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Front Page  Titles (by Subject) Social Framework and Prosperity - Literature of Liberty, January/March 1978, vol. 1, No. 1
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Social Framework and Prosperity - Leonard P. Liggio, Literature of Liberty, January/March 1978, vol. 1, No. 1 [1978]Edition used:Literature of Liberty: A Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought was published first by the Cato Institute (1978-1979) and later by the Institute for Humane Studies (1980-1982) under the editorial direction of Leonard P. Liggio.
Part of: Literature of Liberty: A Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought, 20 vols. 19781-982
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Social Framework and Prosperity
“Political Order and Economic Development: Reflections on Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.” Political Studies (UK), 23 (1975): 430–441. Current political science literature limits our understanding of the relationship between polity and economic development. An important defect is the largely unargued assumption that economic and technological development directly or indirectly determines political order. In arguing that the reverse is true, we can interpret the relevance of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations to the contemporary problem of economic development. The Wealth of Nations covers three key elements of a comprehensive theory of political economy: the character of a nation's administration of justice; the type of political authority; and, the coherence and effectiveness of authority systems. Smith recognizes that law, order, and the justice of public authority make possible the growth of a large, and therefore relatively impersonal, highly subdivided, and interdependent market system. The character of political order determines the motivation behind economic development. Private virtues can offset public vices. Defective justice, however, cripples the very basis of economic enterprise, the desire to work, and the incentives to invest productively. The type of political authority can limit not only the rate of economic development but the ultimate level of wealth which a nation's economy can attain. Government coercion will not produce as rapid and secure an economic progress as that which may be realized in a society where the energies of the people are freely directed toward economic enterprise. This voluntaristic society is characterized by efficient, secure, and necessarily complex economic institutions which flourish, supported by appropriate political order. |
