>> and what is more, the conventions of that particular civil society are only truly explicable within a civilizational framework, within the framework of a commercial our capitalist society. in other words, what smith is saying holds together, allows us to understand the principles of human nature is something like a

deep historical process. and what i want to emphasize here is that one is completely lacking from all of this, and what makes this study in itself of a enormous and even revolutionary importance for a historian, is that there is no mention of the necessity of religious belief. smith never denies a lot of people do what they do for religious reasons but he says on every occasion, you can find a natural reason drawn from philosophy and history and experience, which will provide stronger account of principles which otherwise theologians would import, essentially theological principles to understand. religion has been taken out of the moral philosophy curricula in glasgow by adam smith.

it has not happened anywhere else in europe. in northern europe, in north or south. it is a revolutionary moment in history of moral philosophy. and, therefore, a revolutionary moment is the sort of education which was designed to prepare boys from essentially from the middle ranks of society for a life in the professions and public life. and as i say, because i must injure otherwise no one will get a chance to ask questions, i do want to say here that if you want one of the keys to why adam smith matters to a historian whose of the scottish enlightenment, it is that smith plus his friend david, i haven't had time to mention here, do present scottish intellectuals and particularly christian scottish intellectuals with the most enormous challenge of how

you can rebuild a public culture in scotland on the basis of a credible system of natural theology, not the old one that has been pretended. as i say, i do want to say that in talking about this, one of the things i tried to do and would love to do more of, and will do more of in future, is to expose the huge debts that adam smith owed to his closest friend, david. we are accustomed to it knows the importance of david in shaping, partially shaping smith's economic thinking. we know about that. the thinking that comes from end of david's philosophical life in the authorship of the clinical discourse of 1752. y. don't think has been known and appreciated is a huge

importance of smith's revolutionary, revolution and the understanding of principles of human nature, hume skepticism. that is to say, not all his religious skepticism but his philosophical skepticism. and its importance in shaping hume's own agenda for science of man. and really, i am concluding of this moment, so mr. chairman, i do think that what is interesting is to think about smith as a man who in many respects completed and extended that extraordinary project of creating a science of man with which, which disregarded religious principles altogether. and it is not that i've try to remember him in this book. thank you very much. [applause]

>> very good. very interesting. now, if professor phillips and stalk you stimulate a new a desire to buy this book the man, i would like to read this book which is pretty reasonable, this is what the book looks like. this is what you're looking for. if you say to me, are you not engaging in shameless marketing on behalf of this book? my response to you would be, i don't think adam smith would mind. onto our commentator, james otis and is professor of philosophy and economics in new york, and the charles senior fellow at the fund for american studies in washington, d.c.. he received a ba from university of notre dame, m.a. in philosophy from the university of wisconsin milwaukee, and advanced degrees including ph.d from the university of chicago. his has taught me was at georgetown university and the university of alabama. he is the author of adam smith

marketplace of life, and actual ethics by the same publisher in 2006. the latter when the 2007 templeton enterprise awards. he is the editor of the levelers. i know we were against them, but i guess that's probably not right. okay. you can always get straightened out at these things. and he's also the editor of adam smith's writings which appeared in 2004. his book "adam smith" will be published in 2011 and he is currently working on a book and he is very industrious, won't you agree? he is currently working on a book on the roles of adam's socialism. will you please welcome james otteson, please. [applause] >> thank you. it's a pleasure to be here.

as you all will know, adam smith is one of the most beloved and the most hated, the most cited and it probably for that reason the least red figures in the pantheon of the great western writers. his ideas have helped transform political and economic policy throughout much of the world, and his ideas are credited by many for the astonishing and unprecedented growth in wealth and prosperity in the west, yet but they're also blamed by many for the inequalities in wealth that have arisen since smith's time. so we can have today the interesting spectacle on the one hand, a theater mccloskey argued that adam smith's ideas have led to more good for humanity than arguably any single other -- that way i can see better -- any other single person in history of humankind. and on the other hand, we can have a jeffrey sachs who suggested that smithy markets have led to an equity exploitation and environmental

degradation. and all this ,-comcome was but a socially awkward 18th century scottish philosopher who wrote after all, only two books his whole life which is hardly enough to give him a full professorship in an american university these days. so this is just something of a puzzle. who really is this person, adam smith? what were these momentous ideas, good or bad. how could a person an obscure profession in an obscure place in an obscure time have brought such tremendous effect on the world? if there's been as one might expect quite a range of writing on adam smith from all manner of perspectives and throat for disclosure i myself have contributed to that. smith has indeed been appropriate by many people including an entire academic disciplines, by political parties, by schools of economics, by moral agendas officers the own purposes. so it can make one wonder reasonably whether one might get a true measure of the man.

