II. ROUSSEAU ON THE ORIGIN AND CONSEQUENCES OF PRIVATE LAND OWNERSHIP

The emergence of private land ownership was a landmark event in Rousseau’s account of inequality. Prior to this, the scale of inequality was very limited and primarily reflected in natural inequality between individuals. However, with the advent of private land ownership, inequality increased dramatically, fundamentally affecting human relationships. At the beginning of the second part of the Second Discourse, Rousseau famously declares: “The first person who, having enclosed a plot of ground, bethought himself to say this is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society” (SD, p. 165).

Nevertheless, the emergence of landed property was not sudden. As Rousseau points out, the corresponding concept of property did not instantly emerge in human minds but rather developed throughout a long process. In this process, changes in the human environment and changes within human beings themselves interacted to play their part.Footnote ⁴ Frederick Neuhouser (Reference Neuhouser2014, p. 78–79) emphasizes the vital role of amour-propre in the origin and expansion of human inequality. He points out that while amour-propre alone is insufficient to generate inequality, it remains the principal cause and a necessary condition of social inequalities; amour-propre demands that inequality be satisfied. However, although Neuhouser acknowledges the material and non-psychological factors in the process of generating inequality, his perspective still overemphasizes the role of this psychological factor by relegating other factors to “auxiliary conditions.” As Rafeeq Hasan (Reference Hasan2018, p. 891) points out, one could argue that private property emerged for other reasons related to changes in modes of production, and that the desire to express one’s worth in terms of greater property is produced in and through that material change. Céline Spector (Reference Spector2019, pp. 33–34) notes more succinctly that, for Rousseau, material and institutional factors do not only serve a pre-existing drive (amour-propre); even if Rousseau does not subscribe to a theory of economic conditions as commanding institutional superstructures, he works on the dialectic of nature and culture via modes of subsistence.

Rousseau identifies changes in the modes of production—namely, the emergence of agriculture and metallurgy—as a major cause of the establishment of land ownership. The emergence of metallurgy and agriculture introduced significant divisions of labor and the exchange of iron tools for food. At the same time, Rousseau notes: “From the cultivation of land, its division necessarily followed; and from property, once recognized, the first rules of justice necessarily followed: for in order to render to each his own, each must be able to have something” (SD, p. 173). Here, we see that Rousseau highlights the private appropriation of land rather than other objects. This is closely related to what Neuhouser (Reference Neuhouser2014, p. 97) observes: Land, unlike products grown on it, is a means of production in Marxist terms, and as a fundamental prerequisite of production, land is a significant source of social power. According to Rousseau, land serves both the basic needs of survival and the human desire for amour-propre, a means of asserting one’s worth. His emphasis on landed property as a defining moment in the history of inequality is tied to the inherent scarcity of land. While Rousseau acknowledges that human labor can improve the land and transform forests into lush fields, land has the important attribute of being non-renewable.Footnote ⁵

Rousseau observes that the initial private appropriation of land was closely linked to individual labor and natural talent, which gave it legitimacy. He states that

However, at this point, Rousseau’s similarity to John Locke is superficial. For Locke, labor in the state of nature established a legitimate right to private property, which the formal government must protect. Moreover, the introduction of money quickly broke the natural limits of land ownership. In contrast, Rousseau believes that while labor can justify claims to the products of work, it does not provide an eternal claim to the land itself (Pierson Reference Pierson2013, p. 416).Footnote ⁶ More importantly, there are other forms of entitlements to the same land. Rousseau notes:

Rousseau admits that the rich might be industrious while the poor might be idle, yet he does not believe this suffices as a justification for private land ownership. Those who were denied access to the land might have a legitimate objection to appropriation, as they are left without the means to sustain themselves (Spector Reference Spector2019, p. 32). Furthermore, regarding the expansion of land inequality and its attendant adverse consequences, the rich bear a greater responsibility due to their other actions. First, the wealthy quickly changed their strategies, ceasing to work on the land themselves and instead exploiting the labor of others.

