애덤 스미스와 민주주의

Abstract

The name of Adam Smith is inextricably linked with modern economics. The most fundamental goal of his academic life, however, was the study of the principles of law and government. He formally declared this goal, pursued it throughout his life, and wrote The Wealth of Nations as a partial fulfilment, contributing to his immortality as a thinker. Although Smith was not a scholar dedicated to the study of democracy, he did explore the principles of law and goverment, and his writings contain rich discussions of political decision-making issues from which we can infer his understanding of democracy. This paper reconstructs them through the lens of realising and limiting majoritarianism.
 While Smith's view was that majoritarianism should be at the centre of political decision-making, and he emphasised the role of elections as a means of realising majoritarianism, this does not mean that the path to majoritarianism is limited to elections. Rather, this paper argues that Smith saw the role of public opinion in influencing public deliberation as an important means of realising majoritarianism. In this regard, Smith identified the problem of class bias in public opinion based on socioeconomic conditions as a reason for the adoption of mercantilism, and recognized the role of the state in addressing this problem. Smith's discussion has significant relevance to the problem of the limited political role of the people in today's democracies, and the need for the active exercise of political liberty to prevent the implementation of unjust policies that violate liberty.
 At the same time, Smith also touched on the possibility of the limiting majoritarianism. Majoritarianism is typically realised through representative legislation, and Smith recognized the existence of a higher normative content that guided statutory law by regarding such parliamentary legislation as aiming to be consistent with the rules of natural justice that arise from the sympathy of human nature. Smith also emphasized the existence of the state's duty of equal treatment as a normative principle that guides legislation in the area of police. Essentially, Smith recognized that representative decision-making is constrained by more fundamental norms. On the other hand, by locating the source of this limitation in the moral principles or political will emanating from the members of the state as a whole, Smith is credited with showing that the limitation of representative decision-making and the ideology of majoritarianism may not be incompatible. By viewing a constitution based on popular sovereignty as a product of the will of the majority, being higher democratic law-making than ordinary legislation, Smith's position has a similar logical structure to the current debate that even if a constitution appears to limit representative legislation, it can ultimately be reconciled with the ideology of majoritarianism.