There Is Toil and Toil - Understand the Difference
Lindsay Curen writes in Energy Bulletin (HERE): reviewing ‘The Wealth of Nature’,
John Michael Greer
in New Society:
“Adam Smith got it way, way wrong!” “I love the way John Michael Greer's latest book, The Wealth of Nature, opens, with a good skewering of the premise on which the modern pseudo-science of economics depends. Exposing 18th century philosopher Adam Smith's thinking in The Wealth of Nations as flawed, Greer goes on to explain what Smith missed, why it's important, and how we can turn the error in history around.
The ultimate source of value
It's not that Greer dismisses Smith out of hand. A formidable historian, Greer contextualizes Smith in his time and place, and acknowledges his appeal, properly crediting him as the father of modern economic thought.
But if he is the father, Greer says, he spawned a few centuries of lopsided thinking and out-of-balance economic growth by missing one key element in his thesis. As Greer explains
Once again we can begin this exploration with Adam Smith. The Wealth of Nations begins with the following sentence: "The annual labor of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessities and conveniences of life." This same concept, variously phrased, forms one of the least-questioned assumptions in modern economics; even most of those who dispute it offer what are at most slight variations — arguing, for example, that the labor of previous years embodied in capital is also crucial to understanding the economic process. Left unrecognized is the crucial fact that the annual labor of a nation would be utterly useless without the goods and services provided free of charge by Nature, which enable labor to be done at all by making human life possible in the first place and by providing all that labor with something to labor on.
This is no idle or abstract philosophical point by Greer. It's not an "angel dancing on the head of a pin" question whose presuppositions are more formulaic and perfunctory than legitimately critical. The architecture of the argument is grounded in the real world of physical realities which, however much we might wish to eschew them through fiscal abstractions, is the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega, the final analysis of all legitimately viable discussions of the world's true physical wealth. And no where is this more clear than in our energy-based economy.’
Comment
If I understand Greer’s assertion right, it is Greer who gets Smith’s point ‘way, way wrong’. Let’s take that first sentence again:
"The annual labor of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessities and conveniences of life.”
Now, take David Greer’s supposed rebuttal of Smith’s isolated opening sentence:
“Left unrecognized is the crucial fact that the annual labor of a nation would be utterly useless without the goods and services provided free of charge by Nature, which enable labor to be done at all by making human life possible in the first place and by providing all that labor with something to labor on.”
Being kindly by nature, I would suggest this rebuttal is somewhat forgetful of the obvious role of nature in the evolution of all animals, including the hominine primates. All organic entities live off nature. Not all of them toil or toiled in the sense used by economists, including by Adam Smith. True, birds build nests, Ants build hills, beavers build dams, and spiders spin webs, but this toil is for themselves in breeding formation, it’s not for co-entities of the species. There is no special effort on behalf of con-specifics. The ones who do the building, use them. Nor was there building for others for millions of years in the hominine line.
Smith’s point about toil referred specifically to the propensity to ‘truck, barter, and exchange’ (ignore truck and barter for this discussion) associated with exchange, but be clear that the millions of years of ‘exchange’ in societies (not ‘trade’) made the hominine line different from all previous evolutions and humans took that propensity to a unique level once property was invented after leaving the forest.
So back to Smith on toil in Wealth Of Nations. ‘"The annual labor of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessities and conveniences of life."
What is wrong with that? Apples growing on trees do not detach themselves and deliver themselves to consumers a continent away, and neither did they deliver themselves to humans in the next valley. Nor does iron in the ground become forged by itself – even fire had to be discovered and harnessed by human intelligence. All the products of toil from nature were there for millions, even billions, of years, and would still be there unused if the hominine lines had all disappeared together without at least one line evolving into early humans, and still could have perished in a bush fire or flood. As it was, the human line went close to a few thousand, according to the genetic record.
Toil is the foundation of human life, which without exception depends on the bounty of nature and the fruits of labour.
It is not Adam Smith who is flawed on this particular issue (though he may have been, not surprisingly for an 18th-century moral philosopher before 20th-entury science, on other issues). I cannot say the same, being charitable, for John Greer, who does have the advantage of 20th-century science, and therefore has no excuse.
As for Lindsay Greer who claims to “love the way John Michael Greer's latest book, The Wealth of Nature, opens, with a good skewering of the premise on which the modern pseudo-science of economics depends.”
I suggest politely that she reconsider her use of the word ‘skewering’ – it is disrespectful and says much about her knowledge of Adam Smith’s non-pseudo-economics, which if she read more, she might realize that Smith’s political economy was quite different to the modern version of economics that is attributed to him.