where can one find an account of smith that one can trust, an account that sketch is smith's ideas and traces or development, with due and proper reckoning of smith's time, places, friends, experiences, while professor phillips' book, is an excellent place to start. i have to say translates book is quite an achievement. and present a credible discussion of smith's ideas that houses that houses on one of his eyes, the scholars like me, all of the scholarly apparatus with on an epidemic of non-scholarly readers for a book that tells engaging, indeed compelling story. professor phillipson has managed to do what some might have thought impossible. he tells an interesting story about an economist. [laughter] >> hats off to you. in truth however as professor phillipson himself pointed out

come sniffles lunch much more than any cause. he was a moral philosopher. that's what he called himself. this moral philosopher sought to understand the pretzels that animate all human behavior. he spent his college life trying to discover and describe these principles and in so doing he articulate not own a conception of human social institution, grounded on empirical observation and the plausible naturalistic picture of human psychology and human nature, but he also deleted a methodology for research about human society that would set the agenda for new and future disciplines of the social sciences. he was the first good social scientist. professor phillipson reconstructs smith's achievement at all by locate the key principles of human behavior and social sciences that have been discovered, but also by explaining both what smith takes from and how he departs from others. so you get in this book smith relationship to his teacher friend ms. hutchison. you also get flushed out conversations of the reliance on

the departures from other major figures of the time, david hume, henry, adam ferguson, others, all of these players fit into the story possibly and understandably in philipson's hands allowing the reader to make sense. while professor phillipson is that i think has explained in clear and readable prose, smith's projects as they found in the lectures he gave, the sec gave, the french he kept and, of course, the two books that he published. and nicholas phillipson's hands he becomes a social scientist. a brilliant mind trying to understand what institutions are that leads to human happiness and human flourishing, combined with the generosity of soul that smith had as a person silly

committed to using his discoveries to help remove obstacles to the well being of the common man. it is indeed an inspiring story. i say that in all sincerity. it's skillful telling in this book justifying that you read it. since part of my duty as a commentor is to point out and criticize the bulk of the book, i spent some time looking for fault as i work through phillipson to book their consent report i had a hard time finding any. this is partly due to the fact that phillipson's interpretations of smith's ideas are very close to my own. so that is a discovery guys are happy to make. still for the sake of discussion with a point out a few things, i will call and criticisms, maybe gentle suggestions. first, as a philosopher i feel duty-bound to raise the thorny issue of the so-called is odd problem. this problem, this is ought problem relates to the logical fallacy of driving a normative statement where it ought statement, one ought to do this

or ought not to do this. from a descriptive or is statement, such and such is the case, or is the fact. it was smith for and transfer your taken it is housed in the trees of human nature, remarking that he knows the frequency with which mullahs would go from describing a certain state of affairs to a merely drawing moral conclusions or moral injunctions from them. but hume noted that doesn't quite work logically. one can describe all the factual details of a murder, for example, without thereby determine any specific moral conclusion to draw from it. the moral value to something else that has to be added. one simply can't go from one to the other. i raise this now because smith seems to have had a foot in both the normative and a descriptive chance in both of his two books. and it's not quite clear or at least its not uncontested how he resolve this. so for example, in phillipson's account, the impartial spectator

as both as a horrific device at people in fact employed when deciding what to do, so if you want to know whether what you are contemplating doing is the right thing or the wrong thing to you as disappointed impartial observer of your conduct would think. would such an observer of proof proved, would such an observer disapprove? this can give you a guy do what you should do it or not. on the other hand, according to phillipson, smith also uses this impartial spectator not just as a description of how anti-people make decisions, but how they ought to make decisions. to be a moral person you should listen to this voice of the impartial spectator. that raises the question of what exactly is smith doing in "the theory of moral sentiments"? is the immoral psychologist whose merit describing his empirical findings about the phenomenon of human moral judgment making, or is he also almost was making recommendations about how people ought to live?

