Credit to emphasize differences in Locke and Smith's reasoning

Anderson portrays Locke and Smith to be remarkably similar in thesis, yet they diverge signficantly in method. It appears that both writers are attempting to maximize public good and to that end, societal efficiency. However, contrary to modern thought, Locke takes a more ignorant view of the poor in society. Locke is not as interested with the wealthy versus the poor, but rather distinguishes between the “industrious and the idle” (52). Locke’s primary suspicion is whether the “able-bodied poor … are truly involuntarily unemployed, or are they just faking it to get relief” (59). More explicitly, Locke attributes poverty due to “vice and idleness,” largely disregarding other explanations. Smith, on the other hand, points out Locke’s misstep; he reasons that the systemic biases that Locke falls victim to “distort[s] … judgement of virtue and vice … lead[ing] us to favor the rich … and to heap scorn on the poor” (131-132). 

This fundamental difference in thinking materializes in their interpretation of credit, for example. In a proposal to lower the interest rate from 6% to 4%, Locke opposed this cap because he felt it would reduce the availability of credit for the poor. However, he does not offer a direct solution for the impoverished; instead, he is "calls for regulation to better distribute [credit]" (46) geographically around England, bolstering his societal efficiency point but ignoring the more pressing problem precisely because of his view that the poor are impoverished due to failures to labor productively. Anderson does not consider that Locke’s bias prevents him from conceptually seeing the credit market as unjust, so regulation towards the disadvantaged never becomes an option. By contrast, Smith, traditionally thought to be strictly laissez-faire, supported government restrictions on interest rates, arguing that it would allow the poor to still borrow money at regulated rates rather than exploitative ones. Smith considers the fact that higher interest rates are not morally neutral but symptoms of broader unequal mechanisms that lock people into poverty. 

Anderson stresses Locke and Smith’s similarities too heavily, arguing that Smith’s “work-ethic values [are] similar to Locke’s” (149). But their values are actually quite different. Smith is cognizant of the structural barriers that entrench the poor, while Locke’s “work-ethic” view is that they are simply lazy. Perhaps this is why Smith advocates for “state-funded universal education” (148), while Locke was willing to subordinate family life and send children to “putting-out factories” (60) under the justification that their mothers can be “freed from child care so they can work” (60) and marginally increase “public good”. 

 

Comments

  1. Paul HurleyJanuary 29, 2026 at 8:57 AM

    Really nuanced point here. Anderson claims that their work-ethic values are similar. You disagree, because you take Locke's to be systematically distorted by factors that Smith identifies, in particular the distorting effects of wealth and power in our judgments about other people. I think your point about the structural barriers identified by Smith are also important. It is not that Locke does not identify structural barriers, but you seem to suggest that there is a difference in the depth of the structures of these barriers that Smith identifies and Locke does not. Cool post!

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