The question is troubling: does achieving high status in politics and government indicate, or even require, low virtue?  

Not necessarily. But there are reasons to think that high status signals low virtue, as was suggested by the Scottish moral philosopher Adam Smith. 

In his extraordinary book The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith wrote that, in many governments, those who acquire high station are in a singular situation and often of a special character. They often “have no fear of being called to account for the means by which they acquired” their position.  

They often endeavour…not only by fraud and falsehood, the ordinary and vulgar arts of intrigue and cabal, but sometimes by the perpetration of the most enormous crimes, by murder and assassination, by rebellion and civil war, to supplant and destroy those who oppose or stand in the way of their greatness. 

Not everyone in the high stations of government is so ruthless. Still, “in the courts of princes, in the drawing-rooms of the great, ..success and preferment depend…upon the fanciful and foolish favour of ignorant, presumptuous, and proud superiors.”  

Smith died in 1790, when aristocracy was still foremost in Great Britain. Things have changed. Today high status often comes by wealth and fame attained without government power. In his time the two were more linked. The franchise was narrow, and the House of Commons was not preeminent as it is today. The Crown was central and the House of Lords still significant. You decide whether Smith’s words ring out as relevant for Western nations today. 

“To superficial minds,” Smith said, “the vices of the great seem at all times agreeable.” In these circles, “flattery and falsehood too often prevail over merit and abilities.” 

Vanity and presumptuousness, Smith said, “are commonly more admired than the solid… virtues of a warrior, a statesman, a philosopher, or a legislator.” 

Indeed, “all the virtues which can fit, either for the council, the senate, or the field, are, by the insolent and insignificant flatterers…held in the utmost contempt and derision.” 

In governmental affairs, “[t]ruth and fair dealing are almost totally disregarded.” Indeed, the virtuous man is spurned: “the man who, in all private transactions, would be the most beloved and the most esteemed, in those public transactions is regarded as a fool and an idiot.” 

About international affairs of war and negotiation, Smith writes: “Treaties are violated; and the violation, if some advantage is gained by it, sheds scarce any dishonour upon the violator. The ambassador who dupes the minister of a foreign nation is admired and applauded.”  

In domestic politics, Smith writes, the battle between factions or political parties “is often still more furious.” “A true party-man hates and despises candour; and, in reality, there is no vice which could so effectually disqualify him for the trade of a party-man as that single virtue.” 

When one faction prevails, their preferred narrative is often foisted on all: “rebels and heretics are those unlucky persons, who, when things have come to a certain degree of violence, have the misfortune to be of the weaker party.” 

In “a nation distracted by faction,” Smith says, there are nonetheless always a few “who preserve their judgment untainted by the general contagion.” But they “seldom amount to more than here and there a solitary individual, without any influence, excluded by his own candour from the confidence of either party, and who, though he may be one of the wisest, is necessarily upon that very account one of the most insignificant men in the society.”  

“All such people are held in contempt and derision, frequently in detestation, by the furious zealots of both parties.” 

In 1776 in The Wealth of Nations, Smith called for Great Britain to “voluntarily give up all authority over her colonies, and leave them to elect their own magistrates, to enact their own laws, and to make peace and war as they might think proper.” Wise as such a proposal might have been, however, one “would scarce be capable of proposing such a measure, with any serious hopes at least of its ever being adopted.” 

And yet, Smith retained hope of seeing virtue in politics and government. He advised political leaders and befriended aristocrats. He served as a Commissioner of Customs.  

He taught us not to expect virtue to rise to the top in government but nonetheless to heed the call of civic virtue, to help make our politics and government more virtuous. 

Indeed, in 1790, in the final revised edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith said that, after a civil strife between factions, “[t]he leader of the successful party” may arrive to an opportunity to discover the highest virtue. Some Smith scholars, such as Smith’s biographer Ian Simpson Ross, have suggested that when Smith wrote the following words he had George Washington in mind: 

He may re-establish and improve the constitution, and from the very doubtful and ambiguous character of the leader of a party, he may assume the greatest and noblest of all characters, that of the reformer and legislator of a great state; and, by the wisdom of his institutions, secure the internal tranquility and happiness of his fellow-citizens for many succeeding generations.