A Missed Opportunity of Our Time?
Could Gorbachev have been planning another “Century Movement”, aiming to steer the Soviet Union toward cooperation with the United States and the West in pursuit of world peace?
Author: GUDORDI | 2024-11-06
假如一個社會大多數人民都處於貧困和痛苦的境況中，它便無法生氣勃勃地發展和得到快樂。
No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.──亞當·史密斯（Adam Smith）
In the previous article, the author discussed a distinctive and relatively little-known view of Jerry Muller: that the aspiration of The Wealth of Nations was to help people become better human beings, not merely better-off. For many readers, this perspective may be difficult to accept at first, since Adam Smith is widely regarded as the father of economics, and economics is often perceived as advocating only economic efficiency, with private enterprises pursuing profit out of self-interest as something entirely natural and justified.
Adam Smith: More Than Just an Ethical Philosopher
Indeed, most economics textbooks and media portray Adam Smith in this way. However, that does not necessarily mean that this was how Smith himself thought, nor that it represents the entirety of his ideas. At the very least, the quotation cited at the beginning of this article suggests that Smith’s views were likely more nuanced and profound than many people realize.
In any case, Smith’s primary identity was that of a moral philosopher, and this remained true when he wrote The Wealth of Nations. In many respects, Smith was a fortunate man. His first major work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, became an immediate success. Soon afterward, a wealthy aristocrat invited him to serve as a tutor to his adopted son and accompany him on an educational tour of continental Europe.
Although the journey ended earlier than planned due to an unforeseen accident and tragedy, the aristocrat still honored his commitment and granted Smith a lifelong pension. This provided him with financial security and allowed him to devote himself entirely to the pursuits he enjoyed. As a result, Smith lived a comfortable and prosperous life.
Smith had no children, and his nephew originally expected to inherit a considerable fortune. To his surprise, however, Smith’s estate was far smaller than anticipated. The reason was that Smith had anonymously donated most of his wealth during his lifetime. His motive on may have been to help poor families and those in need escape hardship. The scale of these charitable contributions only became known after his death.
Many books and media accounts portray Smith as a defender of capitalism and self-interest. Yet his actions in real life suggest a more complex picture—one that differs significantly from the common perception of him.
One of the Motive Behind The Wealth of Nations Was to Lift the Poor out of Poverty
In fact, according to the research of scholars such as James Otteson, the real Adam Smith was a deeply compassionate individual. One important motive behind his writing of The Wealth of Nations may have been his belief that a free market economy was the most effective means of enabling large numbers of people to be lifted out of poverty. Interestingly, some researchers who have compared the lives and ideas of Smith and Karl Marx have concluded that, in terms of genuine concern and sympathy for the working class and the poor, Smith was by not really inferior to Karl Marx, to say the least.
Although Marx’s theories have had an enormous impact on human society, relatively little attention is often paid to his personal life and the way he treated his friends, children, and relatives. This has led the author to an intriguing thought: if people had gained a deeper understanding of the lives and actions of both Smith and Marx, the ideological conflicts that have dominated the past century might not have persisted for so long, nor exacted such a heavy cost.
What Was Gorbachev Really Attempting to do?
In any case, the global ideological landscape was undergoing significant change during the 1980s, with one of the main driving forces emerging from within the Soviet Union itself. After decades of experimentation, many thoughtful individuals in the Soviet Union gradually came to realize that their system was, at the very least, not particularly effective in improving economic well-being and living standards.
Mikhail Gorbachev was born in 1931. He was 31 years old during the Cuban Missile Crisis and had already risen to a mid-level position within the Soviet Communist Party. It is worth noting that in 1963, Nikita Khrushchev took the unprecedented step of publishing President John F. Kennedy’s Peace Strategy speech in full in the Soviet newspapers Izvestia and Pravda. This may have opened a door within the Soviet Union to reconsider what was politically and ideologically possible.
It is also important to recognize that, although Gorbachev strongly advocated openness and reform, he was not someone who had abandoned socialism. According to various accounts, he engaged in numerous heated debates with Margaret Thatcher, with neither side willing to yield. Yet, in the end, both accepted and respected each other’s differing views and positions.
There is no doubt that Gorbachev’s style and outlook differed greatly from those of previous Soviet leaders. His willingness to pursue arms reduction and diminish the Soviet Union’s military threat to the West was remarkably proactive, surprising both President Ronald Reagan and many Western political leaders. This naturally raises an important question: what exactly was Gorbachev trying to achieve at the time?
A Missed Opportunity of the Era?
This remains one of history’s unresolved questions, as many important documents and records have yet to be made public. One possible explanation is that Gorbachev was attempting to engineer another “deal of the century”—one that would encourage cooperation between the Soviet Union, the United States, and the West in the pursuit of world peace. Such a strategy could also have eased Western concerns that the Soviet Union sought to spread its system across the globe, thereby enabling the USSR to make substantial cuts to military spending and redirect its focus toward economic development, public welfare, and political reform.
If this interpretation is correct, it may have represented a significant opportunity for a fundamental transformation of the global peace and security order. Unfortunately, however, this Grand Deal of the Century never have a chance to be really seriously implemented, let alone coming to fruition. The developments that followed also revealed many underlying problems within the international political and economic system.
The author will explore these issues further in next article.