Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Preface
- 1 Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand and the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences
- 2 The Political Economy of Adam Smith
- 3 On the Identities and Functions of the Invisible Hand
- 4 Adam Smith's History of Astronomy Argument
- 5 The Invisible Hand, Decision Making, and Working Things Out
- 6 The Invisible Hand in an Uncertain World with an Uncertain Language
- 7 The Invisible Hand as Knowledge
- 8 The Invisible Hand and the Economic Role of Government
- 9 The Survival Requirement of Pareto Optimality
- 10 Conclusions and Further Insights
- References
- Index
2 - The Political Economy of Adam Smith
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Preface
- 1 Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand and the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences
- 2 The Political Economy of Adam Smith
- 3 On the Identities and Functions of the Invisible Hand
- 4 Adam Smith's History of Astronomy Argument
- 5 The Invisible Hand, Decision Making, and Working Things Out
- 6 The Invisible Hand in an Uncertain World with an Uncertain Language
- 7 The Invisible Hand as Knowledge
- 8 The Invisible Hand and the Economic Role of Government
- 9 The Survival Requirement of Pareto Optimality
- 10 Conclusions and Further Insights
- References
- Index
Summary
The Interpretation of Adam Smith
Adam Smith and David Hume, as well as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, are the premier philosophers of modern western civilization. Such stature is Smith’s in part because he comprehended and analyzed the deepest levels of the newly developing industrial market economy. I propose to interpret Smith’s model of the market economy in terms of his total system of thought and analysis. This system, with all its oppositions and tensions, comprises Smith’s solution to the problem of order, or of the organization and control of the economic system. Expressed somewhat differently, I shall inquire into the significance for economic policy and policy making of the central arguments presented in the Wealth of Nations, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, History of Astronomy, and the two sets of student notes from Smith’s lectures on law and government. Smith speaks to the ages, or at least he is still being heard in our age. What does he have to say on the most fundamental level? What is really going on in our economic system, according to Adam Smith?
I first must acknowledge certain considerations involved in the retrospective interpretation of the history of thought in general and of specific classic literature in particular. These considerations necessarily limit my analysis and argument.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Erasing the Invisible HandEssays on an Elusive and Misused Concept in Economics, pp. 38 - 58Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011