The History of Economic Thought
Online ISSN : 1884-7358
Print ISSN : 1880-3164
ISSN-L : 1880-3164
Dugald Stewart on Poor Relief:
On the Question of Poverty after Adam Smith
Tomoyuki Arai
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JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS

2011 Volume 53 Issue 1 Pages 82-99

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Abstract

This paper aims to clarify Dugald Stewartʼs view on poverty. He has generally been considered an optimist and admirer of the development of commercial society and unlimited free trade. However, notably, Stewart emphasized the im-portance of poor relief in his influential Lectures on Political Economy (1800―1810). I will show the significance of his view on the establishment of public granaries related to the Scottish poor relief system, which, historically, had had an enormous effect on the maintenance of the poor.  However, Stewart recognized that the Scot-tish poor relief system would augment financial burdens through the annual increase of poor rates. In this paper, I attempt to explain the sig-nificance of Stewartʼs realistic view of the evils of charitable workhouses, factory labor, and so on, focusing mainly on his criticism of poor laws as leading to an increase in poverty. Moreover, I shall highlight the important fact that Stewart indeed proposed various forms of poor relief. The basic components of his poor relief policies can be summarized as follows: (1) possession of property among the lower classes, (2) im-provements in the prison system, and (3) gradu-al advancement of low wages. The first relates to the improvement of morals and the incentive to work; the second, the prevention and correc-tion of crimes; and the third, the improvement of their living conditions through economic devel-opment. Focusing on his arguments on these poor re-lief policies, I will illuminate the historical sig-nificance of Stewartʼs original view of poor re-lief in the early nineteenth century after Smith. JEL classification numbers: B 30, B 31, I 31.

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© 2011 The Japanease Society for the History of Economic Thought
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