“Adam Smith got it way, way wrong!” “I love the way John Michael Greer's latest book, The Wealth of Nature, opens, with a good skewering of the premise on which the modern pseudo-science of economics depends. Exposing 18th century philosopher Adam Smith's thinking in The Wealth of Nations as flawed, Greer goes on to explain what Smith missed, why it's important, and how we can turn the error in history around.
The ultimate source of value
It's not that Greer dismisses Smith out of hand. A formidable historian, Greer contextualizes Smith in his time and place, and acknowledges his appeal, properly crediting him as the father of modern economic thought.
But if he is the father, Greer says, he spawned a few centuries of lopsided thinking and out-of-balance economic growth by missing one key element in his thesis. As Greer explains
Once again we can begin this exploration with Adam Smith. The Wealth of Nations begins with the following sentence: "The annual labor of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessities and conveniences of life." This same concept, variously phrased, forms one of the least-questioned assumptions in modern economics; even most of those who dispute it offer what are at most slight variations — arguing, for example, that the labor of previous years embodied in capital is also crucial to understanding the economic process. Left unrecognized is the crucial fact that the annual labor of a nation would be utterly useless without the goods and services provided free of charge by Nature, which enable labor to be done at all by making human life possible in the first place and by providing all that labor with something to labor on.
This is no idle or abstract philosophical point by Greer. It's not an "angel dancing on the head of a pin" question whose presuppositions are more formulaic and perfunctory than legitimately critical. The architecture of the argument is grounded in the real world of physical realities which, however much we might wish to eschew them through fiscal abstractions, is the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega, the final analysis of all legitimately viable discussions of the world's true physical wealth. And no where is this more clear than in our energy-based economy.’
Comment
If I understand Greer’s assertion right, it is Greer who gets Smith’s point ‘way, way wrong’. Let’s take that first sentence again:
"The annual labor of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessities and conveniences of life.”
Now, take David Greer’s supposed rebuttal of Smith’s isolated opening sentence:
“Left unrecognized is the crucial fact that the annual labor of a nation would be utterly useless without the goods and services provided free of charge by Nature, which enable labor to be done at all by making human life possible in the first place and by providing all that labor with something to labor on.”
Being kindly by nature, I would suggest this rebuttal is somewhat forgetful of the obvious role of nature in the evolution of all animals, including the hominine primates. All organic entities live off nature. Not all of them toil or toiled in the sense used by economists, including by Adam Smith. True, birds build nests, Ants build hills, beavers build dams, and spiders spin webs, but this toil is for themselves in breeding formation, it’s not for co-entities of the species. There is no special effort on behalf of con-specifics. The ones who do the building, use them. Nor was there building for others for millions of years in the hominine line.
Smith’s point about toil referred specifically to the propensity to ‘truck, barter, and exchange’ (ignore truck and barter for this discussion) associated with exchange, but be clear that the millions of years of ‘exchange’ in societies (not ‘trade’) made the hominine line different from all previous evolutions and humans took that propensity to a unique level once property was invented after leaving the forest.
So back to Smith on toil in Wealth Of Nations. ‘"The annual labor of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessities and conveniences of life."
What is wrong with that? Apples growing on trees do not detach themselves and deliver themselves to consumers a continent away, and neither did they deliver themselves to humans in the next valley. Nor does iron in the ground become forged by itself – even fire had to be discovered and harnessed by human intelligence. All the products of toil from nature were there for millions, even billions, of years, and would still be there unused if the hominine lines had all disappeared together without at least one line evolving into early humans, and still could have perished in a bush fire or flood. As it was, the human line went close to a few thousand, according to the genetic record.
Toil is the foundation of human life, which without exception depends on the bounty of nature and the fruits of labour.
It is not Adam Smith who is flawed on this particular issue (though he may have been, not surprisingly for an 18th-century moral philosopher before 20th-entury science, on other issues). I cannot say the same, being charitable, for John Greer, who does have the advantage of 20th-century science, and therefore has no excuse.
As for Lindsay Greer who claims to “love the way John Michael Greer's latest book, The Wealth of Nature, opens, with a good skewering of the premise on which the modern pseudo-science of economics depends.”
I suggest politely that she reconsider her use of the word ‘skewering’ – it is disrespectful and says much about her knowledge of Adam Smith’s non-pseudo-economics, which if she read more, she might realize that Smith’s political economy was quite different to the modern version of economics that is attributed to him.
Labels: Adam Smith no ideologue
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