Smith and Hobbes

In the last paragraph of the chapter called India: The Modernization of Poverty (Find it here) in "Late Victorian Holocausts" the author mentions that the English rule in India, however Smithian in intention, was Hobbesian in practice. This one line sums up the entire article, and draws on modern comparisons in today’s global economy. Adam Smith’s ideals were based on self-interest can benefit common well being, a very socialistic capitalism ideal, while Hobbes believed that humans were self-interested cooperators. Hobbes was referring to when we as humans only help someone out is it benefits us in the end, no matter what advantages or hardships were placed on other people. Essentially humans live by the ends justifies the means. Smith on the other hand would argue that in self-interest there is room for a common well being. Example, in America there have been many laws and programs passed that help the whole such as social security, the New Deal laws passed by Roosevelt, and assistance for higher education. So there is a common good that can come from turning a profit, but it is the practices by the government in redistributing tax money back to the public that the common good relies upon. As for India during British rule, the British were only interested in their own self-interested cooperation, and left out the common well being part. The practiced usury wherever they were able, and caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Indian through starvation and disease.