Pizhuhish nāmah-i intiqādī-i mutūn va barnāmah hā-yi ̒ulūm-i insāni (Critical Studies in Texts & Programs of Human Sciences)

The Establishment of the Market: Critique and Examination of the Idea of ​​Market Autonomy in Adam Smith's Treatise on “Moral Sentiments” Based on Historical-Comparative Sociology

Document Type : Research

Authors

Hosein Kachouian 1
Masoumeh Nadiri 2

1 Associate Professor of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

2 PhD Student in Economic Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Pardis Alborz, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

10.30465/crtls.2025.53015.2963
Abstract
In his treatise “Moral Sentiments”, Adam Smith, by examining various situations of action, has presented a mechanistic plan of action. This plan is the basis of the relationship in the human world and exchange as a relationship in the market. Through this, Smith has been able to talk about the market mechanism and show how the scene of human action is self-founded and does not need forces or rules outside of itself. This conclusion has led him to write a chapter on the state in the book "Moral Sentiments" and to empty it of politics (as an idea outside the human scene). For Smith, the state is merely an administrative mechanism. In this case, rationality in administration and the market cannot have a human meaning. Rather, it is like a force imposed by the scene on humans. This has become the basis of many policy-making decisions in economics and statecraft. It seems that there is a conflict between the meaning, value, and political decisions of a nation and its economic interests, and humans are always condemned to wash their hands of will, awareness, and freedom. But is this situation bearable and feasible for humans? The present study, by examining the social history of markets, sought to find the answer to the question: Is the market a completely calculative matter, and is human reason opposed to his will and creativity? Has the market really been built in history by calculation, or can the role of non-calculation (politics and ideas) in the formation of the rational and modern market (Market) be found?
Materials & Methods:
 The present research has used historical-comparative sociology to study the history of the market. This method, which was invented by Max Weber and has evolved over time, is different from historical-comparative studies by the currents of German historicism, the world school, Marxism, and conventional economic history, which deal with the calendar-like expression of events or examine a period of history to find the cause of its occurrence and then compare it with another similar event (such as the development of industry or the occurrence of riots) to obtain their differences and similarities. In the comparative historical sociology of economics, the researcher first finds a history as the origin and emergence of that matter (for example, the rational and self-based market) through extensive studies. Then, he continues the study by studying its constituent components and the combination of those components. In this path, he must find other historical periods before and after that date to rule out the role of other factors except the main factor (which in this research is the role of politics and will) and study them to show what consequences and role the presence and absence of the factor under study had in that period and how it was that the main subject and object (the self-based market and economic rationality in this research) only emerged in a specific period with a specific combination of the desired factors. Therefore, the main period studied in this research is the period of mercantilism, in which the market and unified and rational economic calculations and measures, such as the trade balance, the country's public treasury, imports and exports, consumption, tariffs, etc., were created. Then, by measuring the effect of politics and political speech of rulers in other periods such as the history of the Silk Roads, Ancient Greece, Rome in the late Middle Ages, and the Hanseatic League (the first economic-political alliance) in the late Middle Ages, it explains the effect of the political factor in the formation of the market, the organization of market organizations and market society, and the development and invention of economic-rational calculations.
Discussion & Result
 According to the study conducted, it was determined that during the long periods of global free trade along the Silk Road or the center of global free trade, namely Rome, despite the great prosperity of trade and the absence of political interventions, economic calculations, market mechanisms, social organization for production and trade, the invention of single measures and calculation scales, the invention of methods based on productivity and calculations of time and profit in organizing production and trade never took root and developed. But in times when the state - cities or national states were in tension with other geographies and the issue of the city's power was tied to its wealth (trade and production) - such as in ancient Greece and the era of mercantilism, and to some extent in the trade union of the Han, we witness the growth and flourishing of creativity, social organization based on the economy, coordination of individual interests in line with collective interests, the invention of technologies and tools, the invention of measures and scales, the invention of commercial calculations, the invention of money as a tool for the rational organization of society, bureaucracy as the rationality of administration, and the like. In fact, historical findings have shown that wherever human ideas and designs (meanings) have laid a plan for the city and the country, although problems have arisen - such as the tensions of the Greek city-states or the era of mercantilism - but the pursuit of solving those problems in proximity to the political discourse of the city has also opened up powerful horizons of benefit in trade, which has ultimately led to an increase in political power.
Conclusion:
 
What Smith draws as the mechanism of relationship and the mechanism of the market, although it is an attempt to maintain the continuity of life and save it from chaos and disorder, history has evidence that shows that continuity and discontinuity, calculation and non-calculation, are related to each other. Until there is an idea, a question, and a plan to limit the world, there will be no question (unknown), and until there is no unknown, no calculation will be made. The economy and the market, as a scene of trade and the rational pursuit of profit, transcend the calculations of livelihood and day-to-day life and emerge as an order and arrangement when, like a clock, its individual and separate parts can work in unison. The mechanism is the design of order, and order is the direction that the whole takes. The self-organizing order of the market, which coordinates its parts, is the product of a design for the order and direction of the parts. When such a plan of the relationship between politics and economics is in place, the ideal is put to the real test of life, and only that national idea that can propose a way of living and living, a way of calculating things, can also build an economy and a market. And on the other hand, that trade can appear as an economic power for a country and pursue its economic order that can strengthen the national discourse and the meaning that has held a nation together.

Keywords

Free Market Mechanism, Homo Economicus, National Government, Relationship Between Economics and Politics, Adam Smith
Subjects
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Pizhuhish nāmah-i intiqādī-i mutūn va barnāmah hā-yi ̒ulūm-i insāni (Critical Studies in Texts & Programs of Human Sciences)
Volume 25, Issue 3 - Serial Number 121
Autumn 2025
Autumn 2026
Pages 147-173

  • Receive Date 03 July 2025
  • Revise Date 19 September 2025
  • Accept Date 12 November 2025

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