Here, the rich’s possession of the land expands into control over people. Second, the wealthy solidify their dominance through a specious social contract (Delaney Reference Delaney2009, pp. 62–63), transforming dubious or contested property claims into a positive private property system.

According to Rousseau, the wealthy hold an advantage in conflicts brought about by private land ownership. Although they faced many adversaries, they were more strategic and far-sighted. They turned their enemies into protectors, instilled new beliefs in them, and imposed new regulations for them. In contrast, the poor, being short-sighted and unaware of long-term political consequences, focused only on short-term benefits and relied on the wealthy to mediate internal conflict. These factors deceive the poor into accepting a specious social contract, which institutionalizes asymmetries in power rooted in economic inequality (Neuhouser Reference Neuhouser2013, p. 210). By referring to the impartial rule of law and security of every person, this contract appears fair, but its true aim was to establish such order as was necessary to preserve the estates of some persons at the expense of others (Wokler Reference Wokler2001, p. 52).

For Rousseau, this specious contract and land-based property system had profound societal consequences.

Because of the various adverse outcomes of the emergence and establishment of land inequality, the specious social contract has not brought about social peace. Instead, it has caused social contradictions to continuously intensify beneath the surface and has led the upper classes to resort to increasingly extreme political means to maintain their vested interests.

According to Rousseau, the establishment of laws and private property was the first stage in the progression of inequality. The creation of administrative officials marked the second stage. In the third stage, legitimate power is transformed into despotic power. The distinction between the poor and the rich is established in the first stage, the distinction between the strong and weak is recognized in the second stage, and the status of masters and slaves is solidified in the third stage. At this point, inequality reaches its peak.

In sum, Rousseau’s approach to inequality is complex. He not only analyzes the causes of inequality in human nature, the human condition, and its consequences but also critiques it from a normative standpoint. Notably, in the Second Discourse, Rousseau’s discussion of inequality consistently revolves around land. This is undoubtedly related to the fact that Rousseau lived in the time of the pre-industrial revolution, when agriculture still played a crucial role in the European economy. This may be related to Rousseau’s intellectual atmosphere as well. As Mark Hulliung (2019, p. 12) points out, in the 1750s, when Rousseau was in contact with Jean Le Rond d’Alembert, Denis Diderot, and Paul Thiry, Baron d’Holbach, commercial topics were rarely the main focus of their debates.

However, Rousseau is not entirely oblivious to commerce. In the Second Discourse, he mentions the exchange between the two economic sectors and how some people discovered the secret to obtain more food through iron. However, this explanation stops at least in the main text. He does not further analyze the historical relationship between this new source of wealth—commerce—and inequality.

Hont (Reference Hont, Kapossy and Sonenscher2015, p. 102) asserts that Rousseau sought balanced economic growth between town and country, industry and agriculture. He found support for this view in the notes in the Second Discourse. However, this interpretation is debatable. In Note X, which Hont highlights, Rousseau criticizes luxury, contending that it exacerbates the suffering of the poor under the guise of helping them. In Rousseau’s view, society and luxury give rise to the liberal arts, mechanical arts, commerce, and literature, all of which enrich and ruin states. They have also drastically altered the relationship between farmers and land.

Rousseau addresses the imbalance between city and country, but his aim is not to remedy it. He condemns commerce, luxury, and cities, arguing that they exacerbate—or at least fail to improve—the conditions of rural residents and the poor who flee to cities.

