The Fragile Architecture of Society

Reading Smith and Ibn Khaldun in an Age of Systems

Today when we discuss economics we do so as a technical science of the mathematical treatment of things and not a moral or ethical study. But Adam Smith and Ibn Khaldun, both ‘fathers of economics,’ approached it differently. They were architects of something that could be called a ‘science of man’: a systematic explanation for the moral and social forces and structures that hold society together. Neither claimed to deliver absolute truth. Instead both tempered their systems with a sense of intellectual humility about the limits of human knowledge and institutions. Approaching their systems not as completed and final, but as fragile and fallible human creations like the societies that they studied. Smith built his system on sentiment not on self-interest or “self-love” as he called it. Ibn Khaldun built his system of asabiyyah often translated as “group feeling.” Though their worldviews and mindsets diverged, both treated markets not in isolation but as part of the moral and communal foundations of society. These systems and structures were part of the way that humans could live together.

Sentiment before Self-Interest

We find the beginnings of Smith’s system not in The Wealth of Nations but in his less famous work A Theory of Moral Sentiments. This book was published while he was the Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. In this text he lays out the beginnings of his system of moral psychology of society. It was bound together by sentiments, and in particular sympathy. In the opening lines he states;

“How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest in the fortune of others… though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.”

For Smith, moral life begins in conjecture. And this is from where his intellectual humility springs, the knowledge that he cannot know what another is thinking and so cannot predict with certainty. We do not have “immediate experience of what other men feel” so we must conjecture. And because we must live with other men in a society we must utilize imagination to put ourselves in their place. This identification through imagination enables sympathy. It is this sympathy and the imagination which supports it which holds society together, not rational calculus or innate goodness. This also helps to create what is often termed the “impartial spectator.” This is the internal judge and moral voice in each individual which evaluates our own and others’ actions. This impartial spectator is not a purely rational abstraction and in fact seems to be the main way in which sympathy functions in Smith’s system.

This line of thinking is continued into The Wealth of Nations, and dissolves any claim that the two books stand in opposition to each other. Because “man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. ” The key is to notice that Smith states that to rely only on benevolence would be in vain. This is an admission that in “civilized society”--largely impersonal, modern, urban ones–people cannot rely on intimacy or friendship alone. Sympathy and the spectator still function but the necessary familiarity has been broken down. So people must navigate systems where the sentiment of self-love functions to mediate exchange rather than affection or sympathy.

Despite his description of and analysis of this he does not advocate for an embracing of such a system as a natural good. Instead he argues against it in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Specifically he condemns another thinker named Mandeville for arguing for a system which “seems to take away altogether the distinction between vice and virtue.” Mandeville’s system is the one of self-interest creating common goods which is so often ascribed to Smith. The reason for his rejection is not just moral but also analytical as Smith rejects any system which attributes any one sentiment as the single driving force of human actions. As a result A Wealth of Nations is not an advocate for such a system but contains within it an understanding that self-love predominates the economic relationships required by urban society.

Smith’s system does not rest on cold rationality or self-interest but on sentiment more broadly. The ability for humans to imagine each other’s pain, joy, and fear, and to live within each other's stories however dimly is what holds society together. That this ability is strained by modernity is a product of modernity, not of sentiment. Smith’s economic arguments in The Wealth of Nations form only a subset of that moral universe and were never meant to be taken for the whole. It was not a utopian or a pragmatic understanding of man and society but one which aimed at progressive betterment and the prevention of collapse.

From Group Feeling to Civilization

Ibn Khaldun was well acquainted with collapse, not as something to be prevented but as something inevitable. Ibn Khaldun grew up and served in the shadows of ruined cities and the skeletons of a once-great empire. His early career in both Spain and Northern Africa was one of political maneuvering in the aftermath of the collapse of the last major Andalusian kingdom in 1248. His way in the world was marked more than Smith by the political vicissitudes of his time. Where Smith will see signs of progress, Ibn Khaldun saw signs of cyclical rise and fall marked not by economics or sentiment but divine law and human frailty. Ibn Khaldun, while informed by the rational traditions of Islamic thought, founded his system not on a view that man’s reason alone could bind a society together. Instead, the term that Ibn Khaldun gave to what held society together was asabiyya, most commonly translated as “group feeling.”¹ Asabiyya is an amorphous element like “sentiment” but at its core it is the sort of social bonds which allow members to share an identity in a larger group. Another way to understand it might be “solidarity.” It rises and falls as people feel greater and lesser degrees of identification with the group in question. It is strongest in tribal groups, can be observed in religious communities, and is weakest in politically fractious urban societies. It fades as civilizations grow wealthy, hierarchical, and corrupt. It is renewed by the emergence of a new tribal power. And it is this cycle which is at the core of Ibn Khaldun’s system.

The Muqaddimah, in which he lays out this theory, is not just history but a Ilm Al-Umran “the study of civilization.” Its goal is the “inner meaning of history.” It does not aim to prevent the cycle or offer reforms. It is a theological apocalyptic and pessimistic view of history. Adam Smith was attempting to understand how his world had arrived at the present. Ibn Khaldun knew his world had arrived at this point in history because of the will of God and the fallibility of man. Human knowledge was bounded by revelation, not by empirical observation. It is this theological humility which led Ibn Khaldun to approach his system with historical understanding. He was limited to interpretation, not control.

Despite the different sources of their humility, both men recognized the inherent complexity of human society and sought to explain it. For Ibn Khaldun it forms the fifth chapter of the Muqaddimah. Ibn Khaldun begins his exploration of this activity with the understanding that no single person can fulfill their needs alone. From this he elaborates a proto-theory of division of labor using the production of bread requiring farmers, millers, bakers, and builders. Economic activity is thus both natural and necessary. This is not because men are rational but because they require each other to survive. He also acknowledges the moral ambiguities, observing that “much good can only exist in conjunction with a little evil.” But he does not condone this, like Machiavelli does, instead he laments man’s failure to follow divine law and situates this failure into the broader cycle he is elaborating.

Smith will secularize this idea but Ibn Khaldun locates it firmly within a divine order. The potential for these things in Allah’s will, it is merely through human labor that things like animals, plants, and minerals are transformed into sustenance and goods. Collapse and rejuvenation are divinely ordained, man can only reflect and attempt to understand.

Fragile Foundations

Both men noticed and responded to the patterns and textures of their time, but neither claimed completeness in their answers. Smith’s world was new and disorienting. It was transitioning to commerce on a global scale. What had once been limited to cities like Venice, or Amsterdam was now becoming the texture of modern life. Ibn Khaldun’s world felt its age more, it was more precarious. It was a society of tribes, fragmented cities, and declining kingdoms.

Both men attempted a comprehensive vision of society. Both acknowledged the limits of human knowledge. Like the societies they studied, their systems were fragile.

Economics today still speaks in systems of policy tools, predictive models, or algorithms. But Smith and Ibn Khaldun would push it further towards a view that any real account of human society, and even just the economic actions of that society, must not cut its constituent parts from each other. Markets cannot be separated from the people who built them and use them. People are not numbers but moral and social creatures. They are fragile, multifaceted, conflicted, imaginative, and feeling creatures built by, building, and broken by those systems.

1. The French translators would translate it as elan