What’s Natural about Adam Smith’s Natural Liberty?
Abundantly does Adam Smith use “liberty” in The Wealth of Nations (WN).[1] “Liberty” usually means “allowing every man to pursue his own interest his own way” (WN 664.3). Smith sometimes adds an adjective, as in “perfect liberty” or “general liberty.”
And then there is “natural liberty,” which appears ten times. Ten is not a huge number. In fact, there are more occurrences of “perfect liberty”—sixteen. But the occurrences of “natural liberty” are significant. Most famous are those in the penultimate paragraph of Book IV:
All systems either of preference or of restraint, therefore, being thus completely taken away, the obvious and simple system of natural liberty establishes itself of its own accord. Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man, or order of men. The sovereign is completely discharged from a duty, in the attempting to perform which he must always be exposed to innumerable delusions, and for the proper performance of which no human wisdom or knowledge could ever be sufficient; the duty of superintending the industry of private people, and of directing it towards the employments most suitable to the interest of the society. According to the system of natural liberty, the sovereign has only three duties to attend to… (WN 687.51)
Four occurrences of “natural liberty” come when Smith points out that in endorsing a restriction on banks against issuing small-denomination notes he is making an exception to the principle of natural liberty: “But those exertions of the natural liberty of a few individuals, which might endanger the security of the whole society, are, and ought to be, restrained by the laws of all governments; of the most free, as well as of the most despotical” (WN 324.94).
Another comes in his outburst against the Settlement Act: “To remove a man who has committed no misdemeanour from the parish where he chuses to reside, is an evident violation of natural liberty and justice” (WN 157.59). Another comes in a remark: “Both laws were evident violations of natural liberty, and therefore unjust” (WN 530.16). And two come when he says that repealing “encroachments upon natural liberty” would ease the readjustment of those put out of work by free trade (WN 470.42).
In all ten cases, “natural liberty” means the flipside to commutative justice. Commutative justice is not messing with others’ person, property, and promises due, and the flipside is others—including the government—not messing with one’s own such stuff. Smith pegs natural liberty as the flipside of commutative justice when he says “[b]oth laws were violations of natural liberty and therefore unjust” (WN 530.16, italics added). Smith often said simply “liberty” but sometimes “natural liberty.”
Why did Smith sometimes say “natural liberty”? Maybe he wanted to highlight its “naturalness.” That prompts the question: What is “natural” about Smith’s “natural liberty”?
“Nature” and “natural” loom large in Smith. The words feature in the full titles of his two published works: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments, or An Essay towards an Analysis of the Principles by which Men naturally judge concerning the Conduct and Character, first of their Neighbours, and afterwards of themselves.[2] But the meaning of “nature” eludes simple definition. According to A.L. Macfie (1967), “Smith’s ‘Nature’ is like Heinz’s tins—there are fifty-seven varieties” (7).
The polysemy of “nature” and its cognates was well known. David Hume claimed there is no word “more ambiguous and unequivocal” than “nature” and offered three (among many) possible definitions: that which is opposed to miracles, that which is opposed to the rare and unusual, and that which is opposed to artifice (Hume 2007, 304–5). Samuel Johnson, in his Dictionary of the English Language, lists thirteen definitions of “nature”,[3] along with eight of “natural.”[4]
In TMS Smith sometimes plays different ideas of nature off one another, telling how “man is by Nature directed to correct, in some measure, that distribution of things which she herself would otherwise have made” (TMS 168.9). Our natural moral sentiments often lead us to strive against aspects of “nature,” or the way things usually are in the world. Tyranny, domination, monopoly, and coercion are natural, and, naturally, we rail against them (cf. Brubaker 2006; Pack 1995).
Let’s focus on “natural.” Here are four definitions that advance a Smithian understanding:
Existing in the primeval human state, with only primitive language, the most basic forms of property, and no subordination to a political body. Making a contrast with “artificial,” which itself has multiple senses, Hume said: “Sucking is an action natural to Man, and Speech is artificial” (published in back matter of Hume 2007, 430).
Usual or expected as in “the natural and ordinary state of mankind” (TMS 45.7).
Necessary for the state of human affairs that the speaker presupposes or posits.
Worth naturalizing, which is to say, worth actualizing such that we get to a state of affairs in which the thing we say is natural would then be expected (sense 2) or necessary (sense 3).