Genesis of the Marginal UtilityTheory: From Aristotle to the End ofthe Eighteenth Century', in J. Spengler and W. Allen(eds), Essays in Economic Thought (Chicago: Rand McNally and Co., 1960), pp. 277-87;and 'The Retarded Acceptance of the Marginal Utility Theory', Quarterly Journal (~fEconomics (Nov. 1953), pp. 564-75. But Schumpeter's revision was far more influential.4. Unfortunately, since the mid-1970s celebration of Smith's bicentennial, a counter-revisionisttrend has set in to try to restore the hagiographical attitude dominant before the1950s. See our bibliographical essay below.5. For a new view of Smith's tenure at the customs house based on original investigationinto the handwritten minutes of the board of customs commissioners, 1778-90, as well as