Liberty: Adam Smith and Alexis de Tocqueville
Both Adam Smith and Alexis de Tocqueville agree that an individual is the most qualified to make decisions affecting the sphere of the individual as long as those decisions do not violate the law of justice.
>From this starting point, each theorist proposes a role of government and comments on human nature and civil society. Smith focuses on economic liberty and the ways in which government can repress this liberty, to the detriment of society. De Tocqueville emphasizes political liberty and the way that government can be organized to promote political liberty, protect individual liberty, and promote civil liberty. Adam Smith's theory makes a strong argument for the assertion that a free market will provide overall good for society, but, as de
Tocqueville points out, it provides little or no protection for the poor. Smith's picture of human nature given in The Theory of Moral
Sentiments suggests that people would do good and take care of the weak because of characteristics of their nature. Unfortunately, this image contrasts with the picture of the individual which emerges from his economic argument in Wealth of Nations and is a generally unsatisfying answer. In attempting to define liberty, Adam Smith is mostly concerned with negative liberty, or freedom from constraint, especially market constraints. According to him, in a free market, as long as they are not fettered by government regulation, actions are guided toward the public good as if by an invisible hand. Furthermore, the economic sphere is the determining section of society. Therefore from his economic model, he derives his argument for the best role of government and asserts that the resultant society will be the best overall for civilization. Since he defines the individual as sovereign (within the laws of justice), and he defines liberty as freedom from constraint, his argument begins with the individual, defining a man's labor as the foundation of all other property.
>From this starting point, each theorist proposes a role of government and comments on human nature and civil society. Smith focuses on economic liberty and the ways in which government can repress this liberty, to the detriment of society. De Tocqueville emphasizes political liberty and the way that government can be organized to promote political liberty, protect individual liberty, and promote civil liberty. Adam Smith's theory makes a strong argument for the assertion that a free market will provide overall good for society, but, as de
Tocqueville points out, it provides little or no protection for the poor. Smith's picture of human nature given in The Theory of Moral
Sentiments suggests that people would do good and take care of the weak because of characteristics of their nature. Unfortunately, this image contrasts with the picture of the individual which emerges from his economic argument in Wealth of Nations and is a generally unsatisfying answer. In attempting to define liberty, Adam Smith is mostly concerned with negative liberty, or freedom from constraint, especially market constraints. According to him, in a free market, as long as they are not fettered by government regulation, actions are guided toward the public good as if by an invisible hand. Furthermore, the economic sphere is the determining section of society. Therefore from his economic model, he derives his argument for the best role of government and asserts that the resultant society will be the best overall for civilization. Since he defines the individual as sovereign (within the laws of justice), and he defines liberty as freedom from constraint, his argument begins with the individual, defining a man's labor as the foundation of all other property.