March 2026 marked the 250th anniversary of the publication of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). However, Adam Smith was also the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and it was through his continuous revisions of this earlier work that his more famous book emerged. One of the most notable passages in TMS critiques the “the man of system”. In contrast, Smith describes the man of “public spirit,” highlighting the humility inherent in this character. Unlike the man of system, who insists on the righteousness of their ideal schemes and seeks to impose them on others, there is the humility of the man of public spirit. They claim no right to impose their notion of the good on others; instead they rely solely on persuasion and consent, never resorting to violence.
Unfortunately, throughout the long history of colonialism, slavery, and the treatment of indigenous peoples, many experts were men of system, rather than men of public spirit. Enter William Easterly’s critique of “development saviors” in Violent Saviors (2025). This book represents one of the most important contributions ever to the moral and methodological foundations of development economics. His argument challenges the technocratic view that development is primarily a technical problem of expert design and policy implementation. Instead, Easterly places development within a broader liberal tradition emphasizing freedom, dignity, and the consent of those whose lives are influence by economic policy. In this respect, Easterly’s work can be seen as reviving a core insight articulated most clearly by Adam Smith: development must arise from voluntary cooperation among individuals rather than from the imposed designs of external authorities. Easterly explicitly resists the “West and the Rest” framing that is prevalent in much of development economics.
He frames the debate over development as a conflict between two intellectual traditions. On one side are the “saviors,” who believe that enlightened experts can engineer progress for poorer societies through carefully designed policies and institutional reforms. On the other side are the “skeptics,” who emphasize the limits of expert knowledge and the importance of allowing individuals and communities to shape their own paths of social and economic development. The roots of this division can be traced back to the eighteenth century, when Adam Smith provided a powerful critique of the paternalistic logic that justified imperial conquest in the name of progress.
Easterly consistently argues that those affected by development planning must be given a voice in the process. Increases in a nation’s material wealth do not justify prioritizing institutional goals over individual needs. “Nothing about us, without us,” is the slogan that encapsulates Easterly’s message.
European powers frequently justified conquest by claiming that they were bringing civilization, Christianity, and economic improvement to the peoples they conquered. Smith rejected this narrative. In The Wealth of Nations, Smith described the “savage injustice” of European colonial expansion, conquest and exploitation rather than benevolent improvement. Instead of imposing progress through force, Smith envisioned an alternative based on voluntary exchange and mutual gains from trade. The meeting of different societies, he argued, could have produced enormous benefits if it had occurred through peaceful commerce rather than coercion.
The crucial issue for Smith and Easterly was not simply whether development increased material output but whether it respected the autonomy of individuals and communities. Exchange is morally legitimate because it requires mutual consent: each party must judge for themselves that the transaction improves their well-being. Coercive arrangements—whether colonial rule or paternalistic policy—violate this principle because they substitute the judgment of external authorities for the agency of the individuals directly affected. The central question was not merely whether development policies “work,” but whether they respect the freedom and dignity of those subjected to them. Dignity, respect, agency, and autonomy are the guiding principles, not efficiency, capital accumulation, and economic growth.
As we celebrate the publication of one of humanity’s greatest achievements, we pair Adam Smith and William Easterly. The liberal plan for Smith encompassed the pursuit of liberty, equality, and justice—cornerstones of his principles of political economy. Bill Easterly stands as worthy successor to this project, exploring not only the nature and causes of the wealth of nations, but also the dignity, respect, and liberty of the individuals who inhabit them.
READER COMMENTS
Roger Depledge
May 23 2026 at 7:23am
But what of those communities past and present that do not respect the autonomy of the individuals within them? Isn’t that precisely where “under-development” comes from?
nobody.really
May 26 2026 at 12:52pm
I had the same question. This seems to be a problem with a Bucannanian perspective: Sure, individual negotiations are generally better than impositions by force. But what about when individual negotiations aren’t feasible?
During the US Civil War, the Lincoln Administration changed the economy of the US southern states, arguably with the support of many of the enslaved people in those states. Would Easterly have opposed this policy due to the lack of consent on the part of southern leaders?
It is surely true that colonial powers exploited people in their colonies. I suspect it was often true that those people were already being exploited by their own leaders. Is there a systemic reason to conclude that one type of exploitation must be worse than another?
Student
May 26 2026 at 10:33am
Interesting stuff…
One thought I had while reading it is that the argument has deeper roots than Smith. While Smith and Easterly are working with a more modern enlightenment/liberal scaffolding, the moral intuition behind the argument seems older (and i would argue “fuller”) than liberalism.
Obviously, Aquinas did not write about “development” in the modern sense, and he obviously was not writing about development economics… but he would have recognized the moral problem immediately. Human beings are not raw material for someone elses plan. They are rational creatures and must participate in their own good. That means political and economic improvement can almost never (always never?) be imposed on them by experts who believe they know what is best. Even when the planners are sincere, they can still do injustice if they substitute their own judgment for the practical reason and agency of the people they claim to be helping.