From the above discussion, it is clear that for Rousseau, the privatization of land was a landmark event in the origin of human inequality; it brought about class conflict and the division of interests in the economic and political spheres, leading to the internal division of the mind and the emergence of corresponding political superstructures and ideologies. The rise of commerce and cities worsened the consequences of land politics. Importantly, for Rousseau, land privatization is not a one-time event whose effects diminish over time; rather, it is an ongoing structural issue in European politics. As Hont (Reference Hont, Kapossy and Sonenscher2015, p. 52) notes, for Rousseau, the inequality of private property tends to grow and disrupt political arrangements based on it. In the Second Discourse, Rousseau does not identify any factors that could hinder the continued expansion and impact of the injustice of land privatization in human history. Moreover, the rich continuously use political means to maintain unjustly acquired wealth; this conspiracy continues to this day. As Ignatieff (Reference Ignatieff1984, p. 115) points out, for Rousseau, inequality is the inertial direction of history.

After the Second Discourse, Rousseau continues to hold these views on commerce and land in his other texts. His skeptical stance toward commerce does not fundamentally change. He especially rejects doux commerce on the grounds that it fosters inequality (Williams Reference Williams2024, p. 142). His analysis of land issues is more complex. On the one hand, he seems to have continued the abovementioned analysis by generalizing the issue of land inequality to the matter of economic inequality and regarding the latter (rather than just the former) as a problem faced by modern politics.Footnote ⁷ On the other hand, land, as an important means of production, still occupies a significant place in Rousseau’s discussions of political economy after the Second Discourse. Hence, Rousseau recommends measures to limit the further expansion of land inequality or inequality in general. Whether in Considerations on the Government of Poland, Project for the Constitution of Corsica (which embodies Rousseau’s specific constitutional designs), or The Social Contract (which discusses general political principles), this theoretical orientation is clear. Notably, the title of chapter IX of book I of The Social Contract is “Of Real Property”—not property in general.

Overall, after the Second Discourse, Rousseau shifts more from critique to construction in his various political and economic discourse (Rosenblatt Reference Rosenblatt1997, pp. 80–81). However, he continues to adhere to the tone of the Second Discourse. He underscores the negative outcomes of economic inequality and commerce. On this basis, he seeks not to improve the conditions of ordinary people and defend their freedom in commercial cities but instead to establish a closer connection between them and land or agriculture by imposing restrictions on private property.

The issue of land is also important to Smith. In his view, landed property and the accumulation of capital mark the end of the phase when laborers exclusively enjoy the fruits of their labor. As Smith observes in The Wealth of Nations ([1776] Reference Smith, by and Skinner1981; hereinafter WN), “As soon as land becomes private property, the landlord demands a share of almost all the produce which the laborer can either raise, or collect from it” (WN I.viii.6, p. 106). From the perspective of modern European history, feudalism is its precursor, and feudalism is a political-economic system centered on land ownership. Even in the commercial society envisioned by Smith, land and agriculture remain the core issues. Smith believes that wealth, fixed and embodied in the cultivation and improvement of land, is the most stable and reliable form of wealth. Additionally, in Smith’s time, much of Britain’s wealth resided in its aristocracy, which persisted from feudal times (Williams Reference Williams2024, p. 173). The British political system was still an oligarchy in which the landed aristocracy still exercised considerable influence over the Parliament (Piketty Reference Piketty2020, p. 165). Thus, both as a reader and critic of the Second Discourse and as someone with his own vision of modernity, Smith needs to address issues of land and politics.

In the following, Smith’s response to Rousseau is divided into two sections. The first section explores Smith’s account of the origin of land privatization, which highlights the choices human beings were compelled to make out of considerations of economic productivity. Smith’s more direct moral defense of unequal landed property is also examined. The second section explores how Smith identifies corrective forces related to commerce in human history that Rousseau has overlooked. We will see that Rousseau’s analysis of land and economic inequality inspired Smith’s sensitivity to the specific forms and historical contexts of economic inequality. While Rousseau stresses the negative consequences and uniformity of land and economic inequality, Smith distinguishes between the two different forms of inequality and the unique consequences that correspond to these forms. In short, he makes two observations: First, the consequences of land inequality vary according to the commercial and political conditions of society. Second, even if a commercial society does not eliminate economic inequality, the consequences of this inequality differ vastly from what Rousseau believed. Thus, Smith can avoid the political path chosen by Rousseau. The first part of the response is more grounded in moral and normative considerations, while the second part entails Smith’s and Rousseau’s judgments about human history and their vision of modern society.

