A hierarchical theory of ethics: Second Anomaly

Another anomaly that the hierarchical ethic could not explain was the Industrial Revolution. Increased opportunities for the working classes seems clearly articulated in Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations in 1776:

It is the great multiplication of the productions of all the different arts, in consequence of the division of labor, which occasions, in a well-governed society, that universal opulence which extends itself to the lowest ranks of the people. Every workman has a great quantity of his own work to dispose of beyond what he himself has occasion for; and every other workman being exactly in the same situation, he is enabled to exchange a great quantity of his own goods for a great quantity, or, what comes to the same thing, for the price of a great quantity of theirs. He supplies them abundantly with what they have occasion for, and they accommodate him as amply with what he has occasion for, and a general plenty diffuses itself through all the different ranks of the society....

This challenges the whole notion that a rigid hierarchy among human beings is a good thing. We can observe greater moral worth in the new system. It calls into question again the whole notion of such a hierarchy, and sensitises people to the moral dubiousness of slavery. With the surplus of goods possible through the industrial revolution, this promoted the use of free trade to exchange that surplus for other goods and services. This is a capitalist system, as endorsed by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations. It is inherently antislavery, as Ayn Rand would argue1, as capitalism requires a free and dynamic workforce. Capitalism itself is based on the notions of individual rights, where individuals are free to create wealth.

Notes


1See Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal for an essay on the evils of slavery.

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