On Machiavellian Virtu, Quintilian, and Smith's Science of the Legislator.

I have a new publication (here), “Feyerabend’s relationship to the liberal art of government: comments on Stephen Turner on Free Exchange and Collective Decision-making," in Epistemology & Philosophy of Science that is part of Special Issue Dedicated to the 100th Birth Anniversary of Paul Feyerabend and simultaneously a response to a paper by Stephen Turner (who has just started Stephen’s Substack).

I was back in Leiden today at a ‘graduate school’ event on “Hermeneutics in the History of Political Thought” organized by Frank Chouraqui. My Amsterdam colleague Jacques Bos’ paper was on the relationship between Machiavelli and ancient rhetoric. Along the way he quoted the following passage from Quintilian:

If the whole of rhetoric could be thus embodied in one precept [praescripto], it would be an easy task of little compass: but most rules are liable to be altered by the nature of local causes, circumstances of time and ‘'place,’ and necessity itself [causis, temporibus, occasione, necessitate]. Consequently the all-important gift for an orator is adaptability since he is called upon to meet the most varied circumstances [quia varie et ad rerum momenta convertitur]. Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, II.13.2-3, translated by Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler (with modest changes)

Here the rhetorician with his adaptability to circumstances is like a general who needs to exhibit what Machiavelli would call Virtu. So, this presupposes a cultivated judgment that can recognize which means are needed in what circumstances. Crucially for my argument below it’s worth remembering that ‘rhetoric’' here just is (but is not limited to) an essential ingredient of political practice in public life.

So much for set up.

Now, if one takes a brief glance at the lecture notes to his (1762-3) “Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres” it’s immediately obvious that Adam Smith was intimately familiar Quintilian (even if he is sometimes dismissive of his distinctions). In fact, Quintilian shows up in a lot of Smith’s works.

With that in mind, let’s look anew at a famous passage from Wealth of Nations.

There may be good policy in retaliations of this kind, when there is a probability that they will procure the repeal of the high duties or prohibitions complained of. The recovery of a great foreign market will generally more than compensate the transitory inconveniency of paying dearer during a short time for some sorts of goods. To judge whether such retaliations are likely to produce such an effect does not, perhaps, belong so much to the science of a legislator, whose deliberations ought to be governed by general principles which are always the same, as to the skill of that insidious and crafty animal, vulgarly called a statesman or politician, whose councils are directed by the momentary fluctuations of affairs. When there is no probability that any such repeal can be procured, it seems a bad method of compensating the injury done to certain classes of our people to do another injury ourselves, not only to those classes, but to almost all the other classes of them.— 4.2.39, p. 468.

I have written on this passage before in a festschrift for Chris Berry. And my point was somewhat revisionary. With the standard reading, I grant that Smith is surely no fan of that ‘insidious and crafty animal’. He thinks ordinary people are wrong to admire such politicians as statesmen. In context, he associates them with the zero-sum and violent politics of mercantilism and national greatness. In addition, such politicians are tempted to meddle in economic affairs in ways that do damage.

But, as I noted it is a mistake to ignore that Smith also recognises such politicians’ talents. In particular, the crafty politician has a ‘skill’: he or she is good at judging how other countries will react to retaliatory tariffs. That is, a genuinely crafty politician understands how other countries are ‘likely’ to behave. This presupposes considerable knowledge of human nature, a keen understanding of the domestic politics of foreign states, and a natural appreciation of strategic behaviour. This is not trivial. What I now discern is that the skill the crafty politician just of the same kind as Quintilian’s orator and Machiavellian Virtu, but (crucially) not identical to it.

On my account, and this is non-standard, Smith does not reject the crafty politician wholesale. She has a role to play in political life. For Smith there is a tactical reason to rely on the judgement of the crafty politician, when ‘the recovery of a great foreign market’ is ‘likely’.

Smith relies, thus, on a kind of tacit cost–benefit analysis in justifying reliance on the crafty politician’s judgement: recovering access to a great foreign market, ‘will generally more than compensate the transitory inconveniency of paying dearer during a short time for some sorts of goods’. So, in non-ideal circumstances of international mercantile competition, the crafty politician has some genuine skill to contribute to a worthy political end.

Of course, the crafty politician is useless when the confrontational, tactical policies favoured by him are unlikely to work (or have become unlikely to do so). If he were capable of moderation and public honesty, he would inform the public of the limitations of his tactics and encourage alternatives when opening foreign markets through retaliatory tactics are likely to fail. Part of Smith’s general criticism of (the ‘spirit’ of) mercantilism is that as an intellectual ideology it always promotes zero-sum and conflictual tactics (focusing on ‘monopoly’ and colonial resource extraction promoted by ‘mean rapacious merchants’).

Smith’s underlying criticism here is that because crafty politicians are unidimensional – they are constantly looking to win zero-sum battles – they lack the temperament to contribute to the true art of government (which draws on the science of the legislator). And because such a politician lacks the temperament and interest to grasp scientific principles, he may well do genuine harm, unknowingly, to his own citizens over time. While Smith recognizes the partial usefullness of crafty politicians in the context of trade conflict, he also thinks this type ultimately will do more harm than good.

Most readers infer from this that the Smithian politician should not try to meddle at all and base government on a firm adherence to rules. But as regular readers know I don’t think that’s quite right. (As my recent blogging has shown, Smith clearly thinks that the Crown should use its power over patronage to get its way in Parliament when it is conducive to common good.) What I now recognize is Smith’s criticism of the crafty politician is that he lacks true adaptability. That is, he has the semblance of Machiavellian Virtu, but not the real deal. The question, then is, how does Smith think one can combine such adaptability with commitment to the science of the legislator.

To be continued.