prior probability

By all accounts, Adam Smith visited Geneva in the fall of 1765, yet the precise dates and locations of this brief but memorable chapter in his life are murky at best. [See, e.g., Brian Bonnyman, “Adam Smith in Geneva”, in Valérie Cossy, Béla Kapossy, & Richard Whatmore, editors, Genève, lieu d’Angleterre, Slatkine (2009), pp. 153-167.] The best account of Smith’s sojourn in Switzerland is still John Rae’s Life of Adam Smith (the cover page of which is pictured below), and Rae (1895, p. 188) has him arriving in Geneva in October of 1765: “They [Adam Smith, the two pupils under his care, and their respective servants] seem to have arrived in Geneva some time in October, and stayed about two months in the little republic of which … Smith had long been a fervent admirer.”

Although we do not know the precise date on which Smith arrived in Geneva, we do know that he was still in Toulouse as late as 4 October 1765, for on that date he played a small part in a celebrated case known as the “Douglas Cause“. According to the official record of this cause célèbre, the Scottish philosopher had been appointed as a special “commissioner” by two of the lead lawyers in this case — Andrew Stuart, who represented the Duke of Hamilton, and Alexander Maconochie, who represented Archibald Douglas — to take the testimony of the “Abbé de Colbert”, the Vicar-General of the Archdiocese of Toulouse and a distant relation to one of the parties. [See “Proof, in the conjoined processes, George-James Duke of Hamilton, Lord Douglas Hamilton, and their tutors, … pursuers, against the person pretending to be Archibald Stewart, alias Douglas, only son now on life of the marriage between Colonel John Stewart, afterwards Sir John Stewart of Grandtully, and Lady Jane Douglas …” (1766), p. 1019.] And so it was on the afternoon of 4 October 1765, acting in his capacity as commissioner, that Adam Smith duly took the deposition of his friend and close confidante Abbé Colbert. [See “Abbé Colbert’s examination, 4th October 1765” in ibid., pages 1019-1022.]

But when did Smith and his party leave the South of France for good? What route did they take on their way to Geneva? (Did they, perchance, visit Lyon?) And how long did it take them to complete their travels? Although these quotidian questions about Smith’s grand-tour itinerary are still open ones, we now know that Smith was already in the Swiss city-state by December 1765, for he attended a dinner party on Christmas Day at the house of Lord and Lady Stanhope: Philip Stanhope, 2nd Earl Stanhope, and his wife Grizel Hamilton. According to Brian Bonnyman (via historian Angela Bennett), “New evidence, in the form of an entry in Lady Stanhope’s guest lists, shows that Smith was definitely still in Geneva on Christmas day 1765, when he dined with the Stanhopes”. [See Bonnyman 2009, cited above, p. 165 n.374, citing the Kent County Archives, Maidstone, U1590 C42/2.3 (Stanhope Papers), Lady Stanhope’s Table Plans and Guest Lists.]

In fact, Smith may have already been in Geneva as early as the first week of December, if not earlier, for among Smith’s surviving correspondence and papers was another legal document, a formal legal memorandum dated 10-11 December 1765 attributed to Voltaire’s mistress and niece Madame Denis and describing an incident that took place on Voltaire’s country estate at Ferney on 7 December. (The small village of Ferney is located about three miles from the Swiss city-state on the French side of Geneva’s border with France; for further reference, Alain Alcouffe and I discuss the significance of the memo here, here, and here.) Although this memo is not addressed to Smith by name, why was it nevertheless in the Scottish philosopher’s possession? Perhaps he had visited Ferney shortly after the incident of 7 December or had developed a good rapport with Voltaire and Mme Denis around this time. [As an aside, Smith had been awarded the degree of Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) on 21 October 1762 by the University of Glasgow. See GUAS Ref: GUA 26645, p. 110, available here.]

