Political And Economic Heroes
The speculator (who deals in public debt) appears thus as the antipode of the manufacturer: lack of skills, knowledge, and care for productive capital transforms selfinterest into selfishness, endangers the harmony of interests, and enfeebles the state. In a conceptual scheme based on the division of labor and on socially ranked, productive talents, the speculator cannot be a figure of capitalism, but rather its nemesis.
This conclusion is reached on the grounds of a postulated similarity between economic life and the public sphere: both need exemplary characters and good passions. These latter are understood as a state of knowledge (skills, dispositions) which orients economic actors toward each other, generating thus emotional attachment and ethical norms of economic behavior. For Smith, there is no substantive difference between political and economic heroes. A prosperous society needs examples of the latter. The imitation of positive examples cannot take place without making visible these figures to all at once. Yet the consequences of bad passions would have to be made visible too, showing what happens when lack of knowledge and care dominate economic action. This situates the speculator outside the boundaries of public life: a speculator cannot relate to other economic figures and to the public but in a negative way. It is rather a barrier which is erected here. The incompatibility between speculators and public life, the lack of harmony between selfinterest and public interest make it very difficult to conceive a legitimate way in which financial speculation can be related to the society at large.