III. SMITH ON THE ORIGIN OF LAND PRIVATIZATION AND INEQUALITY

Similarly to Rousseau, Smith views private land ownership as a product of the transition of human society into the agricultural age.

According to Smith, when human society entered the pastoral age, dwellings became more fixed but remained highly uncertain. At this stage, their huts and the items within them gradually began to be regarded as the property of the builders. However, property rights have not yet been extended to land or pasture. The life of a shepherd requires that he frequently change his residence or place of pasturing to find pasture for his cattle. Once he has left, the property he has built is considered to have ceased. In Lectures of Jurisprudence (Smith Reference Smith, by, Raphael and Stein1982; hereinafter LJ), Smith notes that such a people “would not easily conceive a subject of such extent as land is, should belong to an object so little as a single man” (LJ, p. 59). It is easier to imagine that the entire nation, as a larger body, owns land. For this reason, in many societies, different tribes have their own exclusive territories upon which other tribes must not encroach. However, at this stage, land is not privately owned; “the property is conceived to continue no longer in a private person than he actually possessed the subject. A field that had been pastured on by one man would be considered to be his no longer than he actually staid on it” (LJ, p. 59).

Smith argues that for some time after the arrival of the agricultural age, land was still not privately owned. Initially, the entire community cultivated a piece of land together, and the produce was divided among the residents according to the size of each family and the rank of the individuals. Smith cites Tacitus to support this claim about collective farming. Smith maintains that land privatization emerged as people settled and began living together in cities. “As their place of abode was now become fixt, it would readily appear to them to be the easiest method to make a division of the land once for all, rather than be put to the unnecessary trouble of dividing the product every year” (LJ, p. 59).

Here, we can clearly see the difference between Smith and Rousseau regarding the origin of land privatization. Although Rousseau placed considerable emphasis on the role of shifting modes of production in the origins of private land ownership, he also leveled critiques against the wealthy. In his view, the rich played a more conscious role in the genesis and consolidation of land inequality.Footnote ⁸ Not only in the initial enclosures but also in the subsequent fraudulent social contract, the wealthy acted as more far-sighted actors. Moreover, although Rousseau acknowledges that amour-propre develops in every individual during human societal growth, he clearly associates the emergence and expansion of private land ownership more closely with the amour-propre of the wealthy. In this regard, Rousseau offers an explanation heavily influenced by personal sentiments and experience (Dent Reference Dent2005, p. 39; Starobinski Reference Starobinski and Goldhammer1988, pp. 282–283; Williams Reference Williams2024, p. 140; Shklar Reference Shklar1978, p. 14).

In contrast, Smith’s conception of the transformation in modes of production is more detailed and prioritizes economic productivity. He sees land privatization as an adaptive choice made by human society in response to specific production and distribution problems. There is no place here for amour-propre or the rich’s exploitation of the poor. Smith also acknowledges that certain individuals may have played a greater role in the transition from collective land ownership to private property. Smith indicates that when a community decides to distribute land, “the principal persons of such a community, or state, if you please to denominate a set of men in this condition by that honorable appellation, would divide the common land into separate portions for each individual or family” (LJ, p. 59). The sarcasm in this passage is palpable and the reference to Rousseau is clear.

