The Role of Coercion in Liberalism: Smith, Hume, and the Social Conscience

FAIN: FT-13358-77

Robert C. Grady
Eastern Michigan University (Ypsilanti, MI 48197-2214)

To explicate a theory of social coercion derived from the works of Adam Smith and David Hume which displaces the theory of formal political coercion postulated by other liberal theorists. This alternative theory is one of informal coercion which operates through the individual's concern over his relative social positions. Thus coercion that is functional to the achievement of social goals of the polity, which are identified as the aggregation of associational appearance of coercion.