> [!summary] Progressive Summary # Structured Notes ## Definitions ## Chapter Summaries - Adam Smith reviled selfishness as a basis for relating to others: "All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind." Smith, Wealth of Nations, Vol. 1, III.iv.10 - Two of the most famous passages ever written about market society: Adam Smith and Karl Marx. They both thought highly of the free market as an egalitarian force. However, they were separated by the Industrial Revolution, which made all the difference. The Industrial Revolution allowed businesses to scale up so greatly that a new capitalist class was created, thus dampening the egalitarian principles of the free market. - Adam Smith: "When an animal wants to obtain something either of a man or of another animal, it has no other means of persuasion but to gain the favour of those whose service it requires. A ... spaniel endeavours by a thousand attractions to engage the attention of its master who is at dinner, when it wants to be fed by him. Man sometimes uses the same arts with his brethren, and ... endavours by every servile and fawning attention to obtain their good will ... But man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favour, and shew them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer ... It is not from benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love ... Nobody but a beggar chuses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens." - Karl Marx: "[The] sphere … within whose boundaries the sale and purchase of labour-power goes on, is in fact a very Eden of the innate rights of man. There alone rule Freedom, Equality, Property and Bentham. Freedom, because both buyer and seller of a commodity, say of labour-power, are constrained only by their own free will. They contract as free agents, and the agreement they come to, is but the form in which they give legal expression to their common will. Equality, because each enters into relation with the other, as with a simple owner of commodities, and they exchange equivalent for equivalent. Property, because each disposes only of what is his own. And Bentham, because each looks only to himself.… On leaving this sphere of simple circulation or of exchange of commodities, which furnishes the “Free-trader Vulgaris” with his views and ideas, and with the standard by which he judges a society based on capital and wages, we think we can perceive a change in the physiognomy of our dramatis personae. He, who before was the money-owner, now strides in front as capitalist; the possessor of labour-power follows as his labourer. The one with an air of importance, smirking, intent on business; the other, timid and holding back, like one who is bringing his own hide to market and has nothing to expect but—a hiding." - Egalitarianism in 17th-century Europe - Arose in opposition to 3 dominant types of hierarchy: authority, esteem, and standing. - In a hierarchy of authority, those of higher rank get to order subordinates around. They exercise "arbitrary and unaccountable power" over their inferiors. - In a hierarchy of esteem, those of higher rank despise those of lower rank, and extract tokens of deferential honour from them, such as bowing, scraping, and other rituals of self-abasement. - In a hierarchy of standing, the interests of those of higher rank count in the eyes of others, whereas the interests of those of lower rank do not. Others are free to neglect them, and, in extreme cases, to trample upon them with impunity. - Egalitarianism cannot be reduced to distributive justice (see Samuel Fleishacker, A Short History of Distributive Justice). It is more concerned with dismantling or taming social hierarchy. - Levellers - One of the first egalitarian movements in the modern world - Arose in the English civil war, where they were part of Cromwell's New Model Army - Remembered for their calls for constituional reform, including universal male franchise, parliamentary representation of districts in proportion to their population, abolition of the House of Lords and the lords' privileges, and religious toleration. They were firm defenders of rights of private property and free trade. - Justifications for hierarchy in Christian Europe - The great chain of being, reaching all the way up to God. Breaking the chain would unleash catastrophic disorder upon the world, breaking the connection with God. - Patriarchy - Fathers enjoyed absolute dominion over their households. The King was considered to be the father of the country, and God the father of the universe. - Original Sin - humanity's tendency for sin justified "comprehensive external constraint." Every sinner needed someone to have authority over him. This was also the traditional justification for slavery. - Erosion of hierarchy - Agricultural developments displaced serfs and peons who became "masterless". These people had broken free of the great chain of being, and no one could figure out who had authority over them. Masterless men formed the core of Cromwell's New Model Army during the English civil war. - Rise of religious sects - The Puritans challenged the authority of the Anglican church. - Millenialism - the doctrine of Christ's imminent return to rule earth directly - was common among the sects, and this eroded the doctrine of original sin, since Christ's return would redeem all human beings from sin. - Many sects were forms of proto-feminism. - Quaker marriage vows omitted mention of the wife's duty to obey her husband. Margaret Fell, wife of Quaker founder George Fox, had a prenuptial agreement denying Fox authority over her estate. - Leveller John Lilburne argued that Adam's sin was his arrogant attempt to rule over Eve. Women were very active in the Leveller movement. - Fifth Monarchists argued for women's suffrage. - Thomas Paine was a notable egalitarian. He sounded like a modern-day libertarian. He argued for limited government, private property, gold standard. But he was embraced by labor radicals in the US and Europe for decades after his death in 1809. The reason is that they saw access to self-employment as central to avoiding poverty and attaining standing as equals in society. - Republicans of the civil war had egalitarian ideals - They believed in independent yeoman and self-employed workers. They were primarily fighting against the expansion of slavery to the north, because they believed that this would take away land from self-employed workers. They did not fight the war on moral grounds. Or rather, their moral priorities were different. - Lincoln condemned the “mudsill theory”. This was advanced by pro-slavery Senator James Hammond of South Carolina, who believed that civilization needed an inferior class of people consigned to drudgery, just as every soundly built house needed to rest on mudsill. [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3439t.html](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3439t.html) - These ideals never came to fruition for 3 reasons: - Women were never included in the free labor ideal, since their domestic work went unpaid and was considered the property of men - The Civil War was a powerful driver of industrialization, and thus put the means of production out of reach of the common man - The ideal contained within it a hierarchy, which valued self-employed workers over wage laborers. Even Lincoln claimed that if someone remained a wage laborer, it was not the fault of the system, but his own. It was the equivalent of blaming the person left standing in a game of musical chairs on the person, and not the system. - The term “wage slavery” originates with early nineteenth century labor radicals - From Wikipedia: The use of the term "wage slave" by labor organizations may originate from the labor protests of the Lowell Mill Girls in 1836. # Quotes