To simplify matters, I will take the most fundamental, almost statutory text regarding the characterization of civil society. This is Ferguson’s famous text, translated into French in 1783 with the title Essais sur l’histoire de la société civile, and which is very close to Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, the word “nation” in Smith, moreover, having more or less the same meaning as civil society in Ferguson. We have here the political correlate, the correlate in terms of civil society, of what Adam Smith studied in purely economic terms. Ferguson’s civil society is actually the concrete, encompassing element within which the economic men Smith tried to study operate. I would like to pick out three or four essential characteristics of this civil society in Ferguson: first, civil society understood as an historical-natural constant; second, civil society as principle of spontaneous synthesis; third, civil society as permanent matrix of political power; and fourth, civil society as the motor element of history.--Michel Foucault, 4 April, 1979, translated by Graham Burchell, Lecture 12, The Birth of Biopolitics, 298
Foucault had coupled Ferguson and Smith before in lecture 11. There they jointly illustrate the claim that according to eighteenth century doctrine, "not only must government not obstruct the interests of each, but it is impossible for the sovereign to have a point of view on the economic mechanism which totalizes every element and enables them to be combined artificially or voluntarily." (280)* Foucault then uses Ferguson's analysis of the relative success of the English colonies over the French in North America, to support the claim that independent citizens entrusted with their own interests (the English) can outcompete colonies that come with big designs (the French).
In lecture 12, Foucault reminds his audience that eighteenth century social theory (to simplify: prior to, say, Bentham) can't really combine homo oeconomicus with the age's moral-theological-juridical views of criminal (and political) subjects. These are incommensurable paradigms -- Foucault puts it like this: "that homo oeconomicus and the subject of right were therefore not superposable" (292) --, until Benthamite reformers (anticipated by Beccaria and Grouchy) thin out the criminal subject so he conforms to the utilitarian image of man.
Faced with the incommensurability (and some other assumptions about the limits of government knowledge), and prior to that radical move, there are three options: first, "the sovereign will be able to intervene everywhere except in the market." (293). Foucault does not associate any theorist or group with this position. Second, which looks like it, the sovereign remains in control of the market, in particular the preconditions necessary to its functioning, but rather than supervise it actively, it controls it theoretically or passively. It is said to be 'theoretical' because it needs data and evidence on the market's functioning and process in order to get its preconditions (taxes, tariffs, laws, etc.) right. This second position is associated with physiocrats, who are treated as kind of quasi-Ordo-liberals avant la lettre.
As Foucault notes neither of these first two options is very attractive to the sovereign and so do not really ever get tried out. (It's notable Foucault skips Turgot's moment near power in 1774-1776). That's because neither option solves the problem of incommensurability. To the best of my knowledge Foucault's thesis is original. Instead, a different, third option is used, one that does allow the sovereign the exercise, as I noted before, a governmental technology (296), even if, or perhaps because, that technology (civil society) also helps constitute a new kind of sovereignty.
The way civil society solves this incommensurability is by being a the site of an enlarged interest or what came to be known as (enlightened) self-interest properly understood. Here self-interest is not egoism. (The underlying idea being that egoism is always selfish, but that there are forms of self-interest, like prudence, which may be moral.) Foucault, in summarizing Ferguson puts it like this: "there is a distinct set of non-egoist interests, a distinct interplay of non-egoist, disinterested interests which is much wider than egoism itself." (301) I'd have to check Ferguson, but this seems right.
For Smith, this disinterested interest is an effect of our nature. As he puts in the famous first sentence of TMS, "How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.” That is, for Smith civil society is itself a site of important, aesthetic experiences (assuming that 'the pleasure of seeing it' falls under aesthetics). The principle in our nature is sympathy, which makes the sight and mutual recognition of other people's passions pleasurable to us. Importantly, for Smith, as Levy and Peart have argued, sympathy is also a means toward seeing each other as equals.
Crucially then, on Foucault's interpretation of Ferguson and Smith, civil society can accommodate, even be the grounds of existence of, economic agents without reducing their interests to a profit motive only. (301) The other crucial feature of civil society is that it grounds what we may call tribalism, faction, or community. It does so because in it there is free play of both sympathy and antipathy, which makes us form distinct groups sometimes based on shared interests or repugnancies other times based on shared language, values, religion, heritage, etc. As Foucault writes:
Civil society, Ferguson says, leads the individual to enlist “on the side of one tribe or community.” Civil society is not humanitarian but communitarian. And in fact we see civil society appear in the family, village, and corporation, and, of course, at higher levels, reaching that of the nation in Adam Smith’s sense, [in the sense given to it] at more or less the same time in France. The nation is precisely one of the major forms, [but] only one of the possible forms, of civil society. (302)
What's attractive about Foucault's interpretive framework is that community and political differentiation are a natural by-product of what we may call, 'Scottish social theory.'+ This is so, even though within Scottish social theory, humanity becomes (as Hanley, Debes, Taylor, and Abramson have argued) a key moral ideal.
