The Political Economy of National Defence in Adam Smith

Abstract

What did Adam Smith make of the effect of commercial civilisation on national security, liberty and warfare? This paper examines Smith's argument on how the civilising force of commerce gave rise to the social division of labour and, consequently, to changes in defence and warfare, while also considering his treatment of national security and liberty in a century dubbed the ‘Second Hundred Years' War’ between Britain and France. It concludes that, for Smith, a standing army was an embodiment of civilisation as well as an outcome of the expansion of the division of labour in the early-modern commercial civilisation of Europe.