Next is the question of Smith’s departure: how long did he stay in Geneva? Did he, for example, stay long enough to witness the dramatic and unprecedented political showdown that took place in the Swiss city-state in January 1766, when Geneva’s General Council refused to ratify the election of any leaders, thus leaving the little republic without a functioning government? Rest assured, Alain Alcouffe and I will revisit these questions in the next day or two …

As Alain Alcouffe and I mentioned in our previous two posts (see here and here), a dramatic political showdown was unfolding in real time in Rousseau’s Republic of Geneva during Adam Smith’s sojourn in Switzerland, a constitutional stalemate that Smith and his circle could not have failed to notice. In November 1765, for example, the General Council of Geneva had refused to rubber-stamp a slate of pre-approved candidates for the offices of Procureur-Général and Auditeur, and in response to this deliberate inaction, the Small Council chose to fan the flames of this political conflagration by extending the terms of these outgoing officers indefinitely.

But how would Geneva’s General Council respond? Would it retaliate against the Small Council’s unprecedented and unconstitutional provocation by refusing to elect any leaders (known as “Syndics”) in the next scheduled round of elections? That is precisely what was about to occur! Overnight, Geneva would transform herself from a proud and well-oiled self-governing city-state into an 18th-century Swiss-equivalent of a “banana republic”, a nominally prosperous but small, unruly, and politically unstable country dependent on foreign powers for her own survival.

Specifically, when the General Council met on 5 January 1766 for the annual election of Geneva’s four Syndics, it refused to confirm any of the Syndics up for election. In all, the General Council met four times — on the 5th, 12th, 19th, and 26th of January — and large majorities on each occasion invoked the “la ligne de nouvelle élection” procedure in order to keep anyone from getting elected to the office of Syndic. (Bennett 1995, p. 145.)

Moreover, according to one source (ibid., p. 146 n.49, citing “BPU Genève, Cramer 87, Vol. 2 [1766] 28 février-31 décembre 105”), Geneva was exceedingly tense on 26 January in the hours leading up to the fourth and final meeting of the General Council. This constitutional impasse almost led to an outbreak of violence at the steps of the St. Pierre, the cathedral where the General Council was about to convene for a fourth and final time that month:

Ce même nuit il y eut de très grands mouvement dans [les] rues de la Ville [de Genève]. Un part de jeunes gens avoit (dit-on) formé le projet de s’emparer des portes de St. Pierre pour empêcher leur venue au C.G. [Conseil Général]. Les Chefs des Répresentants réussirent a les en détourner. [quoted in ibid., pp. 145-146]

For all practical purposes, then, by refusing to elect a new slate of Syndics, the General Council had effectively abolished Geneva’s main governing body, and the self-governing Republic of Geneva would thus become ungovernable. Furthermore, the epic constitutional impasse resulting from this political deadlock between the General and Small councils would not be resolved until two years later, 1768. But before we proceed any further, however, it is now worth taking a moment to ask, Why are we so certain that Adam Smith must have taken notice of this unfolding constitutional crisis during his sojourn in Switzerland?

Simply put, how could he not have? One of his closest contacts in Geneva was Dr Theodore Tronchin, the brother of the Procureur-Général, Jean-Robert Tronchin, while another of his Geneva contacts also happened to be a syndic or chief magistrate, identified as the “Syndic Turretin” in John Rae’s biography of Adam Smith. But these observations beg the all-important question, How do we know that Adam Smith was still in Geneva in January of 1766? Alain Alcouffe and I will address this critical question when we resume our series on Adam Smith in Switzerland in the next day or two …

As Alain Alcouffe and I mentioned in our previous post, a dramatic political showdown was unfolding in real time in the Republic of Geneva during Adam Smith’s sojourn in Switzerland, for in November 1765 the General Council of Geneva had refused to rubber-stamp the Small Council’s slate of pre-approved candidates for the offices of Procureur-Général and Auditeur. Suffice it to say that the resulting legal vacuum was an unprecedented one, for such a standoff was simply not contemplated, let alone foreseen, by the existing laws of the Swiss city-state, such as the Edicts of 1543 or the Act of Mediation of 1738. (Bennett 1995, p. 145.)

