Tag Archives: Adam Smith

Gavin Kennedy's new book on Adam Smith setting the record straight is now available.Adam Smith's Lost Legacy An Authentic Adam Smith Gavin Kennedy | Professor Emeritus, Heriot Watt University

Weekend reading. Michael Emmett Brady, California State University, published in the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) he takes giant steps to demolishing Samuelson’s myth. Michael Emmett Brady writes the most significant contribution to the invsisible-hand debate since 1948: “Who Taught Paul Samuelson the Myth of the “Invisible Hand” at the University of Chicago? The most likely answer is Jacob Viner or fellow student George Stigler” .  Its author takes the invisible-hand debate...

Brad rates this as a should-read. For anyone interested in Keynesianism, Post Keynesianism and MMT, the history of economics, or economic theory, it is a must-read. Conventional economists have apparently concluded that they don't need to read it if they even thought about, which most probably haven't, being under the spell of the "normal paradigm" in spite of its poor results empirically.Washington Center for Equitable GrowthJohn Maynard Keynes: Essays In Biography Brad DeLong Here...

Interesting article and a relatively short read. Here is the conclusion. Smith’s lesson here has broader applicability. An oligarchic democracy may be worse for the poor than an arbitrary government. A state, relatively autonomous from the elite, may care more about the “general interest” than an ostensibly democratic government that is in reality the government of the rich. Smith highlights, I think, in both his discussion of social cleavage in interests when it comes to colonies and in...

Pubblichiamo con qualche trepidazione alcune pagine sul socialismo, partecipando a modo nostro all'anniversario e soprattutto al dibattito sul futuro della sinistra. Altruismo, incentivi e informazione: due o tre cose che so sull’esperienza socialista Sergio Cesaratto <What does the economist economize? "'Tis love, 'tis love," said the Duchess, "that makes the world go round." "Somebody said," whispered Alice, "that it's done by everybody minding their own business." "Ah well," replied...

More on Adam Smith that contradicts the mainstream view of him, from his own pen.Occasional Links & CommentaryFrom highway to masterDavid F. Ruccio | Professor of Economics, University of Notre Dame

That is the new, excellent, and detailed book by Eric Schliesser, a political scientist at Amsterdam. I would say that Schliesser is a very learned “left Smithian,” and that you should take the subtitle very very seriously. Should be aware of. Schliesser contradicts the neoclassical and Samuelson views of Smith. Marginal Revolution *Adam Smith: Systematic Philosopher and Public Thinker * Tyler Cowen | Holbert C. Harris Chair of Economics at George Mason University and serves as...

Nicola Acocella published a paper in the Journal of Economic Surveys (a free, preliminary version is available here) a paper on the development of the theory of economic policy. Acocella is clearly fully aware of the differences between classical political economics and marginalism (neoclassical economics). And he dismisses the pre-margnialist views on economic policy as being unsystematic and devoid of general principles. In his words: Most classical writers and the marginalists had...

Quote from The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759).Conversable EconomistAdam Smith: The Plight of the Impartial Spectator in Times of FactionTimothy Taylor | Managing editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, based at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota

I discussed in a previous post the reasons why the Bank of England is considered a central bank, but not its precursors. I did not pay enough attention in that post to the reasons for which the early public banks were created. Adam Smith discussed that in his magnum opus. From the Wealth of Nations: “The currency of a great state, such as France or England, generally consists almost entirely of its own coin. Should this currency, therefore, be at any time worn, clipt, or otherwise...