Siegmund Feilbogen, Smith und Turgot (1892)

Feilbogen’s book is a systematic intervention in the “Smith problem”: after the discovery of Smith’s predecessors, what remains distinctive in Wealth of Nations? His answer rejects priority-hunting. The personal relation between Smith and Turgot is too poorly documented to bear interpretive weight; the real question is the objective force of their works. Literary history must therefore abandon anecdote and ask how a doctrine becomes scientifically effective.

Klatsch bleibt Klatsch, auch wenn er „wissenschaftlich“ betrieben wird.

English translation: Gossip remains gossip, even when it is pursued "scientifically."

The first section builds the method. Feilbogen distinguishes subjective originality—who first thought something—from objective originality, the power by which a work makes a thought operative for science. Turgot is chosen as Smith’s “contingent predecessor,” the nearest advanced thinker of the same direction; by comparing two similar works with radically different effects, Feilbogen uses a historical “method of difference.” The book’s structure follows this plan: it first shows the extent of “Smithianism” in Turgot, then diagnoses Turgot’s pseudo-scientific limits, then explains Smith’s formal and material superiority.

Feilbogen concedes much to Smith’s detractors. Turgot already contains the division of labor, the importance of capital, the defense of private property, suspicion of guilds and administration, and cosmopolitan free trade. Indeed, if “Smithianism” is taken to mean laissez-faire individualism, Turgot is often the more radical figure. Feilbogen states the contrast in this formulation:

Der vielverlästerte „Smithianismus“ ist in Wahrheit ein von Smith später gemässigter Turgotismus.

English translation: The much-maligned "Smithianism" is in truth a Turgotism later moderated by Smith.

This concession makes the main thesis sharper. Turgot can possess many later “Smithian” propositions and yet fail to found a science because isolated theorems are not principles. The third section calls Turgot’s economics “Scheinwissenschaft”: not mere error, but a formally scientific-looking system whose foundations remain superficial. His writings are dispersed, sketchlike, fragmentary, thin in factual demonstration, and weak in deduction. Physiocracy remains for him a noble political creed—land, agriculture, freedom—but not a rigorously grounded science.

Nicht Meinungen oder Gesinnungen, sondern Beweise!

English translation: Not opinions or convictions, but proofs!

Smith’s formal superiority lies in the “inner form” of scientific thought. Feilbogen’s key exhibit is the division of labor. Turgot mentions it; Smith makes it the entrance to a new science. The pin factory is not decorative but methodological: a visible, measurable, repeatable case becomes the basis for causal explanation. Smith’s strength is not that he discovers every doctrine, but that he tests, orders, limits, and synthesizes them. His style is cautious, empirical, quantitative, and continuously aware of exceptions; this turns familiar observations into binding scientific insight.

The fifth section states Feilbogen’s central thesis: the essence of Wealth of Nations is not egoism, natural liberty, or physiocratic individualism, but labor. Smith recasts the physiocratic idea of surplus: prosperity does not arise from the landowner’s revenu net but from the productive power of labor. This makes economics at once social and ethical. Wealth is explained by the skill, discipline, organization, and preservation of a people’s work, not by soil, treasure, or state regulation.

Die Arbeit rühmen heisst das Volk rühmen; die Arbeit belauschen heisst das Volksleben belauschen.

English translation: To praise labor is to praise the people; to listen in on labor is to listen in on the life of the people.

This reading also transforms Smith’s practical politics. Feilbogen rejects the equation of Smith with Manchester liberalism. Smith favors freedom where it releases productive labor from monopolies, guilds, settlement laws, and employer collusion; but freedom is not an absolute license for exploitation. Feilbogen emphasizes Smith’s acceptance of worker-protective laws, public education, militia training, banking restrictions, transitional tariffs, national defense, and public works. The governing criterion is general welfare and the productivity of labor, not state inactivity.

Es ist nie die natürliche Freiheit einiger weniger Ausbeuter, die man im Namen Smith’s fordern könnte; es handelt sich ihm immer um die Freiheit des ganzen Volkes.

English translation: It is never the natural liberty of a few exploiters that could be demanded in Smith's name; for him it is always a matter of the liberty of the whole people.

The work’s relevance lies in its 1890s context. Feilbogen sees political economy again divided between orthodoxy and socialism, protectionism, and other “heresies.” Smith matters because he once overcame a similar split between mercantilism and physiocracy by converting controversy into a common science. The task is neither to discard Smith nor to repeat his dated applications, but to rejuvenate genuine Smithianism through modern historical-statistical and deductive-analytical methods. Its enduring core is the causal study of labor’s productivity as the basis of welfare and the standard for judging institutions, freedoms, taxes, and state action.