Adam Smith on Business Ethics

See, for example, Epstein Edwin M. , “The Corporate Social Policy Process: Beyond Business Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Corporate Social Responsiveness,” California Management Review, 29/3 (Spring 1987): 99–114 and Frederick William C. , “Toward CSR₃: Why Ethical Analysis Is Indispensible and Unavoidable in Corporate Affairs,” California Management Review, 28/2 (Winter 1986): 126. I have benefited from the comments of Professor Peter Minowitz on an earlier draft of this paper.

Ruskin John , Fors Clavigera: Letters to the Workmen and Labourers of Great Britain (1876), as quoted in Himmelfarb Gertrude , The Idea of Poverty (New York, NY: Alfred Knopf, 1984), p. 42. A good collection of 19th-century critics of Smith is Jay Elisabeth Jay Richard , Critics of Capitalism: Victorian Reactions to ‘Political Economy’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).

Smith Adam , The Theory of Moral Sentiments, edited by Raphael D.D. Macfie A.L. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), Part II, Sect. ii, Chap.3, paragraph 2. Hereinafter cited as TMS, followed by part, section, chapter, and paragraph numbers corresponding to the definitive Glasgow edition published by Oxford.

Smith Adam , An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, edited by Campbell R.H. Skinner A.S. Todd W.B. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), Book IV, Chap. ii, paragraph 9. Hereinafter cited as WN, followed by book, chapter, section (if any), and paragraph to correspond to the definitive Glasgow edition published by Oxford.

WN IV.ix.51

WN V.i.b.5, V.i.f.30, 50–51, 60–61.

WN V.i.g.12.

WN, Introduction 4; see also Hont Istvan Ignatieff Michael , “Needs and Justice in the Wealth of Nations: An Introductory Essay,” in Hont Ignatieff , eds., Wealth and Virtue: The Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 1.

WN IV.ix.51.

WN II.iii.14.

WN II.iii.28.

Weber Max , The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, translated by Parsons Talcott (New York, NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1930).

WN II.iii.27–28.

WN I.ii.1.

WN I.ii.2.

TMS I.i.1.1.

TMS I.i.1.2.

TMS III.1.2; 2.1.

TMS I.i.5.8; II.ii.2.1–4; III.3.1.

TMS III.3.1.

WN V.i.f.50.

Ibid.

WN I.x.c.23.

WN I.x.c.27.

TMS I.iii.3.5.

TMS I.iii.3.6–8.

WN IV.ii.43.

Ibid.

WN IV.vii.c.103, 104, 108; V.i.e.26.

WN IV.vii.c.104.

WN V.i.e.11.

WN V.i.e.22; 18.

WN IV.vii.c.105.

WN IV.vii.c.101.

WN I.xi.c.

WN V.i.g.10.