it seems he's at least the former audibly the latter as well, but the question is how do they go together? i'm sure professor otteson has -- professor phillipson has an answer to the. similar issue arises in "the wealth of nations" governments that because it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker, can you recite is fine with me? it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner, from the regard to their own interests. well, that sounds like a descriptive statement, and as some have said a rather cynical when. but one might ask the question, perhaps that is how we often deviate but is that how we should behave? so the question again is what kind of claim is smith making? is he described what human beings tend to behave, or is he making some good recommendation? so my first gentle suggestion is it would be nice if he addresses the issue and try to sort it out one way or another.

there are a handful of other important topics to which one might wish phillipson had given a nod or cursory attention. i'll mention one. and the question is how can one reconcile smith's argument for free trade? indeed, in his own words smith very violent attack on the whole commercial system of great britain, smith's words, how can one reconcile this with professor phillipson described it, correctly i might add, smith's a vigorous exacting even punctilious fulfillment of his duties as the commissioner of customs for the last decade or so of his life. in other words, how can one square the fact that smith argued for the abolition of tariffs, quotas and other impediments to trade with the fact that when given the opportunity he applied and exactly exactly those things with great enthusiasm, or has even with relish.

in 1773, smith was offered the chance to become the to to the duke of hamilton. he turned it down and his debt in 1778, he became the commissioner of customs. as phillipson rightly notes it was surely a mistake, i entirely agree commercial real estate to turn down the hamilton offer because the job of commissioner of customs consumed more and more of smith's time and also negatively affected his health as well. as a result, it probably prevented him from completing the great and large and tragically never published project, philosophical project yet been working on at the end of his life. instead, smith connected history of liberal sciences and elegant arts as his achy executors describe it, which he worked for many years, was never brought to fruition, and instead is note the manuscripts were burned at his direction only a few weeks before he died. so why, one would like to know,

would smith battle had taken a job that seemed to conflict with his principles but also prevented him from completing projects that he loved and believed in? and i would guess that no one would be in a better position to address these questions and professor phillipson so i would be interested to know what he thinks. and unrelated but perhaps more philosophical note, one might ask how one should understand smith's endorsement of free trade in "the wealth of nations," and also the endorsement of limited government as phillipson describes a pervasive that's about the competence of modern governance on one hand, with on the other hand is rather long list of duties that smith in various places suggested were the sovereigns. including i might add frequent and gay public diversions. how do these things go together? in interest of time, i have some other examples, but perhaps the issue that professor phillipson raise about religion is an interesting one, whether this

retain his religion on the one hand and what role religion or god played in "the theory of moral sentiments," or "the wealth of nations," is a second issue. i be happy to discuss is in question question and answer session. another issue that i myself have written about but i was quite interested to see that phillipson did not broach was the so called adam smith problem. some of you may be interested in a discussion of that, or knowing what that is, professor phillipson didn't discuss this in his book. but i would like to close my remarks by pointing out what i found to be one of the most important and even enlightening lessons from phillipson's book. professor phillipson to the end of the book rights that smith's wealth of nations, and i'm going from professor phillipson.com is the greatest and most enduring monument to the intellectual culture of the scottish enlightenment. that's quite a statement. i'll read it again. the greatest and most enduring monument to the intellectual culture of the scottish enlightenment. if you know something about the astonishing production of human

knowledge in a whole range, indeed, virtually every area of human learning that went on during the scottish enlightenment, to locate that book as the greatest achievement, that's quite an important, a strong statement. but i would like to say about that that professor phillipson's book says it's not been fair to say the story of the scottish enlightenment actually parallels and reflects the story of adam smith himself. indeed, the story of the scottish enlightenment is a deep and profound sense a story of adam smith. now, given how profoundly our own world has in turn been shaped by the ideas that came out of the scottish enlightenment, i think would say that smith's story is the story also of us. so to understand adam smith is to understand ourselves. tranninety book provides a deep and thorough picture of the complex life of adam smith and his integration into this astonishing period of learning that we know as the scottish

enlightenment. and in so doing, i think tranninety book ends up providing and eliminating and surprisingly timely window onto our own place in the world today. thank you. [applause] >> this has been extraordinary i think. and now we're going to capital up with great question and answer session. now, as a prelude to that, i would say please or your hand if you have a question. you might want to indicate your name and an affiliation. also and wait for a microphone to arrive because, so we can get the sound throughout. and, finally, please add your comments in the form of a question. and if you want to direct them to one or the other, indicate so. the gentlemen here in the front your who had his hand up first.