There is an understated intellectual connection between Aquinas, Smith, and Easterly that is useful to draw forth. Smith’s critique of the “man of system” is not only a critique of bad social science or bad policy design… it is a critique of a deeper moral error: treating persons and communities as pieces to be moved around according to an external scheme and for external motivations. Easterly’s attack on “development saviors” seems to be making the same point in the context of modern development economics. The people affected by policy are not instruments of a planner’s ideal order. They are participants in the common good.
Where I think the older natural law view retains something that was lost on Smith (and others of similar thinking) is that it would not reduce the issue to consent or autonomy alone. Consent matters a great deal because voluntary action is central to human agency. But consent is not the whole of justice. A transaction or policy can be formally voluntary and still be unjust if it involves fraud, exploitation, domination, or damage to the common good those in question. As such, the Thomistic view seems to deepen the Smith/Easterly argument in both directions. It would strongly reject coercive saviorism, colonial “improvement,” and technocratic paternalism. But it would also resist the thinner view that the only matter of concern is whether people are left to choose for themselves.
Just development has to respect freedom, dignity, and local agency. But it also has to be ordered toward real human flourishing: justice, stable households, honest exchange, peace, virtue, and the common good. That is why the critique of the “man of system” is so powerful. The problem is not merely that the expert planner lacks enough information… it is that he misunderstands what human beings are in the first place.
Charles N. Steele
May 31 2026 at 10:50pm
This is very interesting. The comparison of Smith’s “man of system” with Easterly’s critique of standard development economics and development agencies is apt; they are all about self-described “experts” imposing their imagined wisdom. The “system” in “man of system” refers to top-down organization of society, i.e. central planning. No country ever developed this way.
However, I think it is a great mistake to equate this with colonialism or foreign intervention. So, for example, the Spanish conquistadors were not driven by a desire to help American Indians, but were seeking treasure. Their claim to be motivated by bringing Indians salvation was a thin tissue to conceal their tendency to plunder. Smith and the writers of the Salamancan school explicitly condemned them for this. But, on the other hand, local traditions deserved to be exterminated. For example, the Aztec priests murdered tens of thousands of humans annually to appease their imaginary deities. The conquistadors and those who followed them put a stop to this human sacrifice. Smaller, weaker local tribes are said to have welcomed this. It had nothing to do with central planning, but actually advanced the right of the individual to his/her life.
Similarly, when the British took it upon themselves to abolish the slave trade, they imposed this on their African colonies, despite the robust local traditions of slave trading. This was not central planning, but again an advance of the right of the individual to his/her life.
What is the relation to development? As a result of the United States utterly crushing Imperial Japan in 1945, replacing its top-down system with a much freer system in which entrepreneurs could thrive, the Japanese people made their country one of the greatest economies in the world.
Individual autonomy is one thing, community autonomy quite another. It’s a mistake to conflate the two. I am one of those “who insists on the righteousness of their ideal schemes and seeks to impose them on others” in the sense that I think it is a moral imperative to defend individual rights, as Locke and Jefferson understood them. That is also the path to development. And it does not make me a “man of system.”
Vernon L. Smith
Jun 4 2026 at 9:36am
Adam Smith’s first book develops a theory of the emergence of orderly society based on the rules people create and follow in their ordinary interactions living with each in neighborhood communities, motivated by their desire to get along with each other. That process defines consent as part of Smith’s concept of Self-command which arises out of our capacity for mutual fellow feeling.
Smith’s theory of society concerns the manner in which we shape each other as social beings. The theory distinguishes being self-interested from acting in one’s self interest. Thus he asserts that we are all strictly self interested but you cannot look humankind in the face and avow that all your actions are taken in your self interest.
Thus does Smith articulate a deep non-utilitarian theory of human social action.
Robert Schadler
Jun 5 2026 at 10:42am
This essay, particularly “Dignity, respect, agency, and autonomy are the guiding principles, not efficiency, capital accumulation, and economic growth” brings to mind two insights:
Frank Knight’s favorite saying: It’s not so much what we don’t know; it’s that we know so much that isn’t so.
And Hayek’s: To be a good economist one must be more than an economist.t
Development is about energizing the productive talents of people who can then work cooperatively, energetically and creatively to improve the lives of themselves and others. Accomplishing this is elusive and difficult, intertwined with culture and personal psychology, family and government, some emerge (a la common law and Hayek) and others by deliberation, resilience and removal of obstacles by governments and other institutions.
Classical liberals sometimes are ahistorical and enthnocentric in focusing entirely on how a few countries succeeded. Cultural norms and strong families and communities can function similarly to well-considered laws. Democratic “rights” and voting can be ways to convey dignity and respect to ordinary citizens but good governance (a la Ostrom and others) can find others ways to achieve these necessary goals as well.
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