In the above citation, Smith discards the dimension of the wealthy’s strategic agency inherent in Rousseau’s discourse, thereby centering economic productivity in his analysis of land ownership. The practical matters of production and distribution mentioned by Smith are faced by any agricultural society, regardless of its specific stage of growth. This means that in any society, land privatization has a determinative functional dimension that serves as the foundation for any inquiry into justice or legitimacy. As previously noted, for Rousseau, the origin of land privatization has a lasting impact on the property systems of modern Europe. Consequently, Rousseau’s criticism of Europe’s existing property systems is largely based on his revelation of the origin of land privatization. Hence, Smith’s reinterpretation of the origin of land privatization weakens Rousseau’s criticism. Of course, we must also acknowledge that Smith does not address every concern Rousseau raises about land. For example, Rousseau stresses that land is a product of nature rather than human labor, a point Smith does not highlight.

In the above, by emphasizing economic productivity, Smith foregrounds a crucial factor that Rousseau marginalizes in his narrative of human inequality. Furthermore, Smith is not so simplistic as to be blind to historical justice or injustice related to landed property. He adopts a different attitude from that of Rousseau, as revealed in his analysis of land in chapter 5 of Part III of TMS.

In this chapter, Smith distinguishes between the sentimental and natural logic related to property distribution. Smith observes: “But though the general rules by which prosperity and adversity are commonly distributed, when considered in this cool and philosophical light, appear to be perfectly suited to the situation of mankind in this life, yet they are by no means suited to some of our natural sentiments” (TMS, p. 189). Our love and admiration for certain virtues make us wish to bestow upon them various honors and rewards, even though these honors and rewards are proper recompense for other qualities. Conversely, our aversion to certain vices makes us wish for them to suffer various forms of humiliation and disasters, even though the latter result from very different qualities. We wish for generosity and justice to be rewarded with wealth, power, and every kind of honor, even though these rewards are not the natural outcomes of these virtues. Our aversion to fraud, deceit, and violence makes us indignant about seeing that they possess certain benefits, even though these benefits are deserved.

Here, the key elements of Rousseau’s Second Discourse—the industrious and greedy rich, the lazy poor, and the land—appear. Smith clearly paraphrases Rousseau’s relevant passages, identifying the tension between natural productive outcomes and the inherent human bias toward virtue. Within this tension, Smith more explicitly favors the logic of nature:

The foresight and schemes of the rich, which Rousseau critiques, have become part of the natural logic that is beneficial to society. Compared to Rousseau’s reservation regarding the industry and foresight of the rich, Smith evaluates these qualities differently.

Smith even elevates the debate to the ontological level. He asserts that the conflict between the natural course of events and human moral sentiments is an eternal condition that humans must face. He observes that the results produced by rules guiding the natural course of events sometimes shock all natural human feelings. Notwithstanding, Smith acknowledges humans’ relative powerlessness without recommending the use of politics and law to correct injustices. “When we thus despair of finding any force upon earth which can check the triumph of injustice, we naturally appeal to heaven” (TMS III.v.10, p. 190). Smith maintains that some injustice will always exist in the human world and cannot be corrected. These are the injustices with which we must live, and attempting to correct them through law and politics will only lead to greater injustice.Footnote ⁹ Religious consolation is the only compensation we can hope for in the face of such injustices. In this regard, the differences between Smith and Rousseau are clear. As Ignatieff (Reference Ignatieff1984, p. 115) points out, although both believe that inequality is the inertial direction of history, unlike Smith, Rousseau asserts that laws and politics can halt the natural course of events. Ignatieff’s characterization of Smith is somewhat absolute. For Smith, law and politics are not entirely incapable of modifying or influencing the natural course of events. However, Smith is more conservative than Rousseau. In The Social Contract, Rousseau attempts to renew politics by replanning and restricting landed property.Footnote ¹⁰ Although Smith advocates for institutional innovation, he never champions a political project on the same scale.