>> my name is steve. i wanted to ask i guess both of you whether you thinking anyway adam smith could be considered a forerunner of the austrian school? and when i say that, i mean the kind of method, the deductive reasoning that the austrians embraced versus the experimental models that come up afterwards. do you think, the question is do you think that he pretty much embraced a deductive reasoning method as opposed to the scientific method. >> both gentlemen. first our author. >> i think the short answer is no.

whether he can be seen as a forerunner to the austin school of economics. that's not to say they won't at the end of the day agree on many aspects of what the proper scope and function of the government is, for example. a smith was anything but that. he did not begin with first principles and to do some that the rituals of government or economics. he was much more of a grounded and in. reoriented philosopher. and, indeed, that's what the main characteristics i would argue of the scottish and lightman or the scottish historical school method, smith and hume and others are emblematic of. if you want to know what sort of government you should have, as you want to know how human society works, go and look. see what different -- after all, a panoply of human experiments that there have been, offer quite a range of human experiments. go see, go look at them and see what has worked, what hasn't worked that i think that typifies the approach of adam smith. that's not to say that he wouldn't be in agreement with,

say, well, historical figure. smith read john lott. read the second treatise, was fully conversant with the tradition that a lockean would have represented only a certain principles of human nature and natural laws, to do so that the proper scope of government. that just wasn't his approach. so there may well have agreed any conclusion but they would have arrived in very different ways. >> i think one of the things that is often forgotten with "the wealth of nations" is the sheer, the consequences of the sheer richness of that book. and it very much, it tends to encourage speculation about what might smith have thought about something, as well as what smith did think. now, i make that distinction because smith it seems to me is extremely careful, both mythologically and as an

executive in writing "the wealth of nations." to produce an analysis which explains why we have got in western europe basically come in france, in french civilization to the stage we have got at present. and his method doesn't allow him to formulate principles to any more general than that. the human underpinning of his thinking, the historicism -- not store this history's i would prefer to say, the character of his reasoning does not allow him to explain anything more than the dilemmas and the problems of governance that exist within his own society. now, the trouble in doing that, he raises all sorts of general questions which may or may not apply to the experience of

civilization -- civilizations line be on his own reach. and i think it's very interesting, one of the things i tried to do, i may say many goes ever in my chapter on "the wealth of nations," was to trip the analysis back to what smith was claiming he could throw light on. as politically congress with a sense of public duty. and he is very careful about stopping the argument. at the point beyond which only the imagination can take us, and only a utopian can go. and in that respect, although as i said i make poor economies, i don't so much see space activities line with the vienna school so much as lying with, i'm afraid, john keynes. [inaudible] >> i'm sorry. i'm sorry to say that. but it is a whole new set of

hands have gone up. >> the frame of mind, the frame of mind, let's leave aside the execution in terms of governance, the frame of mind has much more in common of minority and that i think is realize. spent we'll just leave it hanging for the moment. the gentlemen in the second row from the aisle. right here. >> i'm not affiliated. professor phillipson, what things did you learn by writing this book that you did know about previously? or things that add it to your understanding that surprised y you. >> the relationship with hume. i've always been intrigued by the relationship between hume and smith, as anyone is bound to

be. it's the depth of the relationship. and the thing that i must say really got the text moving as far as i could see, was when i try to present smith as in fact an extremely friendly, and intelligent critic of hume's project, for signs of man, as set out in the tree dies of human nature. it is very interesting to reflect on what it is that smith does, almost certainly at the very beginning of his career in edinburg between 1748 and 51. and continued in glasgow. to read these as developing things, self reasons we probably don't know about. smith never thought of doing.

hume's the science of man depends upon a theory of language. which will privilege and understanding of discourse conversation, doesn't produce one. smith does. again, the historicism. the fact that hume has an understanding that our ideas of justice and, therefore, of morality, political obligation and everything will very in different types of civilization. but he doesn't work it out. i mean, he makes these distinctions are there in his early work but they're not develop. smith came over to me as someone who is developing these instead and was friendly and brilliant way. and that i think was the most exciting thing for me to be ever to develop.

and then to carry that through. but it's an interesting question actually. it really is. >> the woman right here. >> my name is rosalynn, and i am a theater reviewer for d.c. theater scene.com. and i just survived which had a very successful run here. and musical which bernstein continuously revise because he couldn't write out what voltaire was trying to say. that's my basic question is, do you explore adam smith relationship with the french, and what was going on in france at that time, especially between 1750-1770. you have to help me out here, there was a movement physiocrats, thank you. and this idea that you can

guarantee individual liberty but you can't guarantee the results. and there's this delightful numbers in the musical, you know, the best of all possible worlds which he makes outrageous fun of, voltaire did of disbelief, to him, reduces belief that came out of the enlightenment, this is the best of all possible worlds where there's an earthquake in lisbon. people died. what's the use of all this dishonest endeavor at being so clever if you just have to pass the law, pass it along, pass it along, that's all it is, just pass it along. ..

