SMITH,ADAM ON THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF POVERTY

Adam Smith's views on poverty have received less attention than one wo uld expect, but they are worth examining. In the Moral Sentiments Smit h takes a skeptical, ironic view of the striving for material goods an d wealth. Poverty is treated not as a condition of economic deprivatio n but as a cause of social isolation and psychic unease. In the Lectur es on Jurisprudence Smith theorizes the arrival of economic inequality as a society advances from the hunting to the herding stage. He sees '' poverty '' (poorness) as widespread but not problematic in commerci al society, since wage earners do not experience actual misery. In the growth model of the Wealth of Nations, laborers earn a wage that affo rds them all the necessities and even a few conveniences and luxuries. True, grinding poverty characterizes the stationary and declining eco nomies only. Smith is oddly silent on state assistance to the poor but incisive on the health and moral consequences of urban-industrial dev elopment for the lower classes.