4

A precursor of economic science, Adam Smith dealt with the question of selfishness, but not only that. For him, human beings are above all “sympathetic”, capable of imagining and feeling the passions of others. On the other hand, if man has been reduced to cultivating his egoism, it is due to the evolution of institutions, in particular the advent of the Great Society. After describing what sympathy is, we will look at the question of the abstraction of people, and the means of bringing these people closer together. While human beings are dependent on the Great Society as a whole, which provides them with a certain degree of opulence, they are now dependent on everyone and no one in particular. What’s more, they are also becoming replaceable, as is the case with the division of labour. According to Adam Smith, this opulence even costs him part of his humanity.