CAPITALISM'S ACHILLES HEEL Dirty Money and How to

ing the joys of wealth to all. In the global economy of the current century, it
is time to put the noble but outdated image completely to rest.
DAS ADAM SMITH PROBLEM
The Anguish of Adam Smith 293
After its first publication in 1759, Adam Smith added to and revised his
Theory of Moral Sentiments five times, the sixth edition appearing in the year
of his death, 1790. Wealth of Nations went through four altered printings after
1776, with revised texts appearing in 1778, 1784, 1786, and 1789.
None of these editions ever mentioned one book in the other.
Moral Sentiments is grounded in Smith’s view of sympathy as the great regulator
of human behavior, producing in people of character demonstrations of
propriety, merit, benevolence, and prudence. But in Wealth of Nations he identifies
a different motivating drive for economic man—self-interest. He explains
that out of language and reason peculiar only to humans arises “the
propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another,” 32 and out
of this aspect of human nature arises the drive for advantage. As Smith says
so eloquently near the beginning of Wealth of Nations: “It is not from the
benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner,
but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to
their humanity, but to their self-love . . .” 33 Repeating the same point
through his book, he summarizes again near the end: “The natural effort of
every individual to better his own condition . . . is so powerful a principle
that it is alone and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on
the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent
obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers
its operations.” 34
Now we have a problem, or so it seems. Moral Sentiments is built on
sympathy and Wealth of Nations is built on self-interest. Several German
scholars leaped onto this apparent discrepancy in the 1800s, and it became
known as Das Adam Smith Problem. Since then, thousands of pages have
been written attempting to resolve the dilemma presented by a moral
philosopher and a political economist—one and the same—offering two
different versions of what motivates moral man and economic man in no
doubt diverging pursuits. Is Smith a certifiable schizophrenic, a liar, or just
plain wrong in one or the other of his books?