About a week after I was made a Commissioner of the Customs, upon looking over the list of prohibited goods, (which is hung up in every Customhouse and which is well worth your considering) and upon examining my own wearing apparel, I found, to my great astonishment, that I had scarce a stock, a cravat, a pair of ruffles, or a pocket handkerchief which was not prohibited to be worn or used in G. Britain. I wished to set an example and burnt them all. I will not advise you to examine either your own or Mrs Eden’s apparal [sic] or household furniture, least you be brought into a scrape of the same kind.
This quote is from a letter written by Adam Smith to William Eden. It is quoted in a footnote in Chapter II of The Wealth of Nations. The chapter is titled “Of Restraints upon the Importation from Foreign Countries of such Goods as can be produced at Home.” The chapter is, of course, very clear in pointing out the damage done by restrictions on imports.
I don’t know enough about Adam Smith’s sense of humor (there is evidence of a great sense of humor throughout The Wealth of Nations) to know if he was kidding in the above quote. My gut feel is that he wasn’t, but also one can see him warning others not to look too carefully into what they own so that they will not “be brought into a scrape of the same kind.”
READER COMMENTS
Jon Murphy
Feb 3 2019 at 3:39pm
I suspect there is some tongue in cheek in that paragraph. I’d need to know more about the relationship between Eden and Smith to have a clearer idea. He does clearly razz Hume and other people he is close with and this reads with a similar tenor.
David Henderson
Feb 3 2019 at 5:41pm
Thanks, Jon. I think that at this point you’re more of a Smith scholar than I am, and so you’ve moved me slightly away from my prior.
Jairaj Devadiga
Feb 3 2019 at 7:34pm
There is an article which implies that Smith burned his clothes for job security, the alternative being losing his lucrative government sinecure if he were caught wearing contraband.
It is always interesting to learn lesser known facts about the economists of old.
Jon Murphy
Feb 3 2019 at 9:14pm
That article cites this letter, so unfortunately it doesn’t provide any clarity
Jairaj Devadiga
Feb 4 2019 at 12:23am
True, but the author was not trying to determine whether or not Smith was joking. Assuming he was serious, the author tried to explain why he did that.
As far as I know, Smith was not very close to Eden, and this letter was his first one to him (and only because Eden had made an “honourable mention” of Smith in his own writing). Therefore I think Smith was not joking about burning his clothes.
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