>> i think it's a pretty free go at voltaire. what voltaire himself would have said about it, i dare not think. it would have, undoubtedly, been memorable. but the point was adam smith, adam smith -- i think it's important to remember -- although voltaire does not appear on the surface as a player in any of his debates with the french, let alone the physiocrat, he does not play at all. that does not mean voltaire is not there. smith owned, bought -- he met voltaire, he talked with voltaire, and he once told one of his pupils who started to criticize voltaire, he said,

sir, there is only one voltaire, and he bought a magnificent bust of him. and what that reminds me is this is smith on the voltaire as the anticlerical. it's very interesting that in this classic confrontation between the enlightenment and religion and all the classic implications, all of that, that does not appear on the pages of smith at all in the way it does with hume. hume's anticlericalism, his religious skepticism is constantly resurfacing in his writing. smith, it never is. and one of, i think, the very interesting questions to ask about smith is why when he has adopted a philosophy which is, which, in fact, argues for the

irrelevance, the philosophical irrelevance of theology, why, in fact -- and when there is very little doubt that he had, that he had, he was as alarmed by the consequences of clericalism as hume, voltaire or anyone, why he does not allow it to intrude into the center of his philosophy, but he doesn't. >> i think he does. in the following way. so he does mention voltaire, smith does, and the answer to your first question is phillipson does discuss the connection to the french enlightenment, but i think there is, in fact, quite an important way in which voltaire figures into part of, at least, smith's philosophical and political program, at least i'd suggest you remember at the end of can died -- i haven't seen the musical, but at the end of the

book one of the lessons is to tend to one's own garden, and it figured mightily in smith's declassing of political philosophers. indeed, the extent to which our policymakers and legislators should no longer imagine they can apprehend the good with a capital g the way plato had imagined the political philosophers would do and then organize the state from top to bomb. bottom. instead we ought to create a framework. we can become a nation of shopkeepers, as smith said in the wealth of nations, and that's all right. you manage your life the best way you know how given the values that you have, whatever they are. the state's job is to provide a framework in which you can do that to the degree possible unmolested by others you don't want to be molested by. and that's, in a sense, i think that's a transformation of the idea that whereas god might be the, might be the monarch in the

next realm and voltaire wants to get rid of that as well, for smith what we're doing is in this realm we are taking the political leaders, the magistrates, the legislators who imagine themselves as something like secular gods and bringing them down and saying, no, just allow us to have a framework, and we'll lead our lives on our own, thank you very much. i think that's a powerful idea. it certainly figures in smith, but i would not be surprised that voltaire might have been one of the sources of this idea. >> okay. did you want to say just a bit more on that? >> i mean, what he said i completely agree, he said it very elegantly. i just don't, i don't see that it has roots in voltaire. it belongs to a family of views, but -- >> hume will figure as well. >> yeah, exactly. if i had to track the makings of that thinking, i wouldn't feel

the need to drag voltaire into it. [laughter] >> there may be other reasons for that as well. [laughter] >> well, we don't care just as long as keynes doesn't show up again. [laughter] >> stan lieberman. i believe smith was, studied mercantilism. you mention he really studied mercantilist capitalism, and i believe he also originated the term surplus value, what people have interpreted as profit. and to get rid of the surplus value, you had to export. i think that was one of his prime contributions to the wealth of nations. and we see today that china is a principle exporter, and the u.s. is a tremendous deficit in the balance of trade. so would you say that china is a great follower of adam smith and the u.s. a poor follower of adam smith? [laughter]

>> adam smith is certainly red in -- read in china. i may say i live in the hope of getting a chinese translation to my book. but i'm -- i very, very much doubt whether the present government, the government for the last, for the last half generation in china has actually been sitting there with copies of the wealth of nations on their, on the desk. i think the intellectual history of policy formation and respect to the management of trade in, in china over the last 25 years is much more complicated than that, and i suspect extremely interesting. but as i say, i'm no economist to judge. but the concept to me is a much more, a much more multifaceted and not necessarily exclusively pragmatic approach to the management of trade.

but as i say, that is from an economics amateur like myself. >> may i say something to that? >> sure. >> i would suggest that in the last 30 years or so china has been quite surprised. the chinese communist leadership has been quite surprised the extent to which adam smith's ideas have worked. what they've done is effected in small and targeted ways areas in which smithian-style markets have been allowed to operate, giving people property rights, allowing them to do with their profits as they would like and to exchange the surplus value and surplus goods as they would like and look at the astonishing growth in production that that has enabled. i think it's been very -- so is the chinese communist government turning into a smithian-style, if you like, pragmatic liberal government? no. on the other hand, are they coming, perhaps some of them grudgingly, to see the power of markets and the good that they

can do, yes. i think they certainly are seeing that. >> may i make one more comment on that? um, i think one of the things that we, um, don't take enough account of in smith is precisely what he means by markets. now, if you look at the modeling of his discussion of markets, it's essentially, he is taking essentially a regional view of what a market is. he's thinking of the interplay between town and country. >> but also between countries, wouldn't you say? >> yes, between countries. but the notion of moving -- i mean, these are the two poles on which he operates. but it seems to me that there's a real ambiguity, and it's actually an interesting ambiguity about what he means by a national market. um, and i think that i suspect although this is speck speculate

that there may be very good reasons for that. i mean, was there a scottish market? was there a scottish economy? that, actually, in smith's own time, was it legitimate to talk of scotland as a particular market? well, it was in some respects, they say in relation to the workings of the tobacco trade. but on the other hand, just what the nature of that market is, when you move between the market that is recognized by a simple pattern of interchange between town and country and the sort of market that is determined by, in fact, customs regulations and operating -- i, i find myself wondering just what smith meant by market in that respect. whether or not it matters economically, i don't know. but for someone whose thinking is as precise usually on these matters, i find that that

vagueness is, is intriguing. and, frankly, i don't know quite what to make of it lt -- of it. >> this gentleman right here has been waiting. >> sorry, i have a cold. my name is vitor, i'm the author of a forthcoming book with cambridge university press on the role of the state, so i had to discuss some of these issues. i have just one comment and one question, you know? the comment is that the view that adam smith had a very limited role of the state is really not correct for the time. this was an enormous expansion of the role of the state. what he wanted was to redirect the role of the state away from mercantilism, more efficient role. you know, that's my comment. the question is that adam smith had a lot of confidence in

markets, you know, clearly. this is very central. at the same time, he was very skeptical about merchants, lots of statements, you know, through the wealth of nations and so forth. so my question, if you were leaving today after two years of financial market chaos, you know, what role would he assign to the state in terms of regulations? >> may i make a preface before you give your answer? is. >> of course you can. >> i'd give one addendum to your comment which smith was certainly quite critical of merchants, but he was critical of many cladses of people, not -- classes of people, not just merchants. other people who used certain kinds of social institutions to their own advantage. that was really, i think, the crux of the argument, the criticism he was raising towards merchants. what often -- the problem he had with merchants was when they joined hands with ministers of the state in order to protect them from competition to give them monopolies, give them

special privileges which certainly would enrich both those protected merchants and usually, indirectly, the politicians who gave them those protections, but always at the expense of the common man. so it wasn't just merchants that he was criticizing, it was anybody who would try to use the various kinds of social, political and economic apparatuses to enrich themselves at other people's expense. there's my preface. >> [inaudible] >> i mean, i absolutely agree with your comment, and i agree with most of jim's gloss on it. i think the important thing is that smith would not have denied that there was a role for regulation. the question of regulation was one that would have to be taken seriously. the interesting ed of that -- evidence of that is smith on the role of banking in the wealth of nations. i got particularly interested in

this because he spends some time on scottish banking and ghastly banking crisis of 1772. end of a boom, it's the housing crisis. it's really quite ridiculous. the thing is that this is -- and the question he comes up with in the context of 18th century banking is that these little credit shops should actually be allowed to fall. fine. but that is a comment. but the point, i think the point that is worth making is that he regards this question of regulation -- whether there should be or shouldn't be -- as a highly serious question. and he does not give a universal answer to it. his answer is historically defined by the limits of the existing system he's dealing with. and we know he took this question seriously because he delayed the completion of "the wealth of nations" by at least 18 months while he he attended to itment -- to it.

