1) What a wonderful conference, #Global1776. I would never have imagined spending two days discussing Adam Smith’s, The Wealth of Nations. I would never have imagined reading the whole thing, either. But it was quite something.
2) It was great to hear from people who know lots about Smith who were able to contextualize him and his world in important ways. Of course a great deal happened in 1776, the Declaration and the founding of the USA, for example. We will be working our way to that.
3) Reading the book(s), it is clear that Smith was not the laissez-faire, anti-regulation guru he is made out to be. He was concerned about banks and their possible baleful influence in the absence of regulation; a fear that TJ shared.
4) As with TJ, groups can pick and choose which parts of Smith they want to read to support positions they want to take. But some answers are better than others. When TWON is read along side The Theory of Moral Sentiments, a less harsh Smith appears.
5) As the Enlightenment progresses, the system of slavery is flourishing. Smith thought slavery backwards, but never seriously grappled with what it meant for Africans as human beings.
6) PSO and I talked about Smith’s influence on TJ. He was looking at TWON from the perspective of one who would make policy for a new nation. What things from Smith could be applied to the new republic?
7) TJ bought a copy of TWON when he was in France. That copy was in the group of books he sold to the Library of Congress to restart the library after the British burned it during the War of 1812. He later bought another copy.
8) We had a good discussion on the other Enlightenment figure, David Hume, and his racism. We noted how Jefferson’s views on race in Notes on the State of Virginia pretty much copies Hume’s sentiments. This drives home the idea that white supremacy was/is an ideology.
9) This was not just a matter of bad thoughts by a few people. It was common in the culture and the “republic of letters”. There were more enlightened figures, but there is a tendency to exaggerate their influence.
10) I understand the desire among some enlightened whites of today to find the person in the past who they would have been. But I’m afraid all who want to do that would not be able to fit into the tiny number of that imagined enlightened class of persons.
11) I am glad I have had a deeper engagement with TWON than I had when I was in college reading parts of Book One.
