Politics and probability

My previous post explored the first of three passages in The Wealth of Nations in which Adam Smith explicitly refers to the concept of probabilty. Today, I want to discuss another such passage: the retaliatory tariff passage in Book IV, Chapter 2 of Smith’s magnum opus: “There may be good policy in retaliations of this kind, when there is a probability that they will procure the repeal of the high duties or prohibitions complained of. The recovery of a great foreign market will generally more than compensate the transitory inconveniency of paying dearer during a short time for some sorts of goods. To judge whether such retaliations are likely to produce such an effect, does not, perhaps, belong so much to the science of a legislator, whose deliberations ought to be governed by general principles, which are always the same, as to the skill of that insidious and crafty animal vulgarly called a statesman or politician, whose councils are directed by the momentary fluctuations of affairs.…