Smith saw progressive legislation as simultaneously moral and strategically optimal politics

Evidence

But even when Smith took up the banner of the reformers, he never put down the mace of the practical politician. He himself made no bones about this fact. If cynics said that he had recognized in child labor, disability insurance and workmen’s compensation a great political issue, Smith said it too. When someone told him that his views were antagonizing factory owners, he would laugh and say that factory owners lived on Fifth Avenue and “There’s no Democratic votes on Fifth Avenue; they’re all over on Ninth and Tenth, where I live.” Fighting for the working man, for better working conditions for women and children—that, he knew, was an issue on which you couldn’t miss. The man who fought for the commission’s legislation would be a man fighting on the side of the angels. Supporting its recommendations was more than good politics; it was the best politics. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 560

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Machiavelli-style insight that genuine political virtue and self-interest can align; echoes my interest in how leaders fuse moral conviction with keen calculation. — connects to: Smith’s floor performance converted reformers into loyal backers of his agenda — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 559; Moral progress in law exacts heavy partisan political costs — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 124

Broader Connections

• Moral progress in law exacts heavy partisan political costs #qualifies (0.75) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 124