The Rule of the Rich?

Usually viewed as the premier apologist for laissez-faire capitalism, Smith is seen in this new interpretation within the context of an earlier tradition that condemned the British aristocracy for relinquishing its moral obligation to promote the public good in favor of an unceasing pursuit of private gain.

Through separate chapters on Mandeville, Bolingbroke, and Hume, Gallagher shows that Smith echoed civic humanist sermons against the avaricious inclinations of the nobles who profited most from commercial expansion. Unlike earlier critics, however, Smith concluded that the most prudent response to aristocratic corruption was not to hold ministers, kings, and social notables to higher standards but to limit their access to political power. The Rule of the Rich? accordingly shows that the case for limited government made in The Wealth of Nations was not a defense of individual liberty so much as a concession to the apparent incompetence of the British upper class.

“A fine book persuasively arguing that Smith is not about redistributing political authority but about the insignificance of political power in a market economy relentlessly driven by people seeking to better their condition. Gallagher gives us a lively, iconoclastic trip through eighteenth-century ideas and history.”—Isaac Kramnick, Cornell University

“I recommend [this book] as a pleasant and well-informed introduction to early eighteenth-century politics and related scholarship. It will be particularly useful for today’s students in political studies who are so often underexposed to the historical dimension of the analysis of modern political ideas and practices.”—Douglas Long, Canadian Journal of Political Science

Susan E. Gallagher is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.

Philosophy

           Political

Political Science