The ‘Gentlemanly Capitalism’ Thesis and Adam Smith

Abstract

The history of economic thought should be studied in light of the latest historical studies, since its main purpose as a field of inquiry, generally speaking, is to interpret economic writings in historical context. ‘Gentlemanly Capitalism’ as defined by P. J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins is the most important paradigm in the historical study of modern Britain in the last thirty years. It describes a British society in which between 1688 and 1850 the landed, in alliance with the moneyed and commercial interests, have dominated the economy and polity. This perspective is rooted in recent interpretations of the industrial revolution which stress that the manufacturing interests did not make a steady or complete rise either to economic or political supremacy.
This paper challenges the traditional view of Adam Smith, the author of the Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and the Wealth of Nations (1776), who predicted that industrial capitalists would become hegemonic in British society in the nineteenth century. This challenge is carried out by rereading the historical dimension of the Wealth of Nations in favour of the ‘Gentlemanly Capitalism’ thesis. Our conclusion is that Smith considered the ‘civilized society’ to be one engaged in agrarian capitalism in which a progressive landed gentry holds economic and political hegemony. In a word, the Wealth of Nations expounded the Political Economy of the landed gentry. Our interpretation of Smith basically supports Cain and Hopkins's view with the exception that it does not include the commercial interests as they do in the list of gentlemanly capitalists.