E. I. White Chair and Distinguished Professor of Law Robin Paul Malloy recently spoke at the Duke University Center for the History of Political Economy about Adam Smith’s work and his ideas on the origins of justice. He presented on his forthcoming article “Property, Markets, and Justice in Adam Smith’s Jurisprudence.”
“This is important to the questions of how to protect and advance justice in society. In a historical context, I explore these questions with respect to the work of Adam Smith on the subject of jurisprudence,” said Malloy. “Smith, considered the founder of modern economics, was also a professor who taught jurisprudence for 12 years at Glasgow University. Smith's ideas had an important influence on our founders, and his work continues to have significance for contemporary legal theory,” he continues.
“In his writing, Adam Smith expressed the view that justice was the most important pillar holding up all of society. He also indicated that the source of justice resided in certain aspects of nature and in our moral sentiments of resentment and revenge. In my work, I explore an additional account of justice in Smith’s work. I posit that Smith’s theory of jurisprudence suggests that justice emerges, to a significant extent, endogenously from the market exchange process itself,” Malloy explains.
“As I argue in my new article, the implication of Smith's work is that justice advances in communities that promote the common interest, abide by the rule of law, and that facilitate our natural desire to truck, barter, and exchange. Creating opportunities for property ownership and protecting open market transactions are important not only to wealth formation but also to justice. Consequently, I suggest that private property and market exchange should not be seen as the cause of social problems but rather should be seen as a way to improve upon our social condition. Politically speaking, we don't need to move closer to socialism, we need to reinvigorate the free market,” he concludes.
Malloy has written a book about Adam Smith, "Law and the Invisible Hand" (Cambridge University Press).