In sum, Smith places greater emphasis on the issue of economic productivity or efficiency underlying the origin and development of land privatization. Through this argument, alongside his distinction between natural and emotional logic, Smith challenges the validity of Rousseau’s systemic indictment toward the rich and historical inequality. From Smith’s standpoint, the origin of landed property is more a result of human adaptation to the natural environment; the calculation of the rich and powerful plays no role here, as it is precisely the transformation of the mode of subsistence—the very factor Rousseau emphasizes—that drives this process. While there is indeed some injustice in the continuation or expansion of inequality, as Rousseau indicates, it is not as illegitimate as Rousseau believes. Industry, foresight, and even the greed of the rich are part of the natural logic that human moral sentiments cannot entirely erase. Smith even believes that in human history, there will always be some injustices that cannot be corrected by law and politics.

Nevertheless, Smith’s response is hitherto insufficient in two ways. First, even if we grant that land privatization was an emergent, functional outcome, humans still seem to face the fate depicted by Rousseau in the Second Discourse. The vast inequality in land ownership threatens the survival of the poor, placing them in a state of servitude. Second, Smith’s response lacks historical dimensions. Its relationship to European history remains unclear. Therefore, Smith needs to further consider the historical significance of land privatization and its impact on human destiny to establish a foundation for his political vision, which differs from that of Rousseau.

IV. SMITH ON LAND, INEQUALITY, AND COMMERCE

Scholars have long noted that the famous passage on “the deception of nature” and the “invisible hand” in Part IV of TMS represents Smith’s significant response to Rousseau. The editors of TMS identified faint echoes of Bernard de Mandeville and Rousseau in this passage (TMS, p. 21). Ignatieff argues that in this passage, Smith explains how human progress can reconcile social inequality with provision for the poor (Ignatieff Reference Ignatieff1984, p. 113). Samuel Fleischacker (Reference Fleischacker2004, p. 109) asserts that Smith is probably agreeing with Rousseau on the importance of amour-propre (our vain desires) to the growth of civilization; in economic terms, he is endorsing the claim that luxury spending is crucial to growth. Even so, these views overlook the fact that Smith is also discussing land and politics in this passage.

In this paragraph, as Fleischacker points out, Smith first acknowledges that amour-propre drives humans to cultivate land, build houses, establish cities and countries, and develop various sciences and arts. Notwithstanding, unlike Rousseau’s speculation, Smith maintains that the rich possess more land does not endanger the survival of the poor. Proud and unfeeling landlords own vast lands without considering the needs of their fellow men. However,

Smith rejects Rousseau’s assertion that land inequality endangers the survival of the poor. Although, as in the Second Discourse, greedy landlords and unequal landed properties exist, the economic consequences are completely different from those Rousseau envisages.

Nevertheless, Smith’s argument does not constitute a decisive refutation of Rousseau. First, Smith has only presented another possible consequence of land politics without fully revealing the political and economic mechanisms therein. Smith mentions the luxury and caprice of the rich as well as the services provided by the landless to the landlords. Notwithstanding, the political and economic relationships between landlords and the landless are far from clear. We do not know whether these landless people provide services and goods to landlords inside or outside their households. Donald Winch (Reference Winch1996, p. 64) suggests that Smith’s narrative lies within the framework of an agricultural society. This arbitrary but insightful judgment indicates the temporal dimensions of Smith’s claim.Footnote ¹¹ This leads to Smith’s second shortcoming. In this passage, Smith does not provide the historical and temporal positioning of the aforementioned land-political mechanism. We cannot determine whether the political and economic mechanism has been in operation since the beginning of unequal landed property or evolved at a specific historical moment.Footnote ¹²

Continuing to trace the development of Smith’s thoughts, we find that Smith realized that the consequences of huge inequality in land ownership varied with historical circumstances. In Lectures on Jurisprudence, Smith compares the social impacts of a person with a great estate in the current era and of his counterpart in ancient Rome.