But I think Foucault's framework is too attractive. For, I suspect Foucault is projecting backward a recently popular idea that the nations of nationalism are themselves a fruit of modernity. Let me explain my unease.
To the best of my knowledge Foucault is the first to suggest that a Smithian 'nation' just is what Ferguson calls 'civil society.' But for Smith 'nations' and 'society' are two distinct analytical categories. And within a nation there can be multiple societies, including different kinds of societies (this is especially so in Scotland with its contrast between Highlands and Lowlands.) And, as I have argued elsewhere, throughout WN when Smith focuses primarily on economic analysis, he writes about “society;” when he focuses on mores or political matters, he will speak of “civilized society” (e.g., WN 1.8.39, 97) or “political society” (1.8.36, 96). And 'civilized' is contrasted with 'savage' or 'barbarous.' (To be sure: for Smith progress to being civilized is good, but unlike many others in the age, he does not treat the civilized as morally superior to the barbarous.)
Now, despite having 'nations' in the title of WN, Smith is not very interested in characterizing a nation. But it is pretty clear that for Smith nations can both transcend different ages (including the birth of civil society), and come to an end. With previous paragraphs in mind, I now treat the first two characteristics of civil society mentioned above, in turn. (The next two characteristics shall be treated in a follow up post.)
That civil society is a historical constant means (and now Foucault is paraphrasing Ferguson) that "the social bond has no pre-history...it is permanent and indispensable." (299) Following the critics of Hobbes, mankind is by nature a social animal embedded, we would say, in culture. By contrast, while it is true that, in general, Smith treats humans as social animals, it should be clear that on my reading of Smith on society, Smith does not think that civil society is a historical constant.
And, in fact, it is worth noting that right at the start of Wealth of Nations, Smith hints, when commenting on the propensity to "truck, barter, and exchange" that may not be an "original" principle "in human nature of which no further account can be given;" but, rather, and more "probable" is it the historical "consequence of the faculties of reason and speech." And in another work, on the origin of language, Smith offers an account of the development of the cognitive and linguistic building blocks of culture. So, this is an important difference between Ferguson and Smith.
This, and other details recounted in this post, make me suspect that Foucault did not read Smith as carefully as he read Ferguson (at least when preparing lectures 11-12). See also my note * below. (That Foucault treats Smith's analysis of the equivalent of civil society as being offered 'in purely economic terms' suggests that Foucault is drawing on a caricature.) Ironically, Smith's position anticipates Foucault's own: civil society is itself a product of development. And whereas Smith kind of anticipates Marx with a focus on material conditions, Foucault kind of echoes Hayek with his focus (as we have seen last times) on transactions (although relative to Hayek, Foucault wishes to denaturalize the spontaneous order).++
Second, "spontaneous synthesis means there is no explicit contract, no voluntary union, no renunciation of rights, and no delegation of natural rights to someone else; in short, there is no constitution of sovereignty by a sort of pact of subjection." (300) This characteristic is the shared debt of Ferguson and Smith to Hume. In addition, 'spontaneous synthesis' means that the happiness of the whole is constituted by the happiness of its parts understood as individuals and vice versa. This is indeed Ferguson's view. And it is important that even for a republican like Ferguson this is achieved by focusing on the "happiness of individuals" which "is the great end of civil society." (302, Foucault quoting Ferguson). It is also a plausible reading of Smith's position for whom the happiness of common labourers will ensure the flourishing of society. However, in some ways, Ferguson's version of this position is closer to Smith's teacher, Hutcheson (who is the common source), than Smith here. Because Smith sometimes implies that if one is in good health and knows that one is beloved, we will be happy regardless of the circumstances of larger society.**
*The quoted claim is indeed the view. But then Foucault goes on to say, "the invisible hand which spontaneously combines interests also prohibits any form of intervention and, even better, any form of
overarching gaze which would enable the economic process to be totalized." And this contains two odd mistakes: first, some intervention is permitted by Smith (and Ferguson). Second, the "invisible hand" (which goes unmentioned by Ferguson) is in Smith not at all about spontaneously combining interests. Back in 2013, I discussed this material here, at Newapps, which, retrospectively is episode XXXIX; so won't repeat now.
+I am skipping a super interesting proto-Hegelian account of how according to Foucault, in Ferguson the development of economic life within civil society both draws people together and splits them apart into isolated and competitive units. (303) Again, for Smith is the competition among economic units is generally treated in terms of orders and classes.
++When I discuss the third characteristic of civil society, we return to the connection with Hayek.
**Smith writes, “the chief part of human happiness arises from the consciousness of being beloved” (TMS 1.2.5.1, 41; see also TMS 3.1.7, 113; 3.5.8, 166; 6.2.1.19, 225; and elsewhere, “because happiness and misery, which reside altogether in the mind, must necessarily depend more upon the healthful or unhealthful, the mutilated or entire state of the mind, than upon that of the body” (WN 5.1.f.60, 787)
Eric, you’re back!!
Posted by: Rick | 05/25/2021 at 10:06 AM