Never before had the General Council refused to elect candidates to these posts. (Ibid.) As a result, given these uncharted constitutional waters, the Small Council was now faced with a difficult dilemma: it could either cooperate or collaborate with the General Council to resolve their differences — indeed, one could even argue that the Small Council was obliged to consult with the General Council on serious constitutional matters (see ibid.) — or it could take unilateral action and thus become an illegal dictatorship in all but name only. [For further background, see Dorina Verli, “Reforming Democracy: Constitutional Crisis and Rousseau’s Advice to Geneva”, Review of Politics, Vol. 80 (2018), pp. 415-438, especially pp. 420-421.]

As it happens, the Small Council decided to break this constitutional deadlock by simply extending the terms of the outgoing officers until further notice. Though their constitutional terms had now expired, these judicial officers — including Jean-Robert Tronchin, the Procureur-Général who had set this constitutional crisis in motion when he initiated the legal prosecution against Jean-Jacques Rousseau in June 1762 — would now remain in their posts indefinitely! In addition, the Small Council agreed in principle on 31 December 1765 to invite representatives from France, a Catholic kingdom ruled by an absolute monarch! — as well as from two of its Swiss allies, the sister city-states of Bern and Zurich — to intervene, if necessary (Bennett 1995, p. 146.)

Now, the proverbial ball was in the General Council’s court, for the annual election of Geneva’s four syndics was scheduled to take place in a matter of days on 5 January 1766, the first Sunday of the new year. The syndics were the chief magistrates of Geneva’s government. Without them, the government could not make any decisions or conduct any business. Would the General Council back down, or would it refuse to elect the syndics too? (To be continued …)

As Alain Alcouffe and I mentioned in our previous post, a dramatic political showdown was unfolding in real time in the Republic of Geneva during Adam Smith’s sojourn in Switzerland; in fact, as we shall soon see, the high point of this constitutional conflict coincided with the Scottish philosopher’s visit to the Swiss city-state.

In summary, the leading protagonists of this conflict were, on the one side, Geneva’s famed legislative body — the Conseil Général or “General Council”, which purported to be the true source of the republic’s political sovereignty since it represented all the citizens of Geneva — and on the other, the true center of power in Geneva, the city-state’s elite executive-judicial “junta”, the Petit Conseil or “Small Council” (or Council of Twenty-five). Among a number of issues, the central point of constitutional contention at the heart of this power struggle was the scope of the Small Council’s veto power or droit négatif — namely, the right of the Small Council to control what proposals were placed before the General Council. Suffice it to say the General Council wanted a larger role to play in Geneva’s governance — a demand that became louder and more strident during the course of the “Rousseau Affair” — while the Small Council refused to share, let alone give up, any of its constitutional powers and prerogatives. [See generally Angela Bennett, Continuity and conflict : the struggle for political rights in eighteenth-century Geneva, PhD thesis, University of Kent (1995), especially pp. 136-150.]

But as it happens, the triennial election of various officers of the Small Council, including the Auditeurs and the Procureur-Général, was scheduled to take place at the autumn session of the General Council in November 1765. [As an aside, the Procureur-Général was the chief prosecutor or law enforcement officer of the Republic of Geneva, while the auditeurs were his assistants. See generally Raphael Barat, “The introduction of the vote by ballot in the elections of magistrates by the General Council of the Republic of Geneva (1707)”, in Jon Elster, editor, Secrecy and Publicity in Votes and Debates, Cambridge University Press (2015), pp. 72-96.] The way in which past elections were carried out, however, was emblematic of the gross imbalance of power in Geneva’s constitution, for in previous election cycles the Small Council would simply present a slate of pre-approved candidates to the General Council, and the General Council would then rubber-stamp the Small Council’s candidates. (Ibid.) Not this time.

This time, the General Council would use the November 1765 election cycle to strike back and raise the stakes in their ongoing power struggle with the Small Council, or in the words of one historian, the General Council finally “resorted to their one remaining legal and non-violent way to bring the government to see the error of its ways” (Bennett 1995, p. 145). Specifically, the General Council refused to elect any of the names from the Small Council’s slate of pre-approved candidates, voting instead to request a new slate of candidates (“la ligne de nouvelle election“; Bennett 1995, p. 145). This procedural vote and refusal was repeated multiple times until all the names of those eligible for office were exhausted. [See ibid., p. 145 & n. 48. See also Richard Whatmore, Terrorists, Anarchists, and Republicans: The Genevans and the Irish in Time of Revolution, Princeton University Press (2019), p. 92.] As a result of this deliberate inaction, nobody was elected and all the posts remained vacant!

