Economists must know better than anyone what motivates a human being. They must know about needs and desires and capacities. If they know all that, they must have a pretty good idea what a human being is. Or do they? What do economists think is the essence of humanity?
Adam Smith proposed a theory of human nature based on the essential feature of human beings that we are language users. Consider his conjectural history of the origins of language:
Two savages who met together and took up their dwelling in the same place would very soon endeavour to get signs to denote those objects which most frequently occurred and with which they were most concerned. (Lectures on Rhetoric and Belle Lettres, p.9 [ed. J.C. Bryce 1983])
The crucial question for the economist is: which are the objects ‘of most concern’ to the savages – or indeed to us? Which objects are so important that we were forced to invent language in order to meet the demands of life?
Smith’s biographer, Nicholas Phillipson, explains that he was keen to demonstrate that ‘...there were plausible reasons for supposing that every stage of mankind’s linguistic progress had been driven by need’ (Phillipson 2010: p.94).
What is ‘need’? If you start your analysis of human nature with the conjectural savage, linguistic ‘needs’ are met by ‘cave’ and ‘tree’. Subsequent needs, no matter how civilised, can never shake off their materialistic, instrumental ancestry. The engine of language, and hence of human nature, becomes the fulfilment of ‘needs’, narrowly defined.
What does an economist with this account of human nature make of Shakespeare? (No wonder the scholars in the humanities fear for their purse-strings). Adam Smith was right that the essence of humanity is language. He was right to ask what is the essence of language. He was right that answering these questions is a fundamental task for economists and political scientists.
Did he start his conjectural history in the right place, however? Start your account of human nature with savages and what you’ll end up with is a savage theory of economics. Might we not be better to start with an infant mewling not for food or shelter, but for affection? What account of linguistic ‘need’ and human nature might we then give and how much richer might our economics be as a result?
Owen Gower
Director, Cumberland Lodge Programme
