ADAM SMITH ON JUSTICE AND DISTRIBUTION IN COMMERCIAL SOCIETIES

Abstract

Adam Smith, following Grotius, defined justice as the virtue that is violated when an injury is committed. Justice in the economic sphere means abstaining from the possessions of others. Smith did not, therefore, as some writers have claimed, regard questions about distribution (including the question of how propertyless individuals could sustain themselves) as matters of justice. Smith's narrow definition of justice followed from his thoery of property. The absence of divinely sanctioned original rights in Smith's system relieved him of the need to show, as a matter of justice, how self-preservation for those without property was possible. Copyright 1994 by Scottish Economic Society.