My book, Sustainability Simplified, approaches our environmental problems in several ways. One is from the view that government should stick to a few specific roles, one of which is to protect your life, liberty, and property from me taking or destroying it without your consent. A government that doesn’t protect life, liberty, and property leads to a nation without hope for a better future, which leads to people retreating to what they can protect themselves.

Other approaches include to see that imperialism resulted from unsustainability and led to colonialism, slavery, and racism. If we want to end the downstream effects of imperialism, colonialism, slavery, and racism, any solutions will only be temporary unless we stop the upstream causes. For this post, though, I’ll focus on the free market approach.

I quote John Locke, Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Frederic Bastiat, and a few others, but only refer to Adam Smith through them. Today, I’ll quote his three passages that seem most relevant to me.

First, his Theory of Moral Sentiments describes how society depends on justice. The next quotes will clarify what he means by justice. This quote says that being beneficent and virtuous is nice, but if society is a building, the whole structure rests on justice. Without justice, everything falls apart.

Tho’ nature, therefore, exhorts mankind to acts of beneficence, by the pleasing consciousness of deserved reward, she has not thought it necessary to guard and enforce the practice of it by the terrors of merited punishment in case it should be neglected. It is the ornament which embellishes, not the foundation which supports the building, and which it was, therefore, sufficient to recommend, but by no means necessary to impose. Justice, on the contrary, is the main pillar that upholds the whole edifice. If it is removed, the great, the immense fabric of human society, that fabric which to raise and to support seems in this world, if I may say so, to have been the peculiar and darling care of nature, must in a moment crumble into atoms. To enforce the observation of justice, therefore, nature has implanted in the human breast that consciousness of ill-desert, those terrors of merited punishment which attend upon its violation, as the great safe-guards of the association of mankind, to protect the weak, to curb the violent, and to chastize the guilty.

In The Wealth of Nations (IV.ix.51), he describes three roles for the state. The second is relevant to us: to protect citizens from injustice from each other.

According to the system of natural liberty, the sovereign has only three duties to attend to; three duties of great importance, indeed, but plain and intelligible to common understandings: first, the duty of protecting the society from violence and invasion of other independent societies; secondly, the duty of protecting, as far as possible, every member of the society from the injustice or oppression of every other member of it, or the duty of establishing an exact administration of justice; and, thirdly, the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works and certain public institutions which it can never be for the interest of any individual, or small number of individuals, to erect and maintain; because the profit could never repay the expence to any individual or small number of individuals, though it may frequently do much more than repay it to a great society.

A student of his, Dugald Stewart, copied from some of Smith’s lecture notes in 1755 a similar concept, though Smith’s original notes were lost. Stewart wrote the next quote in An Account Of The Life And Writings Of Adam Smith (1795) that Smith expands that even without promoting beneficence or anything else, a government maintaining justice (plus peace and easy taxes) is enough for a state to realize its greatest opulence. Moreover, trying to do more results in oppression and tyranny.

Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things. All governments which thwart this natural course, which force things into another channel, or which endeavour to arrest the progress of society at a particular point, are unnatural, and to support themselves are obliged to be oppressive and tyrannical.

What is justice for Adam Smith?

If a government needs only implement justice (plus peace and easy taxes) to reach its greatest potential, what does Smith mean by justice? He clarifies it in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part II, section II, chapter 1. The violation of justice is injury. I understand him to mean that justice means preventing injury, which seems to me effectively: to protect life, liberty, and property.

There is, however, another virtue, of which the observance is not left to the freedom of our own wills, which may be extorted by force, and of which the violation exposes to resentment, and consequently to punishment. This virtue is justice: the violation of justice is injury: it does real and positive hurt to some particular persons, from motives which are naturally disapproved of. It is, therefore, the proper object of resentment, and of punishment, which is the natural consequence of resentment.

Below, Smith continues:

Society, however, cannot subsist among those who are at all times ready to hurt and injure one another. The moment that injury begins, the moment that mutual resentment and animosity take place, all the bands of it are broke asunder, and the different members of which it consisted are, as it were, dissipated and scattered abroad by the violence and opposition of their discordant affections. If there is any society among robbers and murderers, they must at least, according to the trite observation, abstain from robbing and murdering one another. Beneficence, therefore, is less essential to the existence of society than justice. Society may subsist, though not in the most comfortable state, without beneficence; but the prevalence of injustice must utterly destroy it.

and

Though Nature, therefore, exhorts mankind to acts of beneficence, by the pleasing consciousness of deserved reward, she has not thought it necessary to guard and enforce the practice of it by the terrors of merited punishment in case it should be neglected. It is the ornament which embellishes, not the foundation which supports the building, and which it was, therefore, sufficient to recommend, but by no means necessary to impose. Justice, on the contrary, is the main pillar that upholds the whole edifice. If it is removed, the great, the immense fabric of human society, that fabric which to raise and support seems in this world, if I may say so, to have been the peculiar and darling care of Nature, must in a moment crumble into atoms. In order to enforce the observation of justice, therefore, Nature has implanted in the human breast that consciousness of ill-desert, those terrors of merited punishment which attend upon its violation, as the great safe-guards of the association of mankind, to protect the weak, to curb the violent, and to chastise the guilty. Men, though naturally sympathetic, feel so little for another, with whom they have no particular connexion, in comparison of what they feel for themselves; the misery of one, who is merely their fellow-creature, is of so little importance to them in comparison even of a small conveniency of their own; they have it so much in their power to hurt him, and may have so many temptations to do so, that if this principle did not stand up within them in his defence, and overawe them into a respect for his innocence, they would, like wild beasts, be at all times ready to fly upon him; and a man would enter an assembly of men as he enters a den of lions.

…

As society cannot subsist unless the laws of justice are tolerably observed, as no social intercourse can take place among men who do not generally abstain from injuring one another; the consideration of this necessity, it has been thought, was the ground upon which we approved of the enforcement of the laws of justice by the punishment of those who violated them.

My Conclusion

I understand Adam Smith to say, prior to everything about what a free market can achieve, that free market can only exist if government protects life, liberty, and property. Without it doing so, everything later is a building with no foundation.

How tall do you want to let a building grow without a foundation? How big a crash are you willing to see happen?

Pollution destroys life, liberty, and property. A government that allows pollution is allowing its citizens to build a structure with no foundation, liable to collapse. Smith writes more about what happens when people don’t expect justice. It’s not pretty.

You might say, “But we’ve built so much. Do you want to risk it all? We like the heights we’ve reached. What if we can’t reach them again without polluting?”

First, Smith couldn’t be more clear on the inevitability of such a structure leading to tyranny. Second, I don’t have to worry about demonstrating to people who agree with Smith on the potential of a market based on justice. A market based on justice will reach a greater potential than one without.

Corroboration

Toward the end of Wealth of Nations, he describes a “system of natural liberty.” In that system he describes how everyone can do what he or she wants as well as the role of government. Note that the liberty he describes doesn’t anyone can do anything. He clarifies “as long as he does not violate the laws of justice.” Moreover, the state does have some duties, and one is to protect, “as far as possible, every member of society from the injustice or oppression of every other member of it.”

Smith didn’t have to include these restrictions. Beyond including “as long as he does not violate the laws of justice,” he puts that clause before describing a person “left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way.”

In other words, as I understand him, Smith sees government protecting citizens from others harming them as prior to a market. Therefore, as long as government allows polluting, we cannot reach liberty. Government allowing polluting prevents liberty.

All systems, either of preference or of restraint, therefore, being thus completely taken away, the obvious and simple system of natural liberty establishes itself of its own accord. Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man, or order of men. The sovereign is completely discharged from a duty, in the attempting to perform which he must always be exposed to innumerable delusions, and for the proper performance of which, no human wisdom or knowledge could ever be sufficient; the duty of superintending the industry of private people, and of directing it towards the employments most suitable to the interests of the society.

According to the system of natural liberty, the sovereign has only three duties to attend to; three duties of great importance, indeed, but plain and intelligible to common understandings:

• First, the duty of protecting the society from the violence and invasion of other independent societies;
• Secondly, the duty of protecting, as far as possible, every member of the society from the injustice or oppression of every other member of it, or the duty of establishing an exact administration of justice; and,
• Thirdly, the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works, and certain public institutions, which it can never be for the interest of any individual, or small number of individuals to erect and maintain; because the profit could never repay the expense to any individual, or small number of individuals, though it may frequently do much more than repay it to a great society.

Since pollution crosses national borders, the first duty’s charge to protect society from violence of other independent societies seems to motivate or even require trying to stop them from polluting. The third duty seems to motivate public institutions to enforce protection from pollution and depletion.

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A long section after the part of the Theory of Moral Sentiments above treats crimes where the consequence is not immediately seen but affect everyone. It’s long, so I put it here. When the injustice risks the safety of all, the punishment is necessary, even if it feels too much, which it often does.

Upon some occasions, indeed, we both punish and approve of punishment, merely from a view to the general interest of society, which, we imagine, cannot otherwise be secured. Of this kind are all the punishments inflicted for breaches of what is called either civil police, or military discipline. Such crimes do not immediately or directly hurt any particular person; but their remote consequences, it is supposed, do produce, or might produce, either a considerable inconveniency, or a great disorder in the society. A centinel, for example, who falls asleep upon his watch, suffers death by the laws of war, because such carelessness might endanger the whole army. This severity may, upon many occasions, appear necessary, and, for that reason, just and proper. When the preservation of an individual is inconsistent with the safety of a multitude, nothing can be more just than that the many should be preferred to the one. Yet this punishment, how necessary soever, always appears to be excessively severe. The natural atrocity of the crime seems to be so little, and the punishment so great, that it is with great difficulty that our heart can reconcile itself to it. Though such carelessness appears very blamable, yet the thought of this crime does not naturally excite any such resentment, as would prompt us to take such dreadful revenge. A man of humanity must recollect himself, must make an effort, and exert his whole firmness and resolution, before he can bring himself either to inflict it, or to go along with it when it is inflicted by others. It is not, however, in this manner, that he looks upon the just punishment of an ungrateful murderer or parricide. His heart, in this case, applauds with ardour, and even with transport, the just retaliation which seems due to such detestable crimes, and which, if, by any accident, they should happen to escape, he would be highly enraged and disappointed. The very different sentiments with which the spectator views those different punishments, is a proof that his approbation of the one is far from being founded upon the same principles with that of the other. He looks upon the centinel as an unfortunate victim, who, indeed, must, and ought to be, devoted to the safety of numbers, but whom still, in his heart, he would be glad to save; and he is only sorry, that the interest of the many should oppose it. But if the murderer should escape from punishment, it would excite his highest indignation, and he would call upon God to avenge, in another world, that crime which the injustice of mankind had neglected to chastise upon earth.

And below, on negligent harm:

When the negligence of one man has occasioned some unintended damage to another, we generally enter so far into the resentment of the sufferer, as to approve of his inflicting a punishment upon the offender much beyond what the offence would have appeared to deserve, had no such unlucky consequence followed from it.

There is a degree of negligence, which would appear to deserve some chastisement though it should occasion no damage to any body. Thus, if a person should throw a large stone over a wall into a public street without giving warning to those who might be passing by, and without regarding where it was likely to fall, he would undoubtedly deserve some chastisement. A very accurate police would punish so absurd an action, even though it had done no mischief. The person who has been guilty of it, shows an insolent contempt of the happiness and safety of others. There is real injustice in his conduct.

Also:

The civil magistrate is entrusted with the power not only of preserving the public peace by restraining injustice, but of promoting the prosperity of the commonwealth, by establishing good discipline, and by discouraging every sort of vice and impropriety; he may prescribe rules, therefore, which not only prohibit mutual injuries among fellow-citizens, but command mutual good offices to a certain degree

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