SOCIAL-SECURITY AND LAISSEZ-FAIRE IN 18TH-CENTURY POLITICAL-ECONOMY

The article describes two contrasting developments of Adam Smith's ide as. Condorcet, following Turgot's reforms of the 1770s, described a th eory of social equality based on free competition, public instruction, and social security, and proposed a system of social insurance establ ishments. Malthus in his Essay on Population criticized Condorcet's id eal of social security, arguing that social insurance would reduce ind ustry and lead to increased population. The conflict over fear versus confidence as incentives to industry was of central importance to subs equent disputes in political economy. These disputes are enlightening, it is suggested, for modem problems. They cast doubt, first, on the p resumption that social security is inimical to economic development. S econd, while they provide some support for the modem view that social security tends to reduce fertility, they suggest that this effect is a ssociated more generally with social and political equality. Third, th ey suggest that the politics of laissez faire is compatible with criti cism both of government and of powerful corporate and local institutio ns.