Special Session: Market vs. Non-Market Approaches: Does Nonprofit Marketing Unite Both Positions of Adam Smith?: An Abstract

Abstract

Marketers may be familiar with reference to Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations” (Smith 1776) but his earlier work, “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” (Smith 1759), reflecting more clearly his work as a moral philosopher may be less known. Analysis of Smith’s work indicates that he did not separate the two positions, but his system of analysis, though presenting some difficulties in interpretations, saw these as a unified system. Smith sought to analyze the advantages of the emerging “market”, enhancing understanding and strengthening the emerging system, in contrast with the preceding non-market conditions of patronage, benevolence and obligation. Smith developed the conceptual system to analyze social interactions that mattered for the wealth of nations. According to him, it is the economic link between production and consumption in free markets that binds society together. Smith further argued for the benefits of specialization. It was in the mutual exchange between specialized groups that “wealth of nations” developed. Considering both selfish and unselfish motives, the action of sympathy and impartial spectator indicate how human emotions and regard for others balance the passion of self-interested actions. “It is reason, principle, conscience, the inhabitant of the breast, the man within, the great judge and arbiter of our conduct. It is he who, whenever we are about to act so as to affect the happiness of others, calls to us, with a voice capable of astonishing the most presumptuous of our passions, that we are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it; and that when we prefer ourselves so shamefully and so blindly to others, we become the proper objects of resentment, abhorrence, and execration.” (Smith 1759). This paper considers the work of Smith and our current approach to nonprofit marketing and examines whether nonprofit marketing can usefully be positioned as uniting the work of Adam Smith. This argument is based firstly on the position that nonprofit marketing can be seen as a further development of specialization, observed by Smith as underpinning a market-based society. The paper further advances the argument that nonprofit marketing, acting in the system of human affairs, develops and enhances two specific mechanisms; that of the impartial spectator and the capacity for sympathy, to influence human behavior.