Although, like our ancestors, we consider those with huge estates to be monsters who destroy the livelihoods of many people, “if we observe this man we will find that he is no way prejudicial to society but rather of advantage to it” (LJ, p. 185). Using a mode of expression very similar to the “invisible hand” passage, Smith points out that he does not eat more than an ordinary plowman; the difference lies only in that the things he selects are elaborately processed and their value has increased many times after processing. The rest of the rent paid in kind is left to those who select and process this part for him. Smith continues to indicate that, although this consumption pattern does not support more people than before, it greatly increases opportunities for work and manufacturing. Here, we can see that Smith envisions the possibility that—under the premise of unequal land distribution—a consumption pattern of agricultural products would be conducive to the manufacturing and livelihood of the poor.

Smith clearly realizes that this pattern is not available in any historical context. There was no such a possibility in ancient Rome because the social and economic consequences of possessing huge estates in Rome differed completely from those in the contemporary era. The key difference is that in Rome, “the lands were then entirely cultivated by slaves; there was no such thing as free tenants” (LJ, p. 187). Because slavery was inefficient, slaves consumed five-sixths of the crops produced on land. “The remaining part also was not as at present distributed amongst free citizens who wrought to the rich man and raised up what he consumed to the value of what he laid out, but on his own slaves or those of other rich men” (LJ, p. 187). In addition, at this time, slaves practiced all kinds of trade, and the rich were accustomed to employing slaves rather than the poor to do their work. This situation led to the outcome that “the whole produce of the estates of the rich was consumed by the master and his slaves” (LJ, p. 187). In Smith’s view, this was the cause of the political seditions in Rome and Athens that demanded the establishment of agrarian law and the abolition of debt.

Smith finds that the poor face two different fates in the current era and in Rome, although in both cases, they are landless. “The poor people now who have neither a land estate nor any fortune in money can gain a livelyhood by working as a servant to a farmer in the country, or by working to any tradesman whose business they understand” (LJ, p. 187). They can achieve subsistence by adding value to the consumption of the rich. In Rome, however, all work was done by slaves. Poor citizens without land or fortune in money had no business to engage in. Their only means of subsistence was the generosity of the rich and the trading of their votes.

Thus, Smith historicizes Rousseau’s proposition that land inequality endangers the survival and freedom of the poor. From Smith’s standpoint, there are indeed situations similar to those described by Rousseau, such as the case of ancient Rome. Smith even contends that, in such circumstances, people’s complaints and fears about the rich are reasonable. However, human society is not predestined to be thus, and the current era is different. The key to this difference is the rise of commerce and manufacturing and the emergence of free tenants.

Although Smith’s response has advanced compared with Part IV of TMS, it is still not entirely satisfactory. Smith leaves a significant gap between ancient Rome and the current era. He does not yet clearly explain how the current era began. In addition, although his description of the relationship between the poor and landlords in the current era is clearer than in TMS, it is still not fully clear.

Interestingly, when explaining how the current era came about, Smith historicizes Rousseau’s relevant propositions for the second time. In this second historicization, Smith turns his eyes to the birth of a feudal society.

The German and Scythian invasions destroyed cities and villages in the prosperous western provinces of the Roman Empire, plunging them into the lowest states of poverty and barbarism.

Based on this extreme inequality in land ownership, a feudal political economy was established.

Owing to the lack of foreign trade and finer manufacturers, simple products on the lands of great landlords could be used to support only two kinds of people: (1) a tenant at will, and (2) servants and retainers. Both types lived entirely within the landlord’s bounty and obeyed his orders. As Smith points out: “They necessarily became the judges in peace, and the leaders in war, of all who dwelt upon their estates. They could maintain order and execute the law within their respective demesnes, because each of them could there turn the whole force of all the inhabitants against the injustice of anyone” (WN III.iv.7, p. 330). Based on the possession of land as a means of production, landlords gained great economic and political power that exceeded the king’s interference because “he was little more than the greatest proprietor in his dominions” (WN III.iv.7, p. 330). Due to the king’s weakness, the great landlords obtained the jurisdiction and command of the militia on their lands, and were like the monarchs on their own lands. They were the masters of the lives and properties of others internally, and often rashly launched wars externally. Correspondingly, due to personal dependence and low production levels resulting from the excessive concentration of land, ordinary people lived a poor and undignified life under feudalism.