so, again, the question -- i read smith citizen being, essentially, beginning, middle and end is pragmatist this matter of regulation. but always, always accompanied, as jim was saying, by an extraordinary, acute sensitivity to the way in which interest groups operated in relation to parliament, to government, to civil service and to the ministry. >> may i say one other thing? >> yeah. >> i guess this may be a difference between us. i think smith would be agnostic with respect to a great deal of regulation -- so what he'd want to do is see what regulations we're talking about and what are the effects. but he's not neutral. i think his reading of human history is that government intervention tends to reduce productivity, it tends to have various kinds of unintended, bad consequences.

so i think much of the argument of the wealth of nations is for shifting the burden of proof. we want to assume that human beings ought to be allowed to lead their own affairs without third party interposition into willing exchanges with others unless you can demonstrate there's some very specific reason why in this case there has to be an intervention. so that shift -- it's not a principled rejection to all regulation. on the other hand, it is an important shifting of the burden of proof. this is what smith has in mind when he talks about the obvious and simple system of natural liberty. what that is, we allow for protections of people's private property, and that's going to be it unless there's some very specific reason why -- and the burden of proof will then be on you, the proposer of the regulation or the intervention -- to show why everyone would benefit, and there's no other way to do it other than through third party or state intervention. so i think there is a shifting of the burden of proof. i don't think he's purely neutral with respect, he's going

to view any so sort of regulation with a sense of skepticism in the sense that you need to make your case. on the other hand, if you make your case, okay, you've made your case. >> can i just gloss that just a little? because one of the things, i mean, someone spoke of -- jim, you did -- of smith as one of the first, the great social scientists. and as such one of the key interests that comes through his jurisprudence which is absolutely wonderful stuff. it's richly textured. it's a tough read but it really is a terrific one. how do societies reproduce themselves? the analysis is designed to show at every point how, in fact, a regime will perfect pep wait itself, perpetuate its rule and all the rest of it. now, the point is that there's a paradox built into this sort of an to to logical realism if you

like to think of it like that. but the more effective any period of rule is, the more any scream whether it's -- regime whether it's the tars or a feudal regime or what have you, the better able it is to maintain the rules of justice and to secure regularity in the rules of justice. the more that, n., people sense what is just and sense of what is fair will move round. and any government which then wishes to preserve itself is actually on the long term going to have to respond to that shift in sensibility, the sensibility of fairnd, the sensibility of justice, the sensibility of what it is the government can provide. and if it doesn't, it's going to be in trouble. and i think it may be that there is, there is a tension between

this an throe procentric sensibility that comes through the lectures on jurisprudence and the wealth of nations. because what smith's analysis allows him to do is to say that the fabric of british and french society is changing in ways in which its governors do not fully understand. um, and here is an analysis which will explain that. and it's a profound analysis. it really, a profoundly serious analysis. and what he is then saying is the public interest and, therefore, the long-term interest of traditional interest groups, must be seen as changing. and if it doesn't, there's a french revolution waiting down the road for you. so i would, i would put the problem like that, and that is, in fact, what underlies his

sense, his desire to try and teach a new sort of prudence in the governance of -- particularly british, but to a lesser extent french society. >> we'll end today where we started, with the picture on the wall that claims, i think rightly, that adam smith was a great benefactor of mankind. nicholas phillipson has written a book about adam smith that is very fine on this benefactor of mankind, one you'll want to consider, i think, for your time for reading. and this great benefactor of mankind, i think we have concluded, was a prudential libertarian, but a libertarian for all that. [laughter] please join us for dinner, lunch upstairs. [applause] >> very good. [inaudible conversations]

>> you can see this or any other booktv program online at booktv.org. >> this coming monday, booktv will be live online. pal stint doctor ab lair argues for an end between the blood shed between israelis and palestinians. his book, "i shall not hate," tells the story of the murder of his three daughters. at 3 p.m. eastern time on monday, february 28th, go to booktv.org and click on the watch button under the events information on the featured programs section of the page. >> host: well, there's a new online enterprise just starting up, and it's called the washington independent review of books. david stewart is the president of this organization. mr. stewart, what is your organization? >> guest: well, it's a group of writers and editors and

similarly-minded people in the, mostly in the d.c. area who are very dismayed by the. shriveling of book review space and sort of the standard media. a lot of book review sections have been folded, they've shrunk, and it's just harder to find information about what's going on in the world of books these days, coverage of the publishing industry has shrunk. so we decided to try to do something ourselves. this is really sort of from the old judy garland/mickey rooney movies where they say, let's put on a show. we decided, well, we would create our own book review. there's about 70 of us have been engaged in it, and we've just lunched and -- launched and had a great spobs. it's been a hot of fun and very gratifying. >> host: and what kind of books will you be reviewing on the site? >> guest: a wide range. we're going to really review

