29
Smith effects a compartmentalization of time into distinct national units, a Westphalianization of
developmental time.
108
Combining the previous two points, we can begin to understand how it is that Smith
encases the modern commercial society within a temporal/ethical fortress. Both time and space
operate as a set of boundaries that demarcate ‘nations’ by developmental level. Where moral
judgment is informed by a stage-theory of history, the institutions and practices of the civilized
serve as the basis for evaluating those of temporally backward nations. And, by implication, the
present, as the height of human historical achievement, is protected from potentially critical
values and visions of now past forms of society. As long as the boundary between the civilized
and the savage remains clearly in place, the values of a commercial society automatically will
take precedence: its values—wealth, social refinement—are thereby the basis for assessing other
(superceded) forms of society as well as for assessing its own successes and failures. That is, a
commercial society can only be evaluated as failing or succeeding in its own terms—by failing to
provide wealth or refinement. Thus, even a critique of the present nevertheless validates that
those societies occupy a superior temporal position.
109
Like Lafitau, Smith “believed that traveling in space also meant traveling in time.”
110
This equation of time and space makes sense where the ‘four-stages theory’ ruled the
understanding of history. The social theorist moved through the ages of man as he consulted
contemporary narratives of far-away places. This is conceptual movement, since, as we have
noted, Smith did not travel physically to the array of places he located along a temporal register.
108
We have discussed the mutual constitution of international relations and modernization theory in Inayatullah and
Blaney, International Relations, chapter 3.
109
Shapiro, Reading “Adam Smith”, p. 52; See also Oz-Salzberger, “Political Theory,” pp. 169-70.
Convention