It is precisely here that Smith historicizes Rousseau’s proposition for the second time. As mentioned above, Rousseau regards the unequal ownership of land and related economic and political inequalities as chronic ailments impacting the European political and economic system. Such inequalities were further strengthened by positive laws and political systems. As a result, they not only gravely endangered the survival and freedom of the poor but also corrupted the rich by gratifying their lust for domination. Ultimately, this plunged society into a state of civil war beneath a seemingly peaceful surface. Compared with Rousseau’s description, which lacks historical details, Smith clearly locates this situation in the feudal era. Although Smith does not state clearly whether the feudal era was the pinnacle of human inequality, he noticed a tripartite phenomenon. This was the same phenomenon that Rousseau discovered as inequality neared its peak: the superposition of three pairs of oppositions—rich and poor, strong and weak, and master and slave.

In the process of historicizing Rousseau’s proposition, Smith also discerns the possibilities of change concealed within history. Unlike Rousseau, Smith does not believe that the beginning of history determined the historical process: “This original engrossing of uncultivated lands, though a great, might have been but a transitory evil” (WN III.ii.2, p. 312). Unfortunately, the laws of primogeniture and entail hindered the power of nature or time to correct the injustice and violence caused by this beginning. Fortunately, the rise of cities changed everything.

Rousseau contends that the rise of cities worsened the situation of the countryside and peasants, and did not improve the situation of the common people who fled to the cities. Influenced by David Hume, Smith tells a completely different story. Smith agrees with Rousseau that, initially, the situation of urban residents was no more favorable than that of rural residents. However, in the political niche between the landlords and the monarch, they gradually obtained freedom and became an independent political force with a certain degree of autonomy. At the same time, the rise of commerce and manufacturing transformed the rich’s domination over the poor into a focus on luxury consumption, ultimately disintegrating the political power that feudal landlords obtained through unequal land ownership and introducing order and good government to the countryside. As Smith states, “very old families, such as have possessed some considerable estate from father to son for many successive generations, are very rare in commercial countries” (WN III.iv.16, p. 333). In this new economic order, the poor no longer depend on large landlords and have become free and independent.

It is precisely at this point that Smith negates the starting point of Rousseau’s politics. Rousseau claims that land inequality had hugely negative consequences for human society, which commerce and money exacerbated. Thus, history does not have the power to correct inequality. Rousseau maintains that a political philosophy committed to securing the fundamental interests of all members must be concerned with regulating those inequalities (Neuhouser Reference Neuhouser2013, p. 215). Smith asserts that European history started a new chapter in which, precisely because of the historical contributions of commerce opposed by Rousseau, the negative economic and political outcomes of land inequality were largely eliminated.

In addition, although economic inequality still existed in the European political and economic system, the same degree of economic inequality could no longer play the same role as in the feudal system, for the following reasons.Footnote ¹³ First, great wealth in a commercial society is more easily dispersed: “In commercial countries, therefore, riches, despite the most violent regulations of law to prevent their dissipation, seldom remain long in the same family” (WN III.iv.16, p. 333). Second, in a commercial society, “the person who either acquires, or succeeds to a great fortune, does not necessarily acquire or succeed to any political power, either civil or military” (WN I.v.3, p. 82). Third, commerce significantly weakens the power of the same great wealth over specific individuals. Finally, the increase in productivity resulting from the division of labor greatly improves the lives of the poor. Thus, the negative consequences of inequality that Rousseau is concerned about were largely weakened.

Due to these positive effects of commerce, Smith not only generally supports the improvement of commercial policies but also supports commercial policies related to land. Smith maintains that European legislators needed to take measures to abolish the outdated law of primogeniture and entail and divide large, inefficient plots of land into smaller, more productive ones. This is undoubtedly a commercial perspective on land that differs from Rousseau’s.