Steve KelseyNeoliberal supporters often quote iconic politicians and philosophers in order to legitimise their ideology. These quotations are usually incomplete and out of context.
Margaret Thatcher.
Margaret Thatcher once said
“They are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours.”
The quote is from an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Women’s Hour programme in 1987. In its full version Thatcher makes an unremarkable claim, of course society and government is made up of people. However, this quotation is rarely given in full. It is usually abbreviated by Neoliberals to-
“there is no such thing as society”
Society has been with us for thousands of years. It is the division of labour between a group of people for the benefit of all. The builder builds, the baker bakes, the farmer farms. Each is dependent on the other and this dependence is not a burden, it is a benefit to all.
Society allows expertise to be developed, including the expertise to pass on this expertise from one generation to the next through teaching. Society allows the extension of expertise through research. Society allows each individual to thrive at what they do best. Society ensures they are provided for as well as they provide for others.
What the neoliberals rail against is this social contract of individual to group and group to individual. The contract that society provides, and most are happy to accept, limits exploitation of people by those individuals who wish to break this social contract for their personal gain.
The full quotation from Thatcher provides that definition of society that neoliberals object to
“ … It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours “
To look after your neighbours is precisely what society is all about. This duty precludes the exploitation that neoliberalism needs in order to grow.
Adam Smith
“The invisible hand of economics.”
Neoliberals often employ this quote from Adam Smith but yet again they quote a convenient fragment rather than the full statement.
“Every individual… neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it… he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.
Adam Smith The Theory Of Moral Sentiments, Part IV, Chapter I, pp.184-5, para. 10.
The Neoliberal use of the invisible hand demands that the blind functioning of the market should never be challenged. The invisible hand always provides the optimum distribution of wealth according to an individual’s merit and effort. It is used to justify inequality as a natural state brought on by the ability of the few to generate greater wealth than the many. If you were capable, you would be wealthy. If you are not wealthy, that is the natural consequence of your lack of ability.
Adam Smith’s meaning is rather different. In the full quotation it is clear that he meant the invisible hand serves to combat inequality.
“…he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.”
Adam Smith The Theory Of Moral Sentiments, Part IV, Chapter I, pp.184-5, para. 10.
It is the unintended consequence that the selfish actions of the individual resulted in greater wealth for all that intrigued Smith.
In the Wealth of Nations he noted that…
“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.”
The Wealth Of Nations, Book V, Chapter I, Part III, Article II, p. 764, para. 15.
Rather than the scientific rationalist he is portrayed to be Smith was a humanist at heart. Of human nature he believed
“To feel much for others and little for ourselves; to restrain our selfishness and exercise our benevolent affections, constitute the perfection of human nature.”
Adam Smith- A Theory of Moral Sentiment
And rather than the champion of private property as a social good Smith had radically socialist views for his time.
“As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce. “
Smith never argued that selfishness was a necessary quality for markets to function efficiently. Smith argued that, even if everyone acted selfishly, a market could still function efficiently.
In the broader social context Smith argued that empathy was an essential and natural condition for society to emerge and function. Smith rejected the zero sum battle for wealth entirely, explaining how in manufacture and trade both parties benefit. The zero-sum game, ‘Mechantilism’, as it was described then, was a false description of the free actions of the market and Smith criticised merchantilist exploiters savagely
To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers…The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.
The Wealth Of Nations, Book IV Chapter VIII, p. 145, paras. c29-30