nonfiction and fiction. we suspect -- for we're not going to be looking at children's books, and we won't be looking at romance literature. but beyond that we're quite open. and we will be reviewing recently-released books. we hope to get our reviews up within the first 30-45 days after publication. so you can come to us for current information about what are the new books out this. >> host: now, can people submit books to be reviewed as wellsome. >> guest: we'd rather not get the books, but they can certainly bring them to our attention because we'll have to decide if we want to review them, and you can get a lot of books that way ha you don't, that are hard to deal with. so we certainly invite people to e-mail us, bring their books to our attention, send us their publicity packets so we know in the plenty of time that it's coming, and we can decide whether it's one we want to take

a shot at reviewing. >> host: mr. stewart, you said a lot of your reviewers and people involved in the washington independent review of books have backgrounds in this writing and publishing. what's your background, and give us a snapshot of some of the people who will be participating. >> guest: well, my background is, i was a lawyer for many years, but i'm now an author, have done a couple of books on american history, one on writing the constitution, the summer of 1787, one on the impeachment trial of andrew johnson, and i have a new one coming out this fall on aaron burr's wen conspiracy called "the american emperor." the other folks involved come from journalism, there are book writers as well. we've been so lucky in recruiting reviewers. we've got for a book on the eichmann trial in israel we were able to get judge patricia wald who was on the war crimes tribunal for yugoslavia.

we've been able to get a leading constitutional scholar to look at a first amendment book for us. it's, we've just had a terrific response from people. just as an example pauline meyer at mit who's got a wonderful book out about the ratification of the constitution is going to review a new book on the revolution by gordon wood. so we've really been able to get topnotch reviewers, and it's an exciting thing. and, you know, everybody in this operation works for the same amount of money -- nobody's paid, that includes our reviewers -- so it's just wonderful to see people willing to pitch in to create this conversation about the world of books which is really what we are all about. >> host: and there has been a decline in traditional media review of books, but online there is quite a active marketplace of reviewers. what do you bring to the table that's different?

>> guest: well, i think we're going to bring the depth and the quality of our reviewers. we also are doing features, we're going to have author interviews and q&as, we're -- we have a couple of radio interviewer partners who will be putting up podcasts, so we'll provide a full range of information. and i think, you know, the other operations that are trying to do the same thing are doing the lord's work as well, and i certainly support what they're up to, but i think there's room for a lot of voices. and that's important recruiting a viewing books, is that there are a lot voices. so you're not just stuck with one or two reactions to a new book which may be idiosyncratic in their reactions. >> host: will you be looking at politically-slanted books as well, and will you be looking at both books from the left and from the right and from the middle? >> guest: of course. you know, we're, you know, predominantly with

washington-area writers, we have a lot of interest in political and historical topics, and we'll take them all on from every point on the spectrum. >> host: and how often you be putting up new material? >> guest: we will have new content up every day. either a new interview or a new review. you know, as in the early days we're trying not to set the bar too high for ourselves, but as time goes on we expect the content to become richer and richer and really looking forward to that. >> host: and, mr. stewart, you say on your web site that you got your seed money through the aiw freedom to write fund. what is that? >> guest: well, it's associated with american independent writers which is a writers' organization here in the d.c. area, and the freedom to write fund is a 501(c)(3) that's affiliated with aiw, and we've done very modest fundraising and would need to do more, but

enough to get us up and running, and it's been a great sponsorship. >> host: david stewart is the president of the washington independent review of books. washington independent review of books.com is the web site. >> you're watching 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books on c-span2's booktv. >> here are a couple of upcoming book fairs and festivals from around the country.

>> follow us on twitter at booktv. for more upcoming book fairs and festivals, visit booktv.org and click book fairs on the top of the page. >> mit american history professor paul mean mayer is on booktv's in depth this sunday. she's written several books on the american revolution including from resistance to revolution, the old revolutionaries, american scripture, and her latest, ratification, published last year. join our three-hour conversation with pauline maier taking your phone calls, e-mails and tweets sunday at noon eastern on c-span2. watch previous in depth programs at booktv.org where you can also find the entire weekend schedule. >> you've been watching booktv, 48 hours of book programming beginning saturday morning at 8 eastern through monday morning at 8 eastern. nonfiction books all weekend,

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