The sarcastic Adam Smith

As I mentioned in a previous post (see here), Adam Smith surveys a wide variety of British mercantilist laws in Part #12 of his 1784 pamphlet, but he devotes most of his time and energy here to wool (see paragraphs 17 to 32 on pp. 29-38) and to artisans (see paragraphs 44 to 48 on pp. 43-45). We saw Smith’s critique of Britain’s ban on wool exports in yesterday’s post. Today, we will not only examine his substantive critique of the restrictions on artisans. We will also see another side of the Scottish scholar cum customs commissioner — what I like to call the sarcastic Adam Smith — for Smith’s sarcasm will be on full display here. To begin, Smith makes the following general point in paragraph 43 of Part #12: “The exportation … of the instruments of trade, properly so called, is commonly restrained, not by high duties, but by absolute prohibitions.” (Smith 1784, p. 43, my emphasis) Then, in the very next paragraph, Smith makes the following wry but witty observation: “When such heavy…