Adam Smith's Critique of International Trading Companies

Abstract

The interpretive strategy of this article is to identify the joint stock company as an independent unit of analysis in Adam Smith's theory of international political economy. Such companies, in Smith's view, had corrupted and captured many European and non-European governments and undermined their societies' ability to engage in peaceful transnational affairs and equitable self-rule. In contrast with Smith's well-known concerns about the rise of commerce in modern Europe in his four-stage account of social development— which were outweighed, in his view, by the many material benefits and personal liberties brought about by the eclipse of feudalism—his narrative of globalization offers a trenchantly critical appraisal of commercial practices that ultimately undermine many of the gains that the initial rise of modern commerce once made possible. Even in his rare moments of optimism about the future of global relations, Smith remained deeply ambivalent about globalization.