헤게모니에 반대하는 아담 스미스

Abstract Adam Smith expressed his antipathy to hegemonic domination in The Wealth of Nations and other works. I highlight his rebuke of slavery, his paragraph calling for Britain to relinquish her colonies, his comments on the vanity and amusement of newspaper readers, his condemnation of the East India Company, his paragraph naturalizing multipolarity, and his remark about the real mediocrity of Britain’s circumstances. I close by reflecting on the enduring relevance of the anti-hegemist spirit of ’76. For we Americans to reflect now in 2026 on our origins in 1776 might be termed a social construction. But, also, it is natural. Nature prompts people to seek meaning. It is natural for people to mutually coordinate on focal points. To reflect now on 1776 is natural because the 250th is a focal anniversary. Nature and convention come together in natural conventions, which are indispensable to societal sustainability. It is natural that a society have conventions for public reflection and discussion. Another topic for natural convention is peace. In De Jure Belli ac Pacis (“On the Law of War and Peace”), Hugo Grotius (1625) made neighborhood peace—a state in which neither neighbor has initiated any messing with the other’s stuff—an analogy for peace between governments. Alas, at age 63, Grotius died two years before the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia. Grotius’s massive three-volume work advanced the understanding of what it meant for rulers to act lawfully when they acted outside their own political realm. Grotius advanced understanding of a higher law, both in war and for war. In 1776 Americans invoked higher law when they threw off their rulers and embarked on setting up a scheme of government more native and arguably more natural. The year also brought The Wealth of Nations, which continued the Grotian tradition of higher law and suggested that Britain should let the American colonies go. That American colonial policy advice was of a piece of Adam Smith’s larger thinking. He was pervasively anti-hegemist. By “hegemism” I mean a will to dominate unduly—to bully and exploit—in international affairs. Great powers are, of course, great; their size and power naturally lend them a certain gravity and prominence, and so they throw more weight around. But hegemism goes further, and the term is pejorative; it declares that the hegemist faction seeks not only a degree of regional hegemony but undue hegemony, to a degree that is unjust and often runs to shameful abuse. In this article, I exposit the anti-hegemism of Adam Smith. The sections that follow touch upon Smith’s civilizationalism, his rebuke of slavery, his paragraph calling for Britain to relinquish her colonies, his comments on the vanity and amusement of newspaper readers, his “Let ’em go” plea on the American conflict, his condemnation of the East India Company, his paragraph naturalizing multipolarity, and his remark about the real mediocrity of Britain’s circumstances. I close by reflecting on the enduring relevance of the anti-hegemist spirit of ’76. I abbreviate Smith’s works as follows: WN = The Wealth of Nations; TMS = The Theory of Moral Sentiments; LJ = Lectures on Jurisprudence; LRBL = Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (citations are page#.paragraph#). Smith’s Civilizationalism The word “Nature” is in the title of WN, and the word “naturally” is in the extended title of TMS.[1] Smith knew that man is naturally sociable. Man is naturally concerned for others, for his community. Smith taught that man’s first and longest stage was small “democraticall” bands of hunters (LJ, 201), where the needs of the whole were quite manifest and common knowledge. Man naturally feels obligations to the whole to which he belongs. As mankind stepped beyond the small, simple society of the band, into larger agglomerations of people, like tribes and then nations, the paradoxes of sociability multiplied. Gods grew bigger, encompassing more humans, until monotheisms encompassed all of humankind, even future generations. How does man square his duties to those he knows and loves, his kith and kin, with his duties to the largest whole, now all of humankind? How is allegiance to God, a universal, super-knowledgeable, and universally benevolent beholder, possible with man’s puny knowledge, local affections, and “feeble spark of benevolence” (TMS 137.4)? This is the great challenge to man presented by the rise of civilizations. Smith represents an answer. Ever a both/and sort of thinker, Smith’s answer is both civilizationalist and universalist. The answer that Smith (and others) represents is to grow a civilization with certain social grammars which, once established, will help ensure that individuals tend to advance the good of the whole while they are focusing on advancing parts close to home. Discover and honor good operating systems, good social grammars, and people can coordinate their activities and sentiments. They are “led by an invisible hand to promote an end whi