Adam Smith on the Poor

I did a little more reading in Adam Smith's 'Wealth of Nations' last night. Here's what Smith had to say about the poor in times of growing prosperity.

[A] common complaint [is] that luxury extends itself even to the lowest ranks of the people, and that the labouring poor will not now be contented with the same food, clothing, and lodging which satisfied them in former times. ...

Is this improvement in the circumstances of the lower ranks of the people to be regarded as an advantage or as an inconveniency to the society? The answer seems at first sight abundantly plain. Servants, labourers, and workmen of different kinds, make up the far greater part of every great political society. But what improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged.

Well said. I have heard/read people accuse Smith of being unfeeling toward the poor because he advocates freedom of commerce as a means toward building national wealth. Capitalism seems to be harsh at times and would seem to lead to great inequality of wealth. Yet Smith's aim is to study how nations build wealth, not how governments or elites build wealth. As a professor of moral philosophy, he seems to be interested in what is beneficial for the people as a whole, not what is good for the elite.

Whatever might be debated about the validity of his theories, I think the above quote makes his intentions and philosophy pretty clear. I think the man's heart was in the right place. And for what it's worth, I also think there's a lot of value in his theories.