Smith at 300: Universal Human Nature, the Division of Labour and African Development

Jérôme Lange

No pu2hc, SocArXiv from Center for Open Science

Abstract: Smith at 300: Contribution by Jérôme Lange "Like Hume, Smith was wrong in supposing that “[a]ll the inland parts of Africa … seem in all ages of the world to have been in the same barbarous and uncivilized state in which we find them at present” (think of the 13th to 17th century Empire of Mali, then one of the wealthiest nations around the globe, with Timbuktu one of the principal centres of learning of the Medieval world). Yet his explanation for the lower level of economic development in Africa as compared to Europe, based on the idea that the division of labour is limited by the extent of the market, was one that upheld the essential equality of Africans to Europeans, against the descriptions of Africans and other “non-white” people as being naturally inferior to “whites” by fellow enlightenment philosophers and a great many scholars throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th."

Date: 2023-05-04
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:socarx:pu2hc

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/pu2hc

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