Power and Poverty: Social Legislation in the Years of Adam Smith

In this paper, we shall devote our attention to Smith’s policy suggestions for reducing the imbalance of power that continued to pervade the commercial society looking for possible signs of influence on the shaping of the round of reforms, which took place in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. This, we hope, offers a broader and insightful perspective of the historical and cultural context in which the Gilbert Act (1782), the Rose Act (1793), and the Speenhamland system (1795) were formulated, approved, and eventually implemented.