Yesterday, I transcribed three separate passages from Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Second Discourse, and I then asked: why would someone like Adam Smith have singled-out those three specific selections in his 1756 letter to the Edinburgh Review? For reference, Smith’s translation of the first of these substantive passages consists of the following two sentences (Smith 1756, p. 75):

SMITH’S TRANSLATION OF THE FIRST SENTENCE OF PASSAGE #1: “While men contented themselves with their first rustic habitations; while their industry had no object, except to pin together the skins of wild beasts for their original cloathing, to adorn themselves with feathers and shells, to paint their bodies with different colours, to perfect or embellish their bows and arrows, to cut out with sharp stones some fishing canoes or some rude instruments of music; while they applied themselves to such works as a single person could execute, and to such arts as required not the concurrence of several hands; they lived free, healthful, humane and happy, as far as their nature would permit them, and continued to enjoy amongst themselves the sweets of an independent society. [1]

SMITH’S TRANSLATION OF THE SECOND SENTENCE OF PASSAGE #1: “But from the instant in which one man had occasion for the assistance of another, from the moment that he perceived that it could be advantageous to a single person to have provisions for two, equality disappeared, property was introduced, labour became necessary, and the vast forrests of nature were changed into agreeable plains, which must be watered with the sweat of mankind, and in which the world beheld slavery and wretchedness begin to grow up and blosom with the harvest.” [2]

Rousseau thus presents an idyllic picture of the noble savage. My reply to Rousseau is the same as Jake’s reply to Lady Brett in The Sun Also Rises: “Isn’t it pretty to think so?” After all, Rousseau is weaving a totally made-up yarn here, a just-so story of what life must have been like in the remote past. [3] He begins this passage by describing a bygone golden age unspoiled by any small-scale (let alone large-scale) cooperation, an idyllic world in which there is no specialization or division of labor. We can’t use words like “community” or “society” to describe this simple and rustic state of affairs because there is no community or society to speak of!

But every creation myth needs a devil, and so the celebrated “citizen of Geneva” also describes man’s fall from this secular grace in the second sentence of the pivotal passage quoted above. It is here where the Second Discourse reveals the true villain of Rousseau’s mythical just-so story: the division of labor! For Rousseau, specialization is not only the source of private property and economic inequality; it is also the wellspring of our moral corruption. But is the division of labor really a force for bad? What if it were the engine of our economic prosperity and improved quality of life?

Those are precisely the sort of questions that must have piqued a young Adam Smith’s intellectual curiosity when he first encountered Rousseau’s essay. If so, we can see why Smith singled-out the above extract in his 1756 letter to the Edinburgh Review. In fact, perhaps Part 1 of The Wealth of Nations should be read as an extended reply to Rousseau’s critique of the division of labor. (To be continued …)

[1] By way of comparison, below is a different translation of this same sentence (reprinted in Cohen 2018, p. 292):

“As long as men were content with their first rustic huts, as long as they were limited to making their clothing out of skins sewn together with thorns or fish bones, adorning themselves with feathers and shells, painting their bodies with various colors, perfecting or embellishing their bows and arrows, using sharp-edged stones to make some fishing canoes or some crude musical instruments; in a word, as long as they applied themselves exclusively to tasks that a single person could do and to the arts that did not require the cooperation of several hands, they lived as free, good and happy as they could in accordance with their nature would permit them; and they continued to enjoy among themselves the sweet rewards of independent intercourse.”

[2] A different translation of this selection is reprinted in ibid. (Cohen 2018, p. 292):

“But as soon as one man needed the help of another, as soon as one man realized that it was useful for a single individual to have provisions for two, equality disappeared, property came into existence, labor became necessary. Vast forests were transformed into smiling fields which had to be be watered with men’s sweat, and in which slavery and misery were soon to germinate and grow with the crops.”

[3] A “just-so story” is an explanation for a trait or phenomenon that is speculative, unverifiable, and often presented as a narrative. While the term originally comes from Rudyard Kipling’s collection of children’s stories, in modern usage it is used critically to dismiss an unscientific or unfalsifiable hypothesis. See, e.g., Michal Hubálek, “A brief (hi)story of just-so stories in evolutionary science.” Philosophy of the Social Sciences 51.5 (2021): 447-468, available here.