Since no officers were elected, the government of Geneva was now facing a serious constitutional crisis, but how would the members of the Small Council respond to the legal vacuum created by General Council’s deliberate inaction? Would they back down, make concessions, and resolve the crisis in an equitable manner, or would they remain intransigent and paint themselves into a constitutional corner? As Alain Alcouffe and I will explain in our next post, the response of the Small Council would not only up the stakes of this constitutional crisis; it would also fan flames to the fire and produce a dire deadlock in January of 1766 …

(To be continued)

What did Adam Smith discuss during his sojourn in Switzerland in late 1765/early 1766? What lessons might he have learned while conversing with Voltaire at his country estate in Ferney or with the duchesse d’Enville at her interim salon in Geneva? And how did his encounters with these Lumières inform his subsequent work?

Thus far, Alain Alcouffe and I have identified several matters of historical interest that Smith himself was either personally aware of or that might have piqued his curiosity during this chapter in his life, including the physical whereabouts of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (a fugitive from justice at the time), the ongoing pamphlet war between John Needham and Voltaire on the nature of miracles (see here, for example), and a spat between Voltaire and an English hunter that occurred on the Frenchman’s country estate in December 1765 (a hunting incident we call the “Fracas at Ferney” or the “Dillon Affair”).

But up to this point we have omitted any discussion of a dramatic political showdown that was unfolding in Geneva at this very moment in history. This unprecedented constitutional controversy was set into motion when the government of Geneva decided to prosecute Jean-Jacques Rousseau in 1762, but the highpoint of this stalemate happens to coincide with Adam Smith’s visit to Geneva in 1765/66 … (To be continued)

Alain Alcouffe and I will resume our series on Adam Smith in Switzerland in the next day or two, but in the meantime I am sharing my love of the parranda, a Puerto Rican musical tradition that takes place during the Christmas holiday season, which in Puerto Rico lasts until the “Fiestas de San Sebastian” in mid-January! While I agree with Sabrina Carpenter that too many Christmas songs are way overplayed, for some nostalgic reason I never tire of parrandas. ¡Feliz Nochebuena!

What did Adam Smith learn during his Swiss sojourn in late 1765/early 1766? As Alain Alcouffe and I mentioned in our previous post, he must have learned a lot, for The Wealth of Nations contains a plethora of references to Switzerland as well as to several specific Swiss cantons, including Berne, Geneva, Lucerne, and Unterwald. Here, we shall survey some remarkable but prescient observations Smith makes about the role of religion on Swiss politics, education, and income inequality, among other things — remarkable because his observations are deep and original; prescient because Smith extends economic analysis to new domains beyond firms and markets. [See, e.g., Gary M. Anderson, “Mr. Smith and the Preachers: The Economics of Religion in the Wealth of Nations”, Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 96, No. 5 (Oct., 1988), pp. 1066-1088.]

For starters, the Scottish philosopher-economist has something to say about the politics of pastoral elections. According to Smith, when the members of a particular parish have the right to elect their own pastors — a Protestant practice at the time — then the inevitable result would be faction and polarization. Smith’s stunning observation about the politics of religion is so avant-garde, eloquent, and memorable that it deserves to be quoted in full:

As long as the people of each parish preserved the right of electing their own pastors, they acted almost always under the influence of the clergy, and generally of the most factious and fanatical of the order. The clergy, in order to preserve their influence in those popular elections, became, or affected to become, many of them, fanatics themselves, encouraged fanaticism among the people, and gave the preference almost always to the most fanatical candidate. So small a matter as the appointment of a parish priest occasioned almost always a violent contest, not only in one parish, but in all the neighbouring parishes, who seldom failed to take part in the quarrel. When the parish happened to be situated in a great city, it divided all the inhabitants into two parties; and when that city happened either to constitute itself a little republic, or to be the head and capital of a little republic, as is the case with many of the considerable cities in Switzerland and Holland, every paltry dispute of this kind, over and above exasperating the animosity of all their other factions, threatened to leave behind it both a new schism in the church, and a new faction in the state. In those small republics, therefore, the magistrate very soon found it necessary, for the sake of preserving the public peace, to assume to himself the right of presenting to all vacant benefices. [WN, Glasgow ed., pp. 808-809 (para. 36).]

Next, Smith not only compares and contrasts the incentive effects of “church benefices” [note: a benefice is a reward or benefit — such as land, rents, or other rewards — received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services]; he also reveals why he himself chose to become a professor instead of joining the clergy in Scotland as he was required to do under the terms of his “Snell Exhibition”, which he was awarded in 1740. According to Smith, in Protestant countries where church benefices are “very moderate” (like Scotland and Switzerland), talented men of letters will generally prefer a chair in a university to becoming a clergyman: “a chair in a university is generally a better establishment than a church benefice”, and the universities in these places can cherry pick the best and brightest from the ranks of would-be clergy. [WN, Glasgow ed., p. 811 (para. 39).] By contrast, in Roman Catholic countries where such benefices are “very considerable”, talent flows in the opposite direction: “the church naturally draws from the universities the greater part of their eminent men of letters, who generally find some patron who does himself honour by procuring them church preferment”. [Ibid.] Smith also cites the great “Voltaire” (see here) in support of his conclusion and then goes on to discuss the situation in Geneva:

In Geneva, on the contrary, in the Protestant cantons of Switzerland, in the Protestant countries of Germany, in Holland, in Scotland, in Sweden, and Denmark, the most eminent men of letters whom those countries have produced, have, not all indeed, but the far greater part of them, been professors in universities. In those countries the universities are continually draining the church of all its most eminent men of letters. [Ibid.]

Moreover, on the next page of his magnum opus, Smith posits an inverse relation between the wealth of churches and the wealth of their parishioners: “the richer the church, the poorer must necessarily be, either the sovereign on the one hand, or the people on the other”(!). [WN, Glasgow ed., p. 812 (para. 41).] In reaching this remarkable, if not prescient, conclusion (cf. Anderson 1988, cited above), the Scottish philosopher-economist not only cites “the Protestant cantons of Switzerland” as evidence in support of his observation; he also uses the phrase “all other things being supposed equal” for the first time in history [note: the only other place a similar phrase is used is on page 677 of the Glasgow edition of The Wealth of Nations], a phrase that would become a staple of modern economists everywhere:

It may be laid down as a certain maxim that, all other things being supposed equal, the richer the church, the poorer must necessarily be, either the sovereign on the one hand, or the people on the other; and, in all cases, the less able must the state be to defend itself. In several Protestant countries, particularly in all the Protestant cantons of Switzerland, the revenue which anciently belonged to the Roman Catholic Church, the tithes and church lands, has been found a fund sufficient, not only to afford competent salaries to the established clergy, but to defray, with little or no addition, all the other expenses of the state. [Ibid.]

Last but not least, Smith also has something novel and interesting to say about the effects of church endowments on religious devotion. Specifically, are people who attend more “opulent” churches themselves more religious and less sinful than the members of more “poorly endowed” churches, such as those of Scotland or Switzerland? Smith’s remarkable conclusion is that a church’s level of endowment has no effect on the relative levels of religious devotion and sin; if anything, the arrow of causation runs in the opposite direction:

The most opulent church in Christendom does not maintain better the uniformity of faith, the fervour of devotion, the spirit of order, regularity, and austere morals in the great body of the people, than this very poorly endowed Church of Scotland. All the good effects, both civil and religious, which an established church can be supposed to produce, are produced by it as completely as by any other. The greater part of the Protestant churches of Switzerland, which in general are not better endowed than the Church of Scotland, produce those effects in a still higher degree. In the greater part of the Protestant cantons there is not a single person to be found who does not profess himself to be of the established church. If he professes himself to be of any other, indeed, the law obliges him to leave the canton. [Glasgow ed., p. 813 (para. 41).]

Were any of these observations about religion informed by Adam Smith’s sojourn in Switzerland during his grand tour years? Hold that thought, for Alain Alcouffe and I will resume our “Adam Smith in Switzerland” series after Christmas …

Thus far, Alain Alcouffe and I have surveyed several different facets of Adam Smith’s sojourn in Switzerland in late 1765/early 1766 — such as his close contacts and encounters with the well-connected Dr Theodore Tronchin and with the great Voltaire — and we have also identified several matters of historical interest that Smith himself was either personally aware of or that might have piqued his curiosity during this chapter in his life, including the whereabouts of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the ongoing pamphlet war between John Needham and Voltaire, and the Dillon Affair (an incident that occurred on Voltaire’s country estate at Ferney in December 1765).

But what did Adam Smith learn during his Swiss sojourn? If the dozen or so references to Switzerland in The Wealth of Nations — as well as the several additional references to specific cantons like Berne, Geneva, Lucerne, and Unterwald — are any indication, then the Scottish philosopher must have learned a lot during his Swiss travels! For example, in Book 1, Chapter 3 of his magnum opus on “The Rise and Progress of Cities and Towns after the Fall of the Roman Empire”, Smith explains why so many cities in Italy and Switzerland became independent city-state or mini-republics:

In countries, such as Italy and Switzerland, in which, on account either of their distance from the principal seat of government, of the natural strength of the country itself, or of some other reason, the sovereign came to lose the whole of his authority, the cities generally became independent republics, and conquered all the nobility in their neighbourhood, obliging them to pull down their castles in the country and to live, like other peaceable inhabitants, in the city. This is the short history of the republic of Berne as well as of several other cities in Switzerland. [Glasgow ed., pp. 403-404 (end para. 10).]

The bulk of Smith’s references to Switzerland in The Wealth of Nations, however, occurs in Book 5 of his magnum opus on “The Revenue of the Sovereign or Commonwealth”. For starters, Smith compares and contrasts the militias of ancient Greece and Rome with those of “England, Switzerland, and … every other country of modern Europe” in Book 5, Chapter 1 as follows:

Militias have been of several different kinds. *** In the republics of ancient Greece and Rome, each citizen, as long as he remained at home, seems to have practised his exercises either separately and independently, or with such of his equals as he liked best, and not to have been attached to any particular body of troops till he was actually called upon to take the field. In other countries, the militia has not only been exercised, but regimented. In England, in Switzerland, and, I believe, in every other country of modern Europe where any imperfect military force of this kind has been established, every militiaman is, even in time of peace, attached to a particular body of troops, which performs its exercises under its own proper and permanent officers. [Glasgow ed., pp. 698-699 (para. 20).]

Later, Smith identifies another significant difference in the organization and morale of militias in ancient versus modern times: the militias of ancient Greece and Rome “required little or no attention from government to maintain them in the most perfect vigour”, while modern militias “are constantly falling into total neglect and disuse”. [WN, Glasgow ed., p. 787 (para. 60).] But at the same time, Smith also singles out Switzerland as an exception to this general rule:

The ancient institutions of Greece and Rome seem to have been much more effectual for maintaining the martial spirit of the great body of the people than the establishment of what are called the militias of modern times. They were much more simple. When they were once established they executed themselves, and it required little or no attention from government to maintain them in the most perfect vigour. Whereas to maintain, even in tolerable execution, the complex regulations of any modern militia, requires the continual and painful attention of government, without which they are constantly falling into total neglect and disuse. The influence, besides, of the ancient institutions was much more universal. By means of them the whole body of the people was completely instructed in the use of arms. Whereas it is but a very small part of them who can ever be so instructed by the regulations of any modern militia, except, perhaps, that of Switzerland. [Ibid.]

The remainder of Smith’s references to Switzerland in The Wealth of Nations, however, deal with religion — more specifically, with the effects of religion on politics, education, and the distribution of wealth. Among other things, Smith has something to say about the politics of pastoral elections and the rise of fanatical factions in the Protestant city-states of Switzerland, about the inverse relation between the wealth of churches and the wealth of their parishioners, and about the effects of established churches on morals. Alain Alcouffe and I will revisit Smith’s sundry observations on Switzerland in our next post …