Key Arguments

• Smith explicitly contrasts low‑property and high‑property contexts: 'Where there is no property, or at least none that exceeds the value of two or three days labour, civil government is not so necessary.'
• He claims that 'The acquisition of valuable and extensive property, therefore, necessarily requires the establishment of civil government,' tying government’s emergence to property accumulation rather than abstract political design.
• He identifies property‑invading motivations: 'avarice and ambition in the rich, in the poor the hatred of labour and the love of present ease and enjoyment, are the passions which prompt to invade property,' and notes 'Wherever there is a great property, there is great inequality,' with 'for one very rich man, there must be at least five hundred poor.'
• The 'affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy to invade his possessions,' so the rich owner 'can be protected only by the powerful arm of the civil magistrate, continually held up to chastise' these 'unknown enemies.'
• Smith summarizes this core thesis starkly: 'Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is, in reality, instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.'

Source Quotes

He is at all times surrounded by unknown enemies, whom, though he never provoked, he can never appease, and from whose injustice he can be protected only by the powerful arm of the civil magistrate, continually held up to chastise it. The acquisition of valuable and extensive property, therefore, necessarily requires the establishment of civil government. Where there is no property, or at least none that exceeds the value of two or three days labour, civil government is not so necessary.

The acquisition of valuable and extensive property, therefore, necessarily requires the establishment of civil government. Where there is no property, or at least none that exceeds the value of two or three days labour, civil government is not so necessary. Civil government supposes a certain subordination.

But avarice and ambition in the rich, in the poor the hatred of labour and the love of present ease and enjoyment, are the passions which prompt to invade property; passions much more steady in their operation, and much more universal in their influence. Wherever there is a great property, there is great inequality. For one very rich man, there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many. The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy to invade his possessions.

The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy to invade his possessions. It is only under the shelter of the civil magistrate, that the owner of that valuable property, which is acquired by the labour of many years, or perhaps of many successive generations, can sleep a single night in security. He is at all times surrounded by unknown enemies, whom, though he never provoked, he can never appease, and from whose injustice he can be protected only by the powerful arm of the civil magistrate, continually held up to chastise it.

They constitute a sort of little nobility, who feel themselves interested to defend the property, and to support the authority, of their own little sovereign, in order that he may be able to defend their property, and to support their authority. Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is, in reality, instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all. The judicial authority of such a sovereign, however, far from being a cause of expense, was, for a long time, a source of revenue to him.

Key Concepts

• The acquisition of valuable and extensive property, therefore, necessarily requires the establishment of civil government.
• Where there is no property, or at least none that exceeds the value of two or three days labour, civil government is not so necessary.
• Wherever there is a great property, there is great inequality. For one very rich man, there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many.
• It is only under the shelter of the civil magistrate, that the owner of that valuable property, which is acquired by the labour of many years, or perhaps of many successive generations, can sleep a single night in security.
• Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is, in reality, instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.

Context

Early in Part II, Smith develops a conjectural history of how the need to protect accumulated property and resulting inequality gives rise to civil government and structured subordination, culminating in his famous formulation of civil government as a defence of the rich.