#WealthofTweets: Book 3.2
Of the Discouragement of Agriculture in the Ancient State of Europe after the Fall of the Roman Empire
3 Feb • 24 tweets • adamsmithworks/status/1356964876825067523
Is it just us, or do you guys love it when #AdamSmith is all, “I am inventing modern economics! To do so, I must now discuss at length that time the Germans and Scythians overran the Roman Empire!” Because we are very much here for that. (III.ii.1) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
It’s probably just us. Anyway the Germans and Scythians overran the Roman Empire. It was bad.(III.ii.1) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Lots of land was deserted as people fled, then grabbed up or “engrossed” by a few people, who protected their grabbed land with primogeniture and entail. (III.ii.1) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
[We, the SmithTweeters, are middle children and thus no fans of primogeniture. We are also chicks and thus no fans of entail, even if it’s a great source of plots for #JaneAusten. We are fans of Jane Austen.] (III.ii.2–6) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
When land is just a source of food and housing, it tends to be divided equally within families. But when it becomes a source of power and wealth, watch out. People get grabby hands. (III.ii.3) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
That can be helpful, says Smith, because that power protects everyone on a landed estate. But it makes the rest of the family poor to keep the wealth and power in the hands of one person. (III.ii.4) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Entails (which prevent selling or giving away land by pre-establishing a line of inheritance) are even worse. They regulate the rights of current and future landowners by the whims of people who died centuries ago. (III.ii.5–6) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
All this means a huge amount of land is held by people who got it basically by chance, and there's no path to division or change. That’s bad. Smith says that great landowners are not usually great improvers of land. (III.ii.7) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Remember! Smith thinks that the landed aristocracy were mostly harmless but also mostly useless. MAYBE they want more land, but they don't care about improving its productivity. (III.ii.7) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Improving land is a skill set that requires being interested in boring stuff like drainage and forestry, not just buying fancy carriages and putting in granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. (Oops. Wrong century.) (III.ii.7) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
And it’s not like tenants are going to improve land they don’t own. “Don’t be gentle, it’s a rental” is a thing for a reason. (III.ii.8) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
And it’s even worse if slaves are working the land. (III.ii.9–12) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
We're going to pause for a moment because something awesome is about to happen. Smith is about to make the economic case against slavery, which William Wilberforce and other prominent abolitionists will use. (III.ii.9–12) #WealthOfTweets #BlackHistoryMonth
This should be one of the most celebrated arguments in this book. But today it's far too often forgotten when people talk Wealth of Nations. (III.ii.9–12) #SmithAgainstSlavery #WealthOfTweets #BlackHistoryMonth
Smith hates slavery: it’s bad for slaves, it's bad for slave owners, it's bad for land improvement, it's bad for the economy. It’s bad for everything. Always has been, always will be. (III.ii.9–12) #SmithAgainstSlavery #WealthOfTweets #BlackHistoryMonth
Humans love to domineer over others. Owning slaves is something people will 𝘱𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘰𝘥𝘰. The more profitable the enterprise, the more slave labor it can support. That’s not good. Smith’s 𝐧𝐨𝐭 praising it. It’s just true. (III.ii.10) #BlackHistoryMonth #WealthOfweets
Smith has moral arguments against slavery, too. Here he’s focusing on the economic ones, but those aren't the only ones he cares about. For more on Smith and slavery (he’s against it. #BlackHistoryMonth #WealthOfTweets
Tenancy is much better than slavery because tenants have freedom and the ability to own property. They are thus interested in the work they are doing. But it’s still not as good as really owning the land you work. (III.ii.12–13) #SmithAgainstSlavery #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
England is really good at securing the rights of tenants and yeomen. That's good. Go England! (III.ii.14–15) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
“Avarice and injustice are always short-sighted.” #MicDrop. (III.ii.16) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Oh, have we mentioned that Smith enjoys a good critique of the French? The French treat yeomen badly—lots of public service requirements and high taxes. (III.ii.18–19)C'est mechant, ca! #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Including a particularly nasty tax called a “taille”, a tax based on the stock you have on your land, not on what you actually produce. So it actively discourages improvements. Bien fait!! (III.ii.19) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
All this means that farmers are only able to improve their land slowly and with difficulty. That’s bad. (III.ii.21) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Tomorrow things should look a little cheerier. On to the rise of cities! See you then! #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets