Yet the argument of Book V is something quite different. Over hundreds of pages, Smith patiently shows why both peace and a tolerable administration of justice are historically rare, and continually fragile. To the extent that some society or other happens to have them, it seems to be neither the natural course of things nor the result of wise and judicious statesmanship but rather barely better than luck.

“Little else,” wrote Adam Smith in Book V of Wealth of Nations, “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.”

The passage is a popular one in some circles, and not only (though certainly in part) for its appeal to low taxes. It seems to offer a comforting assurance about politics. The “natural course of things” will mean that politics will tend to work out reasonably well. Governing well is not difficult, as it mostly consists of not doing things: not going to war, not raising taxes. To the modern economists who think that they are the true intellectual heirs of WN, the implication that political science isn’t that difficult might be an added bonus.

Yet the argument of Book V is something quite different. Over hundreds of pages, Smith patiently shows why both peace and a tolerable administration of justice are historically rare, and continually fragile. To the extent that some society or other happens to have them, it seems to be neither the natural course of things nor the result of wise and judicious statesmanship